Organizational Studies 148: The Nature of Work
Fall Semester, 2010

Meeting Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:00 to 1:10 pm		Room: Avery Hall, Room 204
Professor: Jeff Lewis	Office: Fletcher 214 Phone: 607-3069
E-Mail: jeff_lewis@pitzer.edu	Web page: http://www.pitzer.edu/~jlewis
Office hours: Tuesday at 11:00 am and Thursdays at 3:00 pm, or by appointment
Texts: 1. Assorted readings available on the course Sakai website ( http://sakai.claremont.edu ) 2. Powell, Gary N. (2011). Women & Men in Management (4^th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 3. Caproni, Paula J. (2005). Management Skills for Every Day Life: The Practical Coach (2^nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Goals of the Course

This course explores psychological and societal issues related to the changing nature of work along with your individual place in the working world. With a primary focus on the human side of organizational life, we will examine how social expectations, multicultural and intercultural relations, and changes in technology shape present and future understanding of work in our contemporary world. In addition, you will be asked to complete individual assessments and explorations to further your understanding and perspective on these topics.

Insights into the workings of organizations can be gained through an examination of the human side of these entities, and these aspects are often realized via the formal and informal practices within a given organizational context. This course is designed as an exploration of the work context and how through individual exploration we can answer questions related to ourselves and work. We will examine the changing nature of work, learn about our own skills, abilities and interests, explore various conceptions of what work entails, and investigate how organizational practices can impact the lives of its members. This course is also designed to prepare students for internships, assist in career planning, and it should be taken after completing ORST/PSYC135 and ORST100.

This course and the Organizational Studies major as a whole are also aligned with the college’s educational objectives. In this course it is hoped that students’ work will exemplify critical thinking, effective expression, interdisciplinary appreciation, intercultural understanding, and ethical evaluations.

In addition, this course is designed to help students achieve the following objectives:

• Gain an appreciation of the place of work in our society in terms of what it means and how it has evolved.
• Develop a better understanding of the complex role that gender plays in the work context.
• Be able to constructively create, lead and participate in active presentations of course relevant material.
• Develop more self-awareness along with skills and practices related to self-assessment, critical evaluation and improvement.
• Construct a five-year plan that integrates your academic and life goals and that helps you to identify key opportunities for improvement.

Expectations

Your active participation in this course will enhance not only your learning but also the experience we co-create in this class. You are expected to prepare fully prior to the class, reading the assigned material before the class sessions and coming prepared with questions that you want answered. The major assignments in this course allow for extended preparation, and working with your fellow students as you absorb the material is encouraged. Good cooperation and conscientiousness when engaged in collaborative work is crucial and should be characteristic of all team projects in this course. Individual papers and assignments are exclusively your own product, however, and it is expected that works collected from you to meet these course requirements will be of your own creation. You are required to adhere to the College’s Code of Student Conduct, which upholds academic integrity and prohibits academic dishonesty, including those forms of academic dishonesty that are listed in the Pitzer College 2010-11 Student Handbook (Section III.C).

Course Requirements
Self Assessment and Analysis Protfolio (60% of the course grade) - Your work in this class will center upon independent projects (e.g., reflection, in-class exercises, short reviews and interviews) that will form a collection of materials related directly to the topics addressed during the semester. The portfolio will consist of three types of assignments – weekly reflections drawn from the course material, class discussion and your experience, assessment exercises, and working interviews. At the end of the class, you will be asked to turn in your work and an overall reflection of what you have discovered. A more detailed description of this assignment is provided below.

Topic presentations (25%) - You will be asked to organize the class discussion for one of the weeks during the semester. You will be expected to lead class discussion, present important points from the reading, and design a project or present an exercise that illustrates important aspects of the week's topic.

Class participation (15%) – Each week you are expected to contribute your thoughts and analysis of the readings and to complete any weekly assignment. While your journal will be the place for a written collection of your work, it is important to interact and support your fellow classmates as we construct our learning environment.

Schedule of Lectures and Readings

Dates and Topic	Readings and assignments
Aug. 31^st& Sept. 2^nd: What is work?	Powell chapter 1 and Barley & Kunda (2001)
September 7^th & 9^th: What is success?	Career Services visit/assessment and Caproni Ch. 1
September 14^th & 16^th: Developing self awareness	Caproni chapter 2, self-assessment project and end of chapter exercises
September 21^st & 23^rd: The changing work environment	Black & Lynch (2004) and Powell Chapter 2
September 28^th & 30^th: Inequality in the workplace	Powell chapters 3 & 4
October 5^th & 7^th: Trust and Effective Communication	Caproni chapters. 3& 4 Portfolio Round 1 due on October 7^th
October 12^th & 14^th: Jobs and careers as vanishing concepts	Templer & Cawsey (1999)
Fall Break – October 16^th through October 19^th (no class on October 19^th)
October 21^st: Careers (continued)	Sullivan (1999)
October 26^th & 28^th:Politics and ethics	Caproni chapter 5, Powell chapter 6, and Ferris (2000)
November 2^nd & 4^th: Managing Relationships	Caproni chapter 6, Powell chapter 7, and Randall (1987)
November 9^th & 11^th: Managing diversity	Caproni chapter 7 and Powell chapter 5 Portfolio Round 2 due on November 11^th
November 16^th & 18^th: High performance teams and organizations	Powell chapter 5, Caproni chapter 8 and Lawler (2005)
November 23^rd: Work-Life Balance and Wellness	Powell chapter 8, and Sparks et al (2001)
Thanksgiving Break November 26^th – 29^th (no class November 26^th)
Nov. 30^th & Dec. 2^nd: Managing distances	Caproni chapter 9 and Powell chapter 9
December 7^th & 9^th: Wrap-up	Caproni chapter 10 Final Portfolio due on December 9^th

Student Portfolio Construction

Overview: Throughout the course, you will be asked to complete a variety of assignments that enhance participation and exploration in this class. In order to assess your learning, you will be asked to submit a selection of samples of your work and reflections on class activities and assignments. You will have some choice in determining what assignments are included in your portfolio, but all of the class will be asked to include certain identified assignments. At the end of three class meetings (October 7^th, November 11^th, and December 9^th), you will turn your portfolio in for comment and evaluation.

Assignments: The assignments included for evaluation will be varied and generally fall into three categories, all ranging from a page to five pages in length:

1. Weekly reading reaction and impression statements. Each week, you should write a summary of your reaction to or reflection upon the reading assignments, any material that you might have brought to class for discussion, and the class activities. Rather than a descriptive summary, your reflection should be a concise integration of what you felt were the key points and larger implications drawn from the week. Discuss not only your impressions, but also what you felt were the good (and not so good) aspects of the assignments and how it was important for your learning about work perceptions and organizational issues. These weekly statements will be used as a representation of your class impressions and participation, and they should illustrate your ability to integrate the reading material, class discussions, and information gleaned from other sources.

2. Take-home exercises and reflection statements. Throughout the course, a number of exercises will be distributed for your completion outside of class, and you may also include these as pieces of your portfolio. Besides the exercises, you should also answer questions designed to help you reflect on the assignment and why you chose to include it with the rest of your work. Specifically, upon reflection, you should address the following issues:

a. Why did you select this piece for inclusion?

b. How is it representative of your learning in this class?

c. In what way does it relate to the changing nature of work?

Your statements should highlight what you believe to be the most important aspects of the exercise, and your discussion should be more than merely description. Try to integrate other sources and exercises from this and other classes that connect with the assignment.

3. Working Interviews. You will also be asked to summarize your impressions of encounters that you have outside of the class with a person or group of people from a unique or interesting work context. These interviews should center on the weekly topics that we have in our class, and the basic goal here is to gather different viewpoints regarding the subjects that we discuss and explore how different experiences and perceptions relate to organizational factors. For example, you could interview a co-worker regarding the changing patterns of communication within a company that is restructuring, gather a supervisor’s impression of how changes in technology might affect an organization’s culture over time, or difficulties and benefits related to a training experience. Include the questions that you asked, answers received, and your impression of the interaction.

Besides these three types of assignments, you may also propose an exercise of your own that you feel illustrates the class material, or that relates to an exploration of important aspects of work that you would like to explore. You need to get approval before you include this in your portfolio, however.

Portfolio Structure: When preparing your portfolio for evaluation, you will be asked to select assignments from the proceeding weeks that represent what you have gained from the class experience. All weekly reading summaries and at least one of each of the other types of assignments should be included for each evaluation. The first evaluation will be advisory only, in that instead of receiving a grade, your assignments will be returned with comments asking for more reflection and advice on how you could improve your understanding and use of class material. The second and final evaluation will include new drafts of previous work, the last set of weekly reactions, three additional assignments in each round, and at the end of the semester a summary evaluation of your accomplishment in the course. The round two and three evaluations will be graded.