MGT350 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR & MANAGEMENT--Spring, 2002
Western Illinois University--Quad Cities Tuesday Thursday, 4:30-5:45pm
Terence C. Krell, M.B.A., Ph.D. Office Phone: 762-3999 x 232 (no messages) Home Phone: 793-1998
E-mail: tckrell@abc-xyz.com URL: http://www.abc-xyz.com/krell
Office (WIUQC 217) Hours: Tuesday 3:30-4:30 pm Thursday 8:30-9:00 pm and by appointment

THE COURSE
The purpose of this course is to acquaint you with the theories of organization behavior, groups, interpersonal communication, leadership, motivation, and organization development. The goal is for you to be able to practice as well as to articulate these theories. The focus of the course is upon active interaction with others and learning about yourself from that interaction, while using availble reference material to explain your experiences. Therefore, there will be very little lecture, and little use of overheads. Since interaction with others over the Internet is an increasing part of life in organizations, this course will make some use of the Internet as appropriate to the content areas. People do not exist independently in organizations, they interact with others and participate in groups. Groups of people, in turn, interact with other groups, and the organization at large. The curious phenomenon exists that although organizations are composed of people, those same people often act as though organizations have no need to consider how people respond to being members of the same organization. It is impossible for us to avoid organizations in our everyday life. Each of us has developed a method for dealing with an organization (company, government, hospital, etc.) from the outside. Few of us are adept at coping with organizations from the perspective of employee or manager. My goal in teaching this course is to give you that perspective in a way that will enable you to gain more control over your organization life. Thus, this is a skill-building course.

OBJECTIVES
1. Understand what it is like to exist in an organizational environment.
2. Develop skills at relating to others in an organizational environment.
3. Identify your own personal style.
4. Develop an attitude of responsibility for your own performance in an organizational environment
5. Describe organizational occurences in terms of explanatory theories.

ORIENTATION
The approach in this course is an experiential one; that is, every assignment, every project, every activity is intended to correspond to or prepare you for some real experience in an organization. It is important, then, for you to participate in classroom discussion and group activities, do all assignments when assigned and complete outside reading assignments on time. Communication using the internet is a part of this orientation. In an experiential course, it is your responsibility to learn from your experiences. The instructor cannot do the learning for you, so the responsibility is yours. If you experience difficulty in relating to the structure of this course, consider that difficulty as but one more experience from which you can learn about how you relate to organizations.

GRADING CRITERIA & STANDARDS
Grades on individual assignments will be assigned on the basis of demonstrated accomplishment in applying concepts to management problems. Thus grades may not be consistent with students' backgrounds, level of input effort, or personal goals. Percentage grades from 0 to 100 will be earned for each assignment. At the end of the semester, each grade will be weighted according to the grading plan and an overall percentage computed. 90 or above earns an "A", 80 or above a "B", 70 or above a "C"; 60 or above a D. There are no pre-ordained grade quotas, and a modified curve (to raise the average) will be used, which may lower the above grade required percentages. Overall, solid performance will earn a grade of "B". An "A" will be reserved for outstanding performance. Marginally acceptable work will earn a "C". 95 - Exceptional, innovative, or comprehensively written; 80 - Solid performance to assignment; 70 - Marginal or unbalanced analysis, or poorly written; 60 - Completely off-target, minimal analysis, very poorly written 0 - Not turned in.

GRADING PLAN
Your course grade will be based on the following components and distribution: - Midterm Exam #1 10% - Midterm Exam #2 10% - Final Exam 15% - Journals 10% - Group Project 25% - Participation 10% - Personal Style Paper (based on Journals) 20%

REQUIRED TEXT Johns & Saks, Organizational Behavior 5th ed, Addison Wesly Longman 2001

OTHER REQUIREMENTS
You must have regular access to a web browser, either at home, at work, or through the WIURC computer lab for the WEEKLY submission of journals. An e-mail account is strongly recommended and is available free from WIU. Free web-browser-based e-mail accounts are available at sites such as http://www.ureach.com or http://mail.yahoo.com or http://mail.scholars-on-line.com

ASSIGNMENTS

1. Group Projects It is the task of your group to select a topic from those provided and meet WEEKLY during the semester to discuss and prepare a session-long class presentation on that topic. Your group will present the material to the class, prepare 3 essay exam questions on the material presented, and provide the instructor with the questions and answers, a written summary of the material you are teaching, and copies of any articles you assigned as reading material, or appropriate page numbers from the text. The written document you give the instructor must be formal including bibliography, and references, especially for the answers. The goal of this presentation is to teach the class about your topic, and it is expected that you will integrate material on other topics. Each group's presentation will take up one full class period, and should include an experiential component (exercise, game, etc.) You may use published exercises. If you make reading assignments, be sure to make them in advance of the presentation session. Your group is required to meet with the instructor at least once, preferably before the Spring Break, during office hours and well before your presentation, to insure you are on the right track. An online Discussion Area for communication among the members of your group using the World Wide Web will be provided by the instructor at http://www.abc-xyz.com/krell/obforum.shtml. Part of your assignment is to go to this link and sign the visitor's ledger by Monday of the second week of the course. This project will count for 25% of your grade. Most of the information needed for the presentation is available in the course texts. A grade of "A" (90 or above) will require you to go beyond the texts. All group members receive the same grade. A peer review will affect your participation grade.

2. Personal Style Paper This paper should be about your personal working, management or leadership style. It is expected that you will use your behavior in the group as information. Experiences outside the class should only be used to further explain or illustrate your thoughts about your class-related behavior. Use the theories and exercises discussed in class as well as your own interpretations and opinions of yourself. You will use your Weekly Journal entries as references, and copies are to be appended as an appendix.. This paper should be 8-25 pages in length.

3. Journals As an aid to writing your personal style paper, you will be asked to keep a journal subsequent to each class of your thoughts and learnings during the semester. Some weeks, journal topics will be assigned, including those journals which are reports on the interactive cases and classroom exercises. Journals are to be about you, your reactions, feelings, and thoughts. Individual submissions of journals will not be graded, although you may receive e-mailed comments. These assignments are made primarily to give you information for your personal style paper, and should reflect your learning from classroom exercises and intereactions. Copies of all Journals are to be included as an appendix to your personal style paper. It is therefore recommended that you keep all of your journals in a single document file of your word-processor. Your journals will be submitted online through the use of a forms-capable web browser, by doing the following:
1. Open the file containing your journal in your word-processing software.
2. Select the text you want to submit.
3. Perform a "copy" command"
4. Switch windows, and launch your web browser.
5. Go to the URL: http://www.abc-xyz.com/krell/journal.shtml
6. Fill out the form with your name, e-mail, and subject of the submission.
7. "Paste" the text of your journal into the form
8. Reread your text and correct errors introduced by special characters (such as smart quotes.)
9. Click on the "submit" button. A confirmation page including your text will appear.
Alternatively, (and not recommended) you may just type the journal entry into the form and save the text from the confirmation page to disk for future reference, but this is riskier and harder to retain a copy. Your first journal assignment is to describe how easy or difficult this process was for you. Please read the "What makes a good journal" link before writing your second journal, as it includes guidelines and evaluation criteria. Journals are due weekly at Midnight on Sunday so you have comments back before the following class, but may be submitted earlier. Weekly Journals will consist of three entries:
Entry 1. Tuesday's class
Entry 2. Thursday's class
Entry 3. Weekly Group Meeting
You are advised to write Journals as soon as possible following classes and group meetings, even though the submission is weekly.

5. Midterm & Final Exams The midterm exams will consist of short essay questions selected from the readings and from lectures. The questions will be specific and will require knowledge of concepts and precise use of technical terms to receive full credit. Partial credit will be given on each question. The final exam will be the same, except that questions will be drawn from those submitted by the presentation groups. A good way to practice for the exams is to consider, as essay questions, the objectives listed at the beginning of each chapter and write the essays. The exam questions will be similar.

6. Participation Since participation in class counts 10% of your grade, each student must significantly contribute to in-class discussion of topics and group work. Each student is expected to be an active participant and to make meaningful comments on topics being discussed. Your class participation grade is something to be earned via consistent, daily contribution to class discussion. You should, therefore, make a conscientious effort to attend class discussions and to be sufficiently prepared to contribute to the discussions. Merely coming to class is not sufficient.

CLASS POLICIES

1. Attendance is required. Three tardies will count for one absence. See me in advance, if you have a problem.

2. Reading in this course is essential for discussion. Reading assignments must be completed on time.

3. You will be expected to come to class, participate in group discussion activities, complete assignments, and pull your own weight in team activities.

4. No make-ups will be allowed. Reports and written projects will be lowered one full grade for each day past the due date if turned in late.

5. Requests for a change in your grade on any assignment or part thereof, must be made in writing. Such requests must include a description of the error made and the reason(s) you believe it is an error, and must be made within one week of receiving your grade.

6. The university rules (see the student handbook) on academic honesty and plagiarism apply: In brief, turn in your own work.

7. Keep copies of all assignments you turn in, especially your journals.

8. Usually I will be available for consultation in office hours. Contact me at the above numbers on other occasions, to make an appointment or to ask a question. I'm usually good about returning calls.

9. It is the intent of the university and the instructor to accomodate those students having special needs. If you wish to make me aware that you have such needs, please so inform me and contact the appropriate university office to have them contact me with your requirements. If you prefer to keep these needs private, that is also your privilege.

This syllabus is subject to change with appropriate notice.

1/15 Syllabus and course overview. Sign Visitor's Ledger in Discussion Area
1/17 Group selection.
1/22 Organizational Behavior, Learning, & - Read Chapters 1 & 2
1/24 Learning & Personality
1/29 Perception, & Attribution; ; Read Chapters 3 & 4
1/31 Values & Attitudes

2/5 Motivation- Read Chapters 5 & 6
2/7 Motivation (continued)
2/12 NO CLASS Lincoln's Birthday
2/14 Midterm Exam 1 - Chapters 1-6
2/19 Group work- Preparation for presentation Read Chapters 7 & 8
2/21 Groups (the topic: not meeting in groups) 2/26 Teams
2/28 Group work- Preparation for presentation

3/5 Social Influence 3/7 Group work- Preparation for presentation
3/12-14 Spring Break No Class
3/19 Leadership Read Chapter 9 & 10
3/21 Communication
3/26 Midterm Exam 2 - Chapters 7-10
3/28 Group work- Preparation for presentation

4/2 Decision Making, Read Chapters 11 & 12
4/4 If four groups, Group Presentation. Otherwise, Power, Politics and Ethics
4/9-11 Group Presentation:
4/16-18 Group Presentation:
4/23-25 Group Presentation:
4/30 If four groups, Group Presentation. Otherwise, Review
5/2 Study Day. Personal Style Paper due for optional comments.
5/7 Final Examination - Chapters 11,12, 14-16 Personal Style Paper Due.