MANGT 535: Interpersonal and Group Behavior

Prerequisite or co-requisite: MANGT 510

Note: Students who have completed a master’s degree (M.S., M.A., or M.B.A.) are not permitted to transfer credits from that degree into another master’s degree at Penn State.

Course Overview

This course centers on understanding employee behaviors in the workplace. Specifically, we will learn about antecedents (e.g., personality traits, interpersonal dynamics, group/team dynamics) and consequences of employee behaviors (e.g., employee and team performance, effective team development). In addition, the course requires students to develop an individual- and team-based perspective to lead and manage project teams. I believe learning should not be uni-directional. Over the semester, I am expecting you to draw from your own work experiences and share your experiences with your classmates (and me) to further enhance everyone’s understanding of the subject matter. The whole learning experience would be mutually-beneficial between me and my students

• The course has an established start and end date and you will interact with other students via team projects and group discussions.
• The course consists of a textbook, various academic and practitioner-oriented readings, a data project, and online lesson content that has been developed by the instructor.
• The course has 12 lessons with several requirements including contemporary issue discussion, discussion boards, 5 reflection essays, an empirical discovery (both at the individual and team level), a team case study, and two exams.

This is an online course, thus, it is very important for us to communicate well. As mentioned above, I do not mind chatting with you by all means. If you have any issues or questions, you SHOULD reach out to me. Aligning with this, there are a few things you should do in the first week. First, you will meet your instructor and fellow classmates at the welcome discussion board. Please briefly introduce yourself and answer the basic question I posted on the board. Remember, you could probably develop a new social network by proactively interacting with other students. Second, you will be asked to pick a time slot to set up a brief phone meeting with me (a scheduling email will be sent to you) in order to for me to get to know you better. Your phone meeting will be scheduled for the second week of the course (week of 8/30). Additionally, we will have another phone meeting (this one is non-mandatory) toward the end of the semester. 

I will cover 12 main topic areas in this course. Each lesson includes textbook material, additional readings, individual reflections on the material in the form of summary assignments, and online class discussions. You are expected to complete all of the lessons and read the material by the time you take the online final exam. You may study this material at your own pace; however, it is your responsibility to meet course requirements in a timely manner.

1. Participation is crucial! During the course, you will be required to join the online discussion forum. I am expecting you to draw from your personal and work experiences to further enhance your and your classmates’ understanding of the course subject matter. In addition, you will complete weekly summaries where you will summarize, criticize, and apply theory from the course to your real-life experiences.
2. I acknowledge and respect the fact that we have busy lives that include full-time jobs, family responsibilities, and other professional pursuits (among other things). Although I expect you to meet all of the deadlines during the semester, I could be “flexible” as long as you give me advance notice of needing extra time. Please keep in mind that this is a Masters-level class and, accordingly, expectations that are being placed on you in terms of workload and work quality are significant. Your grade will reflect the effort that you put into the assignments and readings, and will ultimately reflect what you are able to take away from the class.

You are responsible and expected to read the material on the course website, in the textbook, and the associated readings, and complete any assignments. You may work through this course at your own pace, however, at each stage, you should:

• conscientiously read and reflect on the material (don’t procrastinate),
• ask questions (via the Web, e-mail, phone, or in person) of your instructor and fellow students on issues you don’t understand,
• proactively share your own experience,
• complete any homework assignments as outlined in this Syllabus,
• conscientiously prepare for data project analyses, and
• prepare for your exams.

NOTE: If you are planning to graduate this semester, please communicate your intent to graduate to your instructor.  This will alert your instructor of the need to submit your final grade on time to meet the published graduation deadlines.  For more information about graduation policies and deadlines, please see “Graduation” on the World Campus Student Policies Web site.

Course Objectives

Project management has been labeled by Fortune magazine as the number one career choice for the coming decade. Increasingly, organizations are adopting project management techniques and structures within their business framework. Project management offers the twin advantages of allowing organizations to create products and processes efficiently, through optimal use of resources, and rapidly, in order to respond to rapid time-to-market demands. This course serves as an important linkage between the technical demands of project management and the behavioral challenges that await project teams in the form of interpersonal behavior and group interactions. The role of the instructor in this course is to promote student learning of a wide variety of behavioral knowledge and skills required for successful project management. These include understanding the impact of interpersonal behavior and team-based characteristics on individual and project performance as well as recognizing the impact of issues such as motivation and leadership skills for managing projects.

 By taking this course, you should be able to:

• have a comprehensive understanding of the key drivers of employee performance and commitment,
• draw on multiple theoretical perspectives to understand how to leverage the key drivers of employee performance and commitment,
• appreciate the psychological and behavioral complexities involved in successfully managing projects in modern organizations,
• understand how project management requires a blend of both technical and behavioral skills,
• apply this course material to the program’s body of knowledge on project management and,
• collect and analyze primary data to empirically understand what’s happening in your team/organization.

Library Resources

Many of Penn State’s library resources can be utilized from a distance. Through the University Libraries website, you can

• access magazine, journal, and newspaper articles online using library databases;
• borrow materials and have them delivered to your doorstep…or even your desktop;
• get research help via e-mail, chat, or phone using the Ask a Librarian service and much more.

You must have an active Penn State Access Account and be registered with the University Libraries in order to take full advantage of the Libraries’ resources and services. The Off-Campus Users page. has additional information about these free services.

NOTE: You must have an active Penn State Access Account to take full advantage of the Libraries’ resources and services. Once you have a Penn State account, you will automatically be registered with the library within 24-48 hours. If you would like to check that your library registration has been completed, visit the Library’s homepage, click on “My Library Accounts” and then click on “CAT Account”.

Grading

Your final course grade will come from a combination of participation, homework assignments, a research project, and a final exam.

 Grading Scale

I tend to provide ample extra credit activities for you to earn bonus points toward your final grade. Thus, I do not engage in the rounding of grades at the end of the semester.

If you are prevented from completing this course for reasons beyond your control, you have the option of requesting a deferred grade from your instructor. For more information, please see “Deferred Grades” on the Student Policies Web Site .

Course Requirements

Contemporary Issue Seminar- 50 points 

Theories and concepts in the textbook are usually based on research findings in the management literature, and they do not necessarily reflect/incorporate what’s happening in contemporary organizations/project teams. Although I am doing my best to use other materials (e.g., youtube video lectures, recent academic articles) to complement gaps between research and new phenomenon, it usually takes at least two years to publish a paper in academia so what you read from a recently-issued journal is not “really” new and it may not catch what’s currently happening in contemporary organizations). Thus, I would like to discuss with you on contemporary issue seminar! In the first week’s module, you see a discussion board, that is called, “contemporary issue seminar,” where you could ask any questions or get some advice from me or other students. Of course, you can freely give feedback and comments to other students’ posts (like what business consultants do). The discussion board stays open until the last week of the semester so please regularly check the board and discuss/learn things together! 

Discussion board participation- 150 points

Online discussion forums are most helpful to students when they promote the sharing of ideas about how the course material relates to your own work situations and organizations. Indeed, I realize that each student brings a unique background and set of experiences to this class; these experiences can help each of us grow as individuals and broaden our own perspectives. The discussion forum should not be a place where you list every single thing you know about a topic — you should thoughtfully contribute to the conversation, keeping in mind what others have said before you.

Here are my guidelines! You will be expected to actively engage in discussion in the online forums. Your participation will be graded both on the quantity and quality of your posts. The recommended length of posts is between 100-150 words (replies will likely be shorter).

• Expected quantity: By way of the number of posts, “excellent” contributions are reflected in consistent and active participation in discussion topics, “good” contributions are reflected in sporadic and reasonable participation, and “poor” contributions are reflected in minimal participation. As a general rule of thumb, three “good to excellent” posts per week will likely earn an A for quantity.
• Expected quality: Posts will be judged to be “excellent” (an “A” grade) if they thoughtfully integrate material/learning/theories from the course with observations/situations from the student’s work experiences and career. “Excellent” posts will often seek to answer the question of “why” the phenomena in the course occur and how the context of the student’s organization or project team might influence those dynamics. “Good” (a “B” grade) posts do only one of the above; they either make a comment about the material OR offer an anecdote from personal experience. Posts will be judged to be “poor” (a “C” grade or below) if they represent opinions only, they repeat others’ observations or comments, or they offer only surface-level observations.
• Original posts: You are heavily encouraged to start new discussion threads based on the current week’s topics by finding contemporary news/magazine articles that are related to the topic at hand. The more student participation in these original posts, the greater the weight given to your participation grade.
• Replies to posts: You are also heavily encouraged to offer insights and opinions on others’ posts. These discussions will be constructive, respectful, and professional in nature.

Exams – 300 points (150 points per exam)

Over the semester, you will take two exams. In each exam, you will be required to complete four essay questions. The exam will be open-book and notes. It will require you to integrate knowledge and material from the first half of the course to answer broad-based management questions. Once emailed to students by the instructor, the exam must be completed in approximately seven days. Students are not permitted to collaborate with others when completing the exam. The first exam is due in Week 6, and the second exam is due in Week 9. Exams submitted late will incur a penalty, unless a prior arrangement has been made for an extension. Once emailed to students by the instructor, the exam must be completed in approximately seven days.

Reflection essays – 200 points (40 points per essay)

I always believe that writing is important regardless of context (e.g., business writing, academic writing) because you could solidify your knowledge structure and develop logic while writing an essay. Indeed, my past students consistently testified that they found this set of assignments very helpful.

This assignment is for you to think about the concepts and theories you learned from each lecture. There will be no specified format or length for these daily summaries but you should at least, 1) briefly summarize one or two concepts of your choice from the relevant chapter, 2) write about your “biggest takeaway”, and 3) try to apply the concept(s) to your real-life project management experiences or cases. Your bi-weekly essays will be evaluated purely based on “quality” and I will be providing feedback every week.

Empirical discovery– 200 points

To understand employee behaviors in the workplace, it is very important for you to learn about how to “scientifically” and “statistically” analyze employee behaviors. As a researcher who conducts academic research, I am pleased to share my skills and knowledge on the following;

• Basic stats in plain terms
• How to survey people, and collect data
• How to capture and measure the psychometric properties of an individual
• How to prepare the data
• How to run and analyze the data

I do not want to make this a “beast” stat project. Rather, I would like to make this to be a fun discovery. My intention is to make you feel more comfortable with some of the research tools that you may be expected to utilize as a leader, manager, or CEO. I will provide you with detailed information regarding this project during this semester.

There are two parts to this project, 1) Individual level and 2) Team level.

First, as an individual assignment, you will be given a couple of practice exercises whereby you experience how to design an online survey (20 points), clean and prepare data, and run basic analyses (80 points) on a sample practice dataset, which I will supply. Please note that it is okay for you to consult with your teammates on this assignment, however, you should complete and submit your assignment individually and independently.

Second, as a team assignment, you and your team members will be given a data set to analyze. During the semester, the whole class members will be asked to collect data by conducting an organizational survey. Upon data collection, your team will be asked to analyze the data (from the scratch) and write a short report (two to three pages). I will provide detailed information about the first exam week.

Team Case analysis – 100 points

I will assign a case to your team around week 8. You and your team members will be asked to work through a case discussion and activities. Prior to discussion of the case, you will be required to thoroughly read the case regarding the problems the manager is facing, along with an assessment of what you suspect to be the root causes contributing to those problems. The quality of your team’s case analysis will be richer if each member has done these steps on his/her own and is actively engaged in the team’s discussion. 

General Policies

Grade Grievance Procedures

To ensure that students feel they are treated fairly, I provide an avenue for appealing grades.  If you think your work was graded unfairly, you may use the following procedure:

1. Within SEVEN (7) days of receiving the grade, give me a written appeal.  After, seven days I will assume that you agree with my assessment and consider the grade final.  In other words, do NOT wait until the end of the semester to appeal grades earned weeks earlier; I will not consider appeals at this time.
2. To file an appeal, prepare a written statement explaining why you think the grade is incorrect or unfair.  Be sure to document your reasons by referring to inconsistency in the application of grading standards, etc.  Stating simply that you want or feel you “deserve” a higher grade because you worked hard is NOT sufficient grounds for an appeal.  Performance reflects a combination of effort AND ability.
3. Submit the written statement together with the graded material (if appropriate).  I will consider your complaint and make a decision.  You will be notified in writing of my decision.  If you are not satisfied with my decision, you may use University grievance procedures to continue your appeal.  Please note that I document my rationale for all grades.