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In recent years, poverty and inequality have become increasingly common topics of public debate, as academics, journalists, and politicians attempt to come to terms with growing income inequality, with the increasing visibility of inter-country differences in wealth and income, and with the persistence of racial, ethnic, and gender stratification. This course introduces students to ongoing social scientific debates about the sources and consequences of inequality, as well as the types of public policy that might appropriately be pursued to reduce (or increase) inequality. These topics will be addressed in related units, some of which include guest lectures by faculty from other universities (funded by the Center for the Study of Inequality). Each unit culminates with a highly spirited class discussion and debate.

Many things get done and decisions get made in organizations through acts of persuasion and social influence. In lieu of formal power, people must be able to persuade others to come around to their point of view. At the same time, employees frequently influence one another and the broader organizational culture without even trying through social influence processes such as conformity, compliance, and behavioral contagion. In this course, students will learn about established and emerging research on persuasion and social influence by reading academic journal articles and then translating these articles into op-ed style essays that are understandable to the broader public, applicable to current events, and accurately represent the research findings.

Our lives are built upon countless decisions, some small (What am I going to wear to class?) and some very consequential (Should I accept this job offer?). This course will cover the basics in the science of decision making, exploring the ways in which people tend to make decisions, the ways people ought to make decisions, and common discrepancies between the two. Students will learn about rational models of decision making and the reasons why people's decisions often stray from these models. Students will explore different modes of decision making, such as intuition vs. deliberation, and will discuss various pitfalls (i.e., predictable biases) associated with the use of common decision making strategies or rules of thumb. Many of these topics will bediscussed in terms of their organizational consequences, such as the effects of different decision making strategies and heuristics on the fairness and objectivity of hiring decisions. Most importantly, students will leave the class with a toolkit to avoid errors and biases in their own decisions.

The ability to shepherd an idea from ideation to development to implementation is an essential skill in today's business environment for entrepreneurs, innovators, and organizational change agents. To this end, this course aims to develop students' abilities to identify problems and generate solutions to real world business and societal challenges. The course focuses on problem identification (understanding the core elements of a presenting problem), idea generation (developing solutions to those problems), and implementation (putting those solutions into practice). The course includes lecture-based content and activities around these topics and features participation in a weekend-long hackathon event that serves as a practicum experience where students will generate, develop, and pitch an idea related to a societal or business challenge.

This is a course about power and influence. We will discuss how to map power and interest patterns in organizations, how to understand various groups' interests and objectives, and how to operate effectively in organizational environments. Organizational actors differ in the power and resources that they bring to bear in order to advance their perspectives. Students will learn how to advance personal interests, even from positions of little structural advantage. This class will develop frameworks as well as a range of practical tools to address these goals. The course will take a macro approach to studying power and influence, focusing on organizational culture, politics, influence, and leadership. Students will learn how to build power from nothing, as well as how to become successful agents of lasting organizational change.We will draw from a wide range of material drawn from the business and public sector. Class preparation will range from watching classic movies to reading magazine articles to prepping case studies.

This course will familiarize students with contemporary theories of how social relationships (also referred to as "social capital") influence employment-relevant outcomes among individuals, firms, and broader markets. Topics will be informed by academic research and applied in prominent organizational settings. Students will explore topics including tie strength, network structure, social closure, embedded relationships, contagion, visibility, status, collective wisdom, diffusion and adoption.

In this course, we will discuss research by sport psychologists and other social scientists on behavior in sport settings at the individual, team, and organizational level, with an emphasis on factors that lead to high performance. Topics include psychological characteristics of top performers, methods of performance enhancement, group dynamics and processes, effective leadership practices, and the effects of stereotyping on sport participation and performance. We will examine why, in light of this research, certain athletes, teams, and organizations are successful or unsuccessful.

Creative ideas are widely touted as a source of competitive advantage available to workers and organizations. At the same time, creativity can be difficult to manage in a systematic way and organizations often fall short of their creative goals. This course is about how to manage creativity - both yours and in others. We will review theories of creativity, with a focus on (1) how to generate creative ideas and (2) on how to gain support for (i.e., sell) those ideas. We will discuss theoretical frameworks, case studies, and current examples with the goal of distinguishing between effective and ineffective strategies. You will develop skills related to making and selling ideas that you can implement in your organization, use to further your career, or to build value in any endeavor that runs on good ideas. A note to set expectations: This is a course about how to generate creative ideas and build support for those ideas. This course will not teach you how to start a business or secure VC funding.

This course reviews sociological theory and research on a selected set of common issues and problems that face organizations as they go from founding to established operations. We begin by examining factors that affect people's decisions to found new organizations, then consider choices in organization and job design, problems of exercising authority and influence effectively, group dynamics that may affect decision-making and coordination, and different approaches to managing cooperative and competitive relations with external audiences. Course topics will be examined through readings, class discussion, cases and interactive exercises.

The ability to create and evaluate business strategies is a critical skill for leaders in organizations of all types. This course introduces concepts and tools to help students develop an understanding of how strategies are formed and managed, and how competitive advantage may be created and sustained. We discuss different business models, the importance of customers, how to assess an organization's resources and capabilities, and how to adapt to changes in the competitive environment. Creating a business strategy is a fun, interactive process; the class is designed to mirror this by using real-world case studies, supplemented by a mix of in-class activities and interactive lectures. The course concludes with a series of case competitions, including a final competition judged by a panel of external experts.

The goal of this course is to give students the foundational skills necessary to conduct scientific research in the field of organizational behavior. Topics covered will include generating research ideas, ethical considerations, common experimental and non-experimental designs, creating surveys and other measures, interpreting results, and writing research papers. Students will be asked to conduct their own research projects as part of the class. This course focuses on methods from psychology and related disciplines and is recommended for students considering doing honors thesis research.

In this course, we will review fundamental principles of moral psychology and apply these principles to organizational contexts. Drawing from real-world cases, such as the Ford Pinto recall (1978), the McLibel case (1997), and the Enron scandal (2001), we will explore questions such as: How do organizations balance concerns with social responsibility and profit? What psychological biases contribute to organizational corruption? How do you create an ethical organizational culture? Course materials will consist of a mix of primary research papers, popular media articles, cases, and multimedia content.Specific topics and broader conceptual questions include:Evolutionary perspectives on morality (Are we hardwired for morality?)Moral emotions (Why are we literally disgusted by immoral behavior?)Moral conviction (Why is it so difficult for liberals and conservatives to see eye to eye?)Taboo tradeoffs (Why isn't there a free market for organs?)Morality in marketing (What responsibility do advertisers have to the public?)Moral licensing (How do we justify unethical behavior?)Money, power, and morality (Do money and power corrupt?)

This course aims to help students improve their skills in two fundamental ways. One is knowledge-oriented: students learn frameworks and concepts for analyzing conflict. Students acquire terms and models for identifying the type of conflict that exists in a situation and the potential costs and benefits of different strategies and tactics. Based on this, students should be able to interpret situations, plan tactics, and recognize and react to their counterpart's behavior. A second and complementary route to improving as a negotiator is practice-oriented: students complement their analytical tools with behavioral skills. Negotiation and conflict ultimately come down to behaviors-how a manager opens a potentially volatile conversation, how a mediator uncovers information, how a negotiator frames an offer or a concession. Practicing these behaviors, and understanding how other parties perceive and react to them, is essential to improving as a negotiator. The course provides continuing opportunities for hands-on practice and also provides feedback, discussion, and occasions for reflection. Through role-play exercises, lecture, reading, and discussion, the course begins with basic dynamics in negotiation and adds complexity in stages, including multiple issues, multiple parties, mediation, agents, and coalitions. Some exercises involve numerical analyses, others revolve around qualitative conflicts. By the end of the course, students should be able to comfortably and confidently approach most any conflict or negotiation: analyzing its nature, understanding their own objectives, and plotting an approach that will give them the best shot at achieving their goals.

Students are eligible for the ILR senior honors program if they: (1) earn a minimum 3.700 cumulative GPA at the end of junior year; (2) propose an honors project, entailing research leading to completion of a thesis, to an ILR faculty member who agrees to act as thesis supervisor; and (3) submit an honors project, endorsed by the proposed faculty sponsor, to the Academic Standards and Integrity Committee. Accepted students embark on a two-semester sequence. The first semester consists of determining a research design, familiarization with germane scholarly literature, and preliminary data collection. The second semester involves completion of the data collection and preparation of the honors thesis. At the end of the second semester, the candidate is examined orally on the completed thesis by a committee consisting of the thesis supervisor and a second faculty member.

All requests for permission to register for an internship must be approved by the faculty member who will supervise the project and the chairman of the faculty member's academic department before submission for approval by the director of off-campus credit programs. Upon approval of the internship, each student will be enrolled in ILROB 4970, for 4 letter-graded credits for individual research, and in ILROB 4980, for 8 S/U credits, for completion of a professionally-appropriate learning experience, which is graded by the faculty sponsor.

All requests for permission to register for an internship must be approved by the faculty member who will supervise the project and the chairman of the faculty member's academic department before submission for approval by the director of off-campus credit programs. Upon approval of the internship, each student will be enrolled in ILROB 4970, for 4 credits for 4 letter-graded credits for individual research, and in ILROB 4980, for 8 S/U credits, for completion of a professionally-appropriate learning experience, which is graded by the faculty sponsor.

For individual or group research projects conducted under the direction of a member of the ILR faculty, in a special area not covered by regular course offerings. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors with a preceding semester GPA average of 3.0 are eligible to submit projects for approval by the Academic Standards and Integrity Committee. Students should consult with an advisor in the Office of Student Services at the time of course enrollment to arrange for formal submission of their directed study.

Survey of concepts, theories, and research from the fields of sociology, psychology, and social psychology relevant to understanding and managing organizations. Topics include: organizational design, authority and power, group decision-making, group dynamics and conflict, interorganizational relations and organizational change. This course is designed for students in professional Master’s programs.

All organizations are fundamentally political. People have different self-interests, perspectives, and objectives. Players also differ in the power or resources that they bring to bear to advance their perspectives. If you are to be effective, both with respect to the goals of an organization and with respect to your personal goals, you need to be able to map these differences, understand various groups' interests and objectives, and understand how to operate in an organizational environment. In addition to being able to think strategically, you also need a set of skills that can be summarized via the words "power, persuasion, and influence." This more sociological course will expand students' ability to successfully navigate the social and cultural organizational landscapes to be effective agents of change.

Our lives are built upon countless decisions, some small (What am I going to wear to work?) and some very consequential (Should I accept this job offer?). This course will offer a broad view of the science of decision making, incorporating perspectives from research in behavioral science and economics, social psychology, and organizational behavior. Critically, course topics will be discussed in the context of workplace decisions, evaluations, and outcomes. For instance, we will discuss how the use of mental shortcuts in organizational evaluations like hiring decisions can foster bias and discrimination, why entrepreneurs seem more risk-tolerant than middle managers, and the routes to success and failure when brainstorming in teams. Broadly, students will learn about rational models of decision making and the reasons why our decisions often stray from these models. Most importantly, students will leave the class with a toolkit to avoid errors and biases in their own decisions.

This course will familiarize graduate students with contemporary theories of how social relationships (also referred to as social capital) influence employment-relevant outcomes among individuals, firms, and broader markets. Topics will be informed by academic research and applied in prominent organizational settings. Students will explore topics including tie strength, network structure, social closure, embedded relationships, contagion, visibility, status, collective wisdom, diffusion and adoption.

This course aims to help students improve their skills in two fundamental ways. One is knowledge-oriented: students learn frameworks and concepts for analyzing conflict. Students acquire terms and models for identifying the type of conflict that exists in a situation and the potential costs and benefits of different strategies and tactics. Based on this, students should be able to interpret situations, plan tactics, and recognize and react to their counterpart's behavior. A second and complementary route to improving as a negotiator is practice-oriented: students complement their analytical tools with behavioral skills. Negotiation and conflict ultimately come down to behaviors-how a manager opens a potentially volatile conversation, how a mediator uncovers information, how a negotiator frames an offer or a concession. Practicing these behaviors, and understanding how other parties perceive and react to them, is essential to improving as a negotiator. The course provides continuing opportunities for hands-on practice and also provides feedback, discussion, and occasions for reflection. Through role-play exercises, lecture, reading, and discussion, the course begins with basic dynamics in negotiation and adds complexity in stages, including multiple issues, multiple parties, mediation, agents, and coalitions. Some exercises involve numerical analyses, others revolve around qualitative conflicts. By the end of the course, students should be able to comfortably and confidently approach most any conflict or negotiation: analyzing its nature, understanding their own objectives, and plotting an approach that will give them the best shot at achieving their goals.

Creative ideas are widely touted as a source of competitive advantage available to workers and organizations. At the same time, creativity can be difficult to manage in a systematic way and organizations often fall short of their creative goals. This course is about how to manage creativity - both yours and in others. We will review theories of creativity, with a focus on (1) how to generate creative ideas and (2) on how to gain support for (i.e., sell) those ideas. We will discuss theoretical frameworks, case studies, and current examples with the goal of distinguishing between effective and ineffective strategies. You will develop skills related to making and selling ideas that you can implement in your organization, use to further your career, or to build value in any endeavor that runs on good ideas. A note to set expectations: This is a course about how to generate creative ideas and build support for those ideas. This course will not teach you how to start a business or secure VC funding.

The goal of this course is to give students the foundational skills necessary to conduct scientific research in the field of organizational behavior. Topics covered will include generating research ideas, ethical considerations, common experimental and non-experimental designs, creating surveys and other measures, interpreting results, and writing research papers. Students will be asked to conduct their own research projects as part of the class. This course focuses on methods from psychology and related disciplines and is recommended for students considering doing honors thesis research.

This doctoral seminar is designed to provide you with an overview of major theoretical traditions in the field of macro-Organizational Behavior. We will examine the historical development of sociological theories of organizations and contemporary issues in macro organizational research. The readings are organized in a semi-chronological fashion - we start with older, established classics and move into more contemporary lines of work. This course heavily emphasizes reading and analysis of primary source material. Students will be expected to lead a discussion class as well as submit a final written research proposal due at the end of the semester. The goal will be to convert our consumption of scholarship into production of robust research.

The goal of this course is to expose students to common data analysis methods used in social science research. Topics covered will include t-tests, one-way ANOVA, factorial ANOVA, regression, mediation, repeated-measures ANOVA, mixed models analysis, non-parametric tests, reliability theory, factor analysis, power, and meta-analysis. Students will learn how to conduct these analyses on statistical computing packages, how to choose the right analysis to answer a practical research question, and how to report the results of the analyses. This course is designed for doctoral students.

This course is designed for doctoral students. It is a comprehensive introduction to research on creativity (the process of generating ideas that are both novel and useful). We will approach creativity from a number of different perspectives (e.g., personality, cognition, emotion, decision-making, culture), touch on related constructs (e.g., inspiration, voice, proactive behavior, issue selling), and have broader discussions of contemporary topics related to doing research (e.g., methods, replicability, collaboration). There will be heavy focus on understanding fundamental theoretical advances in this area and on building research skills.

This workshop is designed to extend the forum of current research presentations undertaken by faculty members and graduate students in the Department of Organizational Behavior and by invited guests in the M&O/ILROB Seminar Series. In particular, students will hone their academic citizen skills by practicing journal referee report construction using the talks/papers presented in the Seminar Series. In addition to attending the weekly seminar, students are expected to attend the additional 75 min workshop the same day, along with submitting a draft referee report of the material presented in the seminar. The workshop is designed to improve the construction of referee report writing, making it easier to produce high quality and constructive referee reports throughout the course of your career.

This doctoral seminar covers research at the intersection of social movements, organizations, and markets. Topics include a) how social activism influences organizational change in the business sector; b) the role of social activism in the creation of new markets and transformation of existing markets; and c) the rise and consequences of business participation in social movements. Foundational theories come from sociology, political science, economics and business studies (e.g. collective action; resource mobilization; political process; diffusion; institutional change; non-market strategy; stakeholder theory; and upper echelons). Emerging debates include questions regarding the impact of digital communication technologies, and the rise of political polarization in business and society.