Instructor:   Tom Mitchell, Ph.D. (410) 837-5348
        Email:     TMITCHELL@ubalt.edu
Home Page:    http://home.ubalt.edu/tmitch
   Office hrs:    Mondays & Tuesdays 12:30 - 1:30 PM;
          Class:    Mondays 5:30 -  8:00 PM in AC 403

  WEB BOARD FOR CLASS IS: UB Online WebTyco BOARD

Course Materials and resources:

SPSS data analysis package (available through NT account)
Information from Toronto on Group Dynamics/ teamwork

• How to manage groups
• Being a valuable group member
• Running effective team meetings
• Groups that work

• Job analysis and PA: Janet's site on ICC and Rwg
• Online DOT (new).    http://online.onetcenter.org/O*Net and DOT
• http://www.unl.edu/buros/00testscomplete.html(Buros index on line)
• Value Based Management site (information on all sorts of management techniques, etc.)
• Herman Aguinis site for adverse impact with graphical representation for 2 groups with different regression lines.

•  Journal Of Applied Psychology

The purpose of this course is to enable students to practice real-world applications of competencies acquired in the program. Students will respond to simulated, real-world human resources problems to demonstrate their ability to integrate and apply their knowledge of personnel and organizational psychology. 

General Objective:  Provide the student with opportunities to apply the theory and practices of I/O psychology in a workplace setting. 

    Specific Objectives are to:

• Enable students to gain experience in applying knowledge they have acquired to solving real-world problems in human resources

• Challenge each student to integrate knowledge from personnel and organizational psychology

• Help the student to learn how to bridge the gap between theory and practical application. 

• Enable the student to gain experience in working with teams to solve problems. 

• Enable students to learn how to know what they don't know that they know (Berra, Y., 1989)

• Job Analysis:  Analyze a job or class of jobs to identify essential duties and tasks for developing a performance appraisal and selection procedure.
• Performance Appraisal: Develop an appropriate measure of job performance for a specific job or class of jobs.
• Applicant Selection: Develop an appropriate staffing procedure for selecting qualified applicants for an organization.
• Organizational Behavior: Analyze organizational behavior and develop effective ways to improve work performance.
• Experiential Teamwork: Gain an experiential understanding of how group activity may facilitate or inhibit work performance.
• Interpersonal Interaction: Work effectively with others to solve problems Human Resources related problems.

Students will act as I/O consultants to solve simulated real-world contemporary problems typically encountered in an organization. The instructor will act in a management role to pose problems that require students to utilize the competences they have learned in previous coursework. A simulated, virtual organization will provide the environment for this dynamic interaction. Students will work in teams to diagnosis problems, generate solutions, and implement them. The Instructor will respond and react to proposed solutions and implementations, providing simulated feedback with criticism, recommendations, and outcome of implementations.  Both face-to-face (synchronous) and computer assisted (asynchronous) modes of communication will be used. Class discussions will be used to discuss ongoing projects and to critically evaluate the effectiveness of the organizational interventions.

Each student will work as a team member on four assigned projects. To accomplish the objectives for a project, each team member will utilize a set of  previously developed I/O specialist competencies. In-class meetings will be held to discuss the progress of the on-going projects. Project teams will also meet in both face-to-face discussions outside of class and also in asynchronous meetings using the  UB Online WebTyco BOARD 

Students will serve as junior I/O consultants to management at Applied Psychology Consultants, Inc. (APC), a virtual national company specializing in providing I/O consulting services to private and public sector organizations. Because of the recent success of its I/O consulting services, APC Inc. management has hired a full staff of junior consultants from the University of Baltimore's Applied Psychology MS program and begun to market its services to a wide range of new clients. Projects  involve a broad range of I/O applications including job analysis, performance management (performance appraisal, motivating employees), job design, selection and placement, organizational development and many others.

Each project will be initially defined by management and assigned to a project team consisting of from two to five I/O consultants. An appointed Project Team Leader (PTL) will be responsible for managing the project to insure that the goals and objectives are accomplish and that the project is completed on schedule. Since consultants will serve on projects for different clients, it will be necessary for teams to communicate and share relevant client information as projects progress. Each project team (PT) will:

• Identify a primary goal and the objectives that must be met to complete the project (problem to be solved or opportunity to be exploited)
• Identify potential strategies/solutions, deciding on which one(s) to implement given the restraints on time, resources, and context
• Implement the action plan(s) and assess the effectiveness of the intervention
• Provide a final report to management and present findings to the class

The Project Team Leader (PTL) will submit a written Project Report (by its PTL) to management documenting the project  and indicating each team member's contributions to the project. Projects will proceed simultaneously throughout the semester and progress in a dynamic manner, simulating real world applications. In some instances, the Project Team will collect data and other information relevant to the project. In other instances, the instructor will provide data and information from management.

The student will be evaluated on how well he or she was able to demonstrate the application of theory and practice in  accomplishing the project objectives. 

Scoring % weights:     Activity:

•  30   One Project Report (each Team Leader)
•  20   JA Team project (for all team members)
•  40   Two Team Member contributions to projects (20 % each)
•  10    Participation (subjective rating by instructor for quality of class and project participation)    
• 100   Percent

VII Schedule of dates and assignments

    Readings in Organizational Psychology  (J. LeBreton, E. Tenn State)

Bass, B. M. (1997) Does the transactional-transformational Leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries? American Psychologist, 52, 130-139.

House, R. J. & Aditya, R. N. (1997). The social scientific study of leadership: Quo Vadis? Journal of Management, v. 23, 409-473

Markham, S. E. (1988). Pay for performance, a dilemma revisited: Empirical example of the importance of group effects. J. of Applied Psychology, 73, 172-180.

Ostroff, C. (1992). The relationship between satisfaction, attitudes, and performance; An organizational Level of Analysis. J. of Applied Psychology. 77, 963-974

Ryan, R.M., Deci, E. L.  (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.

Shore, L. B. & Wayne, S. J. (1993). Commitment and employee behavior: Comparison of affective commitment and continuance commitment with perceived organizational support. J. of Applied Psychology, 78, 774-780

Welsh, D. H. B., Luthans, F., & Sommer, S. M. (1993). Managing Russian factory workers: The impact of U.S. -based behavioral and participative Techniques. Academy of Management Journal, 36, no. 1, 58-79.

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