The ART and SCIENCE of the ORGANIZATION
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Organizational Dynamics Projects

Organizational Dynamics Graduate Studies conducts applied research and other projects for organizations interested in our expertise as trans-disciplinary applied scholars. Projects are supervised and directed by faculty and program administrators and involve our professional adult graduate students. Project outcomes include defined organizational objectives and academic scholarship.

Our educational model for projects is collaborative. We prefer to work with rather than for the organization making the request. Where possible, members of the requesting organization become co-designers, co-teachers, and co-actors with our faculty and students during the project.

Projects Available

Education and Interpretation Project for Flight 93 National Memorial

Collaborator: National Park Service
Faculty: Dr. Alan Barstow
Description: (Note: Course number is DYNM 645, section 016) This project, which will be undertaken throughout the academic year, is to help the NPS develop the education and interpretation program for the Flight 93 Memorial in Somerset County, PA. The project will involve coding and evaluation of data and information gathered from site visitors, oral histories taken from first responders and family and friends of the passengers and crew of United Flight 93, as well as gathering data and information from the general public about sense-making and the meaning of the actions of the passengers and crew aboard United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001.

Practicum in Coaching and Facilitating Team Development

Faculty: Dr. William Wilkinsky
Description: (Note: Course number is DYNM 645, section 004) This course will provide a semester-long, hands-on experience coaching two teams of undergraduate students as they go through a team development process. Skills in diagnosis, interventiona planning, intervention implementation, team facilitation, and team coaching will all be the focus of the content of this course. The course carries a prerequisite of DYNM 637 (Coaching and Facilitating Teams) OR permission of the professor to register. Professor Wilkinsky can be reached at 215-898-6967 or at the numbers listed on his faculty page.

Mantua Community Development

Collaborator: GlaxoSmithKline
Faculty: Dr. Larry Starr
Dr. Russell Ackoff
Description: In its second year, this project concerns the redesign and development of Mantua, a residential community on the border of the University of Pennsylvania. Involved and helping to supervise students is Dr. Russ Ackoff, Distinguished and Emeritus Professor of Management Science and Dr. Jason Magidson, Director of Innovation, GSK. Student participants become familiar with Ackoff's theory and methodology for change through interactive planning and organizational redesign and will work directly with members of the community as they design their own future. Interactive Planning is and has been used worldwide in corporations of every size and type including GSK; by governments including the US White House; NGOs and other nonprofit settings, as well as in communities and cities including Paris.

Global Coaching Project

Collaborator: Graduate School Alliance for Executive Coaching (GSAEC) and Foundation of Coaching
Faculty: Dr. Larry Starr, Principal Investigator
Dr. Lewis Stern, Investigator
Description: This project is designed to help build organizational and executive coaching into a professional academic discipline by (a) identifying all academic institutions (worldwide) that offer graduate-level programs in organizational and executive coaching, and (b) engaging leadership of these programs in a peer-review of a standardized graduate coaching curriculum.

Strategic Planning Project

Collaborator: Fairmont Soccer Association
Faculty: Dr. Alan Barstow
Description: This project is designed to engage members of a local sport organization in the process of identifying core values, interests and the nature of their community and stakeholders in order to develop a strategic plan that can effectively implemented.

Organization Development and Change Project

Collaborator:Academy of Management Committee of Organization Development Change
Faculty:Dr. Larry Starr
Description: This project, in its third year, is designed to help the Academy of Management’s Organization Development and Change (ODC) Committee build community and academic excellence. The project involves identifying and describing ODC academic programs, interviewing senior faculty and administrators within them, building a web database that contains information about these programs, and helping to plan for the annual Professional Development Workshops held at the annual meetings.

Completed Projects

Organizational Diagnosis and Evaluation of Relationships between HR Department and HR Internal Customers

Collaborator: Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA
Faculty: Dr. Alan Barstow and Dr. Dana Kaminstein
Students: Ozias Moore, Jess Lienart, Jules Spaeth

Team Business for Team Dynamics Simulation Project

Collaborator: Lauder Institute-Wharton School
Faculty: Dr. Alan Barstow
Students: Kay Anderson, Vanesa Kraus, Gary Hammell, Deb Dennis, Linda Deluca
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dynamics@sas.upenn.edu