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 leaders as well as other organizational members. 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 small, 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 individuals' 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 empirical research
- The concept of power: 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
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 in the course. Students will be required to analyze data from their experiments using an adequate statistical tool (SPSS or equivalent), and to present their results at the final session, at which feedback and suggestions for preparing the termpaper will be given.
The course will be organized as an intensive seminar with presentations, discussions, and project work. Students will be required to present one or two scientific articles from the curriculum as part of the prosess evaluation in the course.
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.
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 starts.
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: Class participation Weight: 20 Grouping: Individual Duration: 1 Semester(s) Comment: Class discussions and presentations - scientific articles (during the course) as well as results from the empirical experiments (final session). 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 Invigilation Weight: 40 Grouping: Individual Support materials:
Duration: 2 Hour(s) Comment: Written examination under supervision (multiple choice). 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.