The main objective of this course is to provide a critical analysis of the relationship between the management of people and the pursuit of organizational goals and objectives. In more details, the learning objectives for this course are as follows:
* Understanding the role played by human resource management in strategic management and how strategic human resource management differs from the more operationally-focused personnel management.
* Examining how HR strategy impacts organizations’ chances of survival and its relative success.
* Gaining insight into how HR strategy varies across organizational, industry, and societal contexts.
* Enhancing knowledge on the relation between work systems and organizational performance.
* Understanding employment relationships and their effect on employee well-being.
* Understanding how to manage the diversity and inclusion of a heterogeneous and increasingly flexible workforce.
* Prepare for future practice in designing and managing human resource systems.
* Develop discussion competence, reflective inquiry, and the capacity to critically analyse within topics and synthesize across topics.
* Develop the ability to professionally lead discussions and give impactful presentations.
* Develop constructive feedback seeking, feedback receiving, and feedback giving approaches.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT METHOD(S) USED IN THIS COURSE IS WITH RESERVATION. THE INFORMATION PROVIDED HERE IS BASED ON THE COURSE SETUP PRIOR TO THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS. AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE CRISIS, COURSE COORDINATORS MAY BE FORCED TO CHANGE THE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT METHODS USED. THE MOST UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION ABOUT THE TEACHING/ASSESSMENT METHOD(S) WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE COURSE SYLLABUS. The drumbeat of globalization, the relentless pace of technology, the flattening of organizational structures, and greater reliance on teams are just a few examples of challenges that organizations and HR professionals face today. These challenges are complex, ambiguous, and dynamic, and require a strategic approach to managing human resources in the workplace. Moving beyond conventional models of administrative and bureaucratic approaches to managing people, Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) aligns human resource management with the business strategy of the organization in order to achieve the strategic objectives of the organization. Optimal alignment between the management of the workforce and the organizational goals can deliver remarkable results, such as enhanced flexibility, agility and innovation strength, improved business performance, and in the long term a sustainable competitive advantage. SHRM thus plays a vital role in enabling a successful organizational future, making it a valuable component of organization science to explore at university. Hence, this course on SHRM. The SHRM course is part of the MSc program Learning and Development in Organisations. In addition, the course is an elective in the MSc program on Human Decision Science.

In this course, we present a thematic overview of the thinking and research evidence in the field of SHRM. This will enable you as students to develop your own understanding of the field and inform your practice as an organizational member (as employee, employer, HR professional, or other stakeholder). We believe that knowing more about the (successful) interaction between strategy and human resource management provides you, as a student of this course and as future graduates entering the workplace, with a powerful base for making a positive contribution to organizations and society as a whole.

This course covers eight weeks in which, together, we work towards achieving our learning goals. The course starts with a plenary opening lecture followed by series of tutorial group sessions. Tutorials take place on Mondays and Thursdays.

The course is organized around four broad themes that are hot HR topics in organizations today. These are:
* Employer branding and labour market communication
* Diversity, equity, and inclusion at the workplace
* Employment relations and employee engagement
* Artificial intelligence and HR analytics

These four themes serve as the red thread for and the key overarching topics of the course, providing guidance and input for our interactions and discussions. We discuss these themes from a multidisciplinary (drawing on the fields of cognitive psychology, learning, and organization science) and multilevel (organization, team, individual) perspective. As a learner in this course, we encourage you to draw on your educational background, prior experience, and accumulated insights, and share your ideas, knowledge, and skills in order to add to the multi-perspective nature of this course. At all times during the course, we aim to make theory come alive through practical and real-life examples as well as connect our learnings within the courses and across courses.

Teaching methods: Tutorials, participation
Assessment methods: Case-based presentation, discussion leader role, group assignment (presentation and report)

The literature for this course includes academic articles, renowned business magazine articles, professional service firm publications, and popular press articles. These articles can all the accessed through the University Library online database Ebsco Host and/or Google Scholar. This course does not make use of a mandatory textbook. Each tutorial session has a topic-specific reading list.

Courses and workload are demanding for all IB master courses. Participants should have a bachelor degree with a major in Business or Economics. This also applies to exchange students
An advanced level of English