University at Albany
Department of Management

BMgt 602/4470 (Spring, 1999)

Managing Productivity and Quality of Worklife

Martin Fogelman
442-5545
fogelman@albany.edu

Course Objectives for Module on Organizational Development and Change

1. To provide students with an overview of organizational development and change practices. These practices are typically used to enhance organizational effectiveness, improve quality of work life, increase productivity, and facilitate the organization's ability to assess and solve its own problems.

2. To give students an opportunity to develop skills in organizational diagnosis, survey development, change management, team building, systems redesign, problem identification, and problem solving techniques.

Block, Peter. (1981) Flawless Consulting. Austin, TX: Learning Concepts.

Cummings, T., and Worley, C. (1997) Organizational Development and Change. Minneapolis, MN: West Publishing.

HRIS-L, a forum for the HRIS Subprogram, is also a channel for communication for this class.

Some supplementary articles and other assigned readings will either be distributed, referenced (in the case of a web site or FTP source), or placed on reserve in the library.

Grading and Criteria

Individual Writing Assignments: There will be four short papers, each 3-5 pages double-spaced. Though cases come mostly from the text, students are encouraged to incorporate their own consulting and team experiences into their analysis. Students are also encouraged to negotiate a substitute project which better fits their interest and experience. Submissions are done in memo or report format. (40% of grade for this segment)

Short Presentations: Each student will make one individual short presentation to the class based on a writing assignment above. (10% of grade for this segment)

Class Participation and Final Quiz (10% of grade for segment)

Course Project (40% of grade for this segment)

Each student will be expected to select a type of organizational development intervention (or a program designed to enhance the quality of work life), and

• conduct a review of the intervention including an evaluation of its effectiveness,
• design a survey for diagnostic or evaluative use in an instance of the intervention,
• write an executive summary of the intervention, and
• present theinformation to the class.

These will be incorporated into a sourcebook which summarizes the interventions and their effectiveness. Groups of students are invited to propose more intensive or comprehensive team projects in lieu of this individual assignment.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to the following topics:

(all topics must be approved, and a one-page proposal for the course project should be submitted by 3/23/99)