Leadership and Organizational Learning: MBA Specialization in Management

Three professors who have been repeatedly honored for their teaching excellence and dedication to students present three courses that have received unprecedented student reviews.  These are courses whose ideas are timeless and that will forever influence how you view leadership, business management and professional development. The three state-of-the-art courses provide a unique perspective on leadership, which includes theory, essential skills, an understanding of new organizational forms, organizational learning and transformation.

There are three required courses:

Leadership, Learning and Change (Mgmt 730): Prof. Regina Bento

Listen to Prof. Bento talk about Mgmt 730

Leadership Seminar (Mgmt 731): Prof. Susan Zacur

Listen to Prof. Zacur talk about Mgmt 731

Leadership: Self-Organization in the Firm (Mgmt 732): Prof. Barry Brownstein

Listen to Prof. Brownstein talk about Mgmt 732

(Note: These courses can be taken in any order and each can be taken as part of the Leadership specialization or as a general MBA elective.)

One elective is required  to be chosen from:

 Leadership, Learning and Change was inspired by the idea that the deeper we go into the exploration of organizational leadership, learning and change, the more we need to deal with the dimensions of sense-making, connection-building, choice-making, vision-inspiring, reality-creating roles of leaders. This course involves a series of workshops designed to help students learn something that cannot be taught: leading, learning and changing "from within" (McDermott, 1994). Readings, assignments, and web forum interactions are designed to inspire "practices of deep reflection": storytelling, historical inquiry, reflective reading and writing, dialogue, action research. 

Leadership Seminar will focus on the most critical issues pertaining to success in operating at the executive level in business and other organizations.  Topics will include vision, knowing the customer, communication for internal motivation and public awareness, ethical responsibilities, decision making, financial management issues, performance maximization, human asset activities, and individual leader behaviors for effectiveness.  Course materials will be drawn from business journals, texts, other media, and cases.  Invited experts, who are proven leaders, will be featured speakers in the course. 

Leadership: Self-Organization in the Firm covers self-organizing systems, complexity theory in management, dialogue as a management tool, leadership in a complex system, pursuing a personal discovery process, and growing new knowledge and innovation. A major objective of this course will be to discover the management principles and processes that promote and foster self-organization as an alternative to command and control hierarchies.  The course will also draw out the profound implications of self-organization for growing new knowledge and innovation. A second major objective of this course has to do with the process of personal discovery.  Parallel principles of spontaneous order operate at the level of the organization and at the level of the individual.  As a result, a highly leveraged form of change in an organization is leadership through personal growth and discovery. Course materials are recent books written primarily by practitioners in the field of management.

For More Information:

Regina Bento  is the Hatfield-Merrick Distinguished Professor. She can be reached at rbento@ubalt.edu

Barry Brownstein is the Yale Gordon Distinguished Teaching Professor. He can be reached at bbrownstein@ubalt.edu

Susan Zacur is Professor of Management and chair of the management and marketing division. She can be reached at szacur@ubalt.edu