COMR 329 - Principles of Organizational Behaviour

COMR 329  is the introductory core course in Organizational Behaviour (OB). The primary objective of this course is to teach you about the effects of organizational structures and interpersonal processes on the behaviour of individuals in organizations and the wider implications for the effectiveness and success of organizations. You will also learn to consider the entire organization as an actor and examine how it behaves in different types of environments. Throughout the course an emphasis is placed on how you, as an organizational member or consultant, might experience, interpret, and manage people, structures, and processes in organizations. The main goal of the course is to help you develop interpersonal skills that will allow you to succeed in your future career in business.

This course is designed to sharpen your ability to diagnose and solve a broad range of organizational problems. Through readings, lectures, cases, and experiential exercises, we will introduce you to frameworks from the social sciences that are useful for understanding organizational processes and teach you how to apply these frameworks
to particular situations. The course has four topic areas:

1. understanding individuals in the workplace.
2. communicating decisions.
3. designing and changing organizations.
4. leading others.

Learning objectives

During this course you will be exposed to a variety of topics and understandably, you will be expected to master a basic understanding of the concepts of organizational behaviour. Additionally, you will be engaged in an ongoing team process so that you can develop new interpersonal skills such as:

1. awareness of how your values and attitudes affect the dynamics of your team.
2. awareness of how feedback, or the lack of it, affects the team process.
3. awareness of how motivating others, or failing to motivate others, directly affects team outcomes.
4. awareness of how you can more effectively contribute to team processes in the future.

Moreover, you will work on a professional team consulting project and analyze a live organization to identify its problems and viable solutions. This will allow you to develop a deeper understanding of organizational processes and structures, and develop skills to manage organizations, their members, and their environments, including:

1. awareness of how you can contribute to the proper functioning of organizations that you encounter as employee, customer, supplier, and stakeholder.
2. awareness of how you can contribute to the wider society.

Note: This course is part of the Minor in Commerce program for students attending Faculties outside of the UBC Sauder School of Business. See your home faculty for admission requirements and program details. Not for students with credit for, or exemption from, COMM 192 or COMM 292.

Starting in 2020S, the course code for all courses required for the Minor in Commerce will be COMR. This change was made to distinguish Commerce courses taken for the minor from courses taken for the BCom program. This is an administrative change only; course content remains the same. COMM 329 and COMR 329 are equivalent; credit will be granted for only one of the two.