Putting Across Tangibility

This chapter examines a case study-approach to teaching organisational behaviour. It explains the effectiveness of the use of case study in teaching the subject which is often termed theoretical and complex. The chapter advocates that the use of real life organisational cases can make the learning and teaching process more tangible and contribute to the development of critical thinking. The chapter specifically supports the view that there are aspects of organisational behaviour that are visible in both everyday life of individuals and groups. If lecturers could bring this up in the delivery of the OB curriculum, the learners, who are future managers and supervisors, could connect the learning experiences to reality, which could lead them to a better academic understanding and later effective practitioners.

Undergraduate Programs in the U.S

Given the importance of human resource management skills both in management education and business in general, an empirical review of undergraduate human resource (HR) curricula and programs is needed. In this study, the authors provide an investigative analysis of the content taught across HR programs in the U.S. and the context in which HR programs operate. Specifically, data across 179 undergraduate “SHRM-aligned” HR programs were collected and analyzed to identify common as well as unique content and contextual attributes at the university, business school, and program levels. Against the backdrop of the study's findings, the authors step back and purposefully comment on how they believe HR education can best be moved forward. In total, this study seeks to inform stakeholders in HR education through a clearer picture of the current and potential future states of HR curricula within U.S.-based undergraduate management programs.

Key HRM Challenges and Benefits

Whilst HRM is responding to organizational challenges, HRM tutors have to deal with avoiding labour imposition (Mather et al., 2007) and ensuring that their students are well prepared for society. The chapter's findings involve linkages between people, HR systems and the workplace in an HR Scaffolding that is argued to contribute to resolving the challenges caused by ‘the black box' of organizational performance (Becker & Huselid, 2006). Four steps of research extrapolate lessons to be learnt.

Teaching Teamwork in University Settings

Teamwork is essential to the success of any organization, as well as to the success of employees. Particularly in multidisciplinary professions, individuals from different backgrounds must be able to effectively work together. Teaching students how to work well on teams in a variety of roles is vital. There is increasing emphasis in university settings for students to be required to work in teams, however, instruction on how to succeed at teamwork is rarely given. This often results in conflict within teams and poor productivity. Within the Human Resources and Organizational Behavior domains, reducing conflict and improving productivity through successful teamwork are important concepts that students must learn. It is not sufficient to simply place students in teams and instruct them to work together. Students need to be taught the skills they will need to function successfully in the workplace.

The Call to Teach Human Capital Analytics

The Human Resource Management profession has increasingly taken an interest in applying analytical techniques to data collected concerning organizational human resources, typically referred to as human capital analytics. However, as yet, the teaching of such techniques has not become prevalent within professional training. This chapter intends to inform and support teachers of HRM who need to engage with the discourse surrounding this important new area for the profession. It includes the presentation of a process model for teaching human capital analytics to HRM professionals and a discussion on the implications for the HRM profession of the ‘rise' of human capital analytics. These include the need to include human capital analytics within taught HRM professional programmes and an urgent requirement for credible empirically-based research in the area of human capital analytics to support the development of teaching content.

Embedding Career Competencies in Learning and Talent Development

The chapter researches theoretical positions and practical applications that enable educationalists to equip students with the knowledge and skills to self-manage their careers and develop professionally, thus facilitating the successful transition of students from the academic environment to the workplace. It locates the discussion within a context which recognises the different models that business schools can adopt when providing learning and talent development generally, and career and professional development specifically. The main focus of the chapter relates to three inter-related themes that underpin career management and professional development. First, situating career management and professional development within a contextualising discourse. Second, exploring the contemporary career concepts that influence career management and professional development. Third, considering career management and professional development from three varying perspectives. Issues and solutions are offered to educationalists through the integration of theory and practice.

Rethinking the Contribution of Organizational Change to the Teaching and Learning of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management

One of the great attributes of acting as a Human Resource Manager is being reasonable. One may not know what is best for a company but one should be able to identify, reasonably, when in-house fighting and resistance on the shop floor are disadvantageous. While agreeing with the law one must also be aware, again reasonably, that it may be in conflict with itself. One's job is to resolve difficulties to the benefit of all parties – once more reasonably – even when one's emotions are on the side of one of the parties. In short, there is a job to do, but there is a difficulty: doing so successfully depends on being reasonable as well as developing expertise. However, being reasonable is precisely what the scientific method does not support although being an expert could be a desirable attribute. It excludes anything that contributes to a bias, including the bias that trust, fairness and team spirit introduce (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2013). The result is well known: the scientific method tends to support commodification, objectification and reification and elicits resistance (Pitsakis & Kuin, 2012; Mahadevan, 2012) even on phenomenon-driven change (Schwarz & Stensaker, 2014). HRM officers do not seem to have done too badly however – albeit without the support of the scientific method (Ford, Ford, & D'Amelio, 2008). This does not mean that support would be wasted or impossible. The aim of the present chapter is to explore what it might look like. The result is a series of recommendations, based on a study showing how some employees proved able to contribute as experts to their companies even after they had been threatened of being fired due to heavy economic weather. This finding serves as an important lesson, i.e. that there are ways other than the scientific method to turn personal motivations and objectives into resources. These ways include creating an HRM/OB platform for change that helps to link people. They make it possible to create structures that help individuals to achieve ‘expert presence', i.e. expertise to deal with difficulties in the workplace in the here and now.

Creating University Spaces of Inspiration

Our review and research examines the power bases and influences university lecturers can deploy to motivate their students to learn. Lecturers are in similar situations as leaders, that is, to be successfully they must secure scarce resources. In other words, lecturers must convince students to deploy their scarce resources of time and effort to the task of learning. The research examines which (a) workplace ideas can be applied to a university learning space, (b) key environmental influences, (c) the core influence tactic to gain and influence the attention of students, (d) the supplementary tactics to gain and influence the attention of students, and finally, (e) five case studies are present which demonstrate how space for inspiration can be created. This research attempts to provide an in-depth understanding of how power and influence exist in the learning environment and can be used to create university space for inspiration. Simply put, for inspiration to occur the politics and environment must be enabling rather than inhibiting.