The last screen-side chat I wanted to do this week is not an answer to a question it's not even something personal forum it's just me trying to talk about something that we're doing here at Stanford with the students in the class. And, I wanted to share it with you because I, think it's a wonderful pedagogical experience for the students. And I wanted to talk about it with you in case it was something that you'd like to explore on your own. for a, a final capstone experience with students in my class, I have them pick a case. They, they go off and develop a case on some organization or phenomenon they care about. and it's an extensive case. They write up you know, a case where they elaborate some kind of change or some kind of decision in this organization. That can be articulated, has enough documentation on it, that it can be articulated in terms of the organizational elements. I'm not saying that they go through given an account of that case organized by the organizational elements, but that they mention them. And the reason I ask them for that, is because often cases are depicted as an organizational actor a rational actor. If you don't give some kind of guideline of, of the kind of concepts or the kind of features to pay attention to. So, they, they articulate features that maybe they didn't think about before. And, say for example if there are certain participants. that aren't active, they mention that, or if they find that certain features in the environment are relevant they mention that. and even ones that they would have expected that aren't active. So, in that way they kind of hit a variety of, of features that would enable us to think about these cases and by a multiple perspectives or different theories. And I think the, the point of the, the case is that I typically, want them to think about the case as a type of phenomenon. A type of organizational phenomenon. So it's not just that they're doing a particular case. I know we have a sense that all our knowledge is very context-specific. and historically specific. And that's fine, but I, I try to push the students to extrapolate to a type of case. So if it's a charter school, you know, is it this kind of private school or some kind of choice school effort, or choice non-profit effort. You see, so it's a class of phenomenon. as opposed to a particular instance. and to think about in, in their discussion at the very end of this exercise, whether it could be extrapolated to that class of phenomenon. And maybe that class of phenomenon requires particular theoretical lenses. Right. That would be informative to us. the second part of their project, though, is to apply multiple theories, and for this I typically ask them to articulate descriptively which theories seem to elucidate features. And this is kind of what Graham Ellison did earlier in the course, and I'm trying to push them to do. however by doing this they started to see that certain theories apply more than others in a particular junctures of their narrative of the case than others. And I think that's informative, and so I tried to get them to think about why it seems to appeal more to certain descriptive characteristics, certain descriptive characteristics of a theory. Apply more to certain phases, like planning, rational actor, kind of planning period. And other theories apply more to say, implementation. Or, some theories apply to a decision administrative unit of decision making, which were the first few weeks of the course to. Say, the conditions of an organization which were the, the, the second three weeks of the course which is weeks four, five and six or culture, you know, or learning things like that. And now we're kind of in concerned with the environment. Right. So the last four weeks of this course will be all about, how the environment can establish conditions for the organization. So each of those can capture distinctive features. And they kind of seem to adopt different dramatic concerns. Right. So some of our theory is concerned more about identities and rules and. Roles and, and kind of beliefs, so deep social structure. Others concern surface structure like social networks as kind of observe patterns of association, as is resource dependence. and then other theories, you know, are distinctive too for basically being conscious or not. Right. And so we have all these kinds of different or dynamics iii, like organizational anarchy is quite dynamic. So we have a variety of these things going on, and I try to push them to think about, how and when these theories apply? Now, I do that descriptively. in part for their project, but I also call upon them to describe managerially. And the reason for this, is because a lot of these theories, aren't just about the world you see, they don't just give us a, a lens of the world that's being described. It also as a manager, gives you potential modes of extrapolation and imagine the actions that could be taken. Right? So, so maybe there were things can weren't done but could be given that theory and what that theory suggests. And I think that's even more powerful for them. So in a lot of times they write these cases about say, a particular organization, some class of organization. They describe it thoroughly, and then they articulate which theories seem to reflect that reality. And then they start to articulate, how certain theories might have been leveraged far more for managerial purposes. Or for getting action or for getting organization integration or for getting productivity or what have you, out of that organization. And, so I think that's the kind of projects that we are doing right now, and how I am trying to push these students, and I think they get a lot out of this because. They don't just end up with applying a theory to a case, and thinking about it as one. they take more time to do an integrated kind of understandings. And they're not just learning, how to use a hammer, which would be like using rational actor or one theory. For everything, what they learned to do is kind of a approach cases like, a carpenter, are like oh, I'm, this is the table making effort, which requires these sets of tools and coordination with each other. and some of them seem more suitable for planning and design and others seem more suitable for implementation and corrections. Right. And so they're more of a master carpenter. as opposed to a, a tool user. And so I, I think that's the kind of exercise and the reason I wanted to share it with you is because, I, I do think just by describing it it helps you start to see, at this point in the course, that you're not just learning individual skills. But you're learning a fleet of skills that can be integrated into some kind of system. Understanding of the phenomena you confront, and phenomena you try to manage. And hopefully you're beginning to see that. But if you aren't? Think about a case. pick something that you really are interested in deeply and try to elaborate, you know, with, with the elements. And then try to apply multiple theories to it. And see where you get, you know? And then try to do this meta thinking, where you think about what kind of case it is. Think about, how these theories apply to certain aspects of an organizational phenomenon more than others. And perhaps, how these theories can be managerial prescriptions that you could then provide as an integrated solution or approach, to the kind of organizations you're dealing with. And so I think that's a feasible thing to consider, and perhaps a really healthy mental exercise for a lot of you to engage in. And hopefully by me describing it here it sparked the interest and curiosity of some of you to go try it because I, I wouldn't be surprised if you do am amazing job at it. Okay. So thank you and again I'm reading your form posts, and I'm enjoying them thoroughly and I think they're wonderful. I'm just trying to, to a variety of different responses to the things you write and hopeful in a way that's hopeful and responsive to your interest and needs. So, keep writing them, keep, keep asking us questions, and keep coming on the forums and keep posting your work and getting it done. Because we're getting near the end of the course. And I'm very excited to see a lot of you come out of this experience all the better. Okay. Thank you. Bye.
