MGTC35H — Narratives on Management and Organization
Fall 2009
Professor Sandford Borins
Email: borins@utsc.utoronto.ca
Phone: 416-287-7362
Web site: www.sandfordborins.com
The objective of this course is to use a variety of works of narrative as a basis for the discussion of issues of interest to managers. By narrative, I mean works, either fiction or non-fiction, that tell stories that appeal to both the mind and the emotions. These works were not necessarily written for students of management, yet they do provide valuable insights into management skills, organizational diagnosis, ethical choices, leadership, and the impact of factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, and social class on managers. Communications is an essential management skill and these narratives incorporate literary and/or cinematic techniques that may be used to improve managers’ communication skills.
Narratives provide a number of perspectives not found in more traditional forms of management instruction. While organizations are formed for select purposes, the human beings inhabiting them generally possess a much wider range of goals and desires which may conflict with, or at least are not always captured by, the organization’s purposes. Organizations, moreover, are constituted largely by rules, structures, procedures and forms while human beings are characterized by qualities such as spontaneity, intuition, emotion, and irrationality. Any given organization, then necessarily recognizes, reflects, and realizes only a part of the humanity of its members. Narratives deal with these extra dimensions.
Consider, first, the advantages of fiction. It has the capacity not simply to depict actions and events, but also to lay bare the inner psychology of those involved in them. Indeed, fiction — through the imaginative insights of the author — has the capacity to expose the inner perspective not simply of one, but of all participants. In this sense, writers of fiction are able to capture and convey the realities they analyze with a psychological depth that social scientists cannot always replicate. Moreover, fiction may allow the reader to enter the mind of a character at the time of a decision without affecting that person’s behaviour – an observational posture simply not available to the social scientist. Writers of non-fiction also attempt to enter the minds of real people, though on more tenuous ground because a living subject (or even the relatives of a deceased subject) may object that the author provided an incorrect account of his or her thinking or action.
In addition to works of fiction, we will be looking at documentaries as well as true stories that have been dramatized to varying degrees. The latter are usually introduced by the phrases “based on a true story” or “inspired by a true story.” In one case, we can compare fictional and non-fictional approaches to the same phenomenon, for example the jury deliberations of Twelve Angry Men and A Trial by Jury. In another, we can compare a “based on a true story” docu-drama (Thirteen Days) with a documentary (The Fog of War).
To summarize, the course will look at a small number of works of narrative that deal with managers and/or workers in different organizational roles and settings. These works have been chosen for their richness; that is, they stimulate our thinking on many managerial issues.
Prerequisites: [MGTB23H & MGTB29H] or MGTB27Y
Office Hours: MW 226, Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 am and 1 to 1:45 pm (before and after class). I am also available by e-mail, which I answer promptly, or by appointment.
Evaluation
Student evaluation will be based on the following:
1. Mid-term exam 30 %
2. Class participation 20
3. Final 50
Total 100 %
Mid-term exam
The in-class mid-term exam will be based on material discussed and read in the first six weeks. Exams will be returned on Tuesday, Nov. 3 in class.
Class Participation
Students must participate in class discussion. To participate in class discussion, you must prepare the material in advance. I will post discussion questions in advance on the course website. To share your thinking with others, I encourage you to form viewing/discussion groups.
The class will be located in MW329, the skills development room. The course will use in-class discussion groups (“table work”) and provide opportunities for student presentations in addition to comments made in plenary discussions. I will generally post three questions for student presentations (10 minute maximum) each week. The purpose of class discussion is to advance as a group toward insight and understanding. Class discussion is a cooperative, not a competitive exercise. You will thus be assessed on your display of the qualities conducive to collective learning.
Final Exam
Students are responsible for the material covered in the entire course.
Required Reading
D. Graham Burnett, A Trial by Jury (New York: Vintage, 2002) $ 18.00 paperback
Visit every movie’s entry on the Internet Movie Data Base (www.imdb.com). In addition, most weeks there are wikipedia entries or other websites to visit.
Recommended Reading
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day, paperback
Availability of Movies. The movies in this course are all reasonably recent or classics, and should be widely available for purchase or rental in DVD format for rental at Rogers or Blockbuster outlets near your home. An alternative is renting from the public library system. While some may still be available in video format, the advantage of DVD format is that it often contains supplemental material you might find interesting or useful.
Another alternative is viewing movies free online. I cannot vouch for the quality or completeness of movies seen on such websites, and they are unlikely to have the supplementary material available on DVD.
Course Topics, Viewing and Reading Assignments
September 15
Introduction to the Course, Conceptual Framework
In-class viewing: part of Everyone Rides the Carousel
Reading: Borins, Narrative: Why it Matters (distributed free)
Wikipedia entry: Erik Erikson
Transformational Teachers
View: Freedom Writers or The Class (Entre les Murs)
Wikipedia entries: Erin Gruwell, www.freedomwritersfoundation.org
September 29
View: City Hall
October 6
Business Ethics
View: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Wikipedia entries: Milgram obedience experiment, California electricity crisis, Jeffrey Skilling, Kenneth Lay
Business Ethics, Role of the Media
View: The Insider
Wikipedia entries: Lowell Bergman, Jeffrey Wigand, Mike Wallace
October 20
Role of the Media
View: All The President’s Men
Wikipedia entries: Watergate scandal, Deep Throat, Richard Nixon (optional)
October 27
In-class Midterm
November 3
Group Dynamics
Mid-terms will be returned
Read: Burnett, A Trial by Jury
View: Twelve Angry Men (original black and white version preferable)
November 10
Decision-making in Government
View: Thirteen Days
Wikipedia entry: Cuban Missile Crisis
November 17
Decision-making in Government, con’d
View: The Fog of War
Wikipedia entries: Robert S. McNamara, Errol Morris, www.errolmorris.com
November 24
Fighting authority
View: North Country
Wikipedia entries: North Country (film), Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co.
December 1
Managerial Responsibility, Managing Work and Life
View: The Remains of the Day or read: Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
Wikipedia entry: appeasement
