Student Services

This course is intended to sharpen students' skills in the art of relating successfully to other individuals and groups. The course uses an intensive group experience to make students more aware of how their actions affect others, more capable of giving and receiving interpersonal feedback, and more cognizant of processes through which groups work. Several Saturday classes.

This course studies organizational analysis through appreciative inquiry. It explores multiple frame works for understanding the complexity of organizational life. Students form teams and conduct appreciative studies across industries. This course also addresses questions of organizational change (how to move from theory/ideal to practice). Learning is experiential in nature.

This course focuses on change as an inescapable fact for organizations and societies of the present and future. Given the existence of such change, how may individuals charged with managing or facilitating an organization's response to change deal with their task, and what conceptual or technical tools will help them cope with the challenges of the unpredictable? The course examines social and organizational change to provide a base for considering the future and the demands it is likely to pose. Strategies and tactics used in organizational and social developments in the past are critically examined for their relevance to the future.

This course explores answers to questions such as: Who are leaders? Are they different than managers, heroes and heroines? How do the effective ones think and act? What situations create leaders, foster their emergence or provide opportunities? What makes us want to follow them? What are the personal pits of being a leader (i.e., sex, drugs, alcohol, insomnia, ulcers, etc.)? How are leaders developed? Case studies, self-study and at-work projects will be the primary methods used in the course.

This course addresses important leadership and management issues concerning women in organizations. The course provides complex understandings of issues pertinent to professional women and work such as sex role typing, sex-based discrimination, equal pay, sexual harassment, work-family balance, women's leadership and women's career issues and development. The course helps students increase self-knowledge about their own values and practices as well as enhance their capabilities as leaders and managers. We will examine the opportunities, challenges, trade-offs, and organizational dynamics experienced by women in work settings, as well as the interpersonal, organizational, and societal structures and processes impacting women in organizations. Through a variety of course methods, students gain greater awareness of the gendered nature of work and organizations and learn effective strategies for women's career progress and effective participation in organizations.

This course will attempt to develop leadership values and competencies in Organization (OD) within the global arena. Objectives for the course include: (1) developing an executive view of the state of the world; (2) building skills in appreciative inquiry for researching best practices of organizations to maintain sustainable economic development; (3) learning how to build organizational capacities for responding to the global agenda for change; and (4) developing a global consciousness to a larger set of global values to provide a vision for a better world and the potentials of our organizations to assist in realizing such a vision.

This course addresses workforce diversity issues from individual, group, and organizational perspectives. The focus is on innovative ways of utilizing today's culturally expanding workforce. Emphasis is on the "what and how" for managers in developing a corporate culture that embraces diversity, helping them in learning to work with, supervise and tap the talent of diverse employees within their organizations. Included are methods for modifying systems to attract, retain, develop, and capitalize on benefits of the new workforce demographics. A retreat experience is part of this course and is required of all participants.

The course examines why and how employees join or do not join unions; the processes of certifying and decertifying unions; alternative strategies used by management in dealing with unions; and models of union-management cooperation in traditional manufacturing, transportation, and service industries. The course is focused on U.S. managerial practice, but public policies and practices among selected major trading partners are also considered briefly. Ordinarily an all-day collective bargaining simulation is part of the course. Students enrolling in the 2.0 credit version of the course develop an independent reading assignment on grievance arbitration and attend and analyze a live grievance arbitration hearing.

The effective motivation and management of human resources within the enterprise is treated in this course with special emphasis on the integration of Human Resources strategy into the overall competitive strategy of the enterprise. Implications of the inevitable conflict of goals and interests among organization members are considered, covering such areas as hiring, performance appraisal, labor-management relations, employee rights, pay systems, grievance systems, and worker participation.

This course examines how entrepreneurial firms can develop human resource practices and strategies to sustain their vision, grow their businesses, and create value for customers, shareholders, and employees. The first half of the course will be devoted to exploring the distinctive challenges entrepreneurial firms encounter in aligning organizational goals and human resource strategy and practices. Among those practices are staffing, recruitment and selection, compensation,and employee motivation. The second half of the course willexplore these issues further in the context of key organizational phases ranging from firm foundings, the transition from entrepreneurial to professional management, the development of "intrepreneurship" in existing organizations, and the spin-off of the new corporate ventures.

This course examines the unique challenges of managing Human Resources globally. Particular emphasis is on cultural and other contextual differences, and their influence on other HR practices such as selection, training, performance management, compensation, and union relations. The course establishes a conceptual foundation in cross-cultural cognitive and behavioral differences. Heavy emphasis is on case analysis. Students enrolling in the 2.0 credit version of the course will select a particular region or country (other than the one where they hold citizenship) and develop an independent analysis of particular advantages and challenges facing the human resource manager assigned to this country or region. The instructor may approve alternative projects. There is no formal prerequisite, but it is recommended that students have either completed, or are taking concurrently, the Human Values in Organizations course (MBAC 413 or MGMT 413) or LHRP 421.