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Teaching
OB384/284 Organizational
Learning
 This is a course about why firms do not
learn from their experiences and the opportunities created by flawed
learning. It will explore common mistakes in learning and barriers to the
adoption of effective practices. Understanding learning problems will
help future managers avoid common mistakes and build organizations that learn
more effectively; learning is particularly important for entrepreneurs who
are trying out new ideas and so must adapt correctly to feedback from the
environment.
But
understanding common mistakes is also useful for identifying possible
opportunities in markets; opportunities exist when firms make mistakes and
when they fail to learn effective practices. During the course, we will
examine several examples of firms that took advantage of market
inefficiencies created by flawed learning by established firms.
The course will introduce concepts and findings from
organization theory, psychology, decision theory, and statistics. A variety
of exercises, cases, and readings will be used to illustrate barriers to learning
and the opportunities they create. Readings
will include teaching notes, papers in psychology and organization theory,
HBR articles, as well as the book “Moneyball” by
Michael Lewis which discusses market-level mistakes in professional baseball.
OB683 Models of Social
Dynamics
 This PhD course provides an introduction to
several important theoretical and formal models in sociology, psychology, and
organization theory. The purpose is, in part, to provide an overview of commonly
used models. More important, participants will learn to read, criticize, and
formulate models for their own research questions. The focus is on model
development, deriving implications from models, comparing models, and on
testing models. After the course, participants will be able to understand the
basis for common models and will feel comfortable with simulation, model
estimation and testing.
Topics
include growth models, first passage models, Markov chain models, diffusion
models, random walk and null models, models of decision processes, models of
risk taking, models of learning.
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