Curriculum

Comprehensive action research methods are used to diagnose organizational problems, to test hypotheses or to evaluate organizational interventions. This course aims to enable students to become critical knowledge generators with the abilities to carry out action research projects in their work in organizations.

In this course, we will use the latest games, experiments, simulations and case studies to examine and improve our decision making. You will learn how to improve the quality of your decisions and improve your ability to predict and influence the behavior of others. Managers, consumers, investors and negotiators make predictable mistakes. Therefore, understanding the psychology of decision making can give you a unique advantage in any business setting, even in your personal life.

The course explores the challenges faced by Insider Action Researchers: It examines and explores how to become a scholar-practitioner-researcher in one's organizational system, focusing on the values ​​underlying the practice of consulting and the skills necessary for a counselor. It examines issues such as contracting,
developing client capacity, and managing unplanned events in the change process.

The aim of the course is to provide managers, project managers, agile practitioners and other leaders with a broad understanding of popular agile methods, the relationship of agile approach to culture, how to succeed organizational change and how to support an organization that is transforming from traditional development.

The course will cover the history of action research (AR) and different AR approaches. There is an international AR community with a tradition of dialogue and discussion. This course will cover the theoretical contributions of leading AR researchers to the literature. Participating AR; Socio-Technical System Thinking; Scandinavian (Dialogical) AR; Southern (Liberating) AR; Collaborative Inquiry; Appreciative Inquiry; Cases and key literature on different AR approaches, such as educational AR, will be covered.

This course offers an alternative perspective on activities related to managing the workforce. Assuming students have a basic  understanding of human resource management techniques, it attempts to tackle the puzzle posed by the contemporary workplace. The course mainly focuses on activities related to managing the people who do the work of organizations. Workforce organization and transformation in the workplace helps grapple with today's complexities by adopting a framework that captures the interrelationships between influencing national and international (macro) factors, organizational (meso) factors, and individual and team dynamics (micro). These techniques include learning, talent management, unlimited workforce, integrating workplace dynamics, artificial intelligence and the future, virtual workforce, reflections and future directions. These transformations can be better understood with an action research orientation.

This course will equip students with knowledge of strategy and business model and how they can be changed and innovated. The course explores how strategy and business model can be transformed. After the transformation process, the system will also look at how it can be classified and measured.

This course focuses on how organizations can successfully manage the transformation of traditionally cost-driven supply chains into value-generating supply chains. Key themes include aligning the supply chain with business objectives, supply chain risk and resilience management,complexity management, developing strategic partnerships and collaborations, open innovation, sustainable supply chain management and supply chain digitalization. These supply chain transformations are considered prototypical examples of how relevant action research is.

The course will support participants' understanding of leading and participating in organizational transformation and help them apply it well. He will tell them what to do and what not to do, when and in what order. The course will specifically focus on: Defining Transformation; status and process, organizing and aligning key components, infrastructure and resources for transformation, leading and managing stakeholders, a methodology for delegates to assess the current state of their businesses and plan for transformation, common mistakes and case studies.

The sustainable success of companies depends on shaping the environment in their favor and the prevention of situations that may develop against them. For this reason, the relations to be maintained with external stakeholders that will shape the future of the company should be placed on a strategic basis. Understanding the mind map of stakeholders, gaining trust and credibility will bring strong reputation. If done successfully, strategic communication has the power to influence decision makers in line with company interests by creating a reliable, respected and positive perception.
Identifying and understanding the mind map of stakeholders, learning basics of perception and persuasion will lead to craft a strategic communication plan. One emerging lever of communication is doing it through digital channels which will bring more impact. Why and how to use digital channels for strategic communication will be discussed. This also will give an opportunity to analyze what platform organizations are like, what do they differently and how.

Conflicts arise as a result of the conflict of interests, needs, norms and values ​​and are an inevitable part of our lives. Approaching conflict in avoidance or through violent means can be costly and have serious impacts on our lives. Therefore, it is extremely important to resolve conflicts using non-violent and constructive methods to achieve sustainable results.This course will examine the basic concepts and practices of alternative forms of conflict resolution such as negotiation, mediation ve facilitation. It will focus on conflict resolution practices at various levels, including interpersonal, intergroup and international.

Students will create and conduct an action research project on organizational development/transformation in their own company or another company and write a report about the project.

The digital transformation that has been happening in the industry is leading to the disappearance of borders between cyber and physical systems and creating synergies between them. In order to maintain and improve their firms’ competitiveness, decision makers need to know the technologies, approaches, and best practices that further this transformation. Digital transformation has also helped recognition of the role of innovation in global competitive environment among other operational priorities (cost, quality, flexibility, and delivery). This course, involve an in -depth discussion into such topics, cases, and best practices.

This course aims at introducing students to new concepts and methods: design thinking and storytelling. Design thinking promotes user-centered innovation, experimentation to cope with the uncertainties that firms face during the innovation process, which rests on some principles, such involvement of users to the innovation or product/service development and design process, problem framing, leveraging empathy with users, experimentation, and diversity. Offering a new method of problem solving, Design Thinking emphasizes the importance of experimenting, learning-by-doing, listening customers, iterations until finding a satisfying solution to the problems. Entrepreneurs or managers challenge with not only creating viable solutions to the problems and solutions/innovations to customers and stakeholders where narratives and stories always helped to communicate their vision,and how their innovations would shape the future. Although these stories have improved the communication between and within the firms and their stakeholders, the power of storytelling in business has been widely ignored. Today, with the rise of social media and new communicational channels and tools, storytelling has become more and more critical talent/competence. Providing students with practice-based skills is critical in this course, for this aim, they are required to work on two projects. One of them is based on practicing design thinking process and principles, which students are requested to frame a problem, develop a viable solution, develop a prototype as ensuring user/customer involvement and conduct various experiments to understand the viability of the solution. Second project focuses on storytelling practices; students are required to craft an effective story for the innovation/solution that they develop for the first project. They are also requested to deconstruct and analyze the stories told by classmates.