Course Topics
Module I: Institutions. Theory of the firm. The governance of corporations. Comparative institutional analysis. Models of capitalism. The recent evolution of ownership and control in the world. Module II: Rational organization and systems, organizations as organism natural and open systems, contingency theory, ‘environment’ and institutions, resource dependency, rbv, dynamic capabilities, microfoundation and behavioral approaches and research specific theories and concepts.

Teaching format
Seminar, presentations in class, discussions

Educational objectives
The course is designed as a primer and aims at providing PhD students with a robust understanding of contemporary theories needed to conduct meaningful and publishable research. Module I offers an overview of primarily economic theories about organization and their effective governance such as neo-institutional theories and perspectives such as property rights, principal-agent, and property rights. Module II offers an overview of contemporary theories about organizations, their management and organizing processes, intraorganizational relations, organization-environment relations, and the role of organizations in society. PhD students will acquire knowledge about organization and management theories they may have to apply in their future research. After a successful completion of the course, PhD students are enabled to select theories relevant for their specific research focus. Furthermore, they are enabled to decide which theories they may elaborate in more in-depth through specialized textbooks, readings, or courses.

Assessment
Module I and Module II: 1. Active participation (50%). PhD students have to attend all lectures of the course if absence is not approved by the lecturer. They will prepare summaries of mandatory reading assignments, present their findings in class and contribute to an active discussion of theories and their applicability. 2. Final exam (50%). The essence of gained knowledge will be tested in a final exam that focuses on application of theories and their assumptions, limitations and generalizability. Both modules will be assessed independently by the respective lecturers using the same measure (10 = excellent to 1 = totally insufficient); to pass, students need to receive more than 50%, i.e., > 5 points in both modules; otherwise they need to redo the respective module(s).

Evaluation criteria
Ability to solve exercises and to construct proofs; Ability to discuss academic papers; Ability to present and summarize academic papers; Ability to critically analyze academic papers