McCombs School of Business
Department of Management

Ph.D. Courses

Prof. Andy Henderson
PhD Faculty Advisor
CBA 4.226 - (512) 471-5276

MAN 337 Groups and Teams
Collaboration is a crucial component of successful organizations. In a world of increasing complexity, connectivity, and change, learning to collaborate well is a core competency for every leader. This course is part of the management consulting track curriculum designed to help prepare you to become an effective consultant.

In this class you will sharpen the skills necessary to work effectively in groups and teams. The course places a particular emphasis on learning to facilitate the work of teams. This course is taught in an experiential format. You will spend considerable time both in and out of class working in teams. The team experiences will be complemented by readings, class discussions, projects, and reflections on your learning. Therefore, your full participation is necessary to attain the maximum benefit of the course.

Among the objectives of the course are to learn how to:

  • Analyze and understand the group dynamics that impact teams
  • Build and maintain effective relationships
  • Deal with conflict productively
  • Tap into team creativity
  • Help teams make better decisions
  • Motivate and lead teams
  • Prevent and overcome obstacles that cause teams to fail
  • Evaluate and reward team performance
  • Facilitate groups and manage meetings effectively
  • Leverage the team within the organization

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MAN 390 Longitudinal Analysis of Organizations
This doctoral seminar gives students the tools to conduct rigorous analyses of organizational and other phenomena that evolve and change across time. Upon completion, students should be able to intelligently analyze large-sample, longitudinal data sets such as those obtained from multi-wave panel designs or from archival sources like COMPUSTAT, which contain multiyear time-series. This course emphasizes application. We will focus on what you need to know to be an informed user and evaluator of longitudinal methods. Relatively little attention will be given to derivation and much more to understanding the mechanics of available software packages. In a typical class, about half the time will be spent discussing published research papers. The other half will be devoted to lecture and laboratory exercises using SAS and Stata. The techniques that we cover include (1) event history analyses of qualitative, dichotomous outcomes; (2) longitudinal analyses of continuous dependent variables using fixed-effects, random-effects, and generalized least squares models; and (3) longitudinal analysis of limited dependent variables, such as ordinal counts, using Poisson regression, negative binomial models, and generalized estimating equations.

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MAN 390 Social Networks and Organizations
The objective of this course is to familiarize doctoral students with the theory, research and methodological issues connected with social network analysis in organizational contexts. Upon completion of the course, students should have a good grasp of social network concepts and methods, and be able to use them to conduct research. Topics covered include, but are not limited to, the basics of social network analysis; social capital; strong ties, weak ties, and structural holes; cognition and networks; leadership and power; contagion processes; entrepreneurship and social networks; and small worlds.

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MAN 390.1 Research in Organizational Science
(Course description unavailable at this time)

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MAN 390.2 Introduction to Research Methods
(Course description unavailable at this time)

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MAN 390.4 Seminar in Organizational Behavior
The purpose of this seminar is to introduce doctoral level students to behavioral science literature relevant to the study of behavior in organizational settings. Topics covered will include theories of individual differences, motivation, leadership, decision making, interpersonal relations, etc. The course will concentrate on the individual, although some discussion will center on groups as the unit of analysis.

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MAN 390.5 Organizational Theory and Design
This seminar is a Ph.D. level survey of major topics and perspectives in organization theory. It is intended for Ph.D. students interested in conducting research on organizations, strategic management, organizational information systems, marketing, and related topics. The first half of the course will focus on the design of effective organizations and will examine topics such as the effect of technology on organizational structure, organizational learning, innovation, and change, and the assessment of organizational effectiveness. The second half of the course will focus on four major perspectives on organization/environment relationships: resource dependence, population ecology, transactions costs, and institutionalization. For each topic, both theoretical and empirical contributions will be examined. Particular emphasis will be placed on the integration of diverse theoretical perspectives.

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MAN 390.6 Organizational Decision Making
This course considers topics from organizational science and strategic management that are related to organizational decision making. Topics include organizational power and politics, managerial cognition, strategy formulation, organizational learning, and organizational information processing. The course is concerned with how decisions and strategies are developed in organizations, rather than how they should be. The intent is to develop a better understanding of organizational decision making, particularly at the top management level and particularly when the task is strategy formulation. A related intent is to review and develop theories about organizational decision processes, and thereby help us predict the outcomes of these processes. The content of the course is based on the readings and in-class analysis of journal articles and book chapters.

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MAN 393 Strategic Processes and Decision Making
This course deals with a variety of issues that concern the internal processes that affect strategic decisions – those decisions that have the potential to influence an entire firm and its long-term performance – and outcomes in organizations. We will also consider a select group of issues that I see as being potentially related to our overall interest in strategic decision processes but which are typically addressed under the guise of “Strategic Leadership.” As a result, we will discuss a wide range of topics such as alternative models of strategic decision making, how and if executives matter, executive cognitions and decision behavior, executive characteristics and their impact, the dynamics of decision making among top team members, and critical characteristics of strategic decision processes (e.g., consensus and influence techniques).

Our weekly sessions will evolve primarily around in-depth discussion of the articles or book chapters that have been assigned for that session. Students are expected to exhibit an informed understanding of the assigned readings and a willingness to make substantive contributions to the discussion. Evaluation will be based on both the students’ contribution to in-class discussion (50%) and a written proposal for an empirical research project (50%). Given the emphasis of the class, the bulk of the paper (e.g., 85 to 90%) will likely present the theoretical argument that supports the question to be addressed, and closely resemble the “front end” of an empirical research article. Students are required to obtain approval for their topic of choice, and will meet to discuss the paper as well. In addition, during one of the last two class periods, all students will make a presentation of their research proposal to the class.

Because I am also teaching two MBA core classes this spring, I have decided that this class will meet on the same schedule as an MBA course. As a result, we will not meet during the “global trip” week that precedes Spring Break, and will have 14 regularly scheduled sessions that will meet for three hours each (with a brief break). Given that two sessions will be devoted to research proposal presentations and discussions, we are left with 12 formal class meetings and need to use that time even more wisely than usual. Therefore, please be sure that you come to class prepared and ready to discuss the material. Moreover, for each session I would like you to identify 3 to 5 research questions that the articles or chapters provoke and which you find particularly interesting. You should write up these questions/observations before class and hand them in at the end of each class session.

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MAN 393.2 Contemporary Issues in Strategic Management Research
This seminar is a doctoral-level course on the major contemporary issues in strategy research. The focus of the course is to survey current knowledge and review the mechanisms for generating and communicating this knowledge in the field of strategic management. Participants will write the front-end of a journal paper (up to the point but stopping short of data collection) which may be pursued subsequent to the completion of the course.

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MAN 393.5 Executive Leadership: Issues in Study of CEOs & Top Management Teams
This Ph.D. course addresses a variety of issues pertinent to the study of executive leaders, those individuals and groups given ultimate responsibility for the performance of today's complex organizations. Therefore, our primary focus will be on three sets of actors -- (1) CEOs, (2) top management teams, and (3) boards of directors. The range of topics we will address is wide, but they can be loosely grouped under the heading of executive leadership. Since this is an overview course of a rapidly developing topic area in strategic management, we will limit ourselves to those issues that have to date received the most attention; but also spend time identifying and discussing additional issues that deserve attention. Among the issues we will address are (1) whether top-level executives really matter, (2) the nature of their job, (3) the cognitive processes of top-level executives, (4) the causes and consequences of executive succession, (5) executive rewards, (6) top management team composition, (7) the board of directors, (8) CEO/board relationships, and (9) executive labor markets.

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For additional information or to request an application please contact Chris Scherwin.

Not all the courses listed are offered every semester. Please refer to the Course Schedule at the Office of the Registrar, The University of Texas at Austin for individual semester offerings.