Rutgers University at Camden

Department of Psychology

Psychology 319: Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Spring 2008

Monday and Wednesday-2:50- 4:10pm

Instructor: Katerina Bezrukova

E-mail: bezrukov@camden.rutgers.edu

Office: Armitage 307

Office hours: By appointment

Course Description

This course is designed to provide you with an introduction to the field of industrial/organizational psychology covering fundamental theory and research in personnel and organizations. Topics include psychology of industrial and human relations; job analysis and design; worker morale, motivation, and efficiency; group work, organizational conflict, and workplace diversity; leadership and top management teams; training and development; organizational culture and change.

This course has a significant experiential element to it. In addition to reading about and discussing major topic areas in industrial/organizational psychology, you will, as part of the requirements for this course, experience groups and organizations in two ways. First, you will be a member of a work team within the course, and the majority of your course grade will be based on the performance of this team. Second, you will choose an on-going group/organization outside of class and study it as part of this course.

Course objectives include:

• To obtain a broad exposure to a number of areas of industrial/organizational psychology, and to begin a process of becoming very familiar with the literature in these fields.
• To gain an intellectual understanding of some of central concepts in the field of industrial/organizational psychology.
• To intelligently observe, recognize, and analyze groups and organizations.
• To feel comfortable in applying the course principles to real life situations and contribute effectively to groups and organizations in your lives.

The assigned readings are:

• A bulk pack of assigned readings, available from the University Bookstore. These readings include short articles from professional and academic journals, chapters from books, cases and exercises.
  
  
• Additional handouts.

Administration

Your grade will be determined much as employee performance is evaluated in high performance organizations. That is, your grade will be based partly on your individual participation in class, but mostly on the performance of your entire work team.

In particular, your grade will be based upon a maximum of 100 points, distributed as follows:

Class participation (20%); evaluated individually

Quizzes (30%); evaluated individually

Group Papers (20%); evaluated as a team

Final Project (30%); evaluated as a team

Class participation. The class participation grade will consist of 3 parts:

• Contributions to class discussion (worth 5%) will be evaluated based on your involvement in class activities, where exemplary participation involves applying the reading for the day in an active and constructive manner. I will also consider how actively you participated in the reading discussion held in Q&A form, and how thought-provoking and insightful your questions on class materials and other opinions, suggestions, ideas are; how actively you contribute your thoughts in your small group discussions; how actively you participate in presenting your group's ideas to the rest of your classmates.

• Your team allocation of 100 points based on group’s evaluation of your teamwork (worth 5%).
• Your participation with the in-class activity (worth 10%) will be evaluated and based on your active involvement in the activity.

Quizzes. This includes your individual performance on occasional surprise quizzes in class. Quizzes will be given to check your understanding of the assigned readings and lecture notes. If you are late or absent to class you will not be allowed to make up the missed quiz, but your lowest quiz score will be dropped when calculating your final overall quiz score.

• Team Formation: Four- or five-person research teams will be formed the second day of class. Your research team will be responsible for all team-based course work.

As an I/O psychologist, learning to perform effectively in groups is a critical skill; thus, it is important for you to experience this type of situation. Given the frequent interaction among your team members, you need to work out any conflicts or problems as soon as possible and, if necessary, see me. It may also be useful for your team to select a facilitator who coordinates the team meetings. Each team is required to submit to me a “team contract.” All team members must sign this contract. When designing your contract, think about the type of ‘social contract’ that you want to establish with each other. Such a contract should help mediate conflict later in the semester.

Group Papers. Each team will prepare two brief team papers. The papers will assess your ability to analyze the characteristics of your Psych 350 team and evaluate the other in-class team. More details will be given later in the course of the semester.

Group Project. This project will require your work team to choose an on-going group or organization to observe and analyze. I will be happy to meet with you during office hours or by appointment to help you select an appropriate group/organization to study. Your team will make an in-class presentation at the end of the semester that summarizes your study findings, including your recommendations to increase the studied group/organization’s effectiveness, and will turn in a written project report. Your grade will be based on your team’s performance both on the presentation and the written report. A short (one-page) proposal of the group/organization your team wishes to study, and your plan for analyzing this team/organization, is due in March. The final paper is due at the beginning of class during which your team makes its oral presentation.

Course Outline

I will run this class largely as a seminar. In addition to lectures, you can expect group activities and discussions in most class meetings. The quality of these discussions largely depends upon your coming to class prepared. This means that you must have read and thought about the materials assigned for that class period, and be prepared to contribute your reactions, questions, and ideas during the class period.

Tentative Weekly Schedule of Lectures

Date		Topic			Required Readings and Assignments
Introduction to I/O Psychology
1/23 #1		Introduction to I/O Psychology
Teams
1/28 #2		Teams and Teamwork			· Katzenbach & Smith, “Team basics: A working definition and discipline” DUE: Teams
1/30 #3		Working in Teams			· Katzenbach & Smith, “One team: A story of performance” DUE: Team Contract (in class exercise)
2/4 #4		Characteristics of Team Members			· Bezrukova, “Your preferences: Checklist” · Go to the web (http://keirsey.com) and take the Temperament Sorter. Print out your results (mini report) and bring them to class. · Kroeger & Thuesen, “Appendix: The Sixteen Types”
2/6 #5		Characteristics of Team Members: Cont’d			· Parker, “Team players and teamwork”
Job Analysis & Design
2/11 #6		Criteria: Standards for Decision Making			· Muchinsky, “Criteria: Standards for decision making”.
2/13 #7		Job Design			· Hackman, JR, et al. “A new strategy for job enrichment” DUE: Paper #1: Analysis of Team Member Characteristics
Training & Development
2/18 #8		Training and Development			· Muchinsky, “Training and development”.
In-Class Team Assessment
2/20 #9		NO CLASS			· Prepare for Assessment of in-class team
2/25 #10		Assessment			· Assessment of in-class team
Decision-Making & Problem Solving
2/27 #11		Decision Making: Part I			· Harvey, “The Abilene paradox: The management of agreement”. · Thompson, “Team decision making: Conformity, pitfalls, and solutions”.
3/3 #12		Decision Making: Part II			· Janis & Mann, “Stages of decision making”.
Organizational Conflict & Diversity
3/5 #13	Conflict			· De Dreu, “Conflict management and performance.” · Jehn & Mannix, “The dynamic nature of conflict: A longitudinal study of intragroup conflict and group performance.” · Capozzoli, “Resolving conflict within teams”
3/10 #14	New Directions in Conflict Research			· Lau & Murnighan, “Demographic diversity and faultlines: The compositional dynamics of organizational groups.” DUE: Paper #2: Assessment and Feedback for another in-class team
Research Methods
3/12 #15	Research Methods			· Muchinsky, “Research methods in I/O psychology.” DUE: GROUP PROJECT PROPOSAL
Spring Recess
3/17 & 3/19	NO CLASS
Stress
3/24 #16	Stress & Health CNN: Video			· Druskat & Wolff, “Building the emotional intelligence of groups.” · Gabarro & Kotter, “Managing your boss.” · Patcher, “Bosses behaving badly”
Motivation
3/26 #17	Work Motivation Theories			· Muchinsky, “Work motivation.”
3/31 #18	Motivation and Incentives			· Kerr, “On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B.” · Case, “When salaries aren’t secret.”
Performance & Feedback
4/2 #19		Performance Appraisal and Feedback		· Beer, “Conducting a performance appraisal interview” · Peiperl, “Getting 360^ofeedback right” · Porter, “Giving and receiving feedback; it will never be easy, but it can be better” DUE: GROUP PROJECT PROPOSAL
Organizational Culture
4/7 #20			NO CLASS (reading day)	· Schein, “Why does corporate culture matter?” (Read!) · Prepare to assess your individual and group leadership skills
Leadership
4/9 #21			Leadership	· Lumsden & Lumsden, “Leadership and responsibility: Influencing your teams”
4/14 #22			Leadership Assessment	DUE: Individual assessments
4/16 #23			Top Management Teams	· Levy, “The nut island effect: When good teams go wrong”
In-class activity & Summary
4/21 #24			In-class group activity/Guest Lecture
4/23 #25			Review; wrap up	This is the time to ask your last questions!
Team Presentations
4/28 #26				Final presentations
4/30 #27				Final presentations
5/5 #28			Last Day of Class	Final presentations FINAL PAPERS DUE