Henrik.saabyes.dk

MBAD 6161-090
ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP & BEHAVIOR I
Thursday 5:30 – 8:20
Fall 2007
Office Hours: Tuesday 1:30 – 3:00 (campus), Thursday 3:30 – 5:00 (Uptown) Phone:
Required materials:
Robbins, Stephen P. & Judge, Timothy A. Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 9th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Toffler, B. (2003). Final Accounting. New York: Broadway Books. Leadership Practices Inventory: 1 “self” and 2 “observer” instruments (details in class) Course Description:
From the UNCC Catalog: “Behavioral knowledge and skills essential to becoming an effective
manager/leader including behavior and motivation in an environment of complexity and rapid
change and ethical implications of actions and their effects on demographically diverse and
increasingly international work force”
Course Objectives

The major objective of this course is to improve your effectiveness as a manager by providing
you with a foundation of knowledge in topics including decision making, diversity, negotiation,
work motivation, leadership, group and team dynamics, power and politics, and to develop your
ability apply this knowledge to the solution of managerial problems. This course thus blends
readings grounded in solid theory and research, class discussions focusing on real-world cases
and examples from the popular business press (e.g., Wall Street Journal), and exercises focusing
on specific skills (e.g., a 360-degree feedback exercise on your leadership behaviors).
A basic premise of this course is that the needs of high-level managers are best served by liberal
education rather than cookbook approaches to managing organizations. Organizations are more
complicated than most appliances, and understanding how they work takes more than
memorizing simple platitudes. Practices that worked will in the past will not necessarily continue
to work well in the future, and changes that helped one type of firm may harm another. Thus, an
effective professional education should teach you how to make good inferences about what will
work and what will not in particular situations, and how to learn from your own experiences and
those of others. The best way to do this is through exposure to both rigorous research and real-
world cases and examples. That is how this course is structured (“premise” statement borrowed, with
permission, from Professor Jerry Davis’s Managing Human Behavior in Organizations course, Columbia University
Graduate School of Business).


Course Requirements
Exams. There will be two examinations in this class. The first exam will include short answer
questions and an analysis of a case. The second exam is a comprehensive in-class exam that is an
analysis of a “case”, specifically, Arthur Andersen as presented in Toffler’s Final Accounting.
Exam material will be drawn from class discussions, the assigned readings, and any supplemental
material I hand out in class.
Individual Case Assignment. This will be an individual case assignment focusing on the
challenges and tradeoffs involved in working in and managing routine, lower-skilled, blue (and
sometimes white) collar work. More details will be in a separate document on the course website.
DUE October 18
Team Project. Teams of 4-5 students will analyze issues and make recommendations on issues
relevant to this course in a real organization. More details will be in a separate document on the
course website.
Cases/exercises/participation. This course demands a high level of participation. For most
classes a case and/or readings will serve as the basis for our discussions. The case and questions
to guide discussion will be posted on the course website. You will be asked to prepare answers to
2-3 short questions about the case (or the reading) for the following week. Typically these
questions are simply to guide your reading and do not have to be turned in to me. If I feel that
participation and advanced preparation for class is lagging, however, I will request that you
prepare the questions to be turned in. I expect you to show up prepared to discuss the cases and
readings in detail. Quality, and not quantity of participation on cases is important. Your
participation grade will be based on your completion of case and readings questions, your
preparation, and the quality of your contribution to class discussions.
Course Website: Cases, readings, notes, and discussion questions for class will be posted on the
course website. (The password for the website will be given in class). You must check the
website weekly to keep up with course material.
Evaluation

Your evaluation will be based on the following:
Exam 1:
Letter grades will be assigned according to the standard formula: A = 100-90%, B=89-80%, C=79-70%, U = below 70% Important Administrative Matters
Missed Exams. Attendance on exam day is mandatory. Make-up exams will only be given for a
very limited set of circumstances. If a conflict arises that is absolutely unavoidable (most
commonly out-of-town work assignments), you should notify me as soon as possible (a week is
the absolute minimum advance notice). Arrangements will be made to have you take the exam
prior to the scheduled exam date.
If you miss an exam due to unavoidable circumstances (e.g., illness, a death in the family), you
must notify me by the end of the work day on the day of the exam (leave a voice mail, email, or
both). Reasons for such a missed exam should be documented. The exam will be made-up as
soon as possible after the originally scheduled exam date. At the instructor’s discretion, the
make-up exam may differ in content or form from the regularly scheduled exam.
A zero will be assigned to missed exams that do not conform to either of the above two
circumstance.
Attendance Policy. Regular attendance is mandatory. This class requires a good deal of active
participation. Often, we’ll have groups discuss a case or participate in an exercise in class; if you
miss the class, you miss the learning experience. Because of considerable exam content that
comes only from class notes, if you do not attend regularly it is unlikely that you will do well on
the exams.

A note on academic integrity. Because one of my areas of interest and study is ethics in
business, I am especially sensitive to issues of lying, cheating, plagiarism, and other ethical
violations. The UNC Charlotte code of student academic integrity expressly prohibits:

A. Cheating
B. Fabrication and falsification
C. Multiple Submission
D. Plagiarism
E. Abuse of Academic Materials
F. Complicity in Academic Dishonesty

If you are unfamiliar with the precise definitions of any of the above, you should review the
UNCC Code of Student Academic Integrity (on the web at105.html).

Because of continuing issues involving plagiarism, including some misunderstanding as to what
precisely constitutes plagiarism, I have developed a detailed statement on the course website,
with several examples ).
When you turn in your first written assignment (the case analysis), you are also required to turn in
a form from the website indicating you have read and understand the rules regarding plagiarism.
I will not grade your written assignments until you have turned in this form. Please
understand that this is an area that I take very seriously. Any violations of the above will be dealt
with according to the established rules of UNCC, and penalties may range from failure in the
course to expulsion from the University. This is one area where I make no exceptions.
Dates and topics are tentative. Expect some small changes in readings and cases as dictated by class direction, current events, etc. Any changes will be announced on the website. Readings/Assignments
Business As Usual (read after class, discuss next class) Fair Process: Managing in a Knowledge Economy RJ: Ch. 2, 27-31, Ch. 5, p. 80-84 (equity) RJ Ch. 5, p. 69-70, p. 84-87 (expectancy) R. p. 76-79 (goal setting), 89-97 (job design) The Motivational Benefits of Goal Setting Mr. Edens Profits RJ Ch. 4, p. 51-56 (perception) How (un)Ethical are you? Case: Road to Hell 10/18 Groups II: Underlying Processes and Tightening the Iron Cage
Individual Case Assignment Due Today
Additional Reading TBA
Call me Mike
LPIs Due Today
Robbins p. 156-158 & 166-168 What Leaders Really Do 11/22 Thanksgiving
11/29 Group Presentations
12/13 Final Exam

Source: http://henrik.saabyes.dk/upload/mbad6161-U90.pdf