GEST1070-1

Duration

30h Th

Number of credits

	Master in human resources management (120 ECTS)	3 crédits

Lecturer

Christophe Dubois, Grégory Jemine, Frédéric Schoenaers

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the first semester, review in January

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The global focus of this year's seminar is on the impacts of digitalisation on organizations. Recent developments in digital technologies are expected to have significant impact on organizations, although those consequences are not always clearly identified by the literature. (Yoo et al., 2010). Among some stakes related to digitalisation, we can mention the increased connectedness of people at work, the dematerialization of information (Lacombe, 2011; Jung & Padman, 2015), the rise of platforms and services that compete with traditional firms (Orlikowski & Scott, 2015), and the emergence of data-based systems (Derdevet, 2017).
Four subthemes will be explored during the seminar:

Digitalisation and the labour market: how do digital innovations impact the matching between job seekers and employers? More specifically, how does digitalisation transform the recruitment and selection processes, for example through the use of social networks? What skills become critical for job seekers in a digital age?
Digitalisation and professions: to what extent does digitalisation contribute to transforming existing occupations and professions? What about the mechanisms (robotisation, automation...) through which digital tools support or replace workers? How to define those new jobs (big data specialists, community managers, digital marketers...) emerging because of digital technologies?
Digitalisation and organizations: how do organizations integrate (and produce) discourses on the "necessity" to "modernize" and to integrate digital tools in their work processes? How do those tools (videoconferencing, instant messaging, document sharing...) impact the organization of teams? How to account for the emerging fashions ("New ways of working") structured around digitalisation?

Digitalisation and cyber security: how to account for the rise of specific risks induced by digitalisation - "cyber-risks"? Some issues such as "e-reputation" and "data hostage" are becoming increasingly important for organizations, but how are these translated into organizational/professional discourses and practices?

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

This seminar aims to stimulate students' capacity to develop reflective thinking towards managerial issues and HRM-related issues.
At the end of this seminar, students should be able to:

Understand some managerial challenges underlying digitalisation processes;
Mobilize relevant scientific papers on those challenges;
Identify, meet and interview some experts on their research topic;
Build a research object that is empirically grounded;
Develop and structure an analytical and sociological reading of their topic;
Perform a critical analysis of their topic based on Critical Management Studies (CMS);
Incorporate their reflexions in a collective working paper;

Defend their work orally before of a jury

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Team-based and project-based learning: students will work by small groups on their research question. The seminar also includes the gathering of empirical data, the realisation of a literature review and the realisation of a collective sociological and critical analysis.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

Four seminars are planned, for which attendance is mandatory: introductory session (09/10); group follow-up (30/10); theoretical session (13/11) and cross-group presentation (04/12).

Assessment methods and criteria

The course evaluation is split in three parts, between the individual part of the working paper (50%), the collective part of the working paper (30%) and the oral defence of the working paper (20%).
Evaluation criteria includes:

The design of an original, appropriate and structuring research object related to the topic of "digitalisation";
The realisation of a relevant, well-constructed and incorporated literature review;
The empirical fieldwork, which should be instructive, justified and well described;
Most importantly, the adequate mobilisation of sociological theories and of critical literature to refine your understanding of the research object

Detailed evaluation criteria will be provided during the introductory session.

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

Contacts

F.Schoenaers@ulg.ac.be
C.Dubois@ulg.ac.be
GJemine@ulg.ac.be

Sociological approach of management and HRM