GRA 2239 Leadership in Organizations

APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2015/2016

GRA 2239 Leadership in Organizations


Responsible for the course
Lars Glasø

Department
Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
Leadership is a complex issue, and as an academic field, it is persistently stimulated and challenged by inputs from practice, from marketing fads and from the re-invention of old ideas. This is a course that aims to make the students acquainted with leadership as an empirical research field with relevance to practical applications in society. The focus is on how theoretical models of leadership may be substantiated by empirical research, and how these findings may be of practical value to leadership development in organizations.

Learning outcome
The purpose of this course is to provide graduate students with the following three knowledge bases:
1. How has “leadership” been conceptualized theoretically in the social sciences, and how have these theories evolved?
2. What is the current status of empirical leadership research, with a special emphasis on:
3. What is the relationship between leadership and organizational performance?
4: How can leadership be measured?
5. What can be said about leadership development from an academic perspective? What develops and what are the possible approaches to this development?

In addition to these academic learning contents, the students will be trained to read scientific contributions in this field and apply them to issues of practical interest to the general public. Upon ending this course, they will have a basic understanding of the main methodological issues involved in undertaking research on leadership.

Prerequisites

All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have spesific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.

Compulsory reading
Books:
Yukl, Gary A. 2013. Leadership in organizations. 8th ed. Pearson

Collection of articles:
A collection of research articles will be made available at the start of the course

Other:
During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination.


Recommended reading

Course outline
Regular lectures are interspersed with group presentations of contrasting views on leadership with the aim of creating group discussions about the ramifications of the various theories.

Computer-based tools
Not applicable

Learning process and workload
The course is a combination of lectures, group discussions, seminars/minor workshops. A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

Please note that it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.



Examination
Students are required to make class presentations in groups and write a term paper.


Form of assessment Weight Group size
Presentation 30% Group of max 3 students
Term paper 70%

Specific information regarding student assessment will be provided in class. This information may be relevant to requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several components of the overall assessment. This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam components) and one final exam code. Each exam component is graded using points on a scale from 0-100. The final grade for the course is based on the aggregated mark of the course components. Each component is weighted as detailed in the course description. Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam components will get a lower grade or may fail the course. You will find detailed information about the points system and the mapping scale in the student portal @bi.

Examination code(s)
GRA 22391 continuous assessment accounts for 100 % of the final grade in the course GRA 2239.

Examination support materials

Permitted examination support materials for written examinations are detailed under examination information in the student portal @bi. The section on support materials and the use of calculators and dictionaries should be paid special attention to.

Re-sit examination
It is only possible to retake an examination when the course is next taught. The assessment in some courses is based on more than one exam code. Where this is the case, you may retake only the assessed components of one of these exam codes. All retaken examinations will incur an additional fee. Please note that you need to retake the latest version of the course with updated course literature and assessment. Please make sure that you have familiarised yourself with the latest course description.

Additional information
Honor Code
Academic honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals, and represent values that are encouraged and promoted by the honor code system. This is a most significant university tradition. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the ideals of the honor code system, to which the faculty are also deeply committed.

Any violation of the honor code will be dealt with in accordance with BI’s procedures for cheating. These issues are a serious matter to everyone associated with the programs at BI and are at the heart of the honor code and academic integrity. If you have any questions about your responsibilities under the honor code, please ask.