Principles of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management (N1062)

15 credits, Level 4

Spring teaching

This module explores the causes and effects of human interaction in an organisation and how humans at individual, group and organisational level influence organisations. Organisational performance depends on appropriate incentives to individuals, developing effective teams, designing an attractive job environment and managing organisational structure.

Focusing on these issues, the module is divided into four themes based on the level of analysis:

• individual – we will look at the individual's contribution to organisation and the factors affecting their behaviour
• group – the nature and significance of groups in organisations will be discussed and the range of skills required for effective team work and factors affecting working in groups will also be explored
• organisational – organisational design and culture, inspiring workers through norms, beliefs and behaviour, and management in the work place will be explained
• human resource management – we will examine the aspects of developing human capital through recruitment, training, development and reward, which will create a sustainable commitment to organisational goals and to ensure high performance.

There will be two forms of assessment for this module with an equal weighting for coursework and an unseen exam. The coursework component will invovle a Group Report analysing concepts of human resource management and organisational behaviour in a chosen organisation. Formative feedback for this assessment will be provided by peers and tutors on the work-in-progress presentation of this report in seminars.

An unseen exam at the end of the term will cover the remaining assessment. You will participate in a role playing game in your final seminar analysing and discussing the concepts taught during the lecture as a formative exercise.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 33 hours of contact time and about 117 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.