Organizations are people acting upon a particular context. The context is shaped by a structure, technology, procedures, history, and environment. This course considers alternative theories of organizations that shed light on these elements and the determinants of organizational behavior. Thus, the course tries to consider how organizations actually behave and why. The course is divided into several parts. The first two parts examine individuals in organizations. We discuss such questions as how individuals make decisions and how these can influence organizational success or failure. In the third section, we examine various models of organizational behavior. Here, we emphasize the influence of the nature of information processing on organizational behavior and performance. The fourth part presents economic approaches to understanding organizations. The fifth part of the course considers the importance of the environment for organizational behavior.
