The managerial and business context within which managers, HR professionals and workers interact is subject to significant environmental turbulence, change and uncertainty. Through drawing on academic debate, the course develops an understanding of the main internal and external environmental contexts of contemporary organisations. It explores how those leading and managing organisations respond to such dynamic environmental contexts. The course provides students with the opportunity to reflect on how organisational decisions and HR choices are shaped by both internal and external forces beyond their immediate control. This course therefore explores the implications of these changing environments on professional practice and provides opportunities for applied learning and continuous professional development.

The course is timetabled to run intensively over two weeks early in Semester 1, with 14 face-to-face formal contact hours.

7 x 2 hour sessions in Sept/start of October

None

Intended Learning Outcomes

This course aims to enable students to :

1. Build a critical understanding of how different internal and external dynamics impact organisations. 

2. Increase students' confidence in contextually situating Human Resource policies and practices within the external and internal landscape.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Differentiate the choices, dilemmas and constraints that managers and HR professionals face in relation to the internal and external contexts.

2. Summarise the key theoretical and empirical debates that explain the effects of internal and external environments on the practice of HRM.

3. Apply key theoretical ideas and debates in order to evaluate variety of HRM-related contextual issues and global challenges.

4. Identify opportunities for applied learning and continuous professional development in the light of organisational and environmental change.

5. Collaborate successfully with other students to evaluate how one of the Sustainable Development goals may impact organisational practice.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.