OAS4300 Leadership Course description

Leadership is a complex issue that has long been a subject of great interest among people. Students in this master's programme will gain experience in leadership roles during their career, or be affected by leadership processes. Leadership is also an academic field, and this course aims at making students acquainted with leadership as an empirical field of research with relevance to practical applications in the workplace. As a student in this course, you will gain an advanced understanding of the empirical research underpinning evidence-based leadership practice. You will also get an overview of how theoretical models of leadership may be substantiated by empirical research and learn how these findings may relate to the practical application of leadership roles and leadership development in organizations. The course will be taught in English if attended by international students. The course will be taught in Norwegian if attended by only Norwegian speaking students.

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Knowledge

The students will gain advanced understanding of:

• Central theoretical models of leadership and how these theories have evolved throughout history
• Contemporary research based knowledge in leadership
• The relationship between leadership and important outcomes for individuals and organizations, the factors that explain these relationships, and of relevant contingencies

Skills

The student is able to:

• Critically examine and discuss leadership theories; research; and practice
• Read scientific contributions and apply them to issues of practical interest to the general public
• Identify interesting avenues of leadership research and apply appropriate methodology to undertake research on leadership

General competence

The student will be able to:

• Communicate and discuss scientific contributions within leadership research to both scientists and practitioners
• Communicate results from individual projects both in written and orally
• Gather and make use of scientific sources and leadership literature

Various work methods will be used, such as lectures, class discussions and presentations, case analysis and assignments. The students are expected to actively participate during lectures and work on assignments both individually and in groups outside of the joint lectures.

There are two mandatory activities in this course. First, the students are required, in groups of 2-4, to give an oral presentation of a research paper on a specific topic. The time allocated for each paper is about 20 minutes, followed by a class discussion for about 15 minutes. Approval of the presentation is a condition for being allowed to take the exam. Second, the students are required to participate in a lecture where they work on their exam paper. The preparation for this lecture is also mandatory, where the students are expected to formulate a research question for their exam paper, a preliminary outline for their paper, as well as a preliminary reading list. Approval of the research question, outline, and reading list is a condition for being allowed to take the exam.

Course paper. The students will write a 10-15 pages course paper for the formal assessment (English or Norwegian as optional languages). The papers can be written individually or in pairs of two. The students will be able to discuss their chosen topic in groups during class with supervision from the lecturer.

All printed or hand-written material is allowed with proper use of references

The final paper will be assessed using the normal grading scale from A to F, with A as the best grade and F for fail.

The external examiner grades a random sample consisting of approx. 25 per cent of the written exams. The grades given for this sample provide a basis for the internal examiners assessment. The external examiner will also grade papers where there is doubt about giving a grade of pass. Students who have failed a regular examination are entitled to sit a new examination.

Karoline Kopperud