Organizational Behavior

This course contributes to the general purposes of the MSc Management of human resources program by offering the students theoretical and methodological tools to understand the impact that personal factors, group dynamics, and organizational characteristics have on human behaviour at the workplace.
This course primarily focuses on the contributions of the psychological perspective to explain organizational behaviour.
The first learning objective is to enhance knowledge of the main psycho-sociological theories that explain how people give meaning to their work environment and how the attributed meanings affect their satisfaction, commitment, well-being and performance both at individual and group levels. Therefore, it will be examined: (a) how emotions, cognitive and social processes influence human perception and groups' decision-making; (b) how the interactions between personal, social and organizational resources can enhance or hinder employees' well-being, and job performance; (c) how workgroups function, and the conditions that improve their effectiveness, specifically within international contexts.
The second learning objective is to develop a critical understanding of the main approaches and practices to cultivate employee engagement, workplace social sustainability, and organizational inclusion.
The third learning objective is to increase the ability to make decisions by combining the best available scientific evidence on how people think, perceive, and behave with contextual data.
During the lectures, some case studies will be introduced to exercise students to solve management problems by applying theoretical and methodological knowledge.

At the end of this course, students should be able to:
a)Describe the individual, social and organizational factors that can shape, and sometimes distort, perception, attribution of causes, judgment and decision-making in the workplace.
b)Understand how personal, social and organizational factors influence employees' health, well-being and job performance.
c)Explain the main processes and dynamics that can lead to inclusive organizational environments and sustainable work experiences.
d)Analyse the structure and the properties of work groups and teams
e)Explore the quality of the interaction and communication within groups (intragroup relationships) and between groups (intergroup relationships).
f)Recognize the dynamics of international teams and plan strategies to promote collective work engagement.
g)Mindfully apply theoretical and methodological models to evaluate the quality of working life, formulate hypotheses on the antecedents of organizational problems (e.g. people disengagement, burnout, counterproductive behaviours, absenteeism) and design action plans.
h)Connect scientific evidence on Organizational Behaviour with issues and decisions in HRM.