BUS 219f: FUNDAMENTALS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Fall Semester 2014 (MODULE)
Instructor: Professor Andy Molinsky
Office: IBS, room 254
 (781) 736 -2255
 molinsky@brandeis.edu
Office Hours: To be announced
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This module on Organizational Behavior is about the people side of business. Although
skills in finance, accounting, marketing and operations are crucial for organizational
success, the ability to manage and understand an organization, its groups, and its
individuals can be equally crucial. Indeed, when experienced managers and executives
return to business schools for executive education classes, seminars in “people
management skills” are in high demand. Managers see these skills as being a key element
in their own career success. Technical skills may have helped them land their initial job,
but people skills are likely to determine whether or not they keep it, and how much they
can accomplish in their career.
During the next several weeks, we will explore a variety of perspectives and theories that
explain the dynamics of individual, interpersonal, group, and organizational processes.
Learning about these ideas will help you develop and apply insights about human
behavior in organizational settings. The course material will be useful in managing
relationships with other people, making complex decisions, becoming a leader, and
making sense of today’s--and tomorrow’s--corporate world. This course will also help
you understand some of the challenges involved in both managing and being managed.
Ultimately, the perspectives developed in this course should hopefully equip you to
become more effective and contributors to your organizations.
COURSE OBJECTIVES




Understanding what organizations are about and what is involved in becoming
productive and satisfied members of them.
Appreciating how the human side of management is an essential complement to the
technical skills you are learning in other courses.
Learning concepts and approaches that will enable you to analyze organizational
problems and to develop appropriate solutions.
Developing the knowledge and skills you need to be a successful manager of yourself
and others.
PLEASE NOTE: You cannot take this module course 219f, and BUS 220a Organizational
Behavior for credit.
1
READING MATERIALS
Required readings, which are to be completed before arriving to class, are included in one
of the following two sources:
(1) Textbook: Organizational Behavior, 15th Edition. Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A.
Judge. Prentice Hall.
[Note: You may use older editions, or the international edition, but beware: the page
numbers and chapter numbers will not always correspond with the 15th Edition. So,
you should take great care to make sure you are reading the correct material by
comparing your older edition to the 15th Edition. If possible, I would suggest using
the 15th Edition.]
(2) Course reader: Available at the Brandeis Bookstore.
(3) MBTI/Myers Briggs Test: Available at the Brandeis Bookstore (to be completed and
brought into class for the second session)
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Requirements for the course include:
(1) Class attendance and participation (40%)
(2) Final group project (35%)
(3) Final group presentation (25%)
1) ATTENDANCE, INVOLVEMENT, PARTICIPATION (40%)
An important course requirement is active involvement in class discussion. Because
discussion is a substantial part of the course, student participation is essential — for both
your own learning and that of the other students.
Attendance will be taken at the beginning of each class. All missed classes will be noted.
Habitual lateness (or leaving class early), for whatever reason, will be noted as evidence
of low course commitment and will be penalized.
Students are expected to attend every class session having read and thought about the
assigned material. Students should always be prepared to contribute to the class
discussions, demonstrating their preparation by asking questions whenever necessary and
by integrating the vocabulary and concepts from the readings into their class comments.
If you will be absent, please email your professor before class.
Class discussions provide the opportunity to practice speaking and persuasive skills, as well
as the ability to listen. Effective class comments may address questions raised by others,
integrate material from this and other courses, draw on real-world experiences and
observations, or pose new questions to the class. High-quality participation involves
2
knowing when to speak and when to listen or allow others to speak. Comments that are
repetitive, unrelated to the current topic, disrespectful of others, or without sufficient
foundation are discouraged and will be evaluated negatively.
The best class comments:
• make or raise issues that are relevant to the current focus of the class;
• show curiosity and a willingness to experiment;
• use data or examples to support conclusions;
• take into consideration the ideas already offered by others;
• offer support for arguments; or
• help others feel safe about participating.
* Note: For one of the classes, you need to write a 1-page paper to hand in at the
beginning of class as a reaction to your reading. This paper will be graded pass/fail and
will factor into your participation grade.
2) FINAL GROUP PAPER (35%)
Many of the theories and perspectives that we will focus on this semester are based on
research conducted in the United States. However, organizational behavior is, of course,
practiced around the world. In a group, you will prepare a final paper comparing
organizational behavior in a different country to organizational behavior in the United
States. These groups will be created by me and will consist of 2-4 students.
There are three parts of the paper.
Part I: Core dimensions of cultural difference
For the first part of the paper you will present an overall, general analysis of core
dimensions of difference between the United States and the country you have chosen to
focus on. For this, you will use one or more of the following frameworks:
1) Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory
2) Project Globe’s cultural dimensions
3) Trompenaars’ dimensions of cultural difference
4) Another framework for understanding cultural differences that you find and like
in the literature (please show to me first before using)
You can learn about Hofstede and Project Globe in your course book. You can learn
about Tompenaar’s work in the following book: Riding The Waves of Culture:
Understanding Diversity in Global Business (1997). There are also many useful sources
of information about these perspectives on the internet and I also have books in my office
that you can come by and take a look at to better understand cultural dimensions
frameworks. We will talk more in class about how exactly you will present this cultural
information.
Part II: Specific aspects of Organizational Behavior
3
You will then choose 3-5 different aspects of organizational behavior (for example:
leadership, motivation, communication, decision making) to compare across the two
cultures. For example, if you choose communication as one of your dimensions, and
Germany as your country, you might describe how the communication style in Germany
is different from the US, why it is different from the US style, and how it might impact
interactions between German and American people at work. You will do this for all the
dimensions of organizational behavior you choose to focus on. These can be dimensions
we talk about in class, or dimensions in your book that we don’t talk about.
For this part of the project, you should consult with a range of different resources:
internet, books about cultural differences, and interviews with natives from each of the
cultures. You can and should include stories, examples and quotations from native-born
employees and managers familiar with the situations you’re focusing on in your paper.
Really work hard to make these differences “come alive” in your paper.
Part III: Illustrative scenarios of cultural misunderstanding
The final part of the paper is a series of illustrative scenarios that you will create to
illustrate the differences for the reader. These scenarios should follow the following
format:
 You will start with a short story about someone from one of the two cultures
trying to interact in a particular organizational behavior situation in the other
culture, but somehow struggling or making key errors (you will create a separate
vignette for each dimension of organizational behavior you focus on). I will give
you some examples of these types of stories in class.
 At the end of your story, you will pose a question to the reader about what went
wrong or what critical mistake the person in the story made. This may be an
open-ended question or a quiz question where the reader needs to choose from
various options.
 Finally, at the end of each story, you will provide an answer to this question for
the reader, explaining what the dilemma was in the story, what the cultural
mistake was and why the person committed it.
(3) FINAL GROUP PRESENTATION (25%)
You and your group will then present your findings and insights during an in-class
presentation. The presentation will be 15-20 minutes long (with Q&A included). The
presentation will be graded both for content and for style and details for this will also be
provided in class.
The presentation and paper are group assignments and everyone will receive the
same group grade. However, I reserve the right to alter individual grades on the
group projects in certain circumstances (e.g. when it is clear to me that an
individual clearly did not contribute to the project in a consistent and meaningful
way).
4
OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION
1) ACADEMY INTEGRITY
Academic integrity is central to the mission of educational excellence at Brandeis. Each
student is expected to turn in work completed independently, except where assignments
specifically authorize collaborative effort. It is not acceptable to use the words or ideas of
another person - be it a world class philosopher or your lab partner - without proper
acknowledgement of that source. This means that you must use footnotes and quotation
marks to indicate the source of any phrases, sentences, paragraphs or ideas found in
published volumes, on the internet or created by another student.
Violations of the University policies on academic integrity, described in Section Three of
Rights and Responsibilities, may result in failure in the course or on the assignment, or in
suspension or dismissal from the University. If you are in doubt about the instructions for
any assignment in this course, it is your responsibility to ask for clarification. Please
consult the following webpage if you have any questions:
http://www.brandeis.edu/studentlife/sdc/ai/
2) FORMAT OF ASSIGNMENTS
All written assignments must be double-spaced, 12 point font, 8.5 x 11 inch paper.
3) RETURN OF GRADED PAPERWORK
Returned paperwork, unclaimed by a student, will be discarded after 4 weeks and, hence,
will not be available should a grade appeal be pursued by a student following receipt of
his/her course grade. Grade appeals must be made in writing.
4) DISABILITY
If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and
you wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me
immediately. Please keep in mind that reasonable accommodations are not provided
retroactively.
5
COURSE OUTLINE
Aug 28
Overview of Organizational Behavior
No readings or assignments
UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUALS
Sept 2
Personality/Individual Differences
Reading: Chapter 2 -- p.44-56 only (about Biographical
Characteristics); Chapter 5 (entire chapter)
Assignments: Complete Myers-Briggs (MBTI) and bring to class
Sept 4
Perception and Decision Making
Reading: Chapter 6; plus: “They Saw a Game” and “Decisions” in
course reader
UNDERSTANDING INTERPERSONAL PROCESSES
Sept 9
Motivation
Reading: Chapter 7
Sept 11
Negotiation
Reading: Don’t Bargain Over Positions; Getting Past No (in course
reader)
Sept 16
Interpersonal Communication
Reading: “The Power of Talk” (in course reader)
Sept 18
Case study: Rob Parson at Morgan Stanley
Reading: Rob Parson at Morgan Stanley; The Firm-wide 360
Performance Evaluation Process at Morgan Stanley (in course
reader)
Assignment: Think about the following questions and be
prepared to answer them in class
a) What is your assessment of Rob Parson’s performance?
Should he be promoted?
b) If you were Paul Nasr, how would you plan to conduct
the performance appraisal conversation? What would
your goals be? What issues would you raise and why,
and how would you raise them?
6
c) If you were Rob Parson, how would you conduct
yourself in the performance evaluation meeting? What
are your goals? Be prepared to role-play the appraisal
conversation in class as either Nasr or Parson.
UNDERSTANDING GROUPS & ORGANIZATIONS
Sept 23
Workshop Session on your Final Project
This will be a workshop session about your final project. Be
prepared to offer the class a short summary of your project as well
as 1-2 specific questions for the class. Each group will have a
chance to present.
Sept 30
Case Study: Carter Racing
Reading: Carter Racing (in course reader)
Assignment: Write 1 page answer to the following question and
bring to class:
1) Would you race? Why? Why not?
Oct 2
Organizational Culture
Reading: Uncovering the Levels of Culture; Starbucks (in course
reader); Chapter 16
Oct 7
Orit Gadiesh at Bain & Co.
Reading: “Orit Gadiesh: Pride at Bain & Co” (in course reader)
Assignment: Write 1 page answer to the following 2 questions (to
be handed in at class):
a. Describe and evaluate Orit Gadiesh’s leadership style. What
are her strengths and weaknesses?
b. What speech should she give? Why?
Oct 13
Group Presentations
Oct 14
Group Presentations & Course Wrap Up
*** Final papers due at end of last session; PPT slides to be emailed to me as well on
last day ***
7
8