{"id":10,"date":"2022-09-20T20:41:38","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T20:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/grilinger\/events\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T15:07:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:07:56","slug":"teaching","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/grilinger\/teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fall Courses<\/h2>

15.342 Organizations and Environments (Syllabus<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Provides an introduction to research in \"organizations and environments,\" an interdisciplinary domain of inquiry drawing primarily from sociology, and secondarily from economics, psychology, and political science. Seeks to understand organizational processes and outcomes in the surrounding economic, cultural, and institutional context in which they are situated. Also provides an introduction to the main groups that together form the Behavioral Policy Sciences (BPS) area of MIT\/Sloan, including economic sociology, organization studies, work and employment, strategic management, global management, and technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Consists of four modules taught by faculty from each of the four BPS groups, as well as integrative sessions taught by the main instructor. Preference to first-year doctoral students in BPS.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

Teaching Philosophy<\/h2>

Over the course of my teaching at MIT Sloan and the University of Chicago, I have worked with undergraduate, MBA, executive, and doctoral students, as well as B.A. thesis writers and junior researchers. I have taught Competitive Strategy and classic social theory, led classes in economic sociology and sociological theory, designed a doctoral seminar on Organizations & Environments, and supervised students developing their first pieces of original research. Across these settings, I have come to believe that the job of an instructor is not primarily to impart specialized knowledge. Instead, the more durable goal is to teach techniques of scientific thought.<\/p>\n

Depending on the course, these techniques may vary from general to highly specialized, but my basic pedagogical approach remains the same. I believe that students learn best when they apply techniques actively, receive repeated rounds of feedback from peers as well as instructors, and experience that their work resonates with real-world problems. The recurring competencies I try to develop are close reconstruction, theoretical reasoning, and the ability to move between theory, evidence, and design.<\/p>\n

Generative AI has made the distinction between producing an answer and developing an ability especially important. AI can be useful for preparation, comparison, and revision. But students also need occasions on which they read closely, formulate an argument, and make judgments without it. I therefore try to organize courses around forms of intellectual work whose value lies partly in doing them: reconstructing a difficult text, comparing explanations, applying an argument to an unfamiliar case, and defending a judgment in conversation with others.<\/p>\n

For most reading classes, the central techniques are analytical. Students need to learn to read, comprehend, and critically assess complex arguments in concert with others. I believe this can be taught most effectively by emphasizing the principle of hermeneutic charity: critique should address the strongest version of a given argument. I usually begin by asking students to reconstruct a general version of the argument together. Prompted by questions, they identify central concepts, put their relationships on the board, and debate what follows from them. Only after the class has reconstructed the argument do we begin to explore criticisms.<\/p>\n

I sometimes ask students to defend a position they initially reject. When I taught Marx\u2019s\u00a0Capital<\/i>, for example, I asked students who dismissed the labor theory of value to build a defense of it, while those who found it plausible developed the opposing case. Afterward, most returned to their earlier views, but they found it easier to assess Marx\u2019s argument together. Approaching the exercise playfully helped students separate arguments from persons and lowered the stakes of contributing. Because the strongest interpretation usually becomes apparent when everyone works together, hermeneutic charity tends to orient discussion away from antagonism and toward collaborative inquiry.<\/p>\n

AI has changed how I conduct this kind of reconstruction. Students can now arrive with a plausible summary of a reading without having worked through its details. I therefore stay closer to the text than I once did. I may open a page somewhere in the middle and ask students to explain what is happening in that passage, then progressively build outward toward the larger argument. The purpose is not to test whether they have memorized the reading. It is to make interpretation visible as a practice and to examine where a summary clarifies an argument and where it disguises the absence of understanding.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the class, I also try to build repetition into the syllabus. In writing courses, this has meant organizing assignments so that they feed into a larger project and giving students several opportunities to respond to comments. In the year-long B.A. thesis seminar I taught, students submitted successive sections, drafts, and revision memos. They then used the same principle in rounds of peer review. This created a small research community in which students could learn from one another while developing their first sustained piece of original research.<\/p>\n

Where repeated drafting is not feasible, I use other forms of repetition: recurring analytical questions, short exercises, or a conceptual grid to which each new reading or case can be related. In Organizations & Environments, the doctoral seminar I designed for Fall 2026, each session moves through reconstruction, application, and implication. Students first rebuild the central argument of a text. They then apply it to a real example\u2014a news story, business case, blog post, or filing\u2014and finally consider what kind of empirical research the tradition would suggest. The sequence connects reading, case analysis, and research design as recurring practices rather than separate parts of the course.<\/p>\n

I also believe that it is important to connect sociology to students\u2019 broader interests and everyday lives. Cases are useful for this purpose, but I do not treat them only as illustrations or as exercises with a predetermined answer. In Competitive Strategy, students work in small groups before a whole-class discussion, compare alternative interpretations, and ask which details of a case matter to a more general explanation. Participation includes preparation, listening, and responsiveness to other students, not simply frequency of speaking.<\/p>\n

My approach to that course developed gradually. I inherited Competitive Strategy with a predominantly economics-oriented structure and retained its basic strategy framework while introducing more material on organizations. I also moved away from following case-teaching notes closely. Cases increasingly became opportunities to develop theoretical intuitions\u2014abstraction, counterfactual reasoning, and comparison among mechanisms\u2014rather than only occasions to teach particular analytical techniques. Over time, I placed greater emphasis on group exercises and classroom discussion, removed written case memos, and introduced a closed-book, handwritten examination that asks students to transfer the underlying reasoning to a new case.<\/p>\n

Student evaluations have helped me identify the limitations of these approaches. Early evaluations of Competitive Strategy noted that I sometimes moved too quickly, searched too visibly for a particular answer, or left too little time to debrief an exercise. In later versions, I increased peer discussion before plenary conversation, made the purpose of activities more explicit, and reserved more time for synthesis. I continue to think about how to maintain depth without losing closure, provide formative feedback early enough to be useful, make group work accountable to individual learning, and balance qualitative reasoning with the quantitative practices students expect from a strategy course.<\/p>\n

In sum, I seek to make the classroom a space in which students learn to use techniques of scientific thought rather than simply acquire a list of theories. Because sociology strives for a deeper understanding of social problems, these techniques are relevant not only to original research or professional analytical work. In a time of uncertainty, disinformation, and social complexity, they also belong to the basic literacy required for informed public discourse. Helping students develop that literacy remains my central motivation for teaching sociology.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

Spring Courses<\/h2>

15.900 Competitive Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Explores a wide range of strategic problems, focusing particularly on the sources of competitive advantage and the interaction between industry structure and organizational capabilities. Introduces a wide variety of modern strategy frameworks and methodologies. Builds upon and integrates material from core topics, such as economics and organizational processes.<\/p>\n

15.906 Competitive Strategy Boot Camp<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduces a variety of modern strategy frameworks and methodologies to develop the skills needed to be a successful manager. Cases and readings explore a range of strategic problems, focusing particularly value capture, the sources of competitive advantage and the interaction between industry structure and organizational capabilities.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fall Courses15.342 Organizations and Environments (Syllabus) Provides an introduction to research in “organizations and environments,” an interdisciplinary domain of inquiry drawing primarily from sociology, and secondarily from economics, psychology, and political science. Seeks to understand organizational processes and outcomes in the surrounding economic, cultural, and institutional context in which they are situated. 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