PED-328M - Microfinance in Theory and Practice

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide financial services to the poor. Financial services include credit, savings, and insurance. The definition of who is poor varies by country and region, but largely includes those who work within the informal economy in developing countries. This course introduces students to the practices of MFIs in a variety of different developing countries, including India, Mexico, Bolivia, Samoa, and Haiti. It identifies the wide varieties of practices and governance structures of these organizations and the issues they confront. The course focuses on three major issues: the impact of microfinance on the well-being of clients; the problems confronting managers of MFIs; and the funding and regulatory environment in which they operate. The course is taught through a mix of case discussion, lecturers, and visits from practitioners. Students who complete this course will have analyzed the various reasons for the existence of MFIs as well as the challenges MFI managers face.

STM-301 Operations Management

This course is an introduction to Operations Management. It teaches how to set up, maintain and reengineer the processes that organizations use to provide services of public value. The course uses the case method of instruction, drawing on cases primarily from the public and non-profit sectors, with some private sector cases where appropriate. It covers the following subjects: process flow, information technology, performance measurement, total quality management and program innovation. The course is process-oriented and encourages students to wrestle with the details of how to get things done. Despite this emphasis on details the course demonstrates the importance details have for the creation of public value by non-profit and government organizations. It is oriented towards the general manager or someone who is interested in operations and needs an introduction to the field.

Previously Taught Courses

STM-102 B Getting Things Done: Management in a Development Context

People in developing countries require service delivery from the government and civil society. Service delivery, which includes a wide variety of activities from education to regulatory enforcement, requires more than technical policy analysis. A critical driver of success is good management and governance, especially in the face of major resource constraints and in complex settings. Good management is often easy to recognize, when observed, but hard to practice. This course introduces students to critical concepts in organization theory, public management, and the practice of development to enable them to understand the individual, structural, and systemic underpinnings of good management and governance. Through theoretical readings, case study discussions, and simulations, students will apply theoretical concepts to real-world situations and, through simulations, experience the difficulty of managing. Building on analytical work from other courses, students will focus on such critical issues as corruption, participatory development, scaling up, social service delivery, and emergency response.

Community-Based Financial Institutions in Theory and Practice (CFI)

Community-based Financial Institutions (CFI’s) provide financial services, most often credit, to individuals without access to such services from other sources. They do so to promote the well-being of the community they serve. In this course, you will learn the best practices of successful organizations and confront the theoretical issues that inform those practices. The course confronts such issues as sustainability and clients’ gender, and connects them to such practices as product development and risk management. The course covers a variety of organizational structures (e.g. microfinance and savings associations). It is also international in its scope and examines the replicability of successful models across differing economies. I teach the course through the discussion of cases, readings, and practitioner lectures. In addition to future CFI managers, the course is designed for future funders and policy-makers in foundations, government and international agencies, and those wishing to examine alternative forms of economic development.