Management and Human Resources (Industry) BSc Hons - 2021 Entry

Course Structure

Lancaster University offers a range of programmes, some of which follow a structured study programme, and others which offer the chance for you to devise a more flexible programme to complement your main specialism. We divide academic study into two sections - Part 1 (Year 1) and Part 2 (Year 2, 3 and sometimes 4). For most programmes Part 1 requires you to study 120 credits spread over at least three modules which, depending upon your programme, will be drawn from one, two or three different academic subjects. A higher degree of specialisation then develops in subsequent years. For more information about our teaching methods at Lancaster please visit our Teaching and Learning section.

The following courses do not offer modules outside of the subject area due to the structured nature of the programmes: Architecture, Law, Physics, Engineering, Medicine, Sports and Exercise Science, Biochemistry, Biology, Biomedicine and Biomedical Science.

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, and the University will make every reasonable effort to offer modules as advertised. In some cases changes may be necessary and may result in some combinations being unavailable, for example as a result of student feedback, timetabling, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes and new research.

Year 1

Core

• Management and Organisation in Context

  The aim of this course is to introduce students to the fascinating world of management and organisation(s) via a series of lectures and seminars and reading groups.

  Over a period of ten weeks, we will attempt to familiarise ourselves with some of the main themes and issues that make up our ‘organised’ world. Our main objective will be to map out the ways in which we understand ourselves in relation to work, management and organisations. In order to so, we will attempt to trace how the meaning we give to these important themes has developed historically. To do so, we will analyse the thought of some of their main critics and contributors.

  The course begins by providing a perspective on capitalism (as the social order in which the forms of managing and organising we are interested in takes place), before moving on to look at management more concretely and ends with a focus on people (both managers and workers) in contemporary organisations and society.

• Management, Organisations and Work: Key Issues and Debates

  This module aims to provide you with a broad introduction to management covering a wide range of topics that are relevant to work, business and organisations. The module begins by locating organizations, work and technology in a broad historical context. It considers the meaning of work and different debates regarding alienation and technology. It then introduces different metaphors through which we can understand and analyse organisations. Finally, it considers the changing nature of employment relations by considering the shift from industrial relations to Human Resource Management (HRM). The module is constructed to encourage you to think critically and to reflect upon taken-for-granted assumptions about the world of work and management’s role in relation to it. As a means to achieve this, the second part of the course explores the contemporary issue of human resource management and development which fundamentally contributes to the development of employee-engaged and productive organisations. The final part of the module continues the theme of encouraging critical reflection and explores key issues and debates related to gig employment, globalization, sustainability and business ethics that are intimately related to management. Many of these debates and issues will be explored in greater depth in subsequent OWT modules (e.g. OWT.223 Human Resource Management, OWT.226 Management and Information Technology, and OWT.229 Business Ethics).

Year 2

Core

• Human Resource Management

  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 which 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.

Optional

• Analysing Organisations

  This course introduces students to key theoretical perspectives to deepen their understanding of how organisations operate and are managed. Students are encouraged to use these perspectives in different ways to analyse organisations. In particular, the course explores how the perspectives relate to and can be used to analyse management styles and conflict. The course also introduces metaphors, such as cultures and machines, as a method for analysing organisations. The intention of the course is to encourage students to critically reflect upon how they understand organisations and to recognise that the same organisation may be seen by different people in different ways, which impacts on how they in turn understand and attempt to manage them.

• Business Ethics

  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.

• Management and the Natural Environment: Ethics and Sustainability I

  The module focuses upon the relationships between management theory, practice and the natural environment. The first part of the module examines how management have conceptualised the range of environmental issues which have emerged since the rise of industrial society. We then consider different aspects of sustainability focusing upon ecological modernisation, consumerism and waste management. There is a sharp focus throughout the implications for policy making.

  Learning outcomes

  On successful completion of this module students should normally have:

  • A broad but critical understanding of the complex interrelationships between management in contemporary organizations and their social, cultural and physical environments.

  • Improved their ability to relate key ideas and theoretical frameworks such as those presented in this module to the ongoing social and intellectual controversies concerning management and its place in the modern world.

• Managing Knowledge, Data and Information Systems

  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.

• Organisational Psychology

  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.

• The Changing Role of Management

  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

Core

• Year 3 Placement

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

Year 4

Core

• Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice

  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.

• International Human Resource Management

  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.

Optional

• Organisational Change

  The aim of this course is to provide students with a critical understanding of organisations and the management of change. Management gurus and media commentators have heralded a break with earlier ways of organizing and managing and yet change is often more difficult than they suggest.

  This course introduces different ways in which to understand change. It pays particular attention to management gurus and asks why their prescriptions are so popular? Overall, the course examines some of the problems and obstacles that companies face when attempting to introduce a variety of new change initiatives including teamwork and knowledge management and it draws on case study material to enable students to explore change in different organisational settings.

• Psychological Approaches to Managing Change

  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.