BUU22510 Organisational Behaviour

(5 ECTS)

Lecturer:

Dr Steven Kilroy

Phone: 01 896 1784
E-mail: kilroyst@tcd.ie 
Office Hours: By appointment only
Module Tutor: To be decided

Pre-Requisite: 

BUU11510 - Fundamentals of Management & Organisation

Module Description:

Organisations of one form or another play an important part of society and serve many important needs. They vary greatly in size, complexity and the activities they undertake. To achieve organisational goals people working in organisations have to be managed. This requires understanding the behaviour of the individual in the workplace. The module explores three key areas. Firstly, the factors that influence individuals such as personality, attitudes, perception, motivation, learning, communication and job satisfaction. Secondly, the factors that influence the nature of groups and teams and the importance of leadership. Thirdly, the module explores the nature of organisations by analysing issues such as goals, structure, design, control, culture and development.

Teaching Approach:

All students must take an active role in achieving the learning outcomes by engaging with the module in at least three ways: preparing for lectures by critically engaging with the recommended readings; punctual and actively present at all lectures and tutorials by responding to critical questions and participating in peer discussions; and presenting your written work in a structured and precise manner. 

The module is taught through a plenary lecture complemented with tutorials. The plenary lectures and tutorials provide the opportunity for the students to move from a level of knowing about the theories and concepts, through their reading the recommended core text book and suggested readings, to building a comprehensive framework of OB for application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. 

Individual requirements: I invite students with individual requirements related to this module to contact me in confidence as early as possible to discuss ways of dealing with any potential difficulties.

Any student not attending lectures for the whole module (e.g., visiting students; TCD students planning to leave for part of the semester) must make contact via email to discuss any special arrangements that may be required.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the module the student will:

1. Understand a range of psychological factors that influence the behaviour of individuals in organisations such as personality, perception, communication, motivation and learning.
2. Understand a range of factors that influence the behaviour and development of groups and teams in organisations and be aware of the nature of leadership.
3. Understand the nature and complexity of organisations by exploring issues such as goals, strategy, structure, design, control and development.
4. Apply scientific theories and research to analyze organisational, team, and individual performance.
5. Possess an awareness of the changes that continually impact on individuals and groups and influence the nature of organisations.
6. Demonstrate by using examples how HR practices can influence social capital and individual, team, and organisational performance.
7. Understand the internal dynamics of organizations including issues such as power and politics, decision making, and ethical/corporate social responsibility

Recommended Texts/Key Reading:

▪ Bratton, J. (2015). Introduction to Work and Organisational Behaviour (3rd Edition). London: Palgrave

General Supplemental Readings: 

Additional literature Additional readings for each lecture will be provided. However, if you are interested in reading further material and you are interested in specific academic discussions of the topics that we cover in class, you can have a look at the following academic journals, which publish up-to-date academic studies and articles on topics around Organisational Behaviour. Please ask me if you have any questions about this. This is a list of journals that might be of interest:

Journal of Organizational Behavior (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291099-1379)

Organization Science (http://pubsonline.informs.org/journal/orsc)

Personnel Psychology (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291744-6570)

Information and Organization (Information and Organization | All Journal Issues | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier)

Leadership Quarterly (Open Access Articles - The Leadership Quarterly - Journal - Elsevier)

Human Resource Management Journal (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291748-8583)

Human Resource Management (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291099-050X)

Human Relations (http://hum.sagepub.com/)

Work, Employment and Society (http://wes.sagepub.com/)

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/20448325)

Journal of Applied Psychology (https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/apl/)

Additional Articles not covered in book

Brennecke, J., and Stoemmer, N. (2018). The Network-Performance Relationship in Knowledge-Intensive Contexts-A Meta-Analysis and Cross-Level Comparison. Human Resource Management, 57(1), pp. 11-36.

Cunningham, I. (2002). Developing human and social capital in organisations. Industrial and Commercial Training, 34(3), pp.89-94.

Morgan, P. (2005). Structural vs. relational embeddedness: social capital and managerial performance. Strategic Management Journal, 26(12), pp. 1129-1151.

Assessment and Examination:

The evaluation for this module is based on continuous assessment.

Individual Multiple Choice Exam (MCQ). Exam will take place on campus in exams week when the course is over. The exam is worth 50% of the overall module score.

Group based report: This involves an assignment whereby groups (approx 5 students per group) have to answer questions from two separate case studies. The group based report assignment is worth 50% of the overall module score (25% for each case study). *Please note that the groups will be allocated by the lecturer at the beginning of the course.