B.S. in Management and Work - Course Descriptions

Work, social class, diversity, and economic opportunity in the context of globalization; civic engagement and collective action to promote opportunity and social justice for all people.

Changes in work, its organization, and public policy context. History, philosophy, structure, activities, and impact of U.S. labor unions.

Developments in work, labor organizations, and related social movements. Relationship of labor movements to the changing economic, social, and public policy context, including increasing globalization.

Contemporary organizational transformations forming the context for how people are managed at work: Decline of bureaucracy and predictable internal careers; growth of flexible, knowledge-based systems.

The interconnections between democracy, economy, and the environment; movements for social, economic, and environmental sustainability; the relationship between good jobs and environmental justice.

This course will cover the broad range of topics associated with HR management from the perspective of the HR professional, the manager, and the employee. This course serves as the base course in both the undergraduate HRM major and minor. It will also serve to familiarize students who hope to become managers or team leaders during their careers with some of the issues they will have to deal with, such as staffing, motivating, and developing team members.

Labor as a worldwide social and political movement; comparative and historical consideration of how labor can achieve influence in market economies and a better standard of living.

This course will focus on the functioning of teams, work groups, and various ways of organizing work as well as skills for successful professional interaction and influence in groups, social networks, and relationships.

This interactive, theoretically anchored, and applied course is aimed at understanding the processes and practices of developing human capital. It covers how organizations train and develop their employees, performance management as an evaluative and developmental tool, and the strategic development of talent framed within the context of talent leadership.

How people resolve work-related grievances: bargaining, grievance procedures, mediation, arbitration, demonstrations, strikes, and industrial violence. Examines union and nonunion workplaces.

Impact of new technology on work, workers, and society. Emerging technologies like digital platforms, algorithmic hiring, artificial intelligence, and practices like gig jobs.

Comprehensive study of the development of collective bargaining; the nature and scope of contracts; the changing character of collective bargaining processes through negotiation, legislation, the courts, and arbitration; the substantive issues in bargaining including the implications for public policy.

Overview of employment-at-will and its limitations; wages & hours; medical/family leave; privacy; drug testing; workers compensation; and fundamental anti-discrimination law.

This course provides students with the knowledge and skills to help others manage their careers while learning how to manage their own careers. Topics will include self-assessments, motivation theory, professional skill-development, career ladders, labor market/occupational trends, market research, personal branding, job search techniques, resume writing, interviewing skills, negotiating, networking and creating work-life balance.

People analytics is a data-driven approach to improving people-related decisions for the purpose of advancing both individual and organizational success. While people have always been critical to the success of organizations, many business leaders still make key decisions about their workforce based on intuition, experience, advice, and guesswork.

In this course, students work in small teams to provide consulting services to non-profit organizations, community groups and other local areas. These consulting services may include marketing, program evaluation, strategic planning, or other types of analysis that the organization may need. This is designed to specifically analyze these problems and formulate innovative solutions and effectively communicate recommendations.

Negotiation strategy and tactics; interests and interest-based bargaining, rights, power, leverage, concessions, commitment; application of theory in various work-life contexts; negotiation skill development.

Every session will be built around helping you understand and articulate your purpose, using a mix of reading materials, tools, frameworks, assessments, powerful guest speakers – and always, great conversations.

The objective of this course is to increase the student’s ability to manage the ethical aspects of HRM. Each student will develop skills necessary to analyze and address ethical issues, to provide ethical leadership within and for the organization, and to conduct business responsibly.

Behavior by individuals and groups in the workplace; group and inter-group dynamics; organizational culture, structure, and change; leadership, employee motivation, job performance, and feedback.

This course aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the most current theories and research on leadership and to develop students’ skills and competencies to be effective leaders in organizations.

The theory and practice of social movements and social change, particularly those related to work; the prospects for current and future mobilization.

Changes in the global economy and their effects on the living standards and bargaining power of American workers and their unions. Alternative strategies for dealing with globalization.

This course explores the opportunities and challenges of the increasingly diverse workforce emerging in the United States today. We will address the knowledge and skills managers must develop in working with others who are different from themselves. Some of these differences are obvious – gender, race, age, and physical characteristics. Other differences are not as easily observed – family structure, educational level, social class, and sexual orientation. This class incorporates experiential learning techniques for personal growth.

Nature of emotional intelligence and its effects on employee performance and organizational success; research on development of emotional intelligence; self-awareness and self-development.

Democracy within the firm, employee ownership, and coops; approaches to economic democracy; political and economic theory; case studies; and related career tracks.

Concepts and skills for starting non-profit organizations or businesses addressing problems of employees and their families; innovative business models; venture plans; critical and supportive perspectives.

The HRM Internship course is worth 3 credits and is pass/fail. Internships are experiential learning activities designed to provide students with opportunities to make connections between the theory and practice of academic study and the practical application of that study in a professional work environment. Internships offer the opportunity to “try out” a career while gaining relevant experience and professional connections. Internships are completed under the guidance of an on-site supervisor and a faculty sponsor, who, in combination with the student, will create a framework for learning and reflection.

Overview of both quantitative and qualitative research methods commonly used in the study of labor problems.

Applied analytical and statistical tools for solving problems at work, surveying employees, and maintaining quality. Projects are individual / group and spreadsheet intensive.

Issues for online, mail, telephone, and in-person surveys given their intended use. Samples: item construction; scaling; measurement validity & reliability; improving response rates; ethical research.

Students work as staff members in a labor union or labor-related organization (public or private), in an industrial relations unit in private industry, or as employees in a position that permits observation of and participation in a labor union at the grassroots level. Allows students to apply conceptual knowledge learned in the classroom to actual situations and to acquire new skills and knowledge. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.

The objective of this course is to teach you how to complete an honors thesis. You will learn how to (1) create interesting ideas / theoretical models that make a theoretical contribution to the literature, (2) identify appropriate theory for explaining your model, (3) create hypotheses, and (4) overall, write an academic manuscript.

This course offers an in-depth examination of interpersonal conflict in the workplace.