This handbook gives a methodology for problem solving in organizations. Its primary target audience consists of undergraduate and graduate students in business and management. However, the problem-solving methodology given in this handbook can also be used by other people working in an organizational context, like (junior) management consultants, engineers and professionals in hospitals or government agencies, as well as students in other disciplines than business and management but who expect to work in an organizational context.
This third edition is a major revision of the 2012 edition, as well as being much more student-friendly. It is written for you, the business and management student. We owe many thanks for the contributions to the first and second edition of this book by our former co-writer, Dr Hans van der Bij.
The core idea in writing this textbook is that business and management course programmes are to educate professionals, not researchers. The key competence of any professional, like a medical doctor, engineer or lawyer, is knowledgeintensive field problem solving. This also applies to graduates of business schools, by most considered as professional schools. A powerful way for students to develop this key competence is to engage in problem solving in real organizational settings under academic supervision. By solving ‘paper cases’ you can develop a number of cognitive competences, but certainly not all the competences that are needed to be successful in the fuzzy, ambiguous and politically charged real-life organizational context. This handbook aims to provide you with a strong methodological basis for problem solving in organizations.
The theory given here can best be mastered through a – possibly brief – classroom course in which the contents of this handbook are discussed and in which, on the basis of some (paper) cases, training is given on issues such as problem definition, developing a project proposal, problem analysis and solution design. However, a much richer learning experience can be realized if such classroom training is followed by the further development of problem-solving competences through actual problem solving in the field, individually or in a (small) group. In this way the student can develop real ‘clinical experience’.
The scientification of the field of business and management has enabled it to develop into a respectable social science.
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