GRA 2423 Persuasion and Power in Organisations
GRA 2423 Persuasion and Power in Organisations
Attempts to build power and influence others represent crucial facets of human interaction within every social and professional domain, including the work context. This course provides insights into the nuts and bolts of social power and influence in organizations. Insight into bases of power as well as effective principles of influence is of high potential value to managers as well as other organizational members, in not only understanding why some attempts to influence succeed while other attempts fail, and hence in improving the effectiveness of persuasion attempts. Of perhaps equal importance is the ability to identify and resist undesired and/or unethical influence attempts by others. Examples will be drawn from a variety of areas in the work domain. Students will also be given hands-on experience with specific influence techniques by performing empirical experiments.
The course will provide students with insight into:
- different types of power and influence tactics in organizations, as well as the contingencies determining their effectiveness.
- the determinants of power
- the psychological and behavioral effects of experiencing power
- resistance to persuasion and techniques for overcoming resistance
- ethical aspects of power and influence
- experiments as a scientific research method
The course will provide students with a better basis for:
- identifying their own as well as other individual’s bases of power
- developing and improving effective and constructive influence behavior
- resisting undesired and/or unethical influence attempts
- performing high quality empirical experiments based on scientific principles
The course will provide students with a better foundation for reflecting on:
- their power bases and influence behavior
- their potential for improving their persuasive effectiveness
- ethical aspects of power, influence and research
- Different types of power
- Bases of power
- Building personal power
- The corruptive effects of power
- Psychological principles of influence
- Influence tactics in organizations
- Rhetorics
- Digital influence
- Ethical aspects of persuasion and influence in organisations
- Resistance to persuasion
Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on It's learning or text book.
Students are required to attend the first session as well as (all of) the final session, at which all students present their experiments as part of the process evaluation in the course.
The empirical experiments represent an important and integrated part of the learning process throughout the semester.
Students will be required to analyze data from their experiments using SPSS (primarily oneway and twoway anova).
This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam components) and one final exam code. Each exam component is graded by using points on a scale from 0-100. The components will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the examination code (course). Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam elements will get a lower grade or may fail the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades when the course start.
At resit, all exam components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course.
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.
GRA 2204 Judgment and Decision Making or equivalent.
| Assessments |
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Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 40 Grouping: Group/Individual (1 - 3) Duration: 1 Semester(s) Comment: Project report (based on empirical experiments) Exam code: GRA 24231 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Activity Form of assessment: Presentation Weight: 20 Grouping: Group/Individual Comment: Class presentations (based on empirical experiments) Exam code: GRA 24231 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Structured test Weight: 40 Grouping: Individual Duration: 3 Hour(s) Comment: Multiple choice, home exam Exam code: GRA 24231 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of at least 160 hours.