Postgraduate Course: Strategic Leadership and Organisational Culture (Online) (EFIE11535)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course will investigate the relationship, including the tensions, between strategic leadership, and organisational culture within service organisations and how service leadership and culture are created, maintained and disrupted. By incorporating a service ecosystems perspective, it will further ask how strategic leadership and organisational culture may affect actors and operating beyond the organisational boundaries. It will also explore leadership and culture in virtual service organisations. |
| Course description |
This course draws on Service Management and Organisational Behaviour theory to explore and understand the interconnections between leadership and culture within and beyond service organisations. This course aims to introduce students to a range of key and fundamental concepts and theories of leadership and culture in service settings. Students are encouraged to critically reflect on theory and practice from a service standpoint, which can help in the understanding of how service organisations can shape and be shaped by leadership and culture.
Content Outline:
1) The nature of strategic leadership.
2) Leadership in a service context.
3) Exploring leadership and culture evolution.
4) Shaping service culture within the organisation and appreciating it from a service ecosystems perspective.
5) Exploring culture and leadership for more sustainable services and service organisations.
The student experience will integrate personal learning objectives within a group environment. It will combine individual study together with tutor and practice inputs, group seminars, tutorials, formative workshops and real-time investigation of strategic leadership and culture. It will link the experiences both of the student and of practitioners together with a theoretical framework to appreciate the role of service leadership and culture in supporting/impeding effective and sustainable services.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Online Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute will teach this course in a way that enables online and on-campus students to study together. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities. Students should note that their interactions may be recorded and live-streamed. There will, however, be options to control whether or not your video and audio are enabled.
You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Individual Written Assignment (100%)
An individual written assignment to analyse the strategic leadership and organisational culture of a given case (2,800 words), plus an action plan to explain how the organisation could improve its leadership approaches to engender a better service culture.
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 1, 2, 3 |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment(s) will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Formative Feedback Opportunity:
Formative feedback is ongoing feedback which monitors learning and is intended to improve performance in the same course, in future courses, and also beyond study.
Students will received feedback at various points during the course:
- During personal tutorials and group seminars.
- Though responsive email and/or personal contact with the course tutor.
- By written feedback on their assignment (summative feedback). |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Critically understand and be able to explain theory on strategic leadership and organisational culture in service settings.
- Demonstrate effective research enquiry to plan and investigate strategic leadership, and culture within service organisations, and the leadership implications of working within service ecosystems.
- Critically evaluate the potential for leadership approaches to engender a service culture.
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Reading List
Casciaro, T., Edmondson, A.C. & Jang, S. (2019) Cross-silo leadership. Harvard business review. 2019 (MayJune), 130-139.
Fitzgerald, L., Ferlie, E., McGivern, G. & Buchanan, D. (2013) Distributed leadership patterns and service improvement: Evidence and argument from English healthcare. The Leadership quarterly. 24 (1), 227-239.
The diversity gap in leadership: What are we missing in current theorizing? Fitzsimmons, T.W and Callan V.J. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(4) 2020
Gronroos, C. (2015) Service management and marketing: managing the service profit logic. 4th ed. New York, Wiley
Popli, S. & Rizvi, I.A. (2017) Leadership style and service orientation: the catalytic role of employee engagement. Journal of service theory and practice. 27 (1), 292-310.
Samimi, M., Cortes, A.F., Anderson, M.H. &
Herrmann, P. (2022) What is strategic leadership? Developing a framework for future research. The Leadership quarterly. 33 (3), 101353-. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.101353.
Schein, E.H. (2017) Organizational culture and leadership Edgar H. Schein with Peter Schein. Fifth edition. Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Strategic Leadership,Organisational Culture,EFI,Level 11,PG,Service Management |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Yida Zhu
Tel:
Email: Y.Zhu@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr David Murphy
Tel:
Email: dmurphy7@ed.ac.uk |
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