3rd year courses
Organisational Development and Workplace Reconfiguration
Lecturer: Ari Sitas & Adarsh Maharaj
Semester: One
The course is a 16 credit module offered to 3rd year students and is 7 weeks long. The course aims to demonstrate how organizations change structurally as well as how management styles are adapted to accommodate the changes. To lay the foundation of such changes in organisations the concept of bureaucracy is introduced and explained in order to illustrate the manner in which organizations were structured during the industrial era.
After laying the foundation to the module the issue of change in organisational structures was introduced and Charles B Handy, Understanding Organizations, is used to illustrate the structural changes that organisations have had to make. To compliment the issue of structural changes within organizations, and why these changes had to occur, we look at Castells’ The Rise of the Network Society to explore the effect of changes in economies and the inception of informationalism on society.
Click here for course handout
Diversity and Equity in the Workplace
Lecturer: Adarsh Maharaj
Semester: One
This half-semester course (16 credit points) deals with the issue of redress in the South African workplace, such as through legislation and policy on affirmative action, employment equity, and through black economic empowerment. In addition it addresses proposals on ‘managing’ diversity in the workplace.
This is an important enquiry, in which we will ask questions on the foundations of policies aimed at redress, questions that require the historical and political contextualisation of the need for and policies towards creating a just society.
click here for course handout (to be added)
Economic Policy, Labour Markets and Job Creation
Lecturer: Debby Bonnin
Semester: Two
One of the biggest challenges facing South Africa is that of job creation. This challenge concerns all those interfacing with the economy ? business and government, labour and community organisations, the employed and the unemployed.
The half-module will begin with a discussion of the different frameworks which underlie economic policies and the implications of these policies for job creation. It will also be necessary to understand the labour market, the way in which the economy has changed in the last twenty years and the implications of these shifts in labour markets for employment opportunities, skills and organisational restructuring.
Finally the module will examine the whole area of job creation. What is job creation? What are the different possibilities and opportunities that exist? What does this mean across different sectors ie industry, commerce, state, communities? What are the existing models of job creation? Successes and failures?
Throughout the module we will engage with real life examples and challenges which will involve project work and evaluation. You should finish the module with many ideas about how to tackle the challenge of job creation whether you find employment in government, industry or NGO’s?
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Labour and Globalisation
Lecturer: Shaun Ruggunan
Semester: Two
This exciting seven-week module examines many of the current debates that inform the processes of globalisation. Specifically, it focuses on the complex relationship between globalisation and labour. Labour’s response to globalisation is examined on an individual and collective level. The module examines some of the unique opportunities and challenges globalisation presents to labour.
A number of themes will be explored to aid our understanding of the strategies labour uses in the face of increasing globalisation. There is also a focus on the South African labour context. Some of the themes that will be covered are:
- Globalisation
- Workplace flexibility
- Labour market flexibility
- International labour migration
- Trade union strategies
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Labour, Capital and State in Contemporary South Africa
Lecturer: Simon Mapadimeng
Semester: Two
This module examines the changing nature of the system of employment or labour relations in South Africa. It does this by drawing particular attention to the following aspects of employment or labour relations systems: the role of the state and statutory labour legislation in employment relations; labour conflict, negotiations and labour dispute resolution; collective bargaining; and workers’ participation.
These themes are explored within the context of various theoretical perspectives on employment or labour relations and democratic transition that South Africa is going through.
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Implementing Workplace Change
Lecturer: Adarsh Maharaj
Semester: Two
Workplaces and organisations are constantly changing. These changes are of concern to government, labour, business and academics as they raise a number of important questions. The questions include: What does the concept of workplace change mean? What cause change? What methods can we employ to understand workplace change? How do we ensure that changes in the workplace have positive outcomes for all members of the organization?
In this course we begin to address some of these questions by examining a virtual factory. You will be presented with data on the factory and be required to develop a research process to:
identify the problems and apply literature on workplace change to analyse the data to enable to you suggest solutions to the problems.
Click here for course handout