Management and Human Resources (Industry)

Human Resource Development (HRD) is a dynamic and evolving area that is part of Human Resource Management (HRM). This module follows on from the Human Resource Management module and assumes the centrality of the self in managerial discourses. Where HRM focuses on a wide range of processes that deal with the needs and activities of people in an organisation, within those processes HRD in the new economy is concerned with the theory and practice related to training, learning and development for both the benefit of individuals and the organisation. In 1989 McLagan proposed that HRD comprises of three main areas: Training and Development; Organisational Development and Career Development.

This module will take McLagan's three themes and offer a contemporary look at the tensions that occur when human resources (people) are exhorted through particular managerial discourses.

The aim of these two modules (223 and 224), which can be taken both separately as well as in combination (which we strongly advise), is to understand how the elementary functions of HRM unfold, and why they do so in certain ways nowadays compared to, say, thirty years ago.

At one level, HRM seems very simple: it is a combination of (a) recruitment and selection, (b) control and motivation, (c) training and development, (d) strategy and planning. It is a function that mediates between organisations and people. How complicated can that be? The answer is that it is as complicated as the central objects of such practices – the human and work – are: namely, extremely complicated.

The reason HRM is endlessly complicated (i.e. there never is an end to the central question to which it has to answer, namely what is work?) lies in the simple fact that the relationship between work as effort and efficiency as the rationality of work is always indeterminate. How much is an hour of work worth? How much should I be paid so that work is ‘fair’, or ‘just’? These essential questions cannot be answered in themselves – they depend on an endless list of other crucial questions – such as, what is it that I have to do? For what should I be paid? What counts as the work that is covered by an employment contract? Where does effort begin and end? What does it mean for instance to be committed to one’s job, company, or team – in terms of effort? How do we account for sentiments in work? What does it mean to be creative, or innovative? Are these part of the employment contract? How much commitment is one contracted to feel?

These and all the other aspects of HRM have become its language and the objects of its practices; human work and human being have become entangled in management in very complicated forms in the last thirty years. You will be the subjects of these practices and will have to understand what is going on in them and how the simple question what is worth doing in the context of contemporary work? is asked and answered today.

This means that HR practices in contemporary organisations (private, public, large or small) can only be understood if you will understand something much more fundamental, much more profound and much more enabling: the cultural conditions and resources that make these practices possible at all. You will need to understand how these practices are structured from a cultural viewpoint, from the point of view of the social imaginaries that make them possible.

The course provides students with general knowledge and understanding concerning social research and particular methods and methodologies that lie within the positivist and interpretivist paradigms. It is primarily aimed at students from across the management school that are planning to undertake an industrial placement and/or a dissertation in their final year of study. This module helps to prepare you to undertake your own research with a view to highlighting different research approaches and techniques that are used in the production of knowledge.

The module provides an insight into the various ways research can be undertaken and the implications of different approaches. We will examine the conceptual and practical complexities of undertaking research in practice. Initially you will be introduced to research methods and that are most commonly employed in business and management research. The module will then examine the methodological approaches and paradigms that are linked with these methods and the assumptions that underpin positivistic and interpretivist approaches. The final part of the module explores how this understanding can be used in writing your research proposal and dissertation.

The main aim of this module is to provide students with a critical understanding of the ethical dilemmas that are associated with business and management. It will examine the various ways in which we make sense and speak about ethics, how questions of right and wrong occur and what responses they elicit. In simpler terms, if we describe ethics as being about sorting out right from wrong, our interest is on what constitutes ethical conduct, and on who the appropriate agent of this conduct might be. A critical understanding means that this module does not aim at providing answers or tools that would solve the various problems of ethics or that would guarantee the ethical behaviour of managers.

This module introduces key debates relating to corporate social responsibility in a global context. Beginning with fundamental questions about purpose and definition, and then proceeding to explore questions about the role of ethics and questions of sustainability from different inter-national perspectives, the module provides a critical and analytical approach to corporate social responsibility and reflects on both the possibilities for global approaches and the relevance of responsibility agendas in different international contexts. You will learn about the context of ethics and corporate social responsibility in the wider context of international management. You will learn how to reflect critically on such issues, and how to use literature to analyse the approaches of international organisations and develop recommendations for improvements to their strategies.

This module introduces key debates relating to management in international organisations. Beginning with fundamental questions about purpose and organisation, and then proceeding to explore questions about impacts on economy and society, the module provides a critical and analytical approach to understanding international organisations in a range of sectors. On completion of the module, you will be able to analyse the factors affecting the operation and impacts of international organisations, in both ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world contexts.

Part 1 of the module introduces key debates and concerns relating to international organisations, in particular in relation to rationales for and modes of internationalization and associated organisational forms. The challenges faced by international organisations are also considered. The purpose of the first part of the module is to allow you to understand the key debates relating to international organisations in different sectors (e.g. manufacturing versus services).

Part 2 of the module builds on Part 1 by considering different ways of analysing international organisations. A series of perspectives are introduced that take account of the different organisational forms and processes found in international organisations. The purpose is to allow students to understand the different analytical questions that need to be considered when studying and managing international organisations.

This module examines several of the transformations that have arisen in contemporary organisations as a result of the introduction and use of information systems. In order to consider how information systems have been implicated in these transformations, this course will focus on three themes:

• Knowledge Management and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs)
• Informational devices and their mobilities
• The ethical dimensions of managing information and information systems

Each of these themes have been important in the study of the role of information systems within organisations. For each theme, one or more cases and/or readings will be introduced and discussed in detail over the course of ten two-hour interactive lectures. This will enable students to (1) familiarise themselves with key historical and contemporary developments, (2) to explore the challenges that the introduction of different forms of information systems may pose, and (3) to consider the scope for management action in response to these challenges. Students are required to produce an assessed group presentation and to sit an exam in the summer. The aim of both the lectures and these forms of assessment is to enable students to develop techniques, methods of analysis and research expertise relating to the place of information systems in contemporary organisations. By the end of the course, students should have enhanced their understanding of relevant theoretical and practical issues that arise, as well as having developed their critical and analytical skills.

This module outlines how the management of people is approached and understood within different cultural, economic and political contexts. It will review to what extent the meanings, strategies and practices of managing work and workers have changed over the last couple of decades. Particular emphasis is thereby placed on the exploration of the social, temporal and spatial dimensions of managing and regulating work within the organizational context and beyond.

Overall, the module aims to outline the organizational as well as individual challenges, ambiguities and complexities that are concomitant with current modes of managing workers and employees. We will cover topics such as bureaucratic and entrepreneurial forms of work organization, creative knowledge work and workers, employee subjectivity and identity, normative forms of power and control, as well as ethico-political aspects of contemporary management.

This course is concerned with major theories in social psychology and related social sciences that have guided the organisation and design of work.

In this module students should develop an understanding of the importance of the role of psychology in the development of people management techniques and practices. They will also develop an understanding of the historical development of psychology, with specific reference to the relevance of psychological expertise to the effective management of organisations.

In OWT 228 we look at the changing role and position of management and managers in organisations and society. Much of modern analysis of management emphasises a change in forms of management control from traditional authority through vertical hierarchical forms to ones which are more horizontal and look to incorporate employees into the organisation and its goals in ever closer ways. This happens for example through attempts to align employees identities, emotions and interests with commitment to the organisation: the much discussed capturing of hearts and minds. Another aspect of this is the manipulation of meaning in order to facilitate this identification of employee and organisation, usually discussed as the corporate culture movement. Together these can be taken as two significant aspects of modern management the management of meaning and the management of identity - which feature little in traditional management texts that emphasise management as the co-ordination of tasks and the control and deployment of resources.

However, it is important to see management and managers within the light of organisation analysis. Managers are not the autonomous agents they are often portrayed, first because they are also employees themselves (albeit in the position of formally representing the interests of capital), and second, they are also subject to organisational structures, cultures and power relations. Perhaps especially in the light of managerial control designed around commitment, integration and identification with the organisation, managers are tied in by the very control strategies that they themselves are promoting. However, as we shall see, there are also important tensions between the changing context of management and these forms of control which can lead to unintended consequences such as impression management and various forms of resistance.

Thus this module focuses on how management is a social process, and what this means for the lived experience of doing management. In exploring this we look at topics which are relevant for the day-to-day experience of managers, although rarely are these addressed in conventional management textbooks: issues such as humour, diversity, impression management and emotional management.

Year 3 is an industrial placement year for students registered on the Management, Politics and International Relations degree.

The aim of Managing Human Resources is to develop an informed, critical understanding of how the management of Human Resources is undertaken, why and with what effect. What it is not is a prescriptive course providing ‘how to do it’ set of rules and practices. The focus here is on a critical understanding of the employment relationship within the organisational context. Some students are interested in becoming HR practitioners in their future careers and many wish to become a manager of some form. In both cases the course provides a solid foundation to evaluating different approaches to managing human resources and gain a critical understanding of where they would be appropriate.

Initially the course introduces the development and roles of HRM and the ways in which different management styles can be adopted in organisations. The course then examines the nature of the relationship between HRM and performance (including aspects of remuneration). The lectures then present contemporary HRM issues, for example, Equality and Diversity, Flexible working, Careers and Wellbeing.

Economic, social, cultural and political globalization have all contributed to the growth of economic activity that cuts across national borders and to the emergence and proliferation of organizations that transcend national boundaries. Increasingly, organizations are engaged in the employment contract in multiple different national employment systems. The human resources of organizations are located in multiple country locations. Internationalization thereby becomes a key challenge for the practitioners and a dimension that cannot be taken as given or standard for scholars of HRM. In a context of the transformation of a growing number of organizations (and especially the largest ones) into “transnational social spaces”, HRM practices flow across borders. Some strategic scholarship argues that such flows are critical to the success of individual firms, and concentrate their efforts on identifying “best practices” that will yield the greatest leverage to each. Strategic scholarship keen to understand what will work best to increase the efficiency and financial performance of multinational organizations also studies the various “glitches” that might obstruct flows or make the flows of HRM practices everywhere not always desirable.

This module examines the challenges of managing human resources against a backdrop of cross-cultural and institutional work contexts and teams, variation in local socio-political-legal contexts and the necessity for cross-border assignments. The analytical/critical approach to IHRM taken concerns itself with questions of whether employment (and HRM) practices are converging or diverging around the world, how power and politics are implicated in the internal dynamics of multinational corporations, and if the corporate social responsibility pledges for appropriate treatment of workers can possibly suffice to ensure a fair employment relationship in the absence of a transnational regulator, among others.

The dissertation gives students an opportunity to apply the learning from their degree programme to undertake a substantial in-depth research study. The dissertation is intended to provide them with the opportunity to explore at length and in depth aspects of theory, knowledge, experience and skills introduced during the degree programme (or gleaned from elsewhere) and draw critical interpretations from this analysis. Further, the ability to make sense of the area under investigation, unravel the complexities and develop purposeful insights is at the heart of the dissertation.

The objective of this module is to attempt to develop moral sensibility and practical reasoning in the context of managerial everyday action in organisations. It will be concerned with morality in action, as it happens, rather than a removed reflection on codes and principles of ethics.

The module seeks to show that ethics in action is diffused and difficult. Nevertheless, managers and employees have a responsibility to ‘work it out’ for themselves. It is this ‘how to work it out’ that the module will keep as its focus. A number of case studies will be used as a basis for developing a moral sensibility so that managers will be able to act in a morally appropriate manner as part of their ongoing organisational action.

Technology is widely regarded as an unstoppable engine of change that is driving the advance or progress of the modern world. It would seem that no corner of the planet is left untouched by the transformative power of technology: from computers and telecommunications technology to biotechnology, from genetic engineering to the production of designer drugs to control and reshape human behaviour, the technological (re)ordering of the world would appear to have no limits. Against this background utopian or dystopian depending on your viewpoint OWT.326 aims to explore the (inter)relationship between technology and organisation.

The lectures place a strong emphasis on the examination of accounts and representations, visions of technology, technologically mediated change in organisations and society (including issues of identity, power and surveillance), and the ethical dimensions of technology.

No prior knowledge of technology is assumed.

Organisational change is widely accepted as a defining feature of contemporary life. Most of the topics covered in management courses, for example, structure; technology; people; power; culture; strategy; leadership and learning, to name a few, assume the need for changes of one kind or another. This course of lectures and the associated seminar programme review some key ideas associated with approaches to change. Seminal approaches to the field that can be said to conceptualise change management are introduced and compared, particularly those at the micro - that is the individual and group level.

Material included in the course will help you understand your own and other peoples' reactions to changes. It will help you develop informed opinions about theories of change and will help you to understand how changes might be managed effectively. Expressed more formally, the course will

• introduce you to some key management and social, and behavioural science contributions in the field;

• help you to compare different orientations and to appreciate their relative strengths and weaknesses;

• help you to relate such ideas to actual events in organisations; and,

• help you to understand and evaluate your own approaches to the management of change and to evaluate management practices in this area.

This course involves a brief (and therefore rather packed) review of some of the main theoretical and empirical debates in the study of work and employment relations. Work is among the most defining experiences of individual lives and the particular form the employment relationship takes is among the core tenets that define the uniqueness of societal arrangements over time and space. Exploring various facets of work and employment is an endeavour that cuts across disciplinary boundaries economists, public policy makers, engineers, geographers, historians, among others, all have their views, interests and preferred methods of inquiry and manners of debate. Furthermore, even within disciplinary boundaries, there is no consensus on how to approach the subject matter, which questions to ask, and how to pursue the answers. In this course, the approach is sociological and the content is somewhat eclectic, being drawn from all of the aforementioned disciplines.