MA Organizational Behavior & Development

MA in Organizational Behavior & Development

Program Head

Dr. Dana Pereg

The world of work is changing rapidly; and the demand for agility and high learning competence is growing. Within those changes organizations still play a vital role in our lives. All of us interact with organizations from different perspectives - as employers, employees, shareholders, clients, and more. The mission of the MA program in Organizational Behavior and Development (OBD) is to develop experts who will improve organizational impact, both economically and socially.

The program focuses on providing professionals with the ability to comprehend organizational systems and processes, as well as with the skills to help individuals and teams within the workplace thrive and develop. At the same time, the program also aims to train researchers in the field of organizational behavior. To achieve these goals, the curriculum combines theory and research methods, and emphasizes professional development of the students.

This unique program is suitable for young professionals who have obtained their BAs in various fields, and is taught by lecturers who are leading experts in their disciplines. Experiential learning is core to the program, which is heavily based on case studies and simulations, alongside frontal instruction. Studying in the OBD program is a transformative experience that will surely enrich you, both academically and personally.

Meaningful Learning

The program combines theoretical learning, action-oriented learning, and supervised professional training. The curriculum includes intensive workshops and experimental learning. Students also participate in practicum classes, which are designed to develop their basic counseling skills and to provide them with professional training in organizational diagnosis. Students gain practical experience in their second year, when they enter organizations and conduct a complete supervised organizational analysis. Most classes will be conducted in small groups. This will facilitate dialogue among the students and enable them to participate in discussions and to benefit from a personalized and highly relevant learning experience.
Career Development

We believe that building a meaningful career is a complex process. We put special emphasis on assisting each and every student in developing their skills and in achieving their career goals. During the two-year program, students explore various career routes and options. An MA degree in Organizational Behavior and Development opens up numerous vocational opportunities, such as working in consulting firms, as counselors in profit and nonprofit organizations, and in human resources (HR) positions. Students are encouraged to explore different career paths throughout the program, and to take advantage of networking and professional development opportunities, such as: guest lecturers; counseling; and classes and workshops dealing with professional identity. Students interested in exploring different career routes or discussing career-related issues with a professional in this field are invited to apply to our OBD mentoring program.
Bridging Academia and Real-World Organizations

We believe that in order to become a professional in the organizational field, students must be exposed to the actual challenges facing organizations today. We therefore collaborate with dozens of companies who open their doors to us and enable our students to experience first-hand how theories are put into practice.
Academic and Professional Excellency

Our lecturers are leading scholars in their fields, academics of international repute who have extensive teaching and research experience in universities in Israel and worldwide. The interdisciplinary curriculum focuses on the interface between organizational behavior, social psychology, positive psychology, counseling, and business administration.
First year

In the first year, studies will provide you with a theoretical framework for understanding the structure and dynamics of organizations. The curriculum focuses mainly on establishing a wide perspective and enabling students to approach organizational issues from various angles. From your first day in the OBD program, you will start practicing and working on your counseling and communication skills.
Second year

In the second year, studies focus on a more practical aspect of the profession - learning by doing. Students will participate in a research seminar and in professional workshops designed to sharpen their counseling skills, and deepen their understanding of various issues. Students will also conduct a complete organizational diagnosis under the supervision of our faculty.

What Are You Going To Study?

Year I
- Dr. Yaniv Kanat-Maymon
  
  This is an introductory course in Organizational Psychology. It aims to provide the students with an understanding of the effects of individual and group behaviors on organizational processes and outcomes.
- Dr. Amit Geva
  
  The course will focus on the basic elements building an organization. The course is aimed at providing the future organizational consultants with an in depth understanding on how the organization functions. The course will address four major topics: Strategy, marketing, finance and technology/operations. To each topic we will dedicate three sessions. Two to be delivered by an expert lecturer and one connected the topic to the consulting world. during the course the students will learn how these four elements inter-relate and provide a compass for the organizational functioning and measurement.
- Dr. Yaniv Kanat-Maymon
  
  The aim of the course is to teach relevant knowledge for conducting surveys. We will deal with issues of development and selection of measurement tools, reliability and validity assessment, quantitative methods for analyzing surveys, writing a report.
- Dr. Dana Kachtan
  
  The course discusses main sociological approaches to research organizations and main issues and discussions in the field. We will examine issues such as how the institutional environment, political and economic influences behaviors and ways of organizing, how organizational culture is developed and how we can see the organization itself as a cultural product, also we will examine how learning processes occur in organizations, what is the relationship between organizational effectiveness and management ideology, how we "translated" global organizational models into local context, what is the contribution of gender category to the understanding of organizational processes and so on.
- Mr. Guy Shulberg
  
  The basis of the human ability to cooperate, and so, success, is communication. In this course we'll discuss persuasion and the unintuitive conclusions needed to influence without authority, and receive an overarching framework to understand our relationships.
- Dr. Zohar Rubinstein
  
  The practicum course in the first year functions as a laboratory for consultation skills. The course holds 3 objectives:
  
  Teach students basic counseling skills, in interpersonal counseling situations;
  
  Enable students to experience interpersonal counseling process (in few roles; consultant, client and facilitator);
  
  Develop an awareness and self-observation of both personal and interpersonal aspects.
  
  The course focuses on three basic skills reflecting a spectrum of skills which are highly needed for the consultant work: conducting an interview; submitting feedback; conducting a personal consultation session. The Practicum courses are being held in small groups throughout the whole academic year. During the first semester the three skills will be learned in their basic formation while in the second semester, each student will be involved in intensive in-depth experience within an array of simulations which are meant to deepening her/his mastery of the skills.
Year II
- Dr. Slomit Kaminka
  
  The purpose of this course is to introduce you to organizational work from the point of view of the organization's human resources manager. Every year we plan visits to 8 different organizations, to illustrate that "people are people" in each organization, and HR has a significant and central role in the entire range of organizations, high-tech organization, start-up company, as well as municipality or association.
- Dr. Dana Pereg
  
  Professional identity captures a dominant part of adult's life. Despite its centrality in people's lives, this subject has not received enough attention in the organizational development work and literature. Recently, there is a growing body of academic and professional discourse regarding issues of identity and meaning at work. This course follows the origins and concept of professional identity. The course helps to understand the factors that contribute to the development of a vibrant, well-elaborated professional identity, which helps thrive at work.
  
  The course maintains a dual focus:
  
  First on your role as organizational development professional, designing and enabling contexts where other can develop their professional identity; and
  
  on your personal quest to find and create avenues for developing your own professional identity.
- Ms. Ilit Morag
  
  Mergers and acquisitions are currently the most common growth strategy in Organizations. The course objective is to integrate key topics from the most dominant theories in the field in one unified framework. The course reviews theories, concepts and processes of human resource (HR) management related to Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). We will review the challenges of integrating two companies and the possible approaches to this process based on the strategic goals of the organization. We will focus on the role of the Human Resources leaders in managing and supporting M&A processes and will review the steps of M&A from the HR standpoint. We will analyze M&A case studies in order to learn what caused them to succeed or fail. We will look into the role of culture in M&A integrations and will review ways to take in consideration the cultural aspects in the integration strategy. We will discuss Change Management theories and how to best implement them in M&A Integrations.
- Adv. Jonathan Kowarsky
  
  This course will provide an in-depth understanding of the negotiation process will be offered to the participants of the course, which will include:
  
  Grounds for preparation of the negotiation process, while applying a negotiation management model, based on interests and the appreciation of cognitive processes occurring while negotiating.
  
  An introduction to a number of tools and skills aimed to improve overall negotiation capabilities – while coping with the emotional aspects and enhancing each participant's awareness to his or hers own personal style.
  
  An emphasis will be placed on the cultivation of long term, both business and workplace relationships. The principal premises, which will be outlined throughout the course, assumes that skilled negotiators can bypass unnecessary conflicts and resolve disputes, while negotiating without the aid of third party intervention. Therefore, an outline of multi party negotiation principles will be discussed too.
- Ms. Vered Bar
  
  The first semester's (2nd year) practicum program is set to prepare the student for the 'practical' practicum (in "real" organizations) which will be carried out in the second semester of this year. The focus is shifted from the personal development of the student, which was emphasized in the first year, to the student's professional development within an organizational and team context.
  
  Following are the learning and developmental challenges:
  
  The consolidation of a system approach – Shifting the focus from reading a specific map of "here and now", to reading a systemic map.
  
  Sharpening and deepening personal and interpersonal skills in the organizational consultant's work – Interviewing skills, feedback and consultancy interventions.
  
  The carrying out of a full consultative process – An integrative experience of a whole consultative process from its beginning until the stage of consolidating recommendations for intervention and giving feedback.
  
  Experiencing team work in the consultants work - consultant as a team member and experiencing consultative team work.
  
  Organizational themes – Emphasis on organizational themes and contents.
  
  The first semester offers experiences of 'entering' to organization by simulations. Each simulation is a comprehensive one and encompasses a whole process of organization diagnosis including all the aspects which it entails. In the second semester the teams will work within real organization and will carry out an organizational diagnosis there.
- Ms. Naama Baharav
  
  In this course you will receive a good grounding in basic up to date Global Human Resources Management theory and practice. Each lesson will deal with a theoretical topic, and will connect it to an up to date real life practice of an experienced HR leader. We will refer to complications in implementing HR practices and how to resolve them as well as the dilemmas that arise from the different views of the CEO and the employees and how the HR leader can bridge between them (“thinking organization while seeing the people”). The course will introduce you to the main areas a global HR leader is dealing with, including: HR Strategy, Organizational theory and structure, Staffing and mobility, Compensation and Benefits, Learning and Development, Culture, Internal Communication, HR data analytics, Employee value proposition, building HR employer brand and professional ethics.
- Dr. Yael Ben-David
  
  The course will examine the broad connections, both historical and social, through which the field of organizational development has evolved and currently operates. The course will be based on the analysis of classic academic papers in the field, that present modernist perspectives of organizational development, through a critical approach. In contrast, other papers offering alternative perspectives (such as feminist models, post-modernist and critical perspectives) that examine the social, cultural and technological contexts that characterize the so called “given” approach to organizational development today, will also be examined. The course will incorporate frontal learning with an experiential workshop experience.
- Ms. Vered Bar
  
  Ethics is an orderly conception of the practical ideal of behavior, in a professional setting, which is a defined framework of special human activity (כשר,1993,(Understanding and implementing “ideal” professional behavior is a complex process that requires professionals to deal with many value and ethical dilemmas. In addition, many studies point to a link between ethical behavior of managers and the business performance of the organization Cambra-Fier, Polo-Redondo & Wilson (2014) Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales (2008) Hence the consultant's ability to understand and attribute ethical behavior is modeling that contributes both to his ability to demonstrate "ideal" professional behavior and to his ability to provide the organization, its managers and employees with tools for institutionalizing an ethical organizational climate that is critical to both engagement and fair human capital and financial success.
  
  The course will offer philosophical, professional-practical and personal perspectives for understanding the subject with three main emphases:
  
  Understanding the importance and essence of the professional ethics of organizational consultants and human resources workers.
  
  Understanding the organization and the ability to diagnose the ethical organizational climate from its perception as an entity.
  
  Understanding the ethics and values of the organizational and cultural social envelope (working with global and multicultural organizations).
  
  During the course we will learn what and when we face an ethical dilemma, analyze current case studies and ethical issues in general and in virtual work, examine the impact of VOCA world and its relations to an organizational ethical climate and learn different models for exploring ethics of behavior.
  
  Course Objectives:
  
  Examine the relation between values, personality, and ethical behavior
  
  Understand when we are facing an "ethical issue"
  
  Practice of solving ethical problems and making professional decisions.
  
  Learn how to lead a process of building and assimilating an organizational code of ethic.
Enrichment Courses
- Dr. Moran Aliman
  
  The course aims to provide a basic theoretical and practical knowledge in statistics and SPSS, which is expected for a master’s student. During the course, students will exercise the basic concepts of descriptive and inferential statistics, that will provide the foundations for dealing with research methods and statistics encountered throughout their studies.
- Dr. Guy Hochman
  
  Behavioral Economics deals with the psychological factors influencing the way in which people make economic and managerial decisions. Decisions can be small and mundane, such as which route to take on the way to work, or more substantial such as whether to invest a big budget in a new product. Either way, these decisions play a major role on the survival and success of organizations. Research in behavioral economics has developed substantially in the last 50 years, providing numerous insights on the way in which people make both personal and business related decisions. The current course deals with the behavioral and psychological aspects of managerial decision making. Among others, the course will cover normative models for decision making, heuristics and biases, risk perception, decision making under risk and uncertainty, pro-social behavior, and motivation. During class, we will examine how people make decision, why these decisions lead to systematic biases, and how it is applied to organizational and consumer behavior. The course is based on lectures and course discussions.
- Dr. Michal Paz Shimony
  
  Our program derives from the perception that learning from the best enables the adoption of practices for motivating the people around us, and for creating optimal leadership, which realizes the management and business potential. The program shines a spotlight on the examination of extraordinary leaders, aiming to learn from these exceptional cases, which prove what great leadership can accomplish. Nearly every company in the world gives lip service to the idea that “our people are our greatest asset,” yet, few of them are willing to do anything significant to justify this statement. As we see it, everything begins with who the managers choose to be, and the behaviors they choose to demonstrate. The program offers participants a perceptional and practical experience, in which we invite them to choose their most proactive activities, with the aim of creating meaning, interest, enthusiasm, engagement, resilience and enjoyment in a broad variety of their day-today activities, and not only the exceptional ones. The program is based on influential, innovative scientific evidence, focusing on learning and changing the behavior of managers, while emphasizing self-fulfillment, happiness and high performance.
Workshops
- Dr. Yael Ben-David
  
  Organizations base a large part of their management on group processes: management teams, task groups, project teams and more. Organizations tend to emphasize the functional side of groups, which are required to prove efficiency and are measured by standards such as meeting targets, timetables, etc. At the same time, an in-depth professional look at working groups reveals a rich inner world in which, alongside growth and empowerment forces, there are often conflicts and resistance. Many of these are expressions of the tension between the individual and the group. The goal of the workshop is to make the group a meaningful and effective tool for the participants as future OD practitioners and organization professionals. The workshop includes group work on key themes in the work of the consultant, human resource or management professional in the organization, such as: group leadership, teamwork and change processes in organizations through groups.
- Dr. Ofer Atad
  
  Coaching can be understood as a generic methodology used to improve the skills and performance of, and enhance the development of, individuals. It is a systemized process by which individuals are helped to explore issues, set goals, develop action plans and then act, monitor and evaluate their performance in order to better reach their goals, and the coach’s role is to facilitate and guide the coaches through this process. Executive coaching can be defined as a helping relationship formed between a client who has managerial authority and responsibility in an organization and a consultant who uses a wide variety of behavioral techniques and methods to assist the client to achieve a mutually identified set of goals.
- Ms. Ronit Kurz
  
  Work in teams is increasing in importance as well as complexity, even though it has never been simple. Structures, processes, explicit and hidden dynamics, leadership, communication and conflicts are some of the elements which contribute to the success of team work, in addition to other factors such as geographical distance and cultural differences.

For the entire list of courses please refer to the Student Handbook
Students who take a part-time track can take these courses only in their second year of studies.
The academic administration of Reichman University reserves the right to make changes to the curriculum.