SYSTEMS THINKING AND GLOBALIZATION

This course equips students with systems thinking as both a conceptual lens and a practical strategy tool. The world’s most consequential management challenges — supply chain fragility, digital disruption, geopolitical decoupling, sustainability transitions — are not complicated problems that yield to more data or smarter linear plans. They are systemic: shaped by feedback loops, time delays, unintended consequences, and emergent behaviour that no single actor fully controls.

Learning Objectives
● Apply the core vocabulary of systems thinking — stocks, flows, feedback loops, delays, and archetypes.
● Construct and interpret causal loop diagrams (CLDs) and identify systemic leverage points.
● Analyse competitive strategy and business model design through a systems lens.
● Map globalization as a system of interconnected value chains.
● Recognise grand challenges (climate change, poverty, health) as systemic phenomena.

No specific background is required.

Week 1: The Systems Thinking Toolkit
Week 2: Corporate Strategy and systems thinking
Week 3: Globalization as a System
Week 4: Grand Challenges & Sustainability
Week 5: Acting and making decisions in Complex Systems

For attending students: A selection of chapters and articles will be made available on Moodle at the beginning of the class

Non attending students.
Basic readings:
• Senge, P. (2006). The Fifth Discipline (rev. ed.). Doubleday.
• Taleb, N.N. (2012). Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Random House.
• Meadows, D.H. (2008). Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Chelsea Green.

Additional readings (making up for lack of attendance and better comprehension)
+. Jackson, M.C. (2024S) Critical Systems Thinking: A Practitioner's Guide, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781394203604
+. Rockefeller Philantropy Advisors, Systems thinking for impact investing. A primer https://www.rockpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Systems-Thinking-for-Impact-Investing-Primer.pdf
+. R.L. Ackoff, Idealized design: Creative corporate visioning, Omega, Volume 21, Issue 4, 1993, Pages 401-410, ISSN 0305-0483, https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-0483(93)90073-T .

The credit courses are met by taking part into 6 hours of class work and approximately 8 hours of outside work (reading, studying, assignments, team projects) each week for the duration of the term.

Attendance is crucial from a pedagogical standpoint: the course will follow a "flipped classroom" approach. Materials will be distributed in advance; chapters and articles must be read before each class. The instructor will provide study guides and supporting materials to enable students to actively participate in the development of the learning experience. Regular and punctual attendance (late arrivals and early departures are not permitted) will entitle the student to 5 points. For students who are unable to attend classes, the mandatory readings for the exam are specified in the "exam texts" section. The exam consists of a 20-question multiple choice test (penalty of 0.25 for incorrect answers) to be completed in 25 minutes, and two open-ended questions (each graded from 0 to a maximum of 5 points).

*In-class participation: students will gain up to 5 points based on their individual participation to in-class discussion. Participation will be assessed as follows:
Outstanding (5 points): frequent participation, substantive insights, visibile and outstanding effort in the preparation of the material in advance;
Good: (3 points) : active participation, good preparation for in-class discussion
Adequate (2 points): Participation to some in-class discussions, occasional preparation for in-class discussion
Unsatisfactory (1 point): the student participated to some in-class discussion, no substantive insights were given, the contributions were negligible, scarce or absent preparation for in-classe discussion.
Non participant (0): no contribution to in-class discussion

*2 reflective journal entries (6 points)
Students will be asked to deliver a self-reflective journal entry in the form of a short video whose prompt and instructions will be given in the class Moodle. The two tasks will be required in week 1 and 5.

*Team project (6 points)
The class will be divided in teams. Teams will work on a project aimed at mapping a system and imagining how it might react if an intervention was made. The team projects will consist of a 10 minutes professional presentation and a parallel report.

*Final exam (7 points):
A 25 minute test on the contents of the course, 15 multiple choice questions.

written and oral

The instructor is responsible for ensuring the authenticity and originality of all examinations and coursework. In cases of suspected academic misconduct, an additional on-site assessment may be required during the exams, which may differ from the standard format.

28-30L: Mastery of the topics; ability to prioritize information; use of appropriate technical terminology.
26-27: Good knowledge of the topics covered in the exam, decent ability to organize and present information orally; familiarity with technical terminology.
24-25: Knowledge of the topics not always in-depth; organized oral presentation, but with occasional misuse of technical terminology.
22-23: Often superficial knowledge of the topics; unclear oral presentation and lacking in technical terminology.
18-21: Poor knowledge of the topics; confused oral presentation, with little use of technical terminology.

Lectures, flipped classroom, individual and team projects, case studies and exercises.

For non attending students:
reading of the required texts and the additional texts that make up for the lack of practical in-class activity.

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Natural capital and environmental quality" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development