KEMI 2EN09 - Corporate culture as a lever for transformation: tools and methods

Companies, through their products and services, shape the lives of people. But, often unintentionally, they also contribute to worsening societal and environmental issues. To adapt to a changing world, organizations roll out transformation plans and strategies one after another. And yet, time and again, they revert to old patterns, leaving frustration, exhaustion, and misunderstanding in their wake. Why do organizations that we transform often return to their original form? It's because we, as humans, don’t always do what we’re told. We do what makes sense to us. What guides human action is a matrix of meaning that doesn’t explicitly tell us what to do, but from which we still understand how to act. This invisible force is corporate culture. To influence culture, we must first understand it and recognize the role we play within it. Through hands-on practice and real-world cases shared by professionals, this course equips students with sociological tools and methodologies to drive meaningful, lasting change, big and small, in any type of organization: associations, local communities, start-ups, and large corporations.

Real-World Organizational Analysis and Transformation. For the evaluation, students will engage directly with a partner organization, offering a hands-on opportunity to apply course concepts in a real-world context. Through interviews and interactions with key stakeholders within the organization, students will map out its stakeholder ecosystem and identify the pressures impacting each group. Based on their findings, students will develop actionable transformation projects designed to enhance the organization’s performance, resilience, or robustness in the face of environmental challenges, climate imperatives, and evolving perceptions of work.