The Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) Specialization is a more structured, intense, and focused version of the HOP concentration. The purpose of the career track is to provide a foundation of knowledge and practice for MBA students targeting careers in Human Capital Consulting or Corporate Human Resource Management.
Curriculum Structure
For students working in HOP, they need, first, to be broadly educated in business disciplines such as strategy, finance, economics, marketing, operations and accounting. This foundation will differentiate our students from Masters’ of Human Resource Management graduates who do not have a strong foundation in business. On top of this foundation, the HOP career specialization has nine courses, in four parts.
Part I: The Context of Human Capital (2 classes required)
In order to thing strategically about human capital policies and practices, students need to see what HR policies are needed to support a given business strategy, and as they manage HR practices, they need to understand how organizations are structured and how to created change within the organization.
Strategic Alignment of Human Capital (Year 1, Mod II)
Leading Change (Year 2, Mod I)
Part II: Human Resource Foundations (4 classes required)
In order to either lead HR policy development in companies, or provide consulting to companies about their HR practices, students must have a basic foundation in HR fundamentals. The four courses include:
Compensation Decision-Making (Year 1, Mod IV)
Talent Management (Year 1 or 2, Mod III)*
Human Resource Staffing (Year 1 or 2, Mod III)*
Labor and Employee Relations (Year 1 or 2, Mod III)*
* These courses are offered every other year, so for some students a given course will appear in Year 1, while for others they will appear in Year 2. In any given year, either one or two of these three courses will be offered in Mod III.
Part III: Personal and Organizational Skill Building (choose 2 classes)
Students need to develop their own abilities as leaders and develop specialized skills that fit their career goals. For that reason, we include two electives. Students select three of any of the following courses. These course offerings may change, based on student interests and faculty availability. Courses are of three types:
Personal Skill Development
Targeted HR Skills
- EEOC Practicum (A semester-length practicum; Fall or Spring, contact Ray Friedman if you are interested)
- Training (offered every other year during Fall Mid-Mod; 1 credit)
- Coaching (offered every other year during Fall Mid-Mod; 1 credit)
Organizational Analysis
Part IV: Ethics (choose 1 class)
To help students think about social and ethical issues in business, you must take one of the following three courses.
