Foundational
Management Thought and Practice
The course provides insights into management schools of thought, organizational functions and business practices. It introduces the ideas and developments that form the basis for studying management as an academic discipline. Classical theories and modern approaches that enriched the art, science and craft of management are presented.
Course ID: BSMS1204
Course Credits: 4
Course Type: Foundational
Pre-requisites: None
Course structure & Assessments
For details of standard course structure and assessments, visit Academics page.
| WEEK 1 | Business Definition: nature of the firm; mission, vision, and values; goals and objectives |
| WEEK 2 | Management history: management philosophers; evolution of management thought |
| WEEK 3 | Management profession: roles; skills; challenges |
| WEEK 4 | Art of thinking: cognitive biases; fallacies; thinking frames |
| WEEK 5 | Socratic questions - structured critical thinking |
| WEEK 6 | Creative, lateral and critical thinking with business applications |
| WEEK 7 | Systems thinking: axioms, archetypes and leverage points |
| WEEK 8 | Integrative management: handling conflicting interests and opposable minds |
| WEEK 9 | Management functions: planning, organizing; leading; controlling |
| WEEK 10 | Management and society: social responsibility; ethics |
| WEEK 11 | Corporate evolution: business history and emergence of modern firm; nature of firm |
| WEEK 12 | Indian business history: developments from ancient to modern times; family businesses |
Prescribed Books
The following are the suggested books for the course:
Robbins Stephen and Coulter Mary, Management (13E), Pearson Education, 2017
Gareth Jones and Jeniffer George, Contemporary Management 9E, McGraw-Hill, 2015
Daniel Wren and Arthur Bedeian, The Evolution of Management Thought (6E) John Wiley & Sons;2008
Jamshid Gharajedaghi, Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity, Morgan Kaufmann 2011.
Andrea Gabor, The Capitalist Philosophers: The Geniuses of Modern Business, Three Rivers Press, New York, 2000.
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, Modern Library 2003.
Morgen Witzel, A History of Management Thought, Routledge 2016.
About the Instructors
Dr. Prakash Sai is a Professor of Strategy with Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras. He specializes in the broad domains of Technology Management & Innovation, Strategy & Policy Studies and Technopreneurship. In a career spanning three decades, he contributed to the growth, profitability and sustainability of several firms in public and private sectors through his consulting work and training programs. He served Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for over a decade in various capacities as Management Consultant, Business Development Manager and Director (Strategic Planning), North America Operations having USD 1.5 billion revenue. He served as a Visiting Faculty at University of Applied Sciences, Hof, Germany and University of Passau, Germany, Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan, Harare Institute of Technology, Zimbabwe and University of Mauritius. He guided 15 Ph.D. theses and 9 MS theses; published research articles in international journals and co-authored a book, entitled: “Total Quality Management in Higher Education”. He holds B.Tech. Mechanical Engineering, M.Tech. Industrial Engineering, from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati; and Ph.D. in Technology Management from IIT Madras.
Other courses by the same instructor: BSMS2208 - Macroeconomics and BSMS3206 - Managerial Economics