Time Schedule:
Jone Pearce
MGMT 584
Seattle Campus
Focuses on the organization's employee performance appraisal and compensation systems. Examines effects of different practices.
Class description
Purpose
This course has two purposes. One is to develop an in-depth understanding of several topics that share two characteristics: 1) they are of interest to (or at least measured by) scholars from the management disciplines of human resources management, organizational behavior, organization theory, and strategy; and 2) they are theories in which enthusiasm for the ideas (or common measures) has outstripped our understanding of them. These topics are attitudes, contingency theory, culture, and nations. The emphasis will be on developing a rich understanding of the attractions of these ideas to our colleagues, the prominent debates, and the quality of the empirical work.
The second purpose is to provide practical experience in the development of questionnaire-based scale measures that validly represent concepts (a ‘practicum”). Such practical “craft knowledge” will provide the foundation for evaluating others’ research using self-report measures (the vast majority of the work done in our fields), as well as help develop confidence and skill in establishing your own measures.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Format
Each seminar session will be divided into two halves. The first part of the session will consist of a discussion of the assigned topical readings. Each participant will lead one discussion session, with Jone leading the first session, and however many are remaining after everyone has had a turn. Attached are discussion questions; they are intended to provide guidance, not to be a comprehensive list of questions. An important part of your contribution to the discussions will be to bring your own questions about the readings.
The second part of each session will consist of brief readings, short lectures, discussions, hands-on-practice and critiques of students’ own evolving scales. This practical work builds on the design seminar taught by Professor Mitchell in Fall Quarter and the data analysis course by Professor Steensma in Winter Quarter.
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
Requirements
Below is the list of books used in the seminar: • Staw, B. M. (1995). Repairs on the road to relevance and rigor, in L. L. Cummings and P. J. Frost (Eds.), Publishing in organizational sciences, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 85-97. • DeVellis, R. F. 2003. Scale development (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. • Brief, A. P. (1998) Attitudes in and around organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. • Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in action. New York: McGraw-Hill. • Donaldson, L. (2001). The contingency theory of organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. • Geertz, C. 1973 (paperback 1977). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. • Hofstede, G. 2001. Culture’s consequences (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. • Rose-Ackerman, S. (1999). Corruption and government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Redding, S. G. (1990). The spirit of Chinese capitalism. Berlin: DeGruyter. • Pearce, J. L. (2001). Organizational behavior in the embrace of government. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. All books will be available on four-hour reserve in Foster Library, or may be bought on-line. Any article not available on-line will be distributed in the first class session or via email. Handouts will also be distributed in class, as appropriate.
The seminar will be graded, based the quality of the following (equally weighted):
• Participation; • Topic session leadership • One analysis paper • Written scale description
Analysis papers are to be no more than 10 pages (AMR format) and can be on any sub-topic discussion in a class session (excluding the topic from the session the student led). The analysis should be thoughtful, scholarly, and provide a thorough critique of the research chosen.
The written scale description is that section of a Methods Section for AMJ that describes the sample, procedure and scale development for your scales.
Schedule Overview ________________________________________________________________________
Date
_________________ Seminar Topic Practicum Topic _______________________________________________________
1. Jan 4 What Makes Organizational Research Interesting? Recognizing Alternative Interpretations & Impossible-to-refute-or-confirm Theories
2. Jan 11 Individuals’ Organizational Attitudes Clear Conceptual Definitions
3. Jan 18 Alternative Uses of Attitudes Item Generation
4. Jan 25 Classical Contingency Theory & First Tests Review and Critique Items & Subject Matter Experts Exercise – First Pass
5. Feb 1 Current Contingency Theory & Controversies Review and Critique Items – Second Pass
6. Feb 8 Classical Culture Developmental Sampling (aka Quick-and-Dirty Pretest) & Using Correlation Matrices 7. Feb 15 Culture and Measurement Data Coding and Cleaning
8. Feb 22 Nations and Corruption Building Scales – First Pass
9. Mar 1 Organizations and Organizational Behavior in the Embrace of Governments Building Scales – Second Pass
10. Mar 8 Wrap Up ALL PAPERS DUE
