Master of Science in Positive Organization Development and Change

Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management

The Weatherhead Master of Science in Positive Organization Development & Change (MPOD) empowers experienced professionals to affect positive change in diverse spheres of influence. Our program emphasizes a strategic focus on relational and human factors — balancing economic well-being, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability.

The MPOD curriculum attempts to remain on the cutting edge of change management, leadership development, organizational transformation, and societal benefit. OD curriculum draws from strength-based approaches such as appreciative inquiry, emotionally & socially intelligent leadership, and sustainable enterprises. MPOD uses experiential learning and action research methods wrapped in an intensive, applied, and highly interactive residency-based, cohort design.

Is This Program Right for Me?

The MPOD degree enables professionals to create a better world by developing human potential with strength-based methods of inquiry, design and change management. The field of organization development has seen priorities shift radically within the last 25 years. Customer service, productivity and the bottom line are no longer the only benchmarks of business success.

The MPOD curriculum recognizes that today’s leaders must embrace technology, globalization, accelerated change, distributed organizing and social entrepreneurship. Even in the day-to-day workplace, new elements are in play; success at a personal as well as an organizational level means balancing technical, relational and human factors. That is why we teach principles of visionary leadership, transformative cooperation, and diversity at work as essential to functioning multicultural and global networks.

Consider the MPOD if you want to:

learn how to align organizational strengths and make weaknesses irrelevant.
understand the difference between outstanding leaders and those that are not.
achieve economic well-being by doing what is right environmentally and socially to create sustainable value.
learn how to intervene at strategic levels.

Upon completion of the program, you will:

build new capabilities in strategic-level change management for value creation with customers and communities.
broaden your knowledge of leading-edge theory and practice in Appreciative Inquiry, strength-based human resource development, and positive organizational change research.
develop the Emotional Intelligence to foster leadership skills and personal character in yourself and others through coaching.
learn to form extraordinary groups and organizations-sustainable value that prosper economically respect ecology, allow people to flourish, and help unite market strengths with universal well-being.
engage in lifelong experiential learning to become an agent for change.