Syllabus – Introduction to Organizational Behavior - ORGB 302 & PSYC 342
Introduction to Organizational Behavior
ORGB 302 & PSYC 342
Fall 2010
Tuesday and Thursday 15:30 – 16:45, ENG B30
Instructor
Office
Phone
e-mail
Office hours
: Dr. Özge Pala
: CAS 102
: ext.
: opala@ku.edu.tr
: Tue. & Thu. 10.00-11.00 or by appointment
Course Overview & Objectives
Effective management of people within organizations is a challenging task and requires an understanding
of various aspects human behavior and processes. The challenge stems primarily from the fact that human
problems are numerous, difficult to tackle, and complex in nature. Managers need to know why people
behave as they do in relation to their jobs, their work groups, and their organizations. This knowledge of
individuals' perceptions, motivations, attitudes, and behavior will enable managers to not only understand
themselves better, but also to adopt appropriate managerial policies and leadership styles to increase their
effectiveness.
The field of Organizational Behavior (OB) deals with issues related to human behavior and interpersonal
relations within an organizational context. During the course, the focus of instruction will move
progressively through the individual, group, and organizational levels of behavior and will examine the
interrelationships of behavioral phenomena among these levels. Studying OB enables you, as future
employees, to understand your own and others’ behavior, in particular, while working in teams. It also
enhances your, as future managers, ability to effectively communicate and manage human resources, and
therefore, strengthen your ‘people skills’.
The major objective of this course is to develop awareness and understanding of human behavior (yours
and others) in organizations. Specific learning objectives for this course are as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
To provide a basic knowledge of main ideas and key theories relating to organizational behavior;
To develop an understanding of these ideas and concepts;
To develop your ability to recognize a firm’s OB practices/skills and the impact they have on others;
To develop your ability to recognize your own OB practices/skills and the impact they have on others;
To develop skills to diagnose and solve organizational behavior issues and problems by applying the
learned material to given situations;
6. To learn to work in effective work groups/teams.
Evaluation Criteria
1. Pre-class preparations,
in-class activities & exercises, class participation
15%
2. Term project: Theory & Practice Fit
25%
3. I. Midterm
30%
4. Final
30%
Özge Pala
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Syllabus – Introduction to Organizational Behavior - ORGB 302 & PSYC 342
Pre-class preparations, in-class activities & exercises, and class participation: In the class, besides
lectures, techniques used to facilitate learning may be used. These include exercises, case discussions,
roles plays, team work. Sometimes, you will be asked to prepare an exercise or a test (e.g. a personality
test from SAL) and bring it to class. The class discussion will be based on your output. Your grade will be
based on your preparations, participation in these activities and your consistent participation in
discussions. Encouraging other class members to participate by positively commenting on other students’
comments and expanding on them is also rewarded. Frequency of your participation in discussions,
quality of what you say, quality of your listening, quality of your replies to comments or questions, and
your respect to the lecturer and the classmates will be the criteria used for grading.
Case Analysis: Theory-Practice Fit: The purpose of this project is to assess how OB topics and theories fit
and are implemented in Turkish organizations. You will be divided into groups of 3 to work on one of the
following topics: leadership, motivation, teamwork, communication, decision-making styles, change
management. For this assignment, you are required to visit an organization (e.g., business organization,
school, hospital, multinational) and examine the particular topic in that organization. You may conduct
interviews with HR professionals and/or collect data through observations, interviews with employees. At
the end of your investigation, you will produce a written report which should include the following parts:
a) A brief introduction of the organization you visited and the industry within which it operates. E.g.
organizational chart (if available), number of branches and employees working for the organization,
its goals and future targets, its internal and external environmental demands, and so on.
b) Presentation of your research method (e.g., how many employees you interviewed with, etc.) and
reasons for choosing this method.
c) A detailed description of the way in which the issue at hand is handled in the organization.
d) An assessment of theory and practice fit.
e) Recommendations and suggestions to improve the practice.
Your report should be 10-12 pages (e.g. 11 or 12-point times roman) excluding the appendices (e.g.,
interview excerpts, questionnaires, references, tables and charts etc.).
You will be asked to hand in a proposal and an intermediary work-in process version of your report. The
first will be a short proposal indicating the topic of your choice, the company, and the intended research
method and plan of research. The purpose of the report is to help you get started and identify possible
challenges early in the semester. The intermediary report will include what you have done in the project
thus far. The main purpose is for you to get feedback. Neither the proposal nor the intermediary report will
be graded. But I would like to stress the importance of both. Handing these on time will enable you to get
feedback to improve your work, discuss with me the possible difficulties and challenges you are facing,
and work consistently throughout the semester. The deadlines for the proposal and reports will be strictly
adhered to. Any work that is handed in later than the due date will not be controlled for feedback or
graded.
Mid-term and Final: There will one mid-term exam and a final. The exams will have questions of various
types including true-false, fill-in-the-blanks, multiple-choice, and short essays.
Textbook and other resources:
Robbins, S.R. & Judge, T.A. (2011) (14th edition). Organizational Behavior. Pearson.
The presentations will be available via courseware.
Özge Pala
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Syllabus – Introduction to Organizational Behavior - ORGB 302 & PSYC 342
We will also make use of the mymanagementlab from Pearson. For instance, the SALs we will use
throughout the semester are available online through mymanagementlab. The course code is CRSCDCE1006715.
Academic Honesty
Cheating, plagiarism, collusion, and multiple submissions are NOT tolerated. If you have any
questions regarding the scope of any of these offenses, please do not hesitate to consult me. I
would also like to attract your attention to the following unacceptable behavior: extensive
quoting even if you cite the reference, submitting the same or similar paper or project as you
prepare(d) for another course this semester or in previous years, submitting the same or similar
paper or project that was prepared by someone else in previous years. If academic honesty of a
group member is questioned, all group members will be affected by the incident to the same
extent. Therefore, it is your responsibility to ensure that members in your team adhere to the
above rules.
Classroom behavior
Please adhere to the Classroom Code of Conduct. If you fail to do so, you will be asked to leave the
classroom.
Özge Pala
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Syllabus – Introduction to Organizational Behavior - ORGB 302 & PSYC 342
Course Schedule
(subject to change)
13
14
Date
28 Sept
30 Sept
5 Oct
7 Oct
12 Oct
15 Oct
19 Oct
22 Oct
26 Oct
28 Oct
2 Nov
4 Nov
9 Nov
11 Nov
16 Nov
18 Nov
23 Nov
25 Nov
Topic
Introduction - Course objectives
Field of Organizational behavior
Research in Organizational behavior
Diversity in Organizations
Personality and values
Attitudes and Job satisfaction
Emotions and moods
Perception and individual decision making
Perception and individual decision making
No Class
Motivation
Motivation
Review, Q&A
Midterm 1
No Classes
Kurban Bayramı
Group dynamics and work teams
Group dynamics and work teams
15
30 Nov
Case: Building a coalition
16
17
18
19
20
21
2 Dec
7 Dec
9 Dec
14 Dec
16 Dec
21 Dec
23 Dec
28 Dec
30 Dec
4 Jan
6 Jan
Communication in organizations
Leadership
Leadership exercise
Power and politics
Conflict and negotiation
Organizational structure
No class
Organizational culture
Human Resource policies and practices
Organizational change
Summary and wrap-up
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
22
23
24
25
Özge Pala
Reading
Chapter 1
Appendix A
Chapter 2
Chapter 5
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Pages 676 –
678
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
T.B.A.
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
4