BOSTON COLLEGE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
Organizational Behavior-Honors
Spring 2002
Instructor's Name: Dr. Judy Clair
Office: 433 Fulton
Phone: Schl: (617) 552-0451 Hm: (617) 971-6046 (calls
until 9pm)
E-Mail:
Office Hours: Tues., 1:30-2:30 p.m., Thurs., 12:00-1:00 p.m. or by appt.
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Course Focus
Most of you will spend the majority of your adult life working in organizations. Within these organizations, you will bring functional skills to bear. Your success and happiness will be significantly influenced by how well you implement these skills. However, your success and happiness will also be influenced by how you manage yourself and relationships with others. And, if you ascend to a leadership position you will also need to learn to effectively manage organizational structures and systems. With this assumption in mind, in this class, we will focus on the interpersonal and group processes within an organization rather than the functional tasks of organizational members and identify more and less effective ways of behaving. We will also learn about organizational systems that guide behaviors and influence individual and organizational effectiveness. Our strategy will be to explore how to use theory to analyze our own and others’ behavior in organizations and to then translate that insight into action. Throughout this class we will strive to be analytical and rigorous about behavior in organizations. We will seek to question our own assumptions and what “everyone already knows.” We will strive to rigorously analyze concrete data, consciously weigh this data against our own intuitions and understandings, and use these processes as a basis for effective action.
Goals
I will attempt to assist students in achieving the following objectives:
* To learn terms and facts related to the study of OB so that students can intelligently communicate about and understand individual, group, and organizational management processes;
* To examine your own behavior in organizations and in general and identify and implement more effective practices in your own behavior.
* To be able to apply multiple theories of behavior to real and hypothetical situations, to both analyze the situations and create and execute effective action for the situations; and,
* To improve a capacity for effective written and oral communication, public speaking, group interactions, and argumentation so that students are perceived (and see themselves) as effective and talented.
I will seek to give students opportunities to participate in class, make decisions, achieve personal accomplishment goals, and learn in a non-threatening, non-judgmental class environment. In addition, it is my belief that students need to undertake self-responsibility and self-leadership in creating personal successes in this course. This means that each student shares responsibility with the professor for ensuring that he or she can succeed to his or her fullest potential in the class. As a most important step in this direction, please plan to inform me about challenges and barriers that you may be facing in succeeding in the course, and perhaps some recommendations for ways to overcome them.
My obligation to the students in this class is to make the material as understandable, interesting, and relevant as possible. In combination with the written materials for this course, I will do this by using lectures, examples from my own experiences as a member of or consultant to business organizations, cases, experiential exercises, guest speakers, and applied readings.
Course Materials
Robbins, Stephen P. Essentials of Organizational Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Required. Available for purchase in the BC bookstore. (symbolized by "R" in assignment portion of syllabus).
Course Reading Packet. Required. Available for purchase in the BC bookstore. (symbolized by “P” in assignment portion of syllabus).
In Class Handouts. You will also be given some readings and other assignments in class. (symbolized by “ICH” in assignment portion of syllabus).
Sometimes pre-class assignments or readings may require that you visit particular websites or view videos.
Student Responsibilities
Student requirements include the following items:
Requirement % Weight Toward Points Toward
Final Grade Final Grade
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Midterm 20% 200 pts.
Final 25% 250 pts.
Personal Exper. 20% 200 pts.
Group Work 20% 200 pts.
Class 15% 150 pts.
Involvement
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100% 1000 pts.
Midterm and Final. I will provide you with information on your midterm and final several weeks in advance.
Personal Experiments. You will complete a personal experiment over the course of the semester. The personal experiment consists of identifying an aspect of your own behavior where there is an opportunity to be more effective and conducting an experiment to improve your own effectiveness. The personal experiment culminates in a paper. In the Class Schedule part of the syllabus I identify the deadlines for the personal experiment proposals and the final paper. There are two times over the course of the semester that you can complete your personal experiment. You may choose to focus your personal experiment on the concepts we discuss at the “individual level.” Or, you may choose to focus your personal experiment on the concepts we discuss at the “group level.” The deadlines for these two different areas of focus are different – make sure to check the Class Schedule part of the syllabus.
The topics of your personal experiment should be some area of your life where you are having some sort of difficulty or you feel that there is an opportunity to be more effective than you currently are in working with others. Relationships with roommates, significant others, parents, siblings, or peers; and organizations such as clubs, teams, and classes can all be fertile ground for topics. Good opportunities for personal experiments come up in repeated situations where you feel stuck, situations where your current repertoire of ideas and behavior just aren’t getting you the results you want.
The personal experiment culminates in a paper. The paper should be roughly five pages long. The paper should include:
Plan: 1) a description of the aspect of your own behavior that could be more effective and why it is a problem or opportunity for improvement;
2) statement of the relevant academic theory (and the source of that
theory) and an analysis of the problem/opportunity using the theory (i.e., what does the theory say about why this is a problem/opportunity? what does the theory suggest about what should be changed? what does the theory suggest about how change might be implemented?);
3) a plan for how you will attempt to make your behavior more effective based upon your analysis. This should include concrete, detailed actions that you will execute;
Results: 4) a description of the concrete, detailed results of what happened
when you attempted the new behavior;
5) reflections on what the results of the experiment mean to you.
The personal experiment paper tells a story of a process. The story starts with identifying a problem or opportunity for improvement. There is specific, detailed illustration that shows the behavior and an explanation of why it is a problem. Then, theory is introduced and explained. The theory is then applied to the problem and provides a new way of thinking about the problem and understanding the behavior. From this new way of seeing the problem, a way to solve the problem or improve the behavior is suggested. This approach is translated into a specific detailed plan of action for the experiment. The plan is carried out and the results are reported, illustrated with specific, concrete details. The results are analyzed with the theory and assessed as to how effective the approach proved to be. The reflection then broadens the questions of why the approach worked or didn’t work. What does this tell us about the theory? Were there general lessons that might apply to other aspects of the experimenter’s behavior? Were there deeper issues revealed? How will the results of this experiment affect the experimenter’s future actions?
An example of a personal experiment paper might center on a recurring problem with a roommate. The first section would explain how your own behavior is part of the problem. For instance, you and your roommate consistently both get up just in time for an early class and there is always a race for the shower. Rather than address this head on, you have adopted a strategy of turning off your roommate’s alarm clock. You think that there might be a better way of handling the problem. In the second section you state a model of communication and apply it to your own behavior, uncovering your own frames and untested inferences and showing how they contribute to the problem. In the third section you lay out your plan for testing your inferences and communicating more effectively with your roommate. In the fourth section you describe what happened when you tried your plan in terms of the theory. In the fifth section you reflect on what this has meant to you. For example, you have learned that you have made many inferences about your roommate that are not true and this suggests to you that there are many other areas in your life where you might also be making and acting on untested ( and possibly untrue) inferences.
The personal experiment will be completed in three stages. First, you must submit a proposal for your personal experiment. In this proposal, please discuss (a) the problem or opportunity for change that you are planning to address; (b) the relevant theory that provides you with some ideas about what is causing the situation and/or how to intervene into the problem or the situation; and (c) how you intend to approach the experiment (in other words, what you intend to do for your experiment) and how this approach is linked to the theory identified in (b). You will be provided with feedback on your proposal to improve your final paper. The proposal is not graded. However, the proposal is subject to the late paper policy set out for this class. So, your final paper grade will be reduced by 5% for every day that the proposal is late. The final paper will not receive credit if a student fails to turn in a proposal.
Next, you will carry out your experiment. Finally, you will write up your final results in a paper which includes the contents of your proposal (a)-(c) above, but then also discusses the results of the experiment, and reflects on effectiveness of the experiment and lessons learned. You may choose to change/alter the contents of the proposal in the final draft.
The final paper will be graded on:
Problem/Opportunity Statement: Grounded in concrete data. Why it’s a problem/opportunity for improvement.
Relevant Theory: Clear statement of theory. Academic reference/support
for the theory. How theory applies to problem.
Approach for Experiment/Prescription: Prescription linked to theory. Is
this realistic?
Results of the Experiment: Concrete description. Relating results to theory.
Reflection : Assessment of effectiveness. Balanced approach recognizing what went right and what could have been done differently. Personal relevance of results. Lessons learned.
Communication: Clear and concise.
Group Presentation. The goal of this assignment is to further our collective insight into important OB issues or topics facing organizations and employees today. These are the issues that are likely to shape your experiences as a member of an organization in the near future. Your group’s charter will be, first, to read one of a select number of books that address OB related topics, and then, to “teach” the class about the core concepts and important ideas presented in the book. Your presentation should not be a summary of the book. Rather, they should (1) critically analyze the book and (2) teach the class central and/or important concepts appearing in the book.
To fulfill the requirements of this assignment, your will need to do the following:
a) Form a group with other students in the class. The size of the group to be formed will be announced at the outset of the semester. You must form a group by 1/24. On this day, you will submit the names of members of your group. If you do not belong to a group at this time, you will be assigned to one.
b) On 1/24 we will randomly select your group’s presentation times. At that time you will have some moments to meet with your group to rank order among the choices for the day (from 1-3). I will attempt to give your group its first choice preference. However, in the case that two groups choose a particular book as their first choice, I will assign this choice to a group through a random process. The group not receiving their first choice will be assigned their next ranked choice, etc. You are welcome to negotiate with other groups to switch books/presentation dates after they are assigned. However, such a change must be fully supported by each group. Please inform me if you have switched as soon as possible.
c) Purchase and read the book. The books I’ve chosen should be available in most major book stores or through Amazon.com (or other on-line book retailers). Use the following questions as a guide for thinking about the book you’ve read and planning what you’ll present to the class:
* What are the important and/or significant themes in the book?
* What are the problems and/or opportunities discussed for organizations? for employees? for the community? for other key stakeholders?