2013/2014 KAN-CM_B145 Managing Flexible Workers in Creative and Knowledge Intensive Fields
English Title | |
Managing Flexible Workers in Creative and Knowledge Intensive Fields |
Course information |
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Language | English |
Exam ECTS | 7.5 ECTS |
Type | Elective |
Level | Full Degree Master |
Duration | One Semester |
Course period | Spring
Changes in course schedule may occur Wednesday 13.30-16.05, week 15 -.22 |
Time Table | Please see course schedule at e-Campus |
Study board |
Study Board for MSc in Economics and Business
Administration
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Course coordinator | |
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Course Responsible :
Elena Raviola er.ioa@cbs.dk
Secretary : Mette Busk Ellekrog mbe.ioa@cbs.dk. |
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Main academic disciplines | |
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Last updated on 12-07-2013 |
Learning objectives | |||||||||||||||||||||||
The student will acquire general
knowledge and insights into issues concerning managing flexible
staffing arrangements, and their particular organizing forms, and
management challenges. The student will also acquire specific
knowledge in one or more organizational form or industry. The exam
for the course will focus on a combination of general insights and
deep specialist knowledge. More specific goals are:
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Course prerequisites | |||||||||||||||||||||||
No prerequesites | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Examination | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Course content and structure | |||||||||||||||||||||||
This course focuses on the
challenges, benefits, and dilemmas of using various forms of
flexible staffing arrangements. Flexible contract or similar form
of work are frequently found in project organization, freelance
work, and ‘talent on demand’ systems, as well as organizations that
use consultants and temporary or part-time workers or external
labor markets to high degrees, and the practitioner of so-called
boundaryless or portfolio careers. A lot of these forms are applied
in knowledge intensive and creative sectors, where highly-educated
workers cannot or do not want to be permanently hired. The course
will focuse on these creative sectors, analyzing their
characteristics, as well as the types of organizations and
occupations that are involved in flexible work arrangements and
why.
Different issues of flexible work will then be approached. First of all, we will look at the work practices of flexible workers and their skill and competence development needs. We will look at the individual level of the worker, in terms of getting job, managing his/her worklife, and career. A lot of these highly educated creative flexible workers are primarily interested in their work, but they end up managing their own enterprise, that is to say becoming entrepreneurs, and working on a project base. We will thus also look at the entrepreneurial abilities that flexible workers need to have developed in order to provide themselves with jobs and assignments. Secondly, we will look at how they organize themselves as a professional community. For all freelancers of different kinds, managing their work often means that they are ongoingly involved in creating and maintaining networks of various kinds that can help them get access to commissions and professional training, as well as help them create new job opportunities in collaboration with other workers. Such networks also serve functions similar to traditional unions, in terms of professional and legal support and training. Thirdly, we will look the emergence of intermediaries of flexible work have emerged, such as creative hubs, temporary work agencies and matchmaking websites, which offer structured and formal ways of matching both flexible workers and established organizations together. We will also briefly look at the commissioning organizations and at the consequences for them of having to buy services from freelancers. The students will be involved in a mini-project in which they will closely follow a freelancer in a creative sector, or study some organizing form of a professional freelancing community, or study a commissioning organization or an intermediary of flexible work. If they are freelancers, they will also have the possibility to match with non-freelancing students and write a project on their own work as freelancers. The course is designed to appeal to students who intend to work flexibly themselves (as consultants, freelancers, self-employed) and aspire to understand the labor markets and organizational context they will confront as well as persons who intend to work for companies and organizations that use flexible staffing arrangements to a significant extent. |
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Teaching methods | |||||||||||||||||||||||
A combination of lectures, cases, and small group exercizes will be used. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Expected literature | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Indicative literature:
Amuedo-Dorantes, C., and Kimmel, J. (2005) Moonlighting Behavior over the Business Cycle Bonn: IZA Discussion Paper no. 1671. Arthur, M. B. and Rousseau, D. (1995) The Boundaryless Career New York: Oxford University Press. Barley, S. & G. Kunda (2004) Gurus, Hired Guns and Warm Bodies: Itinerant experts in a knowledge economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cappelli, P. (2008) Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Cappelli, P. (2009) ‘A Supply Chain Model for Talent Management’ People & Strategy 32 4-7. Dal Fiore, F. (2007) ‘Communities versus Networks: The Implications on Innovation and Social Change’ American Behavioral Scientist 50 857-866. De Laurentis, C. (2006) ‘Regional Innovation Systems and the Labour Market: A Comparison of Five Regions’ European Planning Studies 14 1059-1084. Doogan, K. (2010) New Capitalism? The transformation of work. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kalleberg, A. (2000) ‘Non-Standard Employment Relations: Part-time, Temporary, and Contract Work’ Annual Review of Sociology 26 341-365. Kelly, E. and Kalev, A. (2006) ‘Managing Flexible Work Arrangements in US Organizations: Formalized Discretion or ‘a right to ask’ Socio-Economic Review 4 379-416. King, Z. (2004) ‘Career Self-Management: Its Nature, Causes and Consequences’ Journal of Vocational Behavior 65 112-133. Koene, B. and van Riemsdijk (2005) ‘Managing Temporary Workers: Work Identity, Diversity, and Operational HR Choices’ Human Resource Management Journal 15 76-92. Korpi, T. and Levin, H. (2001) ‘Precarious Footing: Temporary Employment as a Stepping Stone Out of Unemployment in Sweden’ Work, Employment and Society 15 127-148. Lichtenstein, B. and Mendenhall, M. (2002) ‘Non-linearity and Response-ability: Emergent Order in 21st Century Careers’, Human Relations 55, 5-32. Mallon, M. (1998) ‘The Portfolio Career: Pushed or Pulled to it?’, Personnel Review 27 361-377. Marler, J., Barringer, M.W., and Milkovich, G.T. (2002) ‘Boundaryless and Traditional Contingent Employees: Worlds Apart’ Journal of Organizational Behavior 23 425-453. Mathieu, C. (2012) Careers in Creative Industries. New York: Routledge. Michie, J. and Sheehan, M. (2003) ‘Labour Market Deregulation, ‘Flexibility’ and Innovation’ Cambridge Journal of Economics 27 123-143. Michie, J. & Sheehan, M. (2003) ‘Labour ‘flexibility’ – securing management’s right to manage badly?’ in Systems of Production: markets, organisations and performance. Edited by Brendon Burchell, Simon Deakin, Jonathan Michie & Jill Rubery. London: Routledge. Michie, J. and Sheehan, M. (2005) ‘Business Strategy, Human Resources, Labour Market Flexibility and Competitive Advantage’ International Journal of Human Resource Management 16 445-464. Deuze, M. (2010) Managing Media Work. Sage Publications |
Last updated on
12-07-2013