Seeking Organizations to Work with Naval Postgraduate School MBA Students During the Summer 2020

During the Summer 2020, I'm teaching “Managing for Organizational Effectiveness” to MBA students at the Naval Postgraduate School. I’m recruiting organizations to work with my students on class projects. A bit more information about the course and assignment follows.

The Course
“Managing for Organizational Effectiveness” is a required MBA course at NPS. It prepares students to analyze, understand, and influence organizations and their systems. To do so, they study key concepts in organizational behavior. This discipline looks at how people behave in organizational settings. Course topics include employee motivation and engagement, decision making, teambuilding, and leadership. We also discuss organizational structure, culture, and change management.

The Assignment

Students act as consultants to a for-profit, non-profit, or public sector organization. They get to know it well. Then, students use course concepts to identify, analyze, and develop a plan to address a key problem the organization faces.

Student Deliverables

Students develop a report based on their work. It runs from 10 to 15 pages, including a one-page executive summary. The report will be shared with the organization at the end of the course. Students also brief the class on the highlights of their report.

Report Contents

Students gather data from the organization, its representatives, and third-party sources. Working in groups, they use that data to answer the following questions.

• What is the problem?
• What are likely causes of the problem based on organizational behavior concepts?
• How can organizational behavior concepts be applied and extended to address the problem?
• What specific action steps should the organization take to address the problem?
• What are potential barriers and obstacles to following these recommendations?
• What are risks and possible unintended consequences of following these recommendations?

Next Steps

My deadline for recruiting organizations to work with my students is June 1, 2020. If you’re interested, please contact me.

Thanks for your consideration!