Farewell ergonomics, hello dissertation proposal!
At least, that’s what I started to write last Sunday evening, before realising that I also have Module 4 on The Psychology of Organising and two assignments to complete this summer as well!
But there is some good news in my, ahem, inability to organise myself properly. The first module assignment asks us to contrast the usefulness of a couple of different leadership theories and evaluate them as a way of helping a fictitious manufacturing organisation out of crisis of confidence in its management. Working my way through the module units, their associated readings and following it up with my own research into the subject is also proving to be very useful in prompting my thoughts on followership as a possible dissertation topic.
Being forced to tackle the module is certainly helping the odd research question or two to form in my mind, even if they’re not quite ready to appear on paper yet or even virtually, as tentative ideas in our dissertation discussion forums. Some of them, frankly, are just a bit *too* odd at the moment. So instead, I’ve been happily chewing the cud about all sorts of topics that aren’t really going to be the focus of my efforts. Youth employment and apprenticeships? Yes, I have an opinion about that. Open plan offices? That too. Oh well – I am supposed to be doing the course “primarily for personal development reasons” – or “fun”, as I keep reminding myself.
This article was originally written for the University of Leicester Student Blogs, 22nd June 2014.