BUU44520 Exploring Organisational Experiences 2025/26

(20 ECTS) 

Lecturer:

Prof David Coghlan

E-mail: dcoghlan@tcd.ie 
Office Hours: By appointment

Module Description

This module takes an “inquiry from the inside” approach and teaches students to research their experience of working in an organisation and how they seek to understand and to form critical judgements about what goes on in that organisation. This course flags an advanced management competence.

Learning and Teaching Approach

Individual critical inquiry into experience, reflection and group discussions

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module each student will have learned:

• To attend to their direct experiences in an organisation.
• By means of a general empirical method to inquire critically into their experiences so as to come to an understanding of that organisation’s action theory.
• To reflect on learning from experience.

Relation to Degree

Workload

Recommended Texts/Key Reading

Required core course textbook:

Coghlan, David. Inside Organizations. SAGE: London, 2016.

General Supplemental Readings:

Provided during the course

Student preparation for the module

It is a requirement that students have a direct experience of working in an organisation 

Assessment

Assessment will be based on a series of assignments:

• Paper 1 to be submitted at the end of Semester 1 [20%].
• Paper 2 to be submitted late in Semester 2 [35%].
• Paper 3 to be submitted at the end of the course [15%]
• Participation [30%] for the journal/reflective notebook which will be submitted and inspected regularly and participation at seminars.

Biographical Note 

David Coghlan is Professor Emeritus at the Trinity Business School, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and is a Fellow Emeritus of the College. He specializes organization development and action research and participates actively in the both communities internationally. He has published over 300 articles and book chapters. He is author/editor of 18 books, of which include Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization (5^th ed, Sage, 2019) is an international best-seller. Other books include: Collaborative Inquiry for Organization Development and Change (Edward Elgar, 2021), Conducting Action Research for Business and Management Students (Sage, 2018), Inside Organizations (Sage, 2016) Organization Change and Strategy (Routledge, 2016) and Collaborative Strategic Improvement through Network Action Learning (Edward Elgar, 2011). His most recent book is: Edgar H. Schein: The Artistry of a Reflexive Organizational Scholar Practitioner (Routledge, 2024). He is co-editor of Handbook of Research Methods in Organizational Change (Edward Elgar, 2023), The Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research and of the 4 volume sets, Fundamentals of Organization Development (SAGE, 2010) and Action Research in Business and Management (Sage, 2016). He is a member of the editorial advisory board of several journals, including Action Research, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Action Learning: Research and Practice, Systemic Practice and Action Research and Organization Development Review. In 2021 the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management awarded him and his co-author A.B. (Rami) Shani the Pasmore-Woodman prize which is given annually to two or more colleagues who, over a sustained period of time, have managed to maintain a significant working relationship and have produced original and innovative research in the field of orgaizational change and development.