Bachelor of Management Studies (B.M.S.) Crisis Leadership Lessons From the Disasters Syllabus - Mumbai University
This is the TY BMS syllabus under NEP 2020, in force from the academic year 2026-27, examined under form 2225161. The University still sets the earlier Choice Based papers alongside it — forms 2M00155 and 2M00156, whose documents are below — so check which scheme your exam form names before you revise.
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Syllabus for Crisis Leadership Lessons from the Disasters
Module I: The Anatomy of Failure & Pre-Emptive Leadership
- The "Black Swan" & The Ignorance Gap: Understanding low-probability, high- impact events (Nassim Taleb’s theory), reasons for leader’s ignorance.
- The "Swiss Cheese" Model of Failure: Flaws or types Holes in system, Types of slices and applications, Identifying Active Failures vs. Latent Conditions
- The Psychology of Disaster: Overconfidence, Groupthink, and Normalcy Bias, causes for leaders trap, difference between proactive CEO and a reactive one
- Environmental Scanning & Preparedness Gap: Case study of 26/11 Mumbai Attacks Role of leaders in identifying "weak signals" and the failure of intelligence coordination, Culture of Readiness, the role of Simulation and Stress-Testing.
Module II: The Command Center – Response & Moral Courage
- High-Stakes Decision Making: Cognitive Tunnelling, Rational Command Model V/S The "Recognition-Primed Decision" (RPD) model, Strategies to Lower Cognitive Load
- The Captain’s Burden & Communication Protocols: Leading with empathy, presence, and personal sacrifice, ‘Truth First’ Protocol: Success Case (Johnson & Johnson Tylenol Case) Failure case: (Union Carbide-Bhopal), Case Studies.
- Stakeholder Triage: Managing the "Hierarchy of Needs" during a disaster, 1) Employees Safety 2) Customers Transparency, 3) Shareholders Recovery.
- Post-Traumatic Organizational Growth: The Phoenix Effect, organisational Organizational Resilience, Various remedies, recalls to reinvent their quality standards, Policy evolution
Reference Books
- Chakraborty, S. K., & Chakraborty, D. (2008). Leadership and management: A spiritual approach. Oxford University Press
- Benoit, W. L. (2014). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration strategies (2nd ed.). State University of New York Press.
- Klein, G. (2017). Sources of power: How people make decisions. MIT Press. (Original work published 1998).
- Reason, J. (1990). Human error. Cambridge University Press. (The foundational text for the Swiss Cheese Model).
- Taleb, N. N. (2007). The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable. Random House.
Reproduced from the University of Mumbai syllabus for Bachelor of Management Studies (B.M.S.) under NEP 2020, in force from the academic year 2026-27. Wording is as printed in that syllabus. Module numbering is as printed there too.
The complete syllabus
This subject is cut from the University circular for its year. Open a document here if you want the whole thing rather than a single subject.