Organizational Analysis

Organizations are everywhere in modern society—from universities and startups to hospitals, government bureaus, and multinational corporations. Yet their ubiquity belies their complexity: organizations differ vastly in size, structure, and goals; they're made up of individuals with competing motivations; and they must navigate environmental constraints while pursuing often ambiguous objectives. This foundational course from Stanford University, taught by Professor Daniel McFarland, provided a systematic framework for understanding and managing these organizational challenges through multiple theoretical lenses.

Rather than offering prescriptive management rules, the course equipped me with ten distinct organizational theories—each highlighting different features of organizational structure, environment, and processes. From rational decision-making models and coalition theory to organizational culture, network analysis, and population ecology, each theoretical framework became a diagnostic tool for interpreting novel organizational situations. The pedagogical approach centered on applying these theories to real-world cases: education reform initiatives, international crisis management, technology company culture-building, and even university mergers.

This analytical toolkit is particularly valuable for my work at the Ministry of Housing (PUPR), where managing digital systems like SIBARU requires understanding both technical organizational structures and adaptive human dynamics. The course's emphasis on theoretical pluralism—recognizing that different situations call for different analytical frameworks—has fundamentally changed how I diagnose organizational problems and design interventions.