INLS 131

Management for Information Professionals

Spring 2004

Tentative Class Schedule and Assignments

As stated on the syllabus, for most classes students will have a choice of readings:  one set that pertains primarily to the corporate world and another that is focused on libraries.  For all classes with alternative readings, choose the readings that you wish.

Please note:  Due Date for Portfolio Assignment 2 has been changed to Thursday, February 5!

URL for the VARK test has been corrected: http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire

DUE DATE for RESUME anD COVER letter has been added -- April 8.

January 8 - Overview of class

Before class today, each student needs to have an onyen or ATN userid (go to http://onyen.unc.edu/cgi-bin/unc_id/services) and with that account id log onto the INLS 131 Home Page in blackboard (http://blackboard.unc.edu/).  Look at the syllabus found by clicking the Course Information button on the left.  Then go to the Communication section and respond to the "Getting to Know You" item posted in the Discussion Board.

Be prepared to talk about your "best job" in class today-this can be a full-time or a part-time job that you have had at any time in your past.  What made it good?  What kind of management did you see demonstrated?

January 13 - Modern Management

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 1  or   Stueart and Moran, Chapter 1.

and

Peter F. Drucker, "New Paradigms of Management", Forbes, vol. 162, no. 7, pp. 152-177.  (This reading is also available electronically in the Business Source Elite database on NCLive.)

Before class on Tuesday, January 20, construct a "Home Page" using the Student tools of Blackboard.  For the photograph, use an existing digital photo, scan a photo, or have a photograph made in the lab using the digital camera.

January 15 - Looking Backward: A History of Management and Its Schools

Robbins and DeCenzo, History Module, pp. 27-43  or  Stueart and Moran, Chapter 2, pp. 27-45.

January 20 - The Changing Organization

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 2   or  Stueart and Moran, Chapter 2, pp. 45-53

   Management Portfolio Section I Due:  The Organization Paper

January 22 - Teamwork in Modern Organizations

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 9  or  Stueart and Moran, pp. 399-404

This topic will occur early in the class schedule because we will be using teams in many of the exercises carried out in INLS 131.

January 27 - Values and Ethics

Everyone read:  Paine, Lynn Sharp, "Managing for Organizational Integrity." Harvard Business Review.  March-April 1994, pp. 106-117.  (Electronic version available on NCLive through Business Source Elite)

and

Stueart and Moran, pp. 369-374

Finally, look at least two of the codes of ethics listed below.

Codes of ethics. Most corporations have codes of ethics posted on their websites.  For instance, see http://www.ge.com/company/companyinfo/at_a_glance/ge_values.htm and http://www.jnj.com/our_company/our_credo/index.htm.  Although few libraries have their own codes of ethics, many library associations have adopted codes of ethics.  The code of ethics of the American Library Association can be seen at http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/ethics.html.  The Medical Library Association Code of Ethics is available at http://www.mlanet.org/about/ethics.html.  The Association of Computing Machinery has an outstanding code of ethics with instructions about how to apply it in professional settings.  These may be seen at http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html.  The Illinois Institute of Technology's Center for the Study of Ethics in the Profession has over 800 codes of ethics posted at http://www.iit.edu/departments/csep/PublicWWW/codes.

Optional: Take the ethics quiz posted on the Boeing Web site.  http://active.boeing.com/companyoffices/ethicschallenge/cfm/initial.cfm.  How did you do?  Do you agree with the reasoning behind the answers given?

January 29 - Planning I

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 3   or  Stueart and Moran, Chapter 3

February 3 - Planning II

Mintzberg, Henry, "The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning,"  Harvard Business Review, Jan/Feb 94, vol. 72, no. 1, p. 107-114.   or   Stueart and Moran, Chapter 4

and everyone at least skim: 

Johnson, Spencer.  Who Moved My Cheese?  New York: G.P. Putnam, 1998.  (on reserve in the SILS Library).

February 5 - Fundamentals of Organization

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 5 and Dess, Gregory G. et al., "The New Corporate Architecture," Academy of Management Executive, vol. 9 (1995): 7-20.  (The Dess article is available electronically via the Business Source Elite database on NCLive)  or

Stueart and Moran, Chapters 5 and 6

Optional Reading:  Henry Mintzberg and Ludo Van der Heyden, "Organigraphs: Drawing How Companies Really Work," Harvard Business Review, September/October, 1999, pp. 87-94.  (This reading is also available electronically in the Business Source Elite database on NCLive).

Management Portfolio Section 2 Due: Interview a Manager

February 10 - Designing Effective Organizations

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 8  or  Stueart and Moran, Chapter 7

February 12 - Human Resources within Organizations I

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 9  or  Stueart and Moran, Chapters 8 and 9

February 17 - Learning to be a Manager.  Managers aren't born but made.  In an ideal world, academic institutions preparing people to be managers would have "organizations" that could be used for practicing management.  Obviously, we don't have that type of organization at SILS but in teaching management, we try to use simulations and other techniques to allow you to practice what managers do.  Today, please bring your laptop to class.  We will work through the In-basket exercise posted in the "Course Documents" section of Blackboard.

In addition, everyone read:

Bechtel, Joan M. "Leadership Lessons Learned from Managing and Being Managed."  Journal of Academic Librarianship, January 1993, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 352-357  (although this article deals with library management, its lessons are applicable in all situations).  Have you experienced some of the same things that Bechtel described?  (The article is available electronically in the Academic Search Elite database of NCLive).

February 19 - Human Resources II

Edward E. Lawler III, Susan A. Mohrman.  Beyond the Vision: What Makes HR Effective?  Human Resource Planning, December 2000, vol. 23, pp. 10-20 (available online through Business Source Elite)    or  Stueart and Moran, Chapter 10.

    Management Portfolio Section 3 due: Stakeholder Analysis

February 24 - Managerial Decision Making

Everyone read Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 4

February 26 - Project Management

Reading

Chapter 4, Marchewka, Jack T.  "The Human Side of Project Management."  In Information Technology Project Management: Providing Measurable Organizational Value,  John Wiley, 2003, pp. 74-98.  (Photocopy in PAM box)

Chapters 2 & 3, "Projects and Project Management" and "Learning from Projects."  In Lientz, Bennet P. and Kathryn P. Rea, Project Management for the 21st Century, Academic Press, 1995, pp. 17-43.   (Photocopy in PAM box)

March 2  - Midterm exam

March 4 - Project Management, continued

Managing a project is a bit different from managing an organization.  While many of the same skills are needed, the successful completion of projects is extremely sensitive to environmental conditions.  In class today, we will view the video Spider about the development of the lunar lander for NASA's mission to put a man on the moon in the late 1960's.  We will discuss both the managerial characteristics and the environmental characteristics that made the project a successful one, and we will discuss what "successful" means for a project manager.

March 9-11  SPRING BREAK, NO CLASS

March 16 - Budgeting I - An Overview

Before your meetings today everyone should read, Finney, Robert G., Essentials of Business Budgeting.  New York: AMACOM, 1995, pp. 1-44 and 93-100 (http://www.netlibrary.com/ebook_info.asp?product_id=2465) or the same author's Office Finances Made Easy: A Get-started Guide to Budgets, Purchasing, and Financial Statements,  New York: AMACOM, 2000, pp. 1-54 (http://www.netlibrary.com/ebook_info.asp?product_id=19118).  Both of these books are available through NetLibrary.  An earlier book by Finney, Powerful budgeting for better planning and management, American Management Association, 1993 is on reserve in the SILS library if you have trouble getting access to the NetLibrary books.  Each of the budget groups will meet briefly today to begin to prepare your responses to the budget case studies on the web site.

March 18 - Budgeting II

Readings

There are a number of books on reserve that deal with the budget process.  These will be useful for you both in preparing for class and when you begin to work on your budget assignment.  Two of the books are specifically on budgeting for libraries, one on budgeting in non-profits in general, and the others are primarily intended for budgeting in the for-profit realm.  Depending upon your interests, for class today read selections from at least one of the following.  (I have indicated sections that are particularly relevant, but you may want to read additional parts of the books.)

Chapter 5, "Budget Design" from Prentice, Ann F., Financial Planning for Libraries, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996.

Dropkin, Murray and Bill LaTouche, The budget-building book for nonprofits: a step-by-step guide for nonprofit managers and boards.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998.  (Chapters 1, 2, and 13)

Chapter 9, "Funding IT" from Pearlson, Keri E. and Carol S. Saunders.  Managing and Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach, 2nd Edition. New York: John Wiley, 2004.

Rachlin, Robert. Handbook of Budgeting.  New York: J. Wiley, 1999.

Ramsey, Jacson Eugene and Inez L. Ramsey, Budgeting basics: how to survive the budgeting process.  New York: F. Watts, 1985.  (Chapters 1, 2, and 3 and some of you might find Chapter 11, "Budgeting for the Non-profit Agency" interesting.)

Tracy, John A. The fast forward MBA in finance.  New York: John Wiley, 1996. (Chapter 16).

Warner, Owning your numbers: An introduction to budgeting for special libraries.  Washington, DC: SLA, 1992. (Chapters 1-3).

    Management Portfolio Section 4 due:  Time Management Log

March 23 - An Introduction to Accounting

Reading: chapters 1 and 2 from Smith, G. Stevenson, Accounting for Libraries and Other Not-for-Profit Organizations, Chicago: ALA, 1999.  (Book on reserve in SILS Library).

These two chapters provide a fairly simple introduction to some basic accounting terms.  Despite the title, the principles in the book are applicable in both profit and not-for-profit agencies.

March 25 - Budgeting III

Continue to read in the books listed above

March 30 - Getting to know yourself -- as an employee, a manager, and a learner.

Everyone working in an organization differs in many ways and these differences affect how workers interpret an assignment, how they want to be motivated, how they perform in groups, and how they relate to their co-workers.  Because management always involves working with other people, all managers and all employees would be wise to follow the old Greek adage: "Know thyself."  Many organizations attempt to help people learn more about themselves as well as about other people with whom they must develop a working relationship.  There are a number of these psychological instruments available; before today's class, take several that are available online.  First, try the questions found at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp.  This is a "Jungian" style instrument similar to the Myers-Briggs test which many of you may have already taken.  If you have taken the Myers-Briggs, it will be interesting to see how similar your scores on the two exams are.  Next, take an on-line learning styles instrument that will help categorize you as a visual, aural, read-write, or kinesthetic learner.  This test can be found at http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire and there is additional information available on that site about the preferences of each type of learner.  These tests are certainly not perfect measures but they give you a place to begin to learn about your own personality and preferences.

Bring your results from both of these questionnaires to class and we will discuss how the different temperaments and learning styles affect what managers should do.

April 1 - Motivation

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 10    or  Stueart and Moran, Chapter 11

Managerial Portfolio Section 5 Due: Your Board of Directors and Managerial Philosophy

April 6 - Leadership

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 11   or  Stueart and Moran, Chapter 12 (except ethics section)

April 8 - Resume and Cover Letter Review

We will use the principles of teamwork in the class to critique one another's resumes and cover letters and then to do peer interviewing.

Stueart and Moran, Chapter 16     and   Drucker, Peter F. "Managing Oneself," Harvard Business Review.  (March-April 1999), pp. 65-74.  (This reading is available in the Business Source Elite database found on NCLive.)

Managerial Portfolio Section 6 Due:  Your resume and cover letter.

April 13 - Communication in Organizations

Robbins and DeCenzo, Chapter 12    or   Stueart and Moran, Chapter 13 (except team building section).

April 15 - Innovation in Management:  Case Studies

Bring in an example of a manager (current or historic) who introduced a bold, new approach or endeavor.  The effort may have failed or succeeded.  We will discuss these cases and look for commonalities. 

April 20 - Budget Presentations

April 22 - Budget Presentations

End of the semester summary and review

outline last updated:  March 24, 2004