MG515      Half Unit
Social Organisation

This information is for the 2022/23 session.

Teacher responsible

Prof Harm Barkema

Availability

This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Management (Organisational Behaviour). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Pre-requisites

MG506 Micro Organisational Behaviour in Organisations (‘M-OB’) and MG514 Macro OB: Organisation and Management Theory.

Course content

Management research – and more specifically, OB and OMT – in the 21st century, is broadening its focus at an increasing pace (as measured by the number of papers recently published in our top journals, and ‘in press’), by also studying organizations with social goals. For instance, corporations with social goals (e.g., CSR programs, supply chains with social goals), social enterprises or entrepreneurship under broader social programs (e.g., to increase employment, or women empowerment), NGOs, charities, social movements, incubators with social goals, and – at a more micro-level – ‘calling’ of workers, moral contracting and ideological currency. The course helps PhD students to understand key theoretical and methodological aspects of this emerging research, including of non-Western contexts, and to develop the insights and skills to formulate their own research agenda in this domain.

Teaching

15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the MT.

Formative coursework

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the MT.

The formative assignment will be to develop an “outline” version of the conceptual paper to be written for the summative assignment (rather than a full write-up). The goal of this assignment is to enable students to begin thinking through how to formulate a research agenda in this domain. We will devote our last course session to debriefing and providing peer feedback on these outlines.

Indicative reading

Each faculty presenter will select his/her own reading list, which will rely heavily on journal articles (for example, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology). An extensive reading list is provided at the start of the course.

Assessment

Coursework (100%, 5000 words) in the MT.

Key facts

Department: Management

Total students 2021/22: Unavailable

Average class size 2021/22: Unavailable

Value: Half Unit

Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

Course selection videos

Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.

Personal development skills

  • Self-management
  • Problem solving
  • Application of information skills
  • Commercial awareness
  • Specialist skills