Instructor: Dr. Chunyan Jiang

Office:  Anzhong Building  / Phone: 83621107

Email:  cyjiang@nju.edu.cn

Course Description

This course deals with strategic human resource management of organizations.  The

perspective adopted is that of a general manager who is responsible for the overall

success of the firm. Since the job of general manager cuts across all the functional

areas (e.g., finance, marketing, human resource management, and accounting), this course

builds on your previous business course works.

The general goals of the course are:

     - To develop a basic understanding of the conceptual and theoretical foundation of

the field of strategic management

     -  To develop skills in applying these concepts in new ventures’ contexts

In order to capture the action-oriented nature of general manager's task and the

complexity of the general manager's milieu, the case method will be used as a primary

teaching approach in the course.  You are required to read all the assigned cases and

reading materials prior to class meeting and actively participate in class discussion.

Course Structure

Normally, each class consists of two parts:

(1) Group discussion or lecture 
(2) Case discussion

Textbook (reference only)

Raymond A.Noe, John R.Hollenbeck, & Barry Gerhart, <Human Resource Management: Gaining a

competitive advantage>, Mc GrawHill Education, 2013. 
Jeffry A. Timmons & Stephen Spinelli, <New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for 21st

century>, 2014, 人民邮电出版社
Strategic Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice，Salaman， Storey， Billsberry

， Sage Publication. 
Harvard Business Review 
Academy of Management Perspective

Requirements & Evaluation

There are four basic requirements in this course.  They include final examination, case

write-up report, group project (two presentations plus one written report), and class

participation.  You have options to take a final exam and write a case write-up report

(Option A), to write a case write-up only (Option B), and to take a final exam only

(Option C).  The evaluation scheme for each option is provided in the below table.  It

is your responsibility to report your preferred option to me on or before September

27th.  Otherwise, the "Option A" will be used to evaluate your performance.  Your

preferred option should be reported in the attached "Student Profile" form.

 1. Final exam

If you chose Option A or C, you are required to take a final exam.  The exam schedule is

centralized by the university

• Format.
The exam is based on a case analysis. You will be given a copy of business case in the

exam venue. You are required to read the assigned case, do analysis, and complete your

report of the analysis within three hours in the exam venue. This exam is a closed book

exam.

2. Case write-up

If you chose Option A or B, you are required to submit one case write-up report.  In

this assignment, you are expected to identify key issues, evaluate strategic options

followed by relevant external and internal analyses, and make recommendations.  Please

read the memo (handout), Case Analysis Guideline, before you start working on this

assignment.

• Case to be used.
The case to be used for this assignment will be announced in due course (in mid-

November).

• Format & submission.
A case write-up report should be type written, either 1.5 or double-spaced, on one side

of each page, using 11 or 12-point size font, and should not exceed 6 pages (excluding

cover page, tables, figures, appendices, references, and endnotes). I will not read any

writing beyond the page limit.  The students should submit the case write-up report on

or before 5:00pm, December 13th (the submission venue will be announced later).  Late

submission will not be accepted.

3. Class participation

Your class participation is crucial to successful learning.  Active class participation

will not only facilitate our learning process but also make the class discussion lively

and exciting.  Effective class participation does not mean you have to have an answer to

every question and to be right all the time. You are encouraged to experiment and take

risks, and there is certainly no punishment for giving the wrong answer. I believe that

the correlation between willingness and ability to participate is not always positive.

In this course, the quality of your participation is more important than the quantity of

your participation, although both are important. I will greatly reward quality

contributions in evaluating your class participation grade.  High quality contributions

include: moving the discussion forward, making insightful comments and connections to

course materials, constructively analyzing a classmate's argument, introducing a unique

perspective into the discussion, etc.  Besides your contribution to class discussion,

your contribution to group assignment and participation to role-play is also evaluated

as class participation performance.

4. Group project.

All the students are required to work on group project.  This assignment consists of one

written report submission and two group presentations.

• Format & submission. 
A written report should be type written, either 1.5 or double-spaced, using 11 or 12-

point size font, and should not exceed 15 pages (excluding cover page, tables, figures,

appendices, references, and endnotes). I will not read any writing beyond the page

limit.  The students should submit the written report on or before 5:00pm, December 6th

(the submission venue will be announced later).  Late submission will not be accepted.

 Two presentations will be held on November 3rd and December 1st.
 See the detailed information about the content of group project (both written

report and presentations) in the handout ("Guideline for Group Project")

Attendance

Students with the attendance rate of 70% or below will be automatically given a failure

grade.

Student Profile

All students are required to submit the Student profile form on or before September 29th

(Thurs). 

Group Member Sheet

Tentative Course schedule