Certificate in Institutions and Organizations
The Division of Applied Social Sciences offers a Graduate Certificate in the Economics and Sociology of Institutions and Organizations. The certificate can be part of a graduate degree program at the University of Missouri or a stand-alone program for someone who has previously earned or is pursuing a graduate degree elsewhere. A University of Missouri certificate is a set of courses that demonstrates proficiency in a particular subject matter.
The Graduate Certificate in the Economics and Sociology of Institutions and Organizations features rigorous, multidisciplinary, research-oriented training in the analysis of formal and informal rules, private and public organizations, and other forms of social, cultural, political, and commercial institutions. The Program faculty are active contributors to the New Institutional Economics and the New Institutional Sociology and maintain close ties to scholars such as Nobel Laureates Ronald Coase, Douglass North, Oliver Williamson, and Elinor Ostrom. The Certificate complements the research, teaching, and outreach activities of the Division and research centers such as the Contracting and Organizations Research Institute, Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership, and McQuinn Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.
Institutions are the "rules of the game" that shape human interaction and consist of both formal rules (e.g., legal-contractual) and informal structures (norms, values, and beliefs). Organizations are the concrete, humanly devised entities in which people interact and pursue goals, ranging from families to private and nonprofit firms and public agencies. Both sociologists and economists study institutions and organizations but with different theories, methods, assumptions, and constructs. While these are usually viewed as competing perspectives, the Certificate Program emphasizes the common foundations of institutional analysis across academic disciplines including economics, sociology, political science, psychology, anthropology, geography, and law, as well as the ways that multidisciplinary perspectives can inform each other.
Program Structure
The Certificate Program involves two required courses, RS 7335, "Social Change and Trends," and AE 8050, "Economics of Institutions and Organizations," both of which are offered in the Fall. Students in the Program also take any three of the following:
- RS 7446: Community Social Structure
- AE 7972: Agrifood Business and Cooperative Management
- AE 8430: International Agricultural Development Policy
- RS 8447: Sociology of Consumption and Consumerism
- AE 8520: Economics of Transactions and Contracting
- AE/RS 8610: Collective Action from Sociological and Economic Perspectives
- RS 9480: Community Survey Research
- AE 9510: Theory of the Agribusiness Firm
Students will also participate, and present their work, in the bi-weekly Workshop on Institutions and Organizations. The Workshop, modeled on Indiana University's Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, offers students an opportunity to interact with visiting researchers and guest speakers, to review and critique each other's work, and to assimilate the program content in a "capstone" experience.
Program Faculty
- Fabio Chaddad (contracting, organization and governance of the agrifood industry)
- Michael Cook (agricultural cooperatives, collective entrepreneurship case study methods)
- Jere Gilles (institutional and organizational issues in transition economies)
- Mary Grigsby (institutional issues of consumption and rural lifestyles, qualitative methodology)
- Harvey James (social capital, organizational economics, business ethics)
- Peter Klein organizational economics, entrepreneurship, strategic management)
- Laura McCann (transaction cost measurement, environmental and natural resource economics)
- David O'Brien (survey research, social bases of transition economies)
- Michael Sykuta (new institutional economics, contracting and organization, political economy)
- Randall Westgren (entrepreneurship, research methodology)
How to Apply
Instructions and form are provided by the Graduate School. Please contact David O'Brien with questions.