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Upon completion of the TOP module, students can describe organisational structure, environment, size, strategy, technology and effectiveness and analyse their interrelationships using organisation theories.
Upon completion of the TOP module, students are expected to (be able to):
- Distinguish between various types and dimensions of organisational effectiveness, structure, environment, size, strategy, technology and culture
- Evaluate the effectiveness of configurations of organisational structure, environment, size, strategy, technology and culture
- Characterise scientific research as systematically giving answers to empirical research questions using observations, and is able to relate ‘research’ to ‘business decision making’ and ‘design’
- Distinguish between empirical (descriptive, explanatory, design), conceptual and normative questions and is able to categorise a research question within these categories
- Identify units of analysis, units of observation, variables (and their attributes), the sign of causal relationships between dichotomous and ratio variables in scientific publications
- Summarise, present and analyze univariate data and bivariate relationships using various statistics and methods to display data, both by hand and by using R
- Understand the basic idea of causal theories as providing causal explanations and understand a ‘causal statement’ as implying a specific ‘time order’ and ‘association’ between variables and the absence of other variables accounting for that relationship
- Characterize three basic types of research designs: cross-sectional, interrupted time series and experimental designs, using the dimensions ‘time’ and ‘(comparable) groups’ and have a basic understanding of the possibilities and limitations to test causal relationships using these research designs
- Distinguish between random and non-random sampling and are able to explain how sample statistics can be used to estimate population parameters (a process called 'inference') using the idea of the central limit theorem.
- Formulate and systematically answer a research question related to organisational effectiveness, structure, environment, size, strategy and technology
- Conceptualise, operationalize, describe and measure organisational effectiveness, structure, environment, size, strategy and technology
- Analyse the relationships between organisational effectiveness, structure, environment, size, strategy and technology
- Identify and reflect on the rational and non-rational influences in decision-making processes;
- Provide helpful peer feedback on reflections on influences in decision-making processes.
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Knowledge domains
The module is based on four knowledge domains: Technology, which is based on the principles of operations management; Organisation, which is based on the principles of organisation theory; People, which is based on the principles of organisational behaviour; Research Methods, which is based on principles of social research
Operations Management: after completion of the course, students should have introductory knowledge of the following operations management theories and approaches: transformation process, manufacturing and service technologies, departmental technologies and workflow interdependence.
Organisation Theory: after completion of the course, students should have knowledge of the following organisational theories and approaches: scientific management, bureaucracy, strategic choice, open systems, contingency theory, resource dependency theory, stakeholder theory, organisational culture, organisational design and structure, including socio-technical designs.
Organisational Behaviour: after completion of the course, students should have introductory knowledge of the following organisational behaviour theories and approaches: motivation theories, communication, teams, and work design.
Research methods: after completion of the course, students should have a basic understanding of research methods to describe, analyse and design organisations, their people and their technology.
Project
The goal of the project is to describe and analyse a real-life company. In this project, students will describe an organisation and analyse the fit between its organisational structure, technology, people, and other contingency factors, in to make an assessment of the effectiveness of the organisation.
Next to the content-related challenges of this, the project work contains some further challenges for students: working together in a multinational team, writing a structured report based on academic standards, present orally and in writing the results of their company description and analysis to peers, coping with different interests and conflicts, planning and controlling a project, cooperating with companies based on a shared code of conduct, understanding the needs and expectations of the customer, interviewing, coordination between groups of students.
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| Bachelor International Business Administration |
| | Required materialsBook| Robbins, S.P. and N. Barnwell (2007). Organisation Theory: Concepts and Cases. 5th edition, Pearson Education. |
| Articles| A selection of journal articles will be listed on Canvas |
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Recommended materialsBook| Babbie, E. (2021). The Practice of Social Research. 15th edition, Cengage Learning. Earlier editions are also acceptable such as 13th Edition. |
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Instructional modesLecture| Presence duty | | Yes |
| Project supervised| Presence duty | | Yes |
| Project unsupervised| Presence duty | | Yes |
| Self study with assistance| Presence duty | | Yes |
| Self study without assistance| Presence duty | | Yes |
| Tutorial| Presence duty | | Yes |
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TestsOrganisation Theory
| Research Methods
| Analysing Organisations in Practice
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