New Jersey Institute of Technology
School of Management
Dr. Jose C. Casal
Winter, 2009
HRM 601 W 01 Organizational Behavior
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Class hours & place
Time:
Place:
Asynchronous (no set time but must check into course site every day)
WebCT (see below)
Course online site
The course is on WebCT (accessible from the courses list at my.njit.edu or at
webct.njit.edu). You should check every day announcements, answers to questions other
students may have asked, etc.
Contact information
Instructor’s name
Office
Office Hours
E-mail
Voice
Fax
Jose C. Casal, Ph.D.
CAB 3013
By appointment only/
Jose.C.Casal@njit.edu (best way of contacting me)
973-596-3254
973-596-3074
Text and Other Materials

There is no text in this course. If you have not had an undergraduate
organizational course (and maybe even if you have), access to any organizational
behavior textbook may be useful.

Readings will be available on on-line.

Recorded lectures will be available on-line.
Overview
This course is intended to give you a better understanding of human behavior in
organizations and of the behavior of organizations. The course has three primary
objectives:
1) To help you become a more effective member of your present organization. The
emphasis is on providing tools to help gain a better understanding of your valueadded activities and those of others. The course also focuses on making
meaningful contributions within the realities of organizational life.
2) To prepare you to assume leadership roles or to make you better leaders. The
course places a strong emphasis on the centrality of leadership to organizational
New Jersey Institute of Technology
School of Management
Dr. Jose C. Casal
Winter, 2009
success. It is designed to help you understand a leader's responsibilities to his or
her subordinates and to help you develop an effective leadership style.
3) To provide you with the tools and information necessary to make informed career
choices that lead to successful career paths.
Course Requirements

There are no exams.

Two out of three short (3 to 5 pages) papers discussing an organizational behavior
issues (35 % each). An example follows:
“ Based on the material that we’ve covered so far in the course, discuss how each
of the following (there is some overlap) would impact the structure,
power/politics/coalitions, and culture of an organization. Explain your answers.
a. Size of the organization
b. Environment (rapidly changing vs. stable, heterogenous vs. homogenous
[i.e. the environment composed of many different things vs. the
environment is not composed of many different things])
c. Multinational vs. not multinational organization
d. Technology.”

Posting to three bulletin board discussions (30 %).
Schedule
The course site has a calendar that will have specific due dates and that will direct you to
the specific lectures that you need to watch. Usually there is only one lecture lasting onehalf to three-quarter hour assigned but sometimes there are two such lectures.
Day
Topic
Assignments
1
2
3
4
5
6
Organizational Structure
Watch Lecture(s)
Power and Politics in Organizations
Watch Lecture(s)
7
8
9
10
11
12
Decision Making & Leadership
Watch Lecture(s)
Motivation
Paper 2
Lectures
Paper 3
Organizational Change
Watch Lecture(s)
Discussion 1
Organizational Culture
Watch Lecture(s)
Discussion 2
Paper 1
Discussion
New Jersey Institute of Technology
School of Management
Dr. Jose C. Casal
Winter, 2009
Make-up Work
Make-up work will only be given if there are documented, major reasons outside of your
control (e.g. illness, family tragedy, military service) for not being able to do the work on
time. Demands on your time that you should reasonably expect such as those arising from
having a job or having a family are not considered reasons for not doing coursework on
time.
Curving
The course grade will be curved at the end of the semester by adding to each grade the
number of points lost by the student with the second highest grade. For example, if the
student with the second highest grade got an 88 %, then 12 points would be added to
every course grade.
Extra-Credit and Do-Overs
No extra-credit work and no “do-overs” (submitting work, not liking the grade and
wanting to redo the work).
Incompletes
Incompletes will be given only if you cannot finish the course due to major reasons
outside of your control (e.g. illness, family tragedy, military service). The school is now
requiring documentation of the reasons for the incomplete and a description of the work
that is needed to remove it to be put into your file.
Grading Scale
The conversion of percentage points to letter grade is as follows:
A
B+
B
C+
C
F
89.5 up to 100
86.5 up to
89.5
79.5 up to
86.5
76.5 up to
79.5
69.5 up to
76.5
0 up to 69.5
Honor Code
You are expected to follow NJIT’s honor code, which can be found at
http://www.njit.edu/doss/policies/honorcode/.