Discussion: View Thread

Colleagues: My business school is considering combining the Principles of
Management and the Organizational Behavior courses. If your school has done
so I would be interested in hearing from you.

E.g., How did you effect the combination?
What do you think about the results?
What are the pros and cons of such a combination, etc?

Secondly, what textbooks would you recommend for such a course. I have seen
some with titles such as "management of organizational behavior." Most of
what I have seen, however, are really OB texts with a dose of Principles
thrown in.

I'd like to hear from you on-list or off-list. Thanks,

Bob

Robert A. Herring III, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Assistant Director, Division of Business and Economics
Winston-Salem State University
601 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
Winston-Salem NC 27110
Phone 336-750-2345
Fax 336-750-2335
e-mail: herringr@wssumits.wssu.edu

I did a content comparison a few years ago between a dozen Principles of
Management and Organizational Behavior texts and found about a 70% overlap.
This finding led me to recommend the replacement of one course with something
in the area of leadership or organizational learning. Was I shot down! I
discovered that curriculum design is as much, if not more, a political process
as it is a logical one. Org Behavior people would not budge and non-Org
Behavior people would not budge. Each would be giving up a course for which
they already had lecture notes. This reply doesn't solve your problem, but I
urge you to count noses in your department before you charge ahead.

Robert Herring wrote:

> Colleagues: My business school is considering combining the Principles of
> Management and the Organizational Behavior courses. If your school has done
> so I would be interested in hearing from you.
>
> E.g., How did you effect the combination?
> What do you think about the results?
> What are the pros and cons of such a combination, etc?
>
> Secondly, what textbooks would you recommend for such a course. I have seen
> some with titles such as "management of organizational behavior." Most of
> what I have seen, however, are really OB texts with a dose of Principles
> thrown in.
>
> I'd like to hear from you on-list or off-list. Thanks,
>
> Bob
>
> Robert A. Herring III, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Assistant Director, Division of Business and Economics
> Winston-Salem State University
> 601 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
> Winston-Salem NC 27110
> Phone 336-750-2345
> Fax 336-750-2335
> e-mail: herringr@wssumits.wssu.edu

Dear Bob, I have taught at universities which have a principles course
followed by either an OB course or both an OB and OT course, universities
that dropped the principles and use OB as the required course. In some
cases the follow up courses are required in some cases they were management
electives. The big issue I have experienced is that some students complain
of too much overlap. This is especially true when all the courses are
simply lecture based with multiple choice exams. Currently, as Department
Chair, I am teaching our giant (450 & 200 students respectfully-yes its an
over load, but nobody will be able to complain when they have to do it)
principles course using Jones, George, and Hill. If one looks at it, or
say Robbins and Coulter, as examples of current priciples texts, it becomes
apparent that the move is to include the kitchen sink from from strategy to
OB to OT to HRM to Ethics.

Based upon my experience, I don't have problems with the redundancy. What
is important, I think, is for upper level classes to be more project or
experientially oriented in their pedogogical approach. This reinforces te
basic issues, (which they never master with one course) without seeming
like mere repetiton.

Finally, if I were to go to only one course, at the undergraduate level, I
would make it OB.

Good luck in your deliberations.

Kim Boal

At 07:31 PM 1/25/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Colleagues: My business school is considering combining the Principles of
>Management and the Organizational Behavior courses. If your school has done
>so I would be interested in hearing from you.
>
>E.g., How did you effect the combination?
> What do you think about the results?
> What are the pros and cons of such a combination, etc?
>
>Secondly, what textbooks would you recommend for such a course. I have seen
>some with titles such as "management of organizational behavior." Most of
>what I have seen, however, are really OB texts with a dose of Principles
>thrown in.
>
>I'd like to hear from you on-list or off-list. Thanks,
>
>Bob
>
>Robert A. Herring III, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor
>Assistant Director, Division of Business and Economics
>Winston-Salem State University
>601 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
>Winston-Salem NC 27110
>Phone 336-750-2345
>Fax 336-750-2335
>e-mail: herringr@wssumits.wssu.edu
>
--------------------------------
Kim Boal
College of Business Administration
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX 79409
(806) 742-2150
KimBoal@ttu.edu

In response to Robert Herring's inquiry on combining OB and management,
this seems like a relatively benign task conceptually, but as terrel
pointed out,it is the politics and the turf protection of entrenched
academics that are the sticky point.

My own school (Suffolk university in Boston) has recently undergone a
far more dramatice restructuring of our MBA curriculum. We are creating
new core MBA courses, each of which replaces the core courses of two
departments. For example, we are replacing our stand alone OB and
marketing courses with a single 3 credit course. We have decided the
best approach is to bring together our marketing and OB faculty and have
them jointly design the course. Probably, it will use materials eclectly
from both disciplines and might even result in the creation of a
customized text book.

Good luck in your course design and mind the politics!


Robert deFillippi

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>Sender: Management Education and Development Discussion
> <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
>From: Terrell Manyak <manyak@POLARIS.ACAST.NOVA.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Combining Principles of Management and OB
>To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
>
>I did a content comparison a few years ago between a dozen Principles
of
>Management and Organizational Behavior texts and found about a 70%
overlap.
>This finding led me to recommend the replacement of one course with
something
>in the area of leadership or organizational learning. Was I shot down!
I
>discovered that curriculum design is as much, if not more, a political
process
>as it is a logical one. Org Behavior people would not budge and
non-Org
>Behavior people would not budge. Each would be giving up a course for
which
>they already had lecture notes. This reply doesn't solve your problem,
but I
>urge you to count noses in your department before you charge ahead.
>
>Robert Herring wrote:
>
>> Colleagues: My business school is considering combining the
Principles of
>> Management and the Organizational Behavior courses. If your school
has done
>> so I would be interested in hearing from you.
>>
>> E.g., How did you effect the combination?
>> What do you think about the results?
>> What are the pros and cons of such a combination, etc?
>>
>> Secondly, what textbooks would you recommend for such a course. I
have seen
>> some with titles such as "management of organizational behavior."
Most of
>> what I have seen, however, are really OB texts with a dose of
Principles
>> thrown in.
>>
>> I'd like to hear from you on-list or off-list. Thanks,
>>
>> Bob
>>
>> Robert A. Herring III, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor
>> Assistant Director, Division of Business and Economics
>> Winston-Salem State University
>> 601 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
>> Winston-Salem NC 27110
>> Phone 336-750-2345
>> Fax 336-750-2335
>> e-mail: herringr@wssumits.wssu.edu


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Colleagues: I am grateful for all your responses regarding my recent post on
the subject. It has been a very busy week and I am still going through the
emails. I will be replying to those of you who sent me emails. Thanks,

Bob

Robert A. Herring III, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Assistant Director, Division of Business and Economics
Winston-Salem State University
601 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
Winston-Salem NC 27110
Phone 336-750-2345
Fax 336-750-2335
e-mail: herringr@wssumits.wssu.edu

Bob:

How are you doing? Have you finished your spring semester? Are you able to
stop and smell the flowers?

Things are going great for me. The semester is over, I just sent in a ms to
JME, I've got a mini-vacation coming up, I'll be going to OBTC to present
two sessions, working on a summer teaching grant, teaching in June,
presenting at the Academy, etc. It's been a busy but fulfilling year. From
the sound of your Christmas letter, I bet you can say the same. Any
exciting plans for the summer?

Pretty soon I'll start looking for songbooks to bring for OBTC. Looking
forward to that...and the backrubs!!!

Take care.
Suzanne

P.S. Did you ever get a chance to pull together the thread re: subject
line?

Suzanne de Janasz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Management
College of Business
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
540-568-8779
540-568-2754 fax
dejanasc@jmu.edu
http://cob.jmu.edu/dejanasc
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Herring <herringr@WSSUMITS.WSSU.EDU>
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Date: Friday, January 29, 1999 6:25 PM
Subject: COMBINING PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT AND OB


>Colleagues: I am grateful for all your responses regarding my recent post
on
>the subject. It has been a very busy week and I am still going through the
>emails. I will be replying to those of you who sent me emails. Thanks,
>
>Bob
>
>Robert A. Herring III, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor
>Assistant Director, Division of Business and Economics
>Winston-Salem State University
>601 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
>Winston-Salem NC 27110
>Phone 336-750-2345
>Fax 336-750-2335
>e-mail: herringr@wssumits.wssu.edu
>