GRA 2425 Change Management
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APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2016/2017 |
GRA 2425 Change Management
Responsible for the course
Jon Erland Lervik, Arne Carlsen
Department
Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour
Term
According to study plan
ECTS Credits
6
Language of instruction
English
Introduction
“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who would profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it. Thus it arises that on every opportunity for attacking the reformer, his opponents do so with the zeal of partisans, the others only defend him halfheartedly, so that between them he runs great danger.”
From The Prince – Niccolo Machiavelli
The course aims to equip students to better manage organizational change by learning of underlying theories and perspectives as well as gaining skills and develop their reflection on values and norms guiding change efforts. Through the course, students shall be able to critically assess recipes, templates and models of change that are circulated by consultants and management theorists. The students will also be exposed to a series of cases that are controversial and ambiguous, thus well suited to develop judgment from. The course draws on literature from social psychology, organizational sociology, culture studies, action research as well as applied management studies of organization design, organization development and change management.
Learning outcome
The student should learn to work in and manage change processes, and be able to:
- Critically assess and use theories, methods and recipes for managing change
- Develop and implement systematic plans of action that carefully sets out and sequences the various stages of deliberate change processes.
- Recognize emergent and unintended change processes so as to be able to strengthen, modify, scale up or otherwise reap the benefits of them.
- Understand ethical issues, dynamics of power and the intrinsic motivation that can drive or stifle change
- Live with change processes that can take on different characters at different times
Prerequisites
GRA 2205 Organizational Behaviour or equivalent
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
Collection of articles:
The course syllabus is based on a mix of academic and practitioner articles made available through itslearning
Other:
During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination
Recommended reading
Books:
Burke, W. Warner. 2014. Organization change : theory and practice. 4th ed. Sage
Klev, Roger and Morten Levin. 2012. Participative transformation : learning and development in practicing change. Gower
Course outline
Introducing Change: Why change?
Participative change
Cultural change
Emergence
Coupling processes
Design thinking
Changing configurations
Hard and soft aspects of change
Psychology of change
Networks and influence
Term paper workshop
Computer-based tools
Not applicable
Learning process and workload
The course will be a combination of lectures, case discussions, student poster presentations, simulations and other interactive learning elements.
This is a course that emphasizes action learning and students' active involvement. Class participation is mandatory, and active involvement in class discussions is required for students to fully benefit from the course. Minimum expectations are that assigned cases, articles and book chapters are read thoroughly prior to each lecture, so that students are well prepared for small group discussions or theoretically informed case analyses.
A central learning element of the course is the term paper project which will be conducted in small groups of maximum 3 students. The term paper (70% of grade) should empirically analyze an event of major organizational change event/process in a public, private or non-profit organization.
It is the students' responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.
Examination
The course grade will be based on the following activities and weights:
30% - Class participation (class discussion, case analysis, presentations, contribution to other students' learning)
70% - Term paper. Individually or in groups of up to 3 students
| Form of assessment | Weight | Group size |
| Class participation | 30% | |
| Term paper | 70% | Optional (individual or group of max 3 students) |
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. Candidates may be called in for an oral hearing as a verification/control of written assignments.
Examination code(s)
GRA 24251 continuous assessment accounts for 100% of the final grade in the course GRA 2425.
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
Honour code. Academic honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals, and are values that are integral to BI's honour code system. Students are responsible for familiarising themselves with the honour code system, to which the faculty is deeply committed. Any violation of the honour code will be dealt with in accordance with BI’s procedures for academic misconduct. Issues of academic integrity are taken seriously by everyone associated with the programmes at BI and are at the heart of the honour code. If you have any questions about your responsibilities under the honour code, please ask. The learning platform itslearning is used in the teaching of all courses at BI. All students are expected to make use of itslearning.