Courses
Doctoral Seminars
Doctoral Research Seminar in Innovation and Strategic Change
This seminar examines current research on innovation strategy. Topics include scientific discovery, innovation search, organizational learning, evolutionary approaches, and incremental and radical change.
The MS&E 371 seminar is taught by Professor Riitta Katila and is offered yearly.
Doctoral Research Seminar in Strategy and Organization
Strategy crosses the disciplines of sociology (notably organization theory) and economics. Its focus is on the performance of the corporation. This seminar examines a variety of theoretical perspectives on strategy including debates surrounding the origins of competitive advantage, resource and knowledge-based views, complexity theory, transaction-cost economics, agency theory, and entrepreneurship. Depending upon the year, other topics such as organization ecology, strategic decision-making, game theory, top management teams, social networks, and corporate strategy may also appear. The seminar also aims to develop skills, which are useful when pursuing an academic career, such as synthesizing research, understanding research designs, and building theories.
The MS&E 376 seminar is taught by Professor Kathy Eisenhardt and is offered yearly.
Doctoral Research Seminar in Organizations
Topics from current published literature and working papers. Content varies.
The MS&E 380 seminar is taught by Professor Bob Sutton and is offered yearly.
Distributed Work
This course will provide students with an understanding of the research on geographically distributed work. In this course, we explore research on geographically distributed work and virtual teams as well as research conducted in related areas that can serve as a foundation for understanding the impact of geographic distribution. To that end, a broad range of topics will be discussed, including computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), computer-mediated communications, group decision support systems, proximity effects, information sharing, and perspective taking. Students should leave this course with a better idea of how to approach research questions related to distributed work and apply seemingly peripheral work to inform new areas of research.
The MS&E 380 seminar is taught by Professor Pamela Hinds and is offered yearly.
Doctoral Research Seminar in Work, Technology and Organization
This seminar revolves around in depth reading and analysis of bodies of literature pertinent to the study of work and technology or work and organization. The literatures that are covered vary from year to year. They include: socio-technical systems theory, Chicago School ethnographies of work and occupations, computer supported cooperative work, anthropology of work, work and job design, and industrial sociology.
The MS&E 381 seminar is taught by Professor Stephen Barley and is offered yearly.
Doctoral Research Seminar on Ethnographic Research
This seminar is designed as a basic field methods course for graduate students (and upper level undergraduates with permission of instructor). Ethnosemantic interviewing and participant observation are emphasized. Students learn and practice techniques for taking, managing and analyzing field notes and other qualitative data. Students are required to conduct research during the course and must be willing to spend up to 15 hours per week outside class collecting and analyzing their own data. Methods texts and ethnographies are used respectively to illustrate how to analyze and communicate ethnographic data.
The MS&E 383 seminar is taught by Professor Stephen Barley and is offered yearly.
Coloquium
STVP organizes a quarterly informal brown bag lunch seminar to discuss current research topics in the areas of strategy, organization theory, and entrepreneurship in technology-based companies. Speakers include students and faculty members of the center plus colleagues from other departments at Stanford and other universities.
