Module Project

MGMT 8035 Final Project

Student: [Student Name, Student Walden E-mail Address]

Student ID # [Student Id Number]

Program: PhD in Management

Specialization: [General or ??]

Faculty: [Faculty Name, Faculty Walden E-mail Address]

[Notes: Replace text within square brackets [] where appropriate with your text and then delete the brackets.]

Walden University

[Month dd, 201y]

Abstract

[Text begins here. This abstract should not exceed 120 words. Note that abstracts in APA format are not indented. Write the abstract at the END of the project. See the section on abstracts in Chapter 2 of the APA Manual for guidelines and details. Note: An abstract is not an introduction to the paper.]

Table of Contents

1MGMT 8035 Final Project

Organizational Description (Week 2) 1

Organizational Diagram 2

Organizational Description 2

Systems Theory 2

Supporting Research 2

Systems Dynamics (Week 3) 3

Stocks and Flows 3

Feedback Loops 3

Recommendations 3

Supporting Research 3

Systems Disciplines (Week 4) 4

Disciplines 4

Inform Leadership 4

Recommendations 4

Supporting Research 4

Systems Archetypes (Week 5) 4

Archetypes 4

Recommendations 5

Supporting Research 5

Networks (Week 6) 5

Networks 5

Recommendations 6

Supporting Research 6

Adding Complexity (Week 8) 6

Organizational Diagram 6

Organizational Description 6

Recommendations 7

Supporting Research 7

Resilience (Week 9) 7

Resilience Matrix 7

Supporting Research 8

Summary and Conclusions 8

References 9

[Text begins here. Provide a brief introduction to the Final Project and tell the readers what will be covered in this document. The assignment is: Your consultancy firm has been hired by the executive leadership of an organization to model and describe the organization based on recent developments in systems and leadership theory for the purposes of improving understanding and decision making. The executive leadership has chosen your firm for its ability to support your recommendations with current research and literature on systems and leadership/management theory.

For this assignment, select an organization with which you are familiar. The organization can be a corporation, a small business, a nonprofit, a community organization, a government agency/subagency, a military organization, an educational institution, or something else involving people, resources, and goals, such as a city, county, state, country, society at large, or a selected subset. Note : The name of the organization should not be provided; use something like the ZYX organization instead.

Delete the instructional material within these square brackets and replace with your material.]

Organizational Description (Week 2)

[Text begins here. Provide a brief introduction to this week’s project work. This section should be around two or three pages. Then, create a 1-slide model of your organization using PowerPoint (see Slide 10 of the myCoffeeShop presentation for reference) and insert it as a figure into this document following the APA Level 2 section heading, Organizational Diagram. Use this model to illustrate the inputs: material, information, and energy or MIE, the top-level organizational process (just one), the outputs: materials, information, and energy or MIE, and at least one threshold or tipping point beyond which the organization would become unrecognizable. Examples include the following: a tipping point or threshold for a forest might be a desert; a tipping point for an organization might be bankruptcy or takeover; a tipping point for a subset of society might be assimilation; and a tipping point for a city might be bankruptcy or annexation.]

Organizational Diagram

[Insert your organizational diagram as a figure here. See the APA manual to properly format figure captions, which should be located below the figure.]

Organizational Description

[Describe this organization in terms of input and output MIEs, organizational process, and tipping points, as needed to interpret the diagram. This section should be a narrative description of the organizational diagram.]

Systems Theory

[Provide an explanation of how general systems theory and Boulding’s hierarchy of systems may inform your understanding of systems/organizations and leadership thinking.]

Supporting Research

[Provide at least two citations/references to support your explanations to executive leadership including a brief discussion of value or importance to your organization. For example, you could list two references in this section and follow up with a statement or two such as “the value of this information to my organization is …..” Note: be sure to list all references in the Reference list at the end of the paper.]

Systems Dynamics (Week 3)

[Provide a brief introduction to this section. This week’s section should require about two or three pages.]

Stocks and Flows

[Identify and describe at least three stocks and associated flows within your organization. Note: a stock is an accumulator, such as land holdings, buildings, cash on hand, or inventory. Inflows to cash on hand might be deposits and outflows might be withdrawals.]

Feedback Loops

[Identify at least one positive feedback loop and one negative feedback loop in your organization. Feedback loops are used here in the engineering sense of the terms. That is a positive feedback loop is a reinforcing or amplifying loop and exhibits one of two possibilities: virtous cycles or vicious cycles depending on perspective. For example, if your savings account is increasing exponentially, we might refer to this as a virtuous cycle whereas if your savings account was being depleted, we might refer to it as a vicious cycle. Negative feedback loops are goal seeking or regulating feedback loops. Think of a thermostat as a good example.]

Recommendations

[Provide at least two examples of how an understanding of stocks, flows, and feedback loops would improve decision making within your organization.]

Supporting Research

[Provide at least two citations/references to support your explanations to executive leadership, including a brief discussion of value or importance to your organization.]

Systems Disciplines (Week 4)

[Provide a brief introduction to this section. This week’s section should require about three pages.]

Disciplines

[Summarize personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking, and provide examples of where these disciplines exist in your organization.]

Inform Leadership

[Explain how each of these disciplines can inform leadership and decision making in your organization.]

Recommendations

[Recommend how your organization could improve using each of these disciplines.]

Supporting Research

[Provide at least two citations/references to support your explanations to executive leadership, including a brief discussion of value or importance to your organization.]

Systems Archetypes (Week 5)

[Provide a brief introduction to this section. This week’s section should require about two or three pages.]

Archetypes

[Identify and describe three systems archetypes observed in your organization. Analyze and evaluate problems indicated by these archetypes (e.g., limits to success, tragedy of the commons, escalation, success to the successful, shifting the burden, growth and underinvestment, fixes that fail, or eroding goals) and develop potential solutions or interventions for your client. For example, if product sales have been slowing after years of growth, it may be because that the market has reached its limit with everyone having this product that wants one. This is called the product life cycle in sales and marketing while it is called the limits to growth in systems theory. A potential solution is to launch a new and improved version of the product.]

Recommendations

[Recommend how your organization could improve by identifying these systems archetypes or patterns to help understand your organization and aid in decision making.]

Supporting Research

[Provide at least two citations/references to support your explanations to executive leadership, including a brief discussion of value or importance to your organization.]

Networks (Week 6)

[Provide a brief introduction to this section. This week’s section should require about two or three pages.]

Networks

[Identify and describe three different networks found in your organization. Recall that a network is a set of nodes and links where nodes may be people, computers, documents, databases, and such, while links are relationships, for example, reports to, collaborates with, manages, leads, and so on. Information, materials, and energy flow across networks. Explain how each of these three networks might inform decision making in leadership. Examples of network typologies include: tree, ring, line, bus, mesh, fully connected, or star. Networks of people may be formal (well defines roles and functions), informal (few set roles and functions), or family.]

Recommendations

[Recommend how your organization could improve with a better understanding of the networks or network structures in your organization.]

Supporting Research

[Provide at least two citations/references to support your explanations to executive leadership, including a brief discussion of value or importance to your organization.]

Complexity (Week 8)

[Provide a brief introduction to this section. This week’s section should require about two or three pages.]

Organizational Diagram

[Expand the model created in Week 2 to include several more elements: detectors, effectors, and networks (agents + relationships). Note: There may be several different organizational networks depending on the topic of interest. Space within the model is limited, thus illustrate at high level in one diagram. See the myCoffeeShop for some examples.]

Organizational Description

[Expand on the description of the organization by describing the agents (including detectors and effectors); their relationships with other agents; the flow of information, material, or energy across these networks; tags (labels such as manager, engineer, support staff, and so on); how agents are aggregated (e.g., hierarchy, alphabetical, chronological, size, type, geography, or other); two or three nonlinear (positive or negative) feedback loops; and three or four subordinate or sublevel organizational processes. For example, if the top level or primary process is educating students in the case of a university, then four subprocesses might be recruiting students, teaching students, assessing students, and graduating students. Each of these subprocesses (parts) could be further decomposed. ]

Recommendations

[Recommend how your organization could improve with a better understanding of the various structures and processes in the organization.]

Supporting Research

[Provide at least two citations/references to support your explanations to executive leadership, including a brief discussion of value or importance to your organization.]

Resilience (Week 9)

[Provide a brief introduction to this section. This week’s section should require about three or four pages.]

Resilience Matrix

[Use the World Economic Forum matrix in the Learning Resources to explore resilience in your selected organization. This matrix contains 25 cells made up of the intersections of the X axis and the Y axis. The X axis elements are: economic, environmental, governance, infrastructure, and social. The Y axis elements are: robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness, response, and recovery. Describe any eight of these cells in narrative format (please do not use a Word or Excel table to insert this discussion). For example, describe how robust your organizational economics are in the economic/robustness cell. Continue to describe these eight cells in this manner. Now provide an overall assessment or evaluation of how resilient your organization is based on your analysis. Explain how leadership might use this information to improve decision making.]

Supporting Research

[Provide at least two citations/references to support your explanations to executive leadership, including a brief discussion of value or importance to your organization.]

Summary and Conclusions

[Summarize your Final Project in one or two paragraphs and provide any concluding remarks.]

[Note: The following references are examples only. Most of the books are available in Kindle format from Amazon.com. Please delete this note and the following references, replacing them with all of your specific identified references cited in this project. Be sure to provide either the doi# or the URL of the journal homepage for journal articles. When providing a URL, right click on it and select Remove Hyperlink to keep the URL without the link.]

Arthur, W. B. (2009). The nature of technology: What it is and how it evolves. New York, NY: Free Press.

Ball, P. (2012). Why society is a complex matter: Meeting twenty-first century challenges with a new kind of science. London, England: Springer.

Basalla, G. (1988). The evolution of technology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University.

Beinhocker, E. D. (2005). The origin of wealth: Evolution, complexity, and the radical remaking of economics. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School.

Clemens, W. C. (2013). Complexity science and world affairs. Albany, NY: State University of New York.

Cross, R., & Parker, A. (2004). The hidden power of social networks: Understanding how work really gets done in organizations. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Csanyi, V. (1989). Evolutionary systems and society: A general theory. Durham, NC: Duke University.

Csikszentmilhalyi, M. (1996). Creativity. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Demers, C. (2007). Organizational change theories: A synthesis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Freeman, I., & Hasnaoui, A. (2011). The meaning of corporate social responsibility: The vision of four nations. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(3), 419–443. doi:10.1007/s10551-010-0688-6

Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Gharajedaghi, J. (2011). Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Elsevier.

Gjølberg, M. (2010). Varieties of corporate social responsibility (CSR): CSR meets the “Nordic Model.” Regulation & Governance, 4(2), 203–229. doi:10.1111/j.1748-5991.2010.01080.x

Gros, C. (2008). Complex and adaptive dynamical systems: A primer. Berlin, GE: Springer.

Harper, C. L., & Leicht, K. T. (2007). Exploring social change: America and the world (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Hastie, R., & Dawes, R. M. (2010). Rational choice in and uncertain world: The psychology of judgment and decision making (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Holland, J. H. (1992). Adaptation in natural and artificial systems. Boston, MA: MIT.

Holland, J. H. (1995). Hidden order: How adaptation builds complexity. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Jackson, M. O. (2008). Social and economic networks. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Kezar, A. J. (2001). Understanding and facilitating organizational change in the 2stt century. New York, NY: Wiley.

Mesoudi, A. (2011). Cultural evolution: How Darwinian theory can explain human culture & synthesize the social science. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.

Miller, J. H., & Page, S. E. (2007). Complex adaptive systems: An introduction to computational models of social life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Mitchell, M. (2009). Complexity: A guided Tour. Oxford, NY: Oxford University.

Morecroft, J. (2007). Strategic modeling and business dynamics: A feedback systems perspective. West Sussex, England: Wiley.

Newman, M. E. J. (2010). Networks. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.

Norberg, J., & Cumming, G. S. (2008). Complexity theory for a sustainable future. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Nowak, M. A. (2006). Evolutionary dynamics: Exploring the equations of life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Packalén, S. (2010). Culture and sustainability. Corporate Social Responsibility & Environmental Management, 17(2), 118–121. doi:10.1002/csr.236

Padgett, J. F., & Powell, W.W. (2012). The emergence of organizations and markets. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.

Reynolds, P. D. (2007). A primer in theory construction. New York, NY: Pearson.

Sawyer, R. K. (2005). Social emergence: Societies as complex systems. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University.

Scott, W. R., & Davis, G. F. (2007). Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural, and open systems perspectives. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Stacey, R. D. (2007). Strategic management and organisational dynamics: The challenge of complexity (5th ed.). New York, NY: FT Prentice-Hall.

Sterman, J. D. (2000). Business dynamics: Systems thinking and modeling for a complex world. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Tafoya, D. W. (2010). The effective organization: Practical application of complexity theory and organizational design to maximize performance in the face of emerging events. New York, NY: Routledge.

Walker, B., & Salt, D. (2006). Resilience thinking: Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Williams, B., & Hummelbrunner, R. (2009). Systems concepts in action: A practitioner’s toolkit. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.