Human Resource Management I
OWT.223
Value: Half Unit (Michaelmas Term)
ECTS: 8 credits
Name of administering department or equivalent: Organisation, Work & Technology
Module convenors: Dr Bogdan Costea
Pre-requisites: OWT.100/101 or MNGT110/MNGT120
Learning hours: 150
Credit rating: 15
University weighting: Half Unit
CURRICULUM DESIGN
Level: Undergraduate Years 2 or 3
Educational Aims: The course introduces and analyses Human Resource Management. Participants should develop an ability to understand in some depth the origins of HRM, its constitutive elements, and the underlying cultural logic of HRM practices. HRM reveals what we mean, in the 21st Century, by work, life and identity. The course will thus investigate the relationships between the multiple (and often contradictory) discourses and techniques which make up HRM. OWT.223 examines aspects of recruitment and selection, of performativity, performance management and self-actualisation as key expressions of how work is culturally organised in contemporary organisations.
Outline syllabus:
Week 1 Introduction to course organisation and major themes
Week 2 The rise of HRM: a historical perspective
Week 3 The role of academics and the production of HRM as a discipline
Week 4 Normality, abnormality and the production of the ideal subject of social order
Week 5 Recruitment and Selection as processes of classification and measurement
Week 6 Objectivity and its limitations: techniques of HRM
Week 7 Control and motivation as practices of subjection
Week 8 Governmentality and control in contemporary organisations
Week 9 Motivation: traditional thinking and its limits
Week 10 Motivation: alternative understandings
Select bibliography:
B Townley, Reframing Human Resource Management, Power, Ethics and the Subject at Work, Sage, 1994.
K Legge, Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities. Macmillan Business, 1995.
P DuGay and M Pryke (eds), Cultural Economy: cultural analysis and commercial life, Sage, 2002.
M Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, 1977.
LEARNING, TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT
Length: 10 weeks
Term(s) in which the module will be taught: Michaelmas term
How will this module be taught? Lectures, Seminars, Videos
What are the contact hours, type and frequency?
Lectures: 20 hours - 1 x 2 hour lecture per week
Seminar/Tutorial: 4 hours - 1 x 1 hour per fortnight, 4 per fortnight
Workshop: none
Practical: none
Other: none
Total: 24 hours
How will this module be assessed?
50% Coursework and 50% Unseen 1.5 hour Examination
What is the timing of formal assessment?
Coursework – Michaelmas Term
Examination - Standard Summer Term
MODULE ADMINISTRATION
Single, Combined and/or Consortial Scheme(s) to which module contributes:
(a) as a core/compulsory module: Management & Organisation (HRM); Management & Organisation (HRM) (Industry);
(b) as an optional module: Management & Organisation; Management & Organisation (Industry); Organisation Studies & Psychology; Organisation Studies & Sociology
