Course Description
This course introduces students to the roles and functions of managers. The content includes an introduction to organisations, the need for, and nature of, management. It examines the evolution of management theory, organisational environments, and corporate social responsibility and ethics. The course also includes a detailed investigation of the four functions of management: planning and decision making, organising, leading and motivating, and controlling.
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate foundational knowledge of the diversity of management thinking.
- Autonomously and collaboratively analyse, evaluate, synthesise and apply knowledge in a timely fashion from a wide inquiry of a variety of sources.
- Demonstrate awareness of research as a source of contested and uncertain knowledge.
- Effectively communicate their findings independently and as part of a group using an evolving variety of media.
Learning Experience
Managing organisations and people is a foundational management course designed to introduce students to the nature, purpose, and practice of management across a wide range of organisational contexts. The primary aim of the course is to develop students’ understanding of core management functions, planning, organising, leading, motivating, and controlling, while encouraging critical reflection on how management theories and concepts apply to their own professional and personal experiences.
The course was designed for a diverse, fully online OUA cohort with no assumed prior knowledge. This shaped a learning experience that prioritised clarity, scaffolding, and relevance to lived experience. Content was structured into 12 modules, each comprising multiple short lessons, with a consistent rhythm to support pacing and cognitive load. Constructive alignment guided the design, with learning outcomes, activities, and assessments explicitly connected throughout the course.
A key feature of the learning experience was the integration of reflective practice through a weekly learning log. Students were supported to make sense of management theory by explicitly connecting concepts to their own work, study, and life contexts. The learning log, structured around prompts and the ‘5 whys’ method, encouraged deeper inquiry without over-assessment. This reflective artefact was not treated as a peripheral activity, but as a cumulative source of knowledge that informed the final assessment, reinforcing the value of longitudinal reflection and metacognition.
Teaching and learning were supported through varied media and interaction design to reduce reliance on dense text. Short audio recordings from the academic were embedded across lessons to provide guidance, emphasis, and narrative continuity. For selected concepts, such as situational leadership theory, bespoke visual explanations were produced using a birds-eye camera, allowing the academic to draw and verbally annotate ideas in real time. This humanised abstract theory and mirrored the experience of being guided through a concept on paper.
Learning achievement checklists were embedded at the end of each module to support self-regulation and progression, particularly important in an asynchronous online environment. Across the course, graphics, infographics, curated videos, and interface elements were used deliberately to support comprehension rather than decoration.
Overall, the learning experience balanced foundational theory with reflective, applied learning, using a systematised yet flexible design approach that supported scale, consistency, and meaningful engagement in an online context.
Topics
- Managers and Management
- Managing Social Responsibility and Ethical Behaviour
- Planning
- Organisational Structure and Design
- Managing Work Groups and Teams
- Managing human resources
- Managing change and innovation
- Understanding individual behaviour
- Motivating and Rewarding Employees
- Leadership and Trust
- Managing Organisational and Interpersonal Communication
Development Team
Ankit Agarwal
Course Author
Lead
Janin Hentzen
Course Author
Collaborator
Rich Bartlett
Learning Designer
Lead
Sash Kertes
Learning Designer
Collaborator
Assessments
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Learning log
Learning Journal
The learning log is and ongoing task asking learners to record their journey and experience throughout the course. They are asked to explore the ideas and content, skills, communication, understanding through reflective practices.
30%
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Group cultural analysis
Assessment Plan, Media Task, Peer Review
Working in a team learners plan an approach for reviewing a scandal, present their findings, and then provide peer feedback.
30%
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1-to-1 tutor and student interview
Interview
The final assessment is a one-to-one interview with a tutor to explore their learning journey and reflections. Tutors will facilitate asking questions about the concepts in the course and how they would apply them in the real world.
40%
Snapshots
Learning Resources
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Explaining Expectancy Theory
This video explains Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory by showing how motivation is shaped by the relationship between effort, performance and rewards. It highlights that people invest effort when they expect it will lead to performance, and that performance will lead to rewards they personally value. The concept of valence is central, emphasising that motivation depends on how meaningful or desirable a reward is to the individual, not simply whether a reward is offered.
This is important because it helps learners understand that motivation in organisations is not one-size-fits-all. Effective management requires recognising individual needs, goals and circumstances when designing incentives and performance expectations.
From a learning design perspective, the hand-drawn visual explanation and worked example make an abstract motivation theory concrete and relatable. The video format supports step-by-step conceptual modelling, allowing learners to see the relationships between effort, performance and reward unfold visually, which strengthens comprehension of a core organisational behaviour concept.
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The iceberg model (behaviour and underlying drivers)
This video explains the iceberg model of behaviour, using the Titanic analogy to show that what we see in people (actions and behaviour) is only the visible surface. Beneath this lies a much larger, hidden layer made up of values, beliefs, attitudes, culture, experiences, and social influences. These unseen factors shape behaviour, meaning that lasting change cannot occur unless the underlying drivers are understood and addressed.
The resource is valuable because it helps learners move beyond surface-level judgement and consider the deeper psychological and social influences behind behaviour, which is essential in management, leadership, and organisational contexts. Presenting the concept through a simple visual metaphor supports conceptual clarity and retention, making an abstract behavioural framework more intuitive and memorable.
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The Group Development Model
This video explains the stages of group development, guiding learners through forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning, while highlighting how individual experiences and assumptions shape team dynamics. It emphasises how conflict naturally emerges, how it can be managed through different resolution approaches, and how understanding team roles helps groups function more effectively. The inclusion of feedback in the adjourning stage reinforces continuous improvement and learning across future team experiences.
The resource helps learners connect theory to real group interactions, particularly in collaborative study or workplace contexts, by showing how behaviour, perception and conflict influence performance over time. The use of visual explanation, examples and structured progression makes an abstract organisational behaviour model easier to interpret and apply.
Instructionally, this media supports conceptual scaffolding by layering multiple frameworks together, development stages, conflict management and team roles, to show how complex team functioning actually unfolds. Presenting the model visually and narratively helps learners build mental models of team processes, while the focus on reflection and feedback aligns with experiential learning, encouraging students to recognise patterns in their own group work and apply strategies more deliberately in future collaborations.
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Situational Leadership
This media resource explains Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership model, showing that effective leadership depends on matching leadership style to the ability, willingness and confidence of followers. The model maps leadership behaviour across two dimensions, task focus and relationship focus, producing four styles: telling, selling, participative and delegating. Rather than one “best” approach, leaders adjust their behaviour depending on what individuals need in a given moment.
The explanation is highly visual, using quadrants and movement across them to demonstrate how leadership shifts as followers develop. This helps learners understand leadership as adaptive and relational rather than fixed, reinforcing the idea that teams are composed of individuals at different stages of readiness.
The instructional value lies in how the model is spatially organised and behaviourally framed. Visual mapping makes an abstract leadership theory easier to interpret, while scenario-based explanation encourages learners to diagnose real workplace situations. This supports applied reasoning, helping learners move from understanding leadership styles conceptually to selecting appropriate responses in practice.