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BMGT10170

Academic Year 2026/2027

Inside Organisations (BMGT10170)

Subject:
Business Management
College:
Business
School:
Business
Level:
1 (Introductory)
Credits:
5
Module Coordinator:
Assoc Professor Maeve Houlihan
Trimester:
Autumn
Mode of Delivery:
On Campus
Internship Module:
No
How will I be graded?
Letter grades

Curricular information is subject to change.

Inside Organisations is built around ten conversations about people, work and organisations. Our purpose is to learn more about the human side of organisations, and get to grips with groups, teamwork and collaboration.

People’s behaviour is often curious and always interesting. Taking a close look at behaviour inside organisations (starting with your own) will prove useful to you not just when you enter the workplace, but right now, as you work to get things done in college. This is a module designed to develop your OB knowledge and insight, expand your skills through active experience, and enhance your capacity for reflective, informed analysis.

In parallel to lectures, you’ll engage in active learning, working with fellow classmates on one of three styles of group experience: a creative project team, a structured weekly roundtable, or a Venture Lab to plan and deliver an event. Places on each are assigned subject to availability, and groups will continue to work together throughout the term. We’ll discuss the scope of each in more detail in lectures before the team assignments commence.

This module is 100% team graded, reflecting our focus on collaboration skills. The interdependent nature of teamwork will require your time, attention and very active contribution – showing up for yourself and each other.

There are four specific learning goals:

Knowledge: Learning about a range of individual, group and organisational behaviour (OB) theories and concepts, including personality, motivation, culture, and decision-making in groups.
Skills: Getting to grips with groups: learning to understand and work with group dynamics, and developing practical collaboration, teamwork and communication skills.
Application: Building awareness of contemporary working lives, organisational practices, and the future of work.
Mindset: Developing your self-awareness, psychological mindedness and sociological imagination.

A key intention of this module is to lay a foundation of vocabulary and insights concerning human behaviour in organisations that you can draw on throughout many future modules.

All students taking this module should be aware that this module requires a high degree of participation and teamwork.

About this Module

Learning Outcomes:

1. Build the vocabulary and conceptual framework to help you think about people, work and organisaitons.

2. Describe, apply and reflect on foundational concepts in Organisational Behaviour (OB) relating to the individual, the group, and the organisation/workplace.

3. Work as a team and use the experience to build your collaboration and communication skills and learn about group dynamics.

4. Relate these ideas to the world of work and the changing workplace, and demonstrate your ability to think critically about human behaviour and how work is organised and managed.

5. Expand your psychological and sociological imagination.

Indicative Module Content:

This module focuses on people, organisational behaviour and the changing world of work.
Key topics include:
Foundations of OB - and the sociological imagination
Inside Organisational Culture and LIFTing leadership together
Individual Difference: Personality, Perception and Emotion, Motivation and what makes us tick
Getting to Grips with Groups: Collaboration, Teamwork and Exploring Group Dynamics
Hearing and Being Heard: Interpersonal and intercultural communication
Beneath the Surface: Power, Politics and Conflict, the Unconscious Organisation
Work, Working lives and the Changing World of Work

UNESCO highlights a set of key competencies that support individuals in their development and support society in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UCD has adapted these competencies and is combining them with others to form a general framework of learning competencies. This module will help you develop the competencies below to the levels specified. 
Learning Competency Additional Information Level

Collaboration

 The ability to learn from others; to understand and respect the needs, perspectives and actions of others (empathy); to understand, relate to and be sensitive to others (empathic leadership); to deal with conflicts in a group; and to facilitate collaborative and participatory problem solving. Advanced Beginner

Critical Thinking

 The ability to question norms, practices and opinions; to reflect on one’s own values, perceptions and actions. Advanced Beginner

Systems Thinking

 The ability to recognize and understand relationships; to analyse complex systems; to think of how systems are embedded within different domains and different scales; and to deal with uncertainty. Advanced Beginner

Strategic

 The ability to collectively develop and implement innovative actions that further sustainability at the local level and further afield. Novice

Integrated Problem Solving

 The overarching ability to apply different problem-solving frameworks to complex sustainability problems and develop viable, inclusive and equitable solution options that promote sustainable development, integrating the competencies in this list. Advanced Beginner

Self-awareness

 The ability to reflect on one’s own role in the local community and (global) society; to continually evaluate and further motivate one’s actions; and to deal with one’s feelings and desires. Advanced Beginner

Normative

 The ability to understand and reflect on the norms and values that underlie one’s actions; and to negotiate values, principles, goals, and targets, in a context of conflicts of interest and trade-offs, uncertain knowledge and contradictions. Advanced Beginner

Anticipatory

 The ability to understand and evaluate multiple scenarios for the future – possible, probable and desirable; to create one’s own visions for the future; to apply the precautionary principle; to assess the consequences of actions; and to deal with risks and changes. Advanced Beginner

Digital Literacy and Judgement

 The ability to access, evaluate, create and communicate information in digital environments; to engage critically, ethically and responsibly with digital technologies and digital information; to understand their opportunities, limitations, risks and impact on individual’s digital identities; and to exercise informed judgement in digital participation and decision-making. Advanced Beginner

AI Literacy & Agency

 The ability to understand, critically evaluate and responsibly engage with artificial intelligence; to recognise how AI systems are shaped by human values; to assess their ethical, social and environmental implications; and to exercise human judgement, agency and accountability in AI-related contexts. Not addressed

Wellbeing

 Wellbeing is having the resources and skills to meet life's challenges, including attributes such as personal development skills, resilience, stress management, strengths, lifestyle skills, nutrition, physical activity, sleep, alcohol/substance use, academic skills, time management, goal setting, interpersonal skills, group work, communication. Advanced Beginner

The United Nations identified seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as core to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and UCD contributes in general to SDG 4 Quality Education. Further SDGs explored within this module if relevant are listed below. A scale of 1 - 5 indicates the extent to which the SDG is covered.


Goal Name Description Coverage

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all 2

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation 2
 

Student Effort Hours:
Student Effort Type Hours
Specified Learning Activities

24
Autonomous Student Learning

48
Lectures

24
Seminar (or Webinar)

24
Total

120

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
This module combines weekly lectures with a parallel programme of small-group, peer-to-peer learning.

A high degree of teamwork is required throughout the trimester. Groups will be randomly assigned and will work together on projects and deliverables throughout the term.

Lectures follow a scheduled weekly timetable and attendance is expected.

For the collaborative group work, you will be assigned to one of three formats:

LIFT: a weekly programme focused on leadership and skills development.
OBLive: a self-directed project to devise and manage.
Blastbeat: a Live Venture Lab activity.

Each team will work together to build, plan, do and review its work. Your project deliverables and individual grades will depend on active participation and collaboration, both during and beyond scheduled class time.

Assessment is fully team-based and runs across the trimester, giving you repeated opportunities to learn and improve your collaboration. All teams complete a team interview connecting their experience to core concepts from the module.

While team grades are the norm, individual grades may be moderated based on evidence of contribution, delivery, learning and peer feedback.

Where circumstances hinder participation, please stay in close dialogue with your team and lecturer. Everyone is responsible for being honest about their contribution and for ensuring that credit is only given for work they have actually contributed to.

AI Policy: AI Permitted for Limited Support

All submitted work must be the original creation of the team.

AI tools may be used for limited support, such as idea generation or as a study aid. They may not be used to create submissions on your behalf.

Students, individually and as teams, remain responsible for the accuracy, reliability and originality of their work, and must declare and discuss AI use in individual and group contributions, cited appropriately, following UCD Library guidance.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Incompatibles:
BMGT10100 - Intro to Org Behaviour, NMHS20060 - Interpersonal&Teamwork Skills


 

Assessment Strategy
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Group Work Assignment: Team Deliverable (OBLIve/LIFT/Blastbeat) Week 8, Week 9 Graded No
25
 No
Group Work Assignment: Team Interview & Debrief Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12 Graded No
25
 No
Group Work Assignment: Team Dossier - Portfolio of Collaborative Activities Week 12 Graded No
40
 No
Participation in Learning Activities: Early Stage Teambuild Submission Week 4, Week 5 Graded No
10
 No

As part of UCD's student support, under the Additional Consideration policy, extensions may be available for the following assessments in the module: Assignment (including essay/poster), Portfolio, Reflective Assignment, Report(s), and Individual Project.


Carry forward of passed components
Yes
 

Remediation Type Remediation Timing
In-Module Resit Prior to relevant Programme Exam Board
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Peer review activities
• Self-assessment activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Group discussion and feedback, peer and personal reflective review, feedforward learning.

If you are someone who finds following a text book helpful, the text and content that we follow most closely is: Andrzej Huczynski and David Buchanan (2023) Organizational Behaviour, London, UK: Prentice Hall, 11th Edition (or any previous edition)

You do not need to purchase this text, but it helpful to have access to an OB text book to help you build your TAE insights. There are lots of different OB texts in the library, short loan and long loan at classmarks 302.34 and 658.4. I encourage you to look around, leaf through several to choose one that you like. Second hand copies are also widely available in the case of older books.

The key message here is that reading further is more important than which text. Each varies in depth and style, but most address our main topics so do browse through them and choose an OB text you can get along well with.

Treat text books as a resource. Before you delve into a chapter, ask yourself: what do you already know or believe about this topic? What are you curious about in relation to it? Don’t forget to check out the chapter intros and summaries, and while you should follow your curiosity, do be sure to focus on the key concepts we emphasise in class. Our classes together will help you put those concepts into context, and do raise any questions you still have, in class.


I recommend reading the business press, management and business magazines such as Harvard Business Review, Management Today, Fast Company and radio shows/podcasts such as RTE The Business and Dear HBR. I have created a FlipBoard of some relevant papers to help you think about OB in practice, and we’ll add to that from time to time during the module. You can join on https://flipboard.com/@maevehoulihan/inside-organisations-lb9319fpz

I also encourage you to browse the business book shelves and investigate further reading on your own initiative.

Name Role
Raghad Abu Shammala Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Dr Brona Russell Lecturer / Co-Lecturer

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
Autumn Lecture Offering 2 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Thurs 11:00 - 12:50
Autumn Lecture Offering 3 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Thurs 13:00 - 14:50
Autumn Seminar Offering 1 Week(s) - 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Wed 12:00 - 12:50
Autumn Seminar Offering 1 Week(s) - 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Wed 13:00 - 13:50
Autumn Seminar Offering 1 Week(s) - 4 Wed 13:00 - 13:50
Autumn Seminar Offering 2 Week(s) - 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Wed 13:00 - 13:50
Autumn Seminar Offering 2 Week(s) - 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Wed 14:00 - 14:50
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