MSc Human Resource Management

Whether you’re a future employee, consultant, manager, leader or HR professional, people management is important to you. It is through people that most organisations create value – for the organization but also for other stakeholders. But what does the famous phrase “our people are our most valuable asset” really mean? What is value and where does it come from? 
 
In this course we will look at questions such as; how can we manage people in a way to enhance both organisational performance and employee wellbeing? How can we ensure that our people management practices align to the goals of the organization and constantly changing external demands? What is the role of people management in 21st century organisations? 
 
This is a highly interactive course which blends recorded knowledge clips with face-to-face discussion and active participation in small group activities. In class you will be guided through activities which focus on testing theory, and you will apply your new knowledge in the MSc company project. Through this you will work with a real organisation to analyse key strategic people-related problems and make evidence-based recommendations for how to address these. You are encouraged to be critical and inquisitive, and by the end of the course our goal is that you will be able to turn research into practice to create value through people management. 

Taught by Dr R. Hewett.

Most organizations today collect a wealth of data that could help people management become more evidence-based and impact-driven, and in turn help employees live up to their full potential. However, only few companies manage to use their people data to the benefit of business results. People Analytics could potentially fill this void.  

People Analytics constitutes the analytic approach to and statistical analysis of Human Resource (HR) and workforce data to the benefit of employee performance and the organization’s return of investment on human capital. This phenomenon gained traction in recent years, as a movement that could evolve the way we make decisions concerning people-management. It seeks to add value to organizations by leveraging analytical processes, a broad range of statistical techniques, and novel data sources. Moreover, where the returns of investment on human capital have traditionally been considered opaque, People Analytics promises to reveal the bottom line of HR practices, interventions, and investments. 

In this course, you learn how People Analytics can be used to improve business outcomes and make better management decisions. Through a sequence of readings, lectures, cases, and experiential exercises, you will learn how to leverage people analytics as a skillset, toolset, and mindset. You will learn what questions to ask, how to determine which methods to use, and how to communicate ideas effectively. This should not only help those who seek to become an HR professional but should help you stand out as a manager and business leader. 

Taught by Dr C. Lee.

Navigating organizational change is very important for managers coping with growing organizations, dynamic markets, shifting societal values, evolving technologies, or global crises. As you assume greater responsibilities in your future career, you must engage with and drive necessary change in your organizations. Therefore, this course addresses the process of organizational development and change, with a particular focus on the role of professional facilitators of these processes. The course is taught as an elective in the MSc HRM but is equally relevant for students from other programs that want to learn more about leading and managing change. While the field of organization development and change has a long history, the past 20 years have shown important advances in how we understand and how we deal with change. This course provides an up-to-date consideration of key insights in the field that are relevant for all who professionally engage with change in roles such as consulting, line management, project management, team leadership, or HR. As elective, the course provides participants an opportunity to explore the issues around people, organization and change and connect them to their own field of study. The course will include knowledge clips, interactive lectures, simulation games, and guest lectures with practitioners. In the weekly meetings, required readings are discussed and students work on short (team) assignments directly related to the topic of the specific meeting. In the course, we will address the individual experience of change, the role of the change agent, diagnosing change situations and resistance to change, managing the client, mobilizing for change, handling change dynamics, designing change implementation, and the future of change management.

Taught by Dr Koene and Dr Kanitz. 

The list of skills necessary for working in any organisational environment is long. In this course, we will use the method of process consultation to pay attention to how people can advise. This will result in increased communication, advisory and coaching skills.
This course focuses on how students communicate and react to other people in different contexts. The course is designed to enable the students to build and develop their advisory skills and to increase knowledge of the concepts behind them, so as to widen the choice of possible actions in a given situation and to develop the understanding of the strengths and weakness of their advisory skills. By the end of the course we will have provided the students with an opportunity to learn about and practice by understanding and diagnosing contexts and give advice.

Taught by J. Werkhoven MSc and S. Hofmeijer MSc

The purpose of this course is to introduce the varying notions and diverse perspectives around consulting. These perspectives include:

• Consulting as market building and pursuit of opportunities
• Consulting as a practitioner and as a set of practices
• Critical and ethical perspectives of consulting
• Consulting as a career and case studies

There are three main elements of this course – your own client pursuit, guest speaker interactions, and consulting case presentations. By exploring consulting opportunities/clients on their own, students face the uncertainties and discomforts of scoping a new consulting engagement. Through the course, students will also get opportunities to interact with and learn from both current and ex-consultants with diverse experiences and identify corresponding relevant skills. These interactions will expose students to varying consulting practices offered worldwide and make them explore how they can relate their respective careers. The students are also expected to formulate their vision and make a business case around possible consulting services they can offer to potential clients/organizations.

Taught by K. Rapaka.

Organizations are not only part of markets, but also an alternative them. They tend to have characteristics that set them apart from markets, such as employees supplying a subset of their liberties to management, specific human capital, and various possibilities to do more (make better decisions) than any single individual. These features raise issues regarding the determinants of value-creating organizations, such as ‘Who decides?’ (the allocation of authority, formal versus real authority, access, ratification and monitoring in decision control, and initiation and implementation in decision management, task design, conflict resolution, enforcement mechanisms, talent allocation across hierarchical positions, …) and the structure of ‘Benefits and Costs’ (payment schemes; hiring policies; …). The handling of an issue depends to a large extent on whether it is characterized as a conflicting interests / motivation question, a joint interests / alignment challenge, or a cognitive limitation problem. The insights are aimed at helping managers to take effective and efficient decisions.

Taught by Prof. G. Hendrikse.

Leaders are key players in organizational functioning because they critically affect the people they work with—both inside and outside of their organization. Leaders are in a unique position to mobilise employees to excel and contribute to the organisation’s mission and vision. At the same time, however, they may also be a primary source of conflict and demotivation. Understanding what makes for high performance leadership as well as where leadership can go wrong, therefore, is of critical importance to any aspiring leader; and in particular for HR professionals who may come to take the lead of the HR organization, as well as facilitate the process of leadership in their organization.

In this course, we address one key question: “what makes an effective leader?” from a range of different theoretical perspectives (e.g., social identity, visionary leadership) and cast in the context of contemporary workplace trends (e.g., demographic change, digitization). Through a sequence of readings, lectures, cases, and experiential exercises, students learn to understand and apply state-of-the-art leadership theories, analyse and evaluate the determinants of leadership successes and failures, as well as apply these learnings to make recommendations for real-world leadership challenges.

Taught by Dr T. Davidson.

This course will provide insights into the complex topic of diversity in organizations and will examine how diversity can effectively be managed in organizations. At the end of the course, students understand the core diversity theories and empirical research insights, can critically evaluate the operation and effects of diversity across individual, team, and organizational levels, and apply their learnings to real-world diversity challenges by identifying how human resource management (HRM) can contribute to the effective management of diversity in organizations. 

Taught by R. Moelijker MSc

Ask any business leader to mention the most important drivers for his/her success and you’ll find that “my ability to hire the best people in my teams” is one of them.

With the above in mind these 4 observations are striking: (a) in business schools, there is zero to none academic training in “hiring people”, (b) almost no companies train their managers profoundly on this skill, (c) Tasks around “hiring people”, like job interviews, make up for a large part of a business leader’s day to day agenda, especially in more senior career stages, and (d) the academic state-of-the art knowledge on what is good practice has multiple extreme gaps with what happens in everyday business life. For instance, many organisations still base selection decisions on invalid and unreliable selection methods, thus making a bad-informed hiring decision.

In this course we will take two perspectives and related learning goals. First, you as a hiring manager: boosting your ability to make effective hiring decisions yourself. Second, you as a business leader: enhancing your ability to contribute strategically to the talent-acquisition goals of others in an organization.

In order to achieve these goals, this course will provide insights in the fundamentals of the talent acquisition process, how to effectively acquire/match talent to business needs and modern-day talent acquisition/recruitment/selection methods. The course engages students through a combination of lectures, practical case studies, debates, exercises and discussions. 

Course Coordinator: Dr B. Dietz

Negotiations are everywhere. Employers and employees negotiate over a variety of matters such as remuneration packages, performance measures, and which tasks have to be performed. Prices of commodities (such as oil, copper and computer chips) are not only determined in markets, but also negotiated beforehand amongst the concerned parties and written in detailed contracts. Mergers and acquisitions require negotiations over when the merger will start, the price at which the transaction is to take place, who will be the new CEO, and the location of headquarters. Government policy is typically the outcome of negotiations amongst cabinet ministers. Countries negotiate about trade agreements, travel conditions, immigration, and nuclear disarmament.

There are many possibilities to create value by exchange. However, the negotiation process between the involved parties may fail to establish a mutually favorable outcome. This course highlights the determinants of successful negotiation and its alternatives. What variables determine the outcome of negotiations such as those mentioned above? How can one negotiate a better deal (such as a wage increase) from one’s employer? What determines whether parties will strike an agreement quickly so as to minimize the loss of delay. What strategies should one adopt to maximize the negotiated sale price of one’s house? When is it attractive to be unpredictable in bargaining, and how to deal with it? When is the outcome of a negotiation process indeterminate, and how to resolve it? How to characterize bargaining power, and what strategies can help improve one’s bargaining power? Are there superior alternatives to bargaining?

This course develops the game theoretic approach in order to address the above and many other questions concerning negotiations in a unifying way. This allows to address

• Multi-person interactions.
• Asymmetric information;
• Beliefs;
• Bargaining power;
• Superior alternatives to negotiation.

Taught by Dr. L. van Bunderen

The list of skills necessary for working in any organisational environment is long. In this course, we will use the method of process consultation to pay attention to how people can advise. This will result in increased communication, advisory and coaching skills.
This course focuses on how students communicate and react to other people in different contexts. The course is designed to enable the students to build and develop their advisory skills and to increase knowledge of the concepts behind them, so as to widen the choice of possible actions in a given situation and to develop the understanding of the strengths and weakness of their advisory skills. By the end of the course we will have provided the students with an opportunity to learn about and practice by understanding and diagnosing contexts and give advice.

Taught by J. Werkhoven MSc and S. Hofmeijer MSc

The purpose of this course is to introduce the varying notions and diverse perspectives around consulting. These perspectives include:

• Consulting as market building and pursuit of opportunities
• Consulting as a practitioner and as a set of practices
• Critical and ethical perspectives of consulting
• Consulting as a career and case studies

There are three main elements of this course – your own client pursuit, guest speaker interactions, and consulting case presentations. By exploring consulting opportunities/clients on their own, students face the uncertainties and discomforts of scoping a new consulting engagement. Through the course, students will also get opportunities to interact with and learn from both current and ex-consultants with diverse experiences and identify corresponding relevant skills. These interactions will expose students to varying consulting practices offered worldwide and make them explore how they can relate their respective careers. The students are also expected to formulate their vision and make a business case around possible consulting services they can offer to potential clients/organizations.

Taught by K. Rapaka.

Leaders are key players in organizational functioning because they critically affect the people they work with—both inside and outside of their organization. Leaders are in a unique position to mobilise employees to excel and contribute to the organisation’s mission and vision. At the same time, however, they may also be a primary source of conflict and demotivation. Understanding what makes for high performance leadership as well as where leadership can go wrong, therefore, is of critical importance to any aspiring leader; and in particular for HR professionals who may come to take the lead of the HR organization, as well as facilitate the process of leadership in their organization.

In this course, we address one key question: “what makes an effective leader?” from a range of different theoretical perspectives (e.g., social identity, visionary leadership) and cast in the context of contemporary workplace trends (e.g., demographic change, digitization). Through a sequence of readings, lectures, cases, and experiential exercises, students learn to understand and apply state-of-the-art leadership theories, analyse and evaluate the determinants of leadership successes and failures, as well as apply these learnings to make recommendations for real-world leadership challenges.

Taught by Dr T. Davidson.

This course will provide insights into the complex topic of diversity in organizations and will examine how diversity can effectively be managed in organizations. At the end of the course, students understand the core diversity theories and empirical research insights, can critically evaluate the operation and effects of diversity across individual, team, and organizational levels, and apply their learnings to real-world diversity challenges by identifying how human resource management (HRM) can contribute to the effective management of diversity in organizations. 

Taught by R. Moelijker MSc

Organizations are not only part of markets, but also an alternative them. They tend to have characteristics that set them apart from markets, such as employees supplying a subset of their liberties to management, specific human capital, and various possibilities to do more (make better decisions) than any single individual. These features raise issues regarding the determinants of value-creating organizations, such as ‘Who decides?’ (the allocation of authority, formal versus real authority, access, ratification and monitoring in decision control, and initiation and implementation in decision management, task design, conflict resolution, enforcement mechanisms, talent allocation across hierarchical positions, …) and the structure of ‘Benefits and Costs’ (payment schemes; hiring policies; …). The handling of an issue depends to a large extent on whether it is characterized as a conflicting interests / motivation question, a joint interests / alignment challenge, or a cognitive limitation problem. The insights are aimed at helping managers to take effective and efficient decisions.

Taught by Prof. G. Hendrikse.

Parties in an exchange have to come to an agreement in order to create value. However, the negotiation process may fail to establish a mutually favorable outcome. This course highlights the determinants of a successful negotiation and its alternatives. It is done by developing a unifying framework, which allows to address

• Multi-person interactions;
• Asymmetric information;
• Communication and beliefs;
• Renegotiation and Coordination;
• Bargaining power;
• Facilitating practices.

Taught by Dr. L. van Bunderen

Navigating organizational change is very important for managers coping with growing organizations, dynamic markets, shifting societal values, evolving technologies, or global crises. As you assume greater responsibilities in your future career, you must engage with and drive necessary change in your organizations. Therefore, this course addresses the process of organizational development and change, with a particular focus on the role of professional facilitators of these processes. The course is taught as an elective in the MSc HRM but is equally relevant for students from other programs that want to learn more about leading and managing change. While the field of organization development and change has a long history, the past 20 years have shown important advances in how we understand and how we deal with change. This course provides an up-to-date consideration of key insights in the field that are relevant for all who professionally engage with change in roles such as consulting, line management, project management, team leadership, or HR. As elective, the course provides participants an opportunity to explore the issues around people, organization and change and connect them to their own field of study. The course will include knowledge clips, interactive lectures, simulation games, and guest lectures with practitioners. In the weekly meetings, required readings are discussed and students work on short (team) assignments directly related to the topic of the specific meeting. In the course, we will address the individual experience of change, the role of the change agent, diagnosing change situations and resistance to change, managing the client, mobilizing for change, handling change dynamics, designing change implementation, and the future of change management.

Taught by Dr Koene and Dr Kanitz.

Ask any business leader to mention the most important drivers for his/her success and you’ll find that “my ability to hire the best people in my teams” is one of them.

With the above in mind these 4 observations are striking: (a) in business schools, there is zero to none academic training in “hiring people”, (b) almost no companies train their managers profoundly on this skill, (c) Tasks around “hiring people”, like job interviews, make up for a large part of a business leader’s day to day agenda, especially in more senior career stages, and (d) the academic state-of-the art knowledge on what is good practice has multiple extreme gaps with what happens in everyday business life. For instance, many organisations still base selection decisions on invalid and unreliable selection methods, thus making a bad-informed hiring decision.

In this course we will take two perspectives and related learning goals. First, you as a hiring manager: boosting your ability to make effective hiring decisions yourself. Second, you as a business leader: enhancing your ability to contribute strategically to the talent-acquisition goals of others in an organization.

In order to achieve these goals, this course will provide insights in the fundamentals of the talent acquisition process, how to effectively acquire/match talent to business needs and modern-day talent acquisition/recruitment/selection methods. The course engages students through a combination of lectures, practical case studies, debates, exercises and discussions.    

Taught by Dr B. Dietz.