APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2014/2015

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
Bachelor degree qualifying for admission to the MSc Programme

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

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
It's learning/homepage

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
The course grade will be based on the following activities and weights:
Students are required to make class presentations in groups and write a term paper.
Presentations will be weighted 30% of the final grade
The term paper will be weighted and 70% of the final grade
To get a final grade in the course, students need to complete and achieve a passing grade in all parts of the evaluation.

In this course class attendence is mandatory. Absences can result in a lower score. Specific information regarding student evaluation will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.

This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam elements) and one final exam code. Each exam element will be graded using points on a scale (e.g. 0-100). The elements will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades on the course site in It’s learning.

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

Examination support materials
Examination support materials at written examiniations are explained under examination information in the student portal @bi. Please note use of calculator and dictionary in the section on support materials.

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.
Where this is not the case, all of the assessed components of the course must be retaken.
All retaken examinations will incur an additional fee.

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.