Course 2020-2021 a.y.

The seminars focus on the following topics:

• Innovation through knowledge sharing and collaboration.
• Dealing with conflict: do not avoid it, manage it!
• Diversity in teams and within organizations.
• Team leadership and problem solving.

• Understand the main drivers of effective collaboration.
• Understand the sources of conflict and its consequences.
• Understand the value of diversity and its role in innovation processes.

• Deal with different conflicting situations on the basis of the team goal.
• Leverage on diversity as a source of value for the team.
• Organize team activities in order to prevent pitfalls and maximize members contribution.

• Online lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Company visits
• Interactive class activities (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

Students will be involved in simulations and role playing. Students will interact with guest speakers, and they will participate to a virtual company visit.

Attending students will obtain their credits through active participation to the seminar activities (there is not a final exam for attending students). The seminar consists of 4 half-day sections.  In order to have an “attending” status and receive the credits, students have to participate to the activities for 3 out of 4 sections (at least). If students miss more than 1 section, they will not obtain the credits and they will become  “not-attending” students.

  * Final evaluation: pass/fail.

Not-attending students are evaluated through a written exam (multiple choice) entirely based on the readings indicated in the "teaching material" section. The exam is aimed at evaluating students’ ability to recognize the main elements that characterize effective collaboration and teamwork. In order to pass the exam, students have to answer correctly to half of the questions (at least). There are no penalties in case of mistake (i.e. the wrong answer counts 0).

 * Final evaluation: pass/fail.

Materials will provided by the instructor

• Choudhury, P. (Raj). (2020). Our Work-from-Anywhere Future. (cover story). Harvard Business Review, 98(6), 58–67.
• Peterson, S. J., Abramson, R., & Stutman, R. K. (2020). How to Develop Your Leadership Style. Harvard Business Review, 98(6), 68–77.
• Ely, R. J., & Thomas, D. A. (2020). Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case. Harvard Business Review, 98(6), 114–122.
• Carlson, C. R. (2020). Innovation for Impact. Harvard Business Review, 98(6), 124–133.
• Magni, M., & Maruping, L. (2019). Unleashing Innovation With Collaboration Platforms. MIT Sloan Management Review, 23–27.
• Ibarra, H., & Hansen, M. T. (2011). Are you a collaborative leader. Harvard Business Review, 89(7/8), 68-74.
• Abele, J. (2011). Bringing minds together. Harvard Business Review, 89(7-8), 86-93.
• Hansen, M. T. (2009). When internal collaboration is bad for your company. Harvard Business Review, 87(4), 82-88.