New Jersey Institute of Technology Dr. Jose C.

Casal
School of Management Summer 2010

HRM 601 850 Organizational Behavior

Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course.

Class hours & place

Time: Asynchronous (no set time but must check into course site every day)
Place: Moodle (see below)

Course online site

The course is on Moodle (accessible from the courses page at my.njit.edu or directly at
moodle.njit.edu). You should check every day for announcements, answers to questions
other students may have asked, etc.

Contact information

Instructor’s name Jose C. Casal, Ph.D.

Office CAB 3013
Office Hours By appointment only
E-mail Jose.C.Casal@njit.edu (best way of contacting me)
Voice 973-596-3254 *
Fax 973-596-3074 *

* I will be in my office only once or twice in the semester (it is very short) so the chances
of actually calling at a time that I am near my telephone are small. You will get a hold of
me faster by e-mail.

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 value-
New Jersey Institute of Technology Dr. Jose C. Casal
School of Management Summer 2010

added 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
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 4 pages) papers discussing an organizational behavior
issues (20 % 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.”
• Two out of three short (1 to 3 pages) thought exercises (20 % each). An example
follows:
“ Efforts to reform the financial system in the U.S. are currently underway.
Different approaches have supporters and opponents as well as there being some
who object to any financial reform. Identify the coalitions involved. Describe
their goals. Describe their tactics.”
• Posting to bulletin board discussions (20 %). These discussions will be based on
the reading of articles provided online.

Course Outline
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, the articles that you need to read and the
assignments that are due.
Introduction to Distance Learning and to the Course

I. Introduction to Distance Learning: The DL process and what it takes to benefit

from a DL course.
New Jersey Institute of Technology Dr. Jose C. Casal
School of Management Summer 2010

II. Introduction to Organizational Behavior: Overview of organizational behavior as

a field of inquiry. Introduction of key topic areas and key issues. Relationship of
the “people side of the business” to organizational performance.

Managing The Present

III. Understanding Complex Organizations: Organizational structures and processes.

Bureaucracies and networked organizations. Coalitions and coalition formation.
Goals and goal formation.

IV. Power & Politics: Power and powerlessness. Individual and coalitional power.
Sources of power. Dynamics of power.

V. Organizational Cultures & Employee Socialization: Definition and key elements

of organizational culture. Cultural vs. structural control of behavior in
organizations. Culture and creativity. Success cultures. Dysfunctional cultures.

VI. Decision-Making and Evaluation: decision-making process. decision-making

conflict, post-decision processes.

Envisioning The Future

VII. Sensemaking & Strategy: Environmental scanning, sense-making, competitive

advantage, strategy formulation and evaluation.

VIII. Leadership: Leadership in modern work organizations: Leading vs. managing.

leaders vs. occupants of leadership roles. Leadership challenges and leadership
theory. The need for leadership throughout the organization.

IX. Diversity in Organizations: Demographic, cultural diversity and diversity of

thought. Responses to diversity. Global, networked organizations. Self-critical
organizations.

Making It Happen

X. Work Motivation, Basic Concepts: Survey of theories of work motivation.

Rational and irrational motives. Achievement motivation.

XI. Work Motivation, Advanced Concepts: Goal setting, performance management

systems, managing poor performers.

XII. Careers & Career Management: Career and life stages and career planning.
Issues in career management.

XIII. Managing Organizational Change: The change process. What can be changed.
Managing the change process. New organizational forms.
New Jersey Institute of Technology Dr. Jose C. Casal
School of Management Summer 2010

Epilogue

XIV. Epilogue.

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 highest grade. For example, if the student
with the 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 89.5 up to 100
B+ 86.5 up to
89.5
B 79.5 up to
86.5
C+ 76.5 up to
79.5
C 69.5 up to
76.5
F 0 up to 69.5
New Jersey Institute of Technology Dr. Jose C. Casal
School of Management Summer 2010

Honor Code
You are expected to follow NJIT’s honor code, which can be found at
http://www.njit.edu/doss/policies/honorcode/.