General information

  

Prof. Baruch Shimoni: Founder and Head of the Organization Consulting Program

 

 

The complexity of contemporary organizational reality in Israel and elsewhere has emphasized the importance of organizational research in and organizational consulting. Organizations facing heightened competitive pressures and a sense of continuous struggle for survival turn to organizational consultants in order to advance their management abilities and skills and to improve their performance.

 

Based on this development, the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University decided to open a graduate program (without a thesis) in sociology and anthropology with a specialization in organizational consulting. The curriculum is designed to broaden and deepen students’ knowledge of sociology and anthropology with an emphasis on the contributions of sociological and anthropological thinking to furthering the understanding of contemporary organizational realities, economic and corporate aspects of globalization, labor market structures and developments, institutional dimensions of contemporary business environments, and other related issues. The program offers students both theoretical and practical resources to understand complex organizations and to offer consulting to a wide range of organizations: Hi-Tech and Low-Tech, public and private, profit and non-profit.

 

The program combines advanced theoretical courses in the field of sociology and anthropology with courses in organization studies and with practical workshops in organizational consulting. Thecourses are taught by lecturers from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and by experienced instructors and consultants. We believe that courses such as “Sociological Theory” and “Sociological Perspectives on Israeli Society” along with methodological courses offer the future consultants a sophisticated perspective of the society, institutional environment, and labor market in which they will operate. These courses, along with the organization studies courses and the group workshops aim to develop students’ independent abilities to analyze organizational processes, social structures, and cultures as professional organizational consultants

 

The program's goal is to provide students with theoretical and intellectual infrastructure in various fields of sociology and anthropology, along with practical tools for organizational consulting and for a wide range of roles related to organizations, such as management, training, group facilitation and human resource management.