32485 - METODI E TECNICHE DEGLI INTERVENTI ORGANIZZATIVI (CAMBIAMENTO E SVIL. ORGANIZZ.,INTERVENTO PSICOSOCIALE E RISORSE UMANE,TECN. DI INTERV. E VALUTAZ.)

Learning outcomes

Students at the end of this course: - know and comprehend main intervention theories and techniques in Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology, and main evaluation methods in these fields. Particularly, for what concerns: a) Organizational Change and Development, students know main contextual, intra-organizational, social and individual factors promoting or hindering change, procedures for planned change and how to evaluate outcomes of interventions; b) Human Resource Management, students know methods to assess performance at different levels and how to develop psychological interventions aimed to improve such performance; c) Evaluation techniques, students know how to define the aims of psychological interventions, how to evaluate interventions, collect data and make recommendations within organizations.

Course contents

This 12 CFU course is functionally divided in three parts of 4 CFU each:

First Part: Organizational Change and Development - prof. S. Zappalà

Second part: Psycho-social Intervention and Human Resources - prof. M.G. Mariani

Third part: Basic Intervention Techniques and Evaluation - prof. S. Zappalà

CONTENTS

First part

1. Theories of organizational change

2. Levels of change: individual, group, organization

3. Organizational diagnosis and organizational well-being

4. Resistances and how to overcome resistances to change

5. Organizational development and design of change processes

6. Classification of main intervention techniques

7. Process Consultancy.

Second part

Theoretical topics, techniques, quality target and ethical aspetces of:

1. Job evaluation, performance and potential appraisal

2. Competences assessment 

3. Team performance evaluation

4. Recruitment and personnel selection

Third part

1. Action research

2. Evaluation of interventions

3. Evaluation research

4. Research designs for the evaluation of WOP interventions (quasi experimental and longitudinal designs, within subjects and single case design, behavioral approach)

5. Procedures and techniques to collect data: test and questionnaires, observation, interview, case studies

6. Results communication

Recommended reading

First part

- Piccardo C, Colombo L., (2007) Governare il cambiamento, Milano: R. Cortina,

- Porras J., Robertson P. (1992) Organizational development: theory, practice, research. In ed. M.D. Dunnette & Hough, Handbook of Organizational Psychology, Palo Alto, CA: Consult. Psychol. Press, vol. 3, pp. 719 - 822. (2nd ed).

- Schein E.H. (2001). La consulenza di processo: come costruire le relazioni d'aiuto e promuovere lo sviluppo organizzativo. Milano: R. Cortina (capitoli da 1 a 6; leggere il 6)

- Mckenna, E.F. (2006). Organizational change and development. In E. Mckenna, Business psychology and organizational behaviour. A student's handbook – Fourth Edition (pp. 539-565) New York: Taylor and Francis group.

- Avallone F., Paplomatas A. (2004). Salute organizzativa: Psicologia del benessere nei contesti lavorativi. Milano: R. Cortina (leggere il 3, studiare bene 4 e 6)

Second part

- Argentero P. (2006) “I test nelle organizzazioni”, Il Mulino, Bologna.

- Arvey R.D., Murphy K.R. (1998), “Performance evaluation in work settings”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 49, 1998.

- Sackett, P.R., Lievens F. (2008), “Personnel selection”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 59, pp. 419-450..

Students who do not regularly attend classes have to read carefully:

- Borgogni L., Consiglio C. (2008) “La selezione: metodi e strumenti psicologici per scegliere le persone”, Franco Angeli, Milano.

Third part

a) Fraccaroli F., Vergani A. (2004) Valutare gli interventi formativi, Roma, Carocci. (TUTTO)

b) Leone L., Prezza M. (2002) Costruire e valutare i progetti nel sociale, Milano: Franco Angeli.

c) Buchanan D. et al., (1991), Getting in, getting on, getting out, getting back, in  Bryman A. (ed.) Doing research in organizations, London: Routledge (cap. 3, pp. 53-67)

d) Komaki J., Goltz S. (2001) Within-group research designs: going beyond program evaluation questions, in Merle Johnson, Redmon, Mawhinney, Handbook of organizational performance, New York: Haworth Press (pp. 81-86, 92-106).

Assessment methods

Considering the practical – professional nature of this course, evaluation aims to assess knowledge, academic and design competencies of students. Thus, a very good knowledge of course contents is one component of evaluation, but it is not the only one to secure a very good mark.

The final mark will reflect the learning processes of the students as demonstrated in various tasks and assignments that form the course.

Tasks and assignments will be of the following kind:

- Knowledge examination (open and closed questions about curse topics)

- group tasks concerning analysis and discussion of case studies, or design of intervention,

- individual (or group) tasks concerning analysis of empirical papers.

All this tasks will form a portfolio; all the tasks will be used for the final mark.

Language of instruction

Office hours