Management and People

Recommended Prerequisites

Reading knowledge and understanding of English.

Teaching Methods

Proactive participation makes possible achieving both reflective group practice of the contents worked and reflection on the practice observed. So, the course seeks to promote and facilitate a real understanding of the issues involved in the conceptual framework presented through grounded criticism of everyday work contexts. News/documentaries are analyzed and discussed to promote the development of professional and personal skills related to the issues in question. Reflection on the limits and strengths of the key concepts presented in the curricular unit is encouraged.

Learning Outcomes

Students, in a world in which flexibility and creativity are increasingly important both for organisational competitiveness and individual self-fulfilment at work, should be able to:

a) Identify different ways of resourcing organisations, developing people and establishing employment relationships, including personal development and life-long learning;

b) Understand how policies and practices of people management can either frustrate or facilitate high performance organisational management and employee wellbeing;

c) Discuss the principles of fordist and post-fordist paradigms of organisation in the context of competitiveness, continuous improvement, and operational and organizational learning ;

d) Appreciate how psychological wellbeing contributes to organisational performance;

e) Justify how values, dispositions, tacit rules and implicit norms can promote or obstruct innovation and performance.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Strategic and contextual factors in people management

2. Integrating strategic vision and line management

3. Fordist and Post-Fordist paradigms

4. Japanese, US and European models

5. Policy and sets of practices for a positive employment relationship: (a) investing in employees; (b) interesting work; (c) positive social and physical environment; (d) voice; and (e) organizational perceived support

6. Job demands – resources model (JD-R)

7.  Financial focus approach: sets of practices for a High Performance Work System (HWPS)

8.  Relational focus approach: sets of practices and employee well-being

9. Examples of outcomes: (a) attitudes to organisational commitment, work satisfaction, perceived procedural and distributive justice, and work life styles; (b) behavioural implications on effort, sense of organisational citizenship, stay or quit intentions.

Head Lecturer(s)

Teresa Carla Trigo de Oliveira

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Periodic or by final exam as given in the course information: 100.0%

Bibliography

Coyle-Shapiro, Jacqueline A-M.; Shore, Lynn M. ; Taylor, M. Susan & Lois E. Tetrick (eds.) (2005). The Employment Relationship: Examining Psychological and Contextual Perspectives, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Guest, David (2017). Human resource management and employee well-being: towards a new analytic framework. Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 27, no 1, pag. 22–38

Grote G, & Guest, D. (2017). The case for reinvigorating quality of working life research. Human Relations, 70(2) 149–167

Livne-Ofer, E., Coyle-Shapiro, J. A., & Pearce, J. L. (2019). Eyes wide open: Perceived exploitation and its consequences. Academy of Management Journal, 62(6), 1989-2018.

Oliveira, T. C., & Holland, S. (2020). To be or not to be? Confronting challenges from contagion, artificial intelligence and climate breakdown. In P. P. Silva, S. Jorge & P. M. Sá, Emerging Topics in management studies (pp. 405-430). Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra.