• Offered for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Dr Angela Mazzetti

• Owning School: Newcastle University Business School
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

Over the past decades organisations have had to adapt to uncertainty and discontinuity. Throughout the eras they have had to cope with pandemics, severe weather, natural disasters, loss of trust in democracy, war and terrorism, normalised violence in society and institutionalised violence in the workplace. For some organisations, dealing with this uncertainty is part of the nature of their work and therefore built into their decision making and management practices. For example, organisations that exist to serve their communities during times of extreme crisis and emergencies. However, organisations, who work outside of these extreme contexts, might inadvertently find that they must quickly react to shifting environmental conditions that challenge their established decision making and management practices. The aim of this module is explore decision making management practices in extreme contexts to better prepare aspiring leaders for the challenges they might encounter in the workplace.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module consists of four key themes related to managing in extreme contexts. These include:

1. Defining extreme: differentiating between those organisations where the extreme is inherent in the nature of the work (for example, emergency services); those organisations that serve to work in extreme environmental conditions (for example, field medics); and those organisations who are forced to deal with unprecedented and / or unforeseen extreme conditions (for example, a terrorist attack).
2. Temporarily: the need for urgency and fast response; time pressured decision making; setting up and leading temporal organisations and temporal teams and leaders; connecting narratives of past present and future.
3. Embodiment: controlling emotions in emotional contexts; transitioning from ‘zero to hero’ and dealing with boredom and extreme stress; dealing with embodied threats of violence; using the senses in decision making; the toll on the body of engaging in extreme work.
4. Materiality: the use of safety devices and equipment; the use of everyday objects as objects of violence; environmental objects informing decision making in extreme contexts.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The lectures will focus on delivering the underpinning knowledge related to the module’s 4 key themes. These themes will then be explored and debated in more detail using contextualised role-play tasks and case studies in the workshop sessions. The workshop sessions will also offer opportunities for formative peer and tutor feedback. The drop in sessions will enable the students to ask about any assessment related queries.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Situational context is important in determining decision making and management practices in extreme contexts. Case study is therefore an appropriate means of enabling students to engage in a critical evaluation of how situational context impacts decision making and management practices. The workshops offer opportunities for formative peer and tutor feedback. The summative assessment will be a 3,000 word case study analysis of managing in an extreme context.

Peer and tutor formative feedback will be given during the role play tasks to enable the students to reflect on their management style and interpersonal skills.

Reading Lists

• NBS8651's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• NBS8651's Timetable