On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

1. Interpret key influences and perspectives on the management of organisations to conceive important questions  in relation to the management of organisations

2. Analyse the relationship between individual experience and organisational behaviour

3.  Explain the implications of a different theoretical perspectives for organisational dynamics and the role and challenges of management

The core text for this course is:

Wood, J., Zeffane, R., Fromholtz, M., Wiesner, R., Morrison, R. and Seet, PS (2013), Organisational Behaviour: Core Concepts and Applications, 3rd Australian edition, Wiley, Brisbane.

There are a number of other relevant textbooks available in the library and you have access to numerous resources in the library including scholarly journals and alternative contemporary texts on management. You are encouraged to read widely and critically with a focus on refereed academic journals.

In addition the Communication Skills Guide (see Communication Skills Guide) and The University of Adelaide Writing Centre web page (see Writing Centre) are helpful resources for your academic writing and observance of the protocols and conventions of the Harvard referencing style. It is advisable to refer to more specialist sources, such as the suggested pre-readings for each class (listed below) available electronically online through electronic library databases.

Recommended Readings

A weekly reading schedule drawing from the core texts and other relevant materials will be recommended as the course progresses, including journal articles and various online materials.

At this level of study it is important to explore the topic areas beyond the core textbook readings. The seminar preparation includes some specific sources, including journal articles, which may be useful in preparing your written assignments. You should make use of the on-line and electronic databases and other information sources available in the main library. Familiarity with these information sources is important for searching the academic literature.

The course utilises MyUni as a communication tool and as the main means for coursework submission and feedback provision. Students should be actively scanning the MyUni course webpage regularly for PowerPoint slides, suggested links and additional readings, general course information, assessment details and seminar preparation exercises.

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements. The University expects students to commit approximately 108 hours of learning activities for each three-unit course. This is an intensive course and does require considerable preparation for teaching sessions and assessment tasks. Students are expected to read specified material to prepare for lectures AND fully prepare for tutorial activities. Weekly classes are 3 hours long and you can expect to spend about the same amount of time preparing for each class.
 
Assignments and exam preparation will demand additional concentrated periods of non-classroom study, on your own or with your allocated student group.  As a rough indication, you could expect to spend in the order of 120 hours of study time to complete the course, of which 36 hours would be in class.

7 Sept.    Topic 1: Organisational behaviour

14 Sept.  Topic 2: Managing or leading?

               Topic 3:  Workplace values and ethics

21 Sept. Topic 4: Emotion and organisations

28 Sept. Topic 5: Managing motivation

5 Oct.     Public Holiday

12 Oct.   Topic 6: learning

19 Oct.    Topic 7: Organisational culture

26 Oct.   Topic 8: Change, Innovation and creativity 

2 Nov.    Topic 9: Decision making, systems and performance management

9 Nov.    Topic 10: Power and influence

16 Nov.  Topic 11: Organisational structure

23 Nov.   Summary and Revision


Teaching schedule

This course is largely undertaken through face-to-face class sessions to facilitate interaction with staff and fellow students. Accordingly there is an expectation that you will attend all of the scheduled classes. If circumstances require you to be absent, please inform your course coordinator in in a timely fashion. It is your responsibility to make arrangements to catch up on seminar activities such as reading research articles, conducting case study analysis, self-reflection, watching video material etc.

TASK                 APPROACH        WEIGHTING     DUE DATE/       LEARNING OUTCOME
                                                                         TIMING

Critical               Individual         15%                5th Oct             LO 2 & 3
Review       

Written             Collaborative     25%                9th Nov            LO 1, 2 & 3
Report      
         

Learning            Individual          20%               20th Nov           LO 2
Log         
    

Examination       Individual         40%                TBA                   LO 1, 2 & 3

To gain a pass in this course, a mark of at least 40% must be obtained in the examination as well as an aggregate total for all assessments of at least 50% overall.  Students not achieving the minimum exam mark will be awarded an aggregate mark of no more than 49%.

Students who receive an aggregate course mark between 45% and 49% may be offered a supplementary examination. Your performance in the academic supplementary will determine whether you are awarded a Pass grade for the course with a maximum aggregate course mark of 50%. Please note that to be eligible for Additional Assessment (previously referred to as Supplementary
Examinations) in this course ALL required assessment tasks must be submitted.

Please note that if you have not attended at least 80% of the class sessions for a course you will forgo your right, on academic grounds, to any supplementary assessment opportunities.

A 10% of mark awarded per day late penalty will be applied to late submissions.

Individual: Critical Review (Due, weighting – 15%)

This activity is aimed at you becoming aware of and engaged with academic literature in the management discipline while developing the skills necessary to become a critical consumer of others’ work. Research published in most academic journals goes through a process of ‘blind review’, whereby a number of experts assess the merits (strengths and weaknesses) of a paper prior to the editor accepting it for publication. This process is generally “double blind” where neither the author(s) nor the referees know one another’s’ identity. For this assessment you are required to select and review an academic paper, providing a succinct and constructively critical review of its content. You can choose any scholarly paper for your analysis from the ‘some additional readings’ listed in the course timetable (see above). It is important for this assignment that you  understand how to effectively use library resources and you may also find the Academy of Management Journal (or other journals) website useful for generally understanding the review process.

The maximum length of your review is 750 words so you must think carefully about choosing your words while developing your meaning(s). You must note the use of a minimum of 3 quality references (reporting scholarly research) in the text of your review and detail these in a reference list using the Harvard referencing style (the reference list is not counted in your 750 word limit). Your review should have 3 sections comprising approximately 250 words each. The review you submit should use the following section headings with a word count at the end of each section.

Section 1: The Paper’s Theoretical Development and Contribution (250 words)

In this section you should constructively critique the theory development of the paper. Some questions that you may reflect on include:

·  How well does the paper summarise a matter of conjecture or debate in the relevant academic literature?

·  Does the paper provide an adequate summary of the literature to date? (Here, you might like to provide a couple of references to relevant and significant/influential papers that the authors have not included in their paper).

·  Does the paper bring together a new understanding of managerial phenomena that has not been put forward by other authors (i.e. is there something novel and original in the paper)?

Section 2: The Paper’s Development of Empirical Evidence (250 words)
The progression of science (including social sciences like management) is based upon the analysis of evidence. Good academic work will assemble and analyse evidence with great care. For the evidence to be useful it should have some wider applicability (eg. it could provide generalisable results) and the study should be able to be replicated by another researcher. You can choose a qualitative (case based) or quantitative (numbers based) paper, but a knowledge of statistics is not a pre-requirement for this course and critiquing statistical methodology should not become a major focus of your review. Some questions that you might reflect on for this section include:

·  If the paper is based on case evidence, is the case a useful one for this research? Is the case unusual in such a way that the evidence is highly specific to the case and not relevant elsewhere?

·  If the paper is based on quantitative data (for example from a survey) are you confident that the survey has been well administered and is representative of the population under analysis?

·  Have the researcher(s) taken care in assembling evidence? Are you confident that they have asked the right questions to the best respondents in the organisation/industry under investigation?

·  If the case is based on secondary data (for example, an analysis of newspaper articles, company records or other secondary materials) might there be some systematic biases present in the dataset (for example, SMEs are not as well reported as large firms)?

· Is the case study material or quantitative data analysed appropriately and well? Is the analysis something a journalist would do, or does it follow good academic processes?

Section 3: The Paper’s Contribution to Better Managerial Practice (250 words)

In this section, you should assess the importance and relevance of the paper’s contribution to the improvement of managerial practice. Some questions that you might reflect on for this section include:

· What contribution to better managerial practice and/or better organisational and social outcomes does the paper provide?

· What is interesting about the paper that is important for management, organisations and society?

You should support your analysis with appropriate references from such sources as academic articles, practitioner journals, employer association and contemporary management publications, demographic data and the course text. Unreferenced reports or those that do not include a minimum of three (3) refereed (scholarly) references will receive a grade of no more than 50%.






Group: Written Report (weighting 25%) length 2500 words (maximum)

Task: You are an employee in a medium sized service company based in the Adelaide CBD. Your manager has become
concerned that employee performance is not meeting expectations. She believes this may in part be related to existing organisation policy concerning accessing social media from the workplace. After hearing that several of her employees are enrolled in an organisational behaviour course, she has asked that, as a team, you undertake some research. The purpose is to find out what motivates different people to perform in the workplace and subsequently to make recommendations to your CEO on how performance might be improved through developing an appropriate organisation policy concerning accessing social media in the workplace.

You will form groups of (between 3 and 5) people before class 3 in order to complete these tasks: 

·  In your first 1-2 weeks as a group, develop a team charter outlining the team’s objectives, tasks, roles and responsibilities for each of the team members.

·  By undertaking a literature search, explore existing research published on what motivates different people to perform in the workplace. You should focus on what is diversity in the workplace, what is social media, how performance may be improved (or not) through different approaches to recognition and reward, and what importance different people attach to access to social media in the workplace. Your search should concentrate on journal articles from quality sources – a good starting point is Business Source Complete or any of the library’s business databases. Each team should collect a minimum of 10 quality research sources (this does not include student textbooks or unrefereed websites).

·  Review the literature and incorporate this in the final report (see below).

·  Develop a research question that will form the basis of your research (try to relate to an organisational behaviour concept/theory you have studied).

·  Demonstrate your development of a short survey (approximately 6 – 8 questions) taking into account the ideas gained from your search of the literature. Note the survey is aimed at collecting data (including demographic data) to answer the research question.

·  As a group, predict what responses your survey questions might yield from different people in the workplace (such as part/full time, younger/older employees, those with/without tertiary qualifications etc.) and justify your predictions with reference to relevant published research

·  Based on your predicted responses, recommend an appropriate organisation policy concerning accessing social media in the workplace from the perspective of how recognition and reward might improve the performance of diverse people in the workplace.

Present your findings as a short research report using the following structure:

·   Title of the report: this should be a concise description of your report (less than 10 words).

·   Table of contents: list all major sections with page numbers.

·   Executive summary: provide a brief overview (approximately 150 words) which summarizes the purpose of the research, how you believe it would have been conducted and what you believe your key findings (recommendations) would be.

·   Introduction: set the scene for the reader by explaining what your report is about, why you are doing it and how you intend to develop your findings. Clearly state your research question.

·   Literature review: summarise your findings from the literature search and this section should be comprehensively supported by appropriate referencing.

·   Methodology: explain how you developed your proposed survey questions in a rational and logical way, how you would have conducted the research and how you would have selected your sample (e.g. to have the appropriate range of age, sex, work status, level of education etc.).

·   Predicted/possible Results and Discussion: analyse, explain and interpret your predicted research outcomes with reference to existing research (from your literature review) as well as models and theories (from your text or other recent organisation behaviour literature)

·   Conclusion Write a short summary (one paragraph) of your findings and explain how they address your research question.

·   Recommendations: Finish with some concise and practical recommendations that logically derive from your research report on how your manager might use these findings to deal with the current problem of employee performance (these may be written as dot points).

Supplementary material

Referencing: All sections (not the summary) should be appropriately referenced in-text. Please ensure citations and reference list follow the Harvard Referencing style

Appendices: These would contain additional material not required in the body of your report. At the least this should include:

·   A copy of your proposed survey

·   Your team charter (maximum 1 page)

Please note the following important criteria:           

·   The report should be in Times New Roman 12 font (or similar), with 1.5 spacing. Overall presentation should reflect an appropriate business format.

·   The title page of your report should list the names of your team members

·    Reports that do not include a minimum of 10 quality research references (ie refereed research articles and NOT student textbooks) will receive a maximum grade of 64%.

·    It is expected that all members of the group will contribute to the preparation and/or delivery of the report and presentation.





Individual: Learning log (weighting – 20%)

The learning log should be submitted through on Myuni as a word file. It must also identifies the choice of learning log to be marked. Turnitin similarity software may be utilised to indicate potential plagiarism. A 10% of mark awarded per day late penalty will be applied to late submissions.

Students are required to submit a reflective learning log (learning journal) based on the daily class activities. The objective of the learning log is to encourage you to structure and reflect on your learning through the course. Each learning log submission is expected to be approximately one page long and will be assessed against the following criteria:

Critical evaluation of relevant theory/research evidence

Personal reflection on learning experiences (Acknowledgement of challenging aspects of learning; application of theory to real world experience; specific examples to illustrate concepts/ideas/theories)

Appropriate reference support following the Harvard system of referencing

Clear expression, correct grammar and punctuation

Students must submit a minimum of four (4) learning log entries and select one (1) of the learning log entries for formal assessment and marking. Students who do not select one of their learning log entries on or before the submission date will be assessed on entries selected at random by the marker. The other entries will be assessed on a pass fail basis. Students submitting less than four learning log entries will have the mark capped at a maximum of 49% for this assessment.

Each log entry should include the following elements:

A brief account of your class preparation activities; this should refer to any key reading that you found helpful and a reflective discussion of any other preparation task.

A brief account of the activities that you participated in during the class highlighting what you found particularly interesting/useful/helpful/relevant (or not) about the experience.

Critical reflection on the value of the learning activity/experience; you are particularly encouraged to show how your learning might change future behaviour in educational, personal or work situations.

You should cite at least one refereed article in each learning log entry. This can be from your preparatory reading and/or follow up readings that helped you explore the relevant topic/issue in more depth.

Your log should include specific examples of relevant reading and classroom activities. Published sources should be carefully referenced using Harvard referencing. You are required to refer to at least one scholarly source in each log.

It is important to seek learning so you should consider how you could still learn from even seemingly negative experiences as well as from positive ones. The learning log is intended as a constructive tool; if you disliked a reading or activity you should clearly explain why and explore any problems that you faced. For example, if you found a theory irrelevant or an activity boring, ask yourself ‘why’ and ask whether you could take any appropriate action yourself (i.e. could you constructively raise an issue/question in the class itself to raise your point of view and discuss with peers and/or tutor).

All coursework assessments should be submitted electronically as word documents in the relevant subfolder found in the Assessment section of myuni.

The critical review should be submitted on myuni on or before the due date to avoid the application of late penalties (see below).

The minimum number of learning log entries should be submitted on myuni on or before the due date to avoid the application of late penalties (see below). Students should specify their chosen entry for full marking in the submitted to avoid one being chosen at random for marking.

Group assignment reports should be submitted electronically on or before the due date through turnitin (accessible through a link on the course myuni site) to avoid the application of late penalties (see below).

Requests for extensions are generally only considered for health or compassionate reasons supported by documentary evidence. Students applying for an extension based on medical reasons must have their medical practitioner complete the approved University form.

An extension request for illness or exceptional personal circumstances must include the "Supporting Statement /Certification Form" on p4 of the replacement and additional Assessment application (see  http://www.adelaide.edu.au/student/exams/supps.html. )

All requests for extensions should be directed in writing to the Lecturer-in charge before the due date. Extension requests after this time will only be granted for exceptional circumstances. This does not include poor time management or poor file management.

A late assignment where no extension has been granted will be penalised by a reduction 10% of mark awarded for each day, or part of a day, that it is late.

Assessment marks prior to the final exam will be displayed on the course website. Students are encouraged to check their marks and notify the Lecturer-in-Charge of any discrepancies.

Legible hand-writing and the quality of English expression are considered to be integral parts of the assessment process. Marks may be deducted in the final examination because of unclear handwriting.

Students in this course are not permitted to take a dictionary (English or English-Foreign) into the examination.


Presentation of Assignments

Students must retain a copy of all learning logs and assignments submitted.

Students may not submit work for an assignment that has previously been submitted for this course or any other course.

By submitting your assignment electronically it is deemed you acknowledge awareness of the universities policy on plagiarism

Markers can refuse to accept assignments that do not acknowledge the University’s Policy on Plagiarism:  www.adelaide.edu.au/policies/230/