85612 - Workshop: Organizational Behaviour

Learning outcomes

The goal of this seminar is to provide students with a deeper understanding of why people engage in specific behaviors at work, what are the antecedents of such behaviors and the consequences for self, the teams to which they belong to and the entire organization, for the purpose of applying this deeper understanding to improve an organization’s effectiveness. Students will be presented with dominant and recent paradigms in the organizational behaviors literature, including recent theoretical developments in the area of positive organizational psychology. This seminar is built on the assumption that an essential imperative for organizations to succeed consists of building a “sustainable workplace”, which is characterized by a deep caring for the sustainability of people, their talent and their well-being. At the end of this seminar, students will be able to:

• Identifying distinctive behaviors of a positive leader and examples of positive deviant behaviors at work;
• Identifying organizational strategies to create a sustainable workplace;
• Identifying factors that can foster greater individuals’ motivation at work;
• Identifying factors that can ensure an optimal team functioning and obstacles to an effective team decision-making process;
• Identifying appropriate diversity management interventions to create an inclusive work environment;
• Developing positive leadership skills, including supportive and non-violent communication, negotiation, diversity and team management.

Course contents

Topics discussed during the seminar will be the followings:

1. Introduction to organizational behaviors;
2. Positive leadership and positive deviant behaviors;
3. Individual motivation at work;
4. Team dynamics;
5. Diversity management;
6. Power and organizational politics;
7. Supportive communication at work.

Readings/Bibliography

Journal Articles:

• Cameron, K., & Plews, E. (2012). Positive leadership in action. Organizational Dynamics, 41(2), 99–105.
• Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2014). The underlying psychology of office politics. Harvard Business Review, December.
• Dobbin, F., & Kalev, A. (2016). Why diversity program fails. Harvard Business Review, 94(7).
• Goleman, D. (1998). What makes a leader? Harvard Business Review, 82-91.
• Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (1993). The discipline of teams. Harvard Business Review, March-April, 111-120.
• Livingston, J. S. (2003). Pygmalion in management. 1969. Harvard Business Review, 81(1), 97–106. Manzoni, J. F., & Barsoux, J. L. (1998). The set-up-to-fail syndrome. Harvard Business Review, 76 (2), 101–113.
• Manzoni, J. F., & Barsoux, J. L. (1998). The set-up-to-fail syndrome. Harvard Business Review, 76 (2), 101–113.
• Parikh, J. (2016). How Facebook tries to prevent office politics. Harvard Business Review, June.
• Spretizer G.M. & Sonenshein, S. (2003). Positive deviance and extraordinary organizing. In K. Cameron, J. Dutton, & R. Quinn (Eds.), Positive organizational scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline (pp. 207-224). San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler.
• Thomas, D. A. 2004. Diversity as Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 82(9), 98–108.

Teaching methods

Teaching methods consist of face-to-face lecturing, role plays, case studies, video analysis and simulations.

Assessment methods

Students will be required to write a position paper (5-6 pages maximum) on a real workplace case wherein they can find trace of concepts and theories discussed in the classroom.

I encourage students to search the Internet or to look into newspaper about relevant and recent cases in which they can see the application (or the bad application) of organizational behaviors concepts and theories analyzed in the seminar. Examples might be the case of organizations that are able to develop and make their employees thrive, best practices in team management, cases of employee discriminated at work, cases of effective diversity management, etc.

Then, I would require each student to present the case, explain why he or she chose it, analyze it by highlighting what in their opinion worked or did not work about the way the situation was handled by both employers and organizations, and detailed explanation of what concepts and theories they can find mentioned in the case. 

The case will be then evaluated for clarity, accurateness of the information and match of the topic chosen with concepts explained in the class.

Office hours

See the website of Marcello Russo