SCRK503 - The Social Psychology of High Reliability Organisations

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

SCRK501 Leadership and the Social Psychology of Risk , SCRK502 Communicating and Consulting About Risk

Teaching organisation

Unit rationale, description and aim

In order to be effective in applying the psychology of risk we need to be able to drive organisational level performance, as such the focus of this unit is on an organisational level and views social interactions from a larger culture perspective. This unit is designed to integrate learnings from the previous three units and apply the concepts, approaches and principles that have been developed at an organisational level. A key aim is to demonstrate how the development of attributes such as resilience and agility translate to building 'Risk Intelligent' people who in turn enable organisational 'Risk Intelligence'.

This unit develops studies in the nature and effectiveness mindfulness and sense making as it relates to organisational performance. In this unit the application of concepts and models for the development of organisational risk culture and the management of risk will be examined.

The aim of this unit is to enable the student to apply the key principles of the psychology of risk and high reliability at an organisational level. This unit further develops the foundational building block approach by integrating the concepts of Risk Intelligence across self, others, and at an organisational level.

The aim of this capstone unit is to consolidate the core skills, concepts, applications and principles of the social psychology of risk at an organisational level contextualised through HRO principles.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO - 1Describe how the fundamentals of the social psychology and the psychology of risk integrate into the activity of organising in organisations (GA 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9) 

LO2 - Apply sense making and mindfulness to organisational and cultural models in the workplace to develop risk intelligence (GA 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9)

LO3 - Apply critical reflective practice and holistic understanding of risk intelligence in terms of self, others and organisation (GA 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) 

Graduate attributes

GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society 

GA3 - apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA6 - solve problems in a variety of settings taking local and international perspectives into account

GA7 - work both autonomously and collaboratively 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

Content

• Social psychology principles of risk.  
• “Mindfulness and sense-making”  
• Tribal leadership  
• Common cultural change models  
• Social psychology of organising and organisations  
• The high reliability organisation (HRO).  
• Risk Intelligence. 
• High Reliability organisations  
• Management trends such as Holocracy, loose coupling and networked performance  
• Tackling wicked problems  
• Health, human resourcing, security, quality, safety, community, sustainability and the environment the problem of absolutes and perfectionism in risk.  
• Fundamentalism in organisations  
• Messy ideas, coherence and reductionism  

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This unit is the capstone unit for the Graduate Certificate in the Psychology of risk. In order to apply knowledge of the psychology of risk necessary to thrive in a VUCA world, a range of tools and skills is necessary, as such, this unit is designed to integrate the underpinning knowledge and skills introduced and developed in Units SCK 500, 501 and 502 in an organisational context. This learning and teaching strategy will facilitate active participation that allows the alignment of the learning outcomes and assessment. The strategy is designed to be responsive to the diverse contexts of individual students and cohorts. 

Given the student profile of busy professionals who are generally “time poor”, the unit is offered in an intensive delivery mode using an immersive learning approach to support students in the guided application of the essential knowledge associated with the nature and relationship of the social psychology of risk to human behaviour in cognitive, social, cultural and behavioural domains.  

The delivery approach of this unit is specifically designed to help students explore the application of essential knowledge, underpinning judgement and decision making around risk applied at an organisational level. The intensive face-to-face structure provides a ‘safe’ environment where students can share experiences in a trusted environment which has developed between themselves and the facilitators over the previous units.  

There is a steady progression in the complexity and application of key concepts covered in earlier Units of this course. The focus on development from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence and then to conscious competence and finally unconscious competence is worked into the program as students’ progress through the course units and expected to be demonstrated in this unit.  

The rationale for this delivery approach and teaching strategy is designed to factor in the target audience and balance their workload with their work and personal life challenges. This unit will be delivered via a 24-hour intensive face-to-face delivery mode. There is an expectation that this unit will take 150 hours when integrating readings, self-study, assignments and research aspects. 

To achieve a passing standard in this unit, students will find it helpful to engage in the full range of learning activities and assessments utilised in this unit, as described in the learning and teaching strategy and the assessment strategy. The learning and teaching and assessment strategies include a range of approaches to support your learning such as reading, reflection, discussion, webinars, podcasts, video, workshops, and assignments etc.  

Mode/Attendance Pattern: 

Lectures, excursion, guest presenter, and/or flexible delivery. 

Duration: Intensive delivery 3 days, 24 hours face-to-face. Supported by reading and self-study. 

Assessment strategy and rationale

In order to successfully complete this unit, postgraduate students need to complete and submit three graded assessment tasks. 

The assessments will relate directly to the achievement of the outcomes and graduate attributes. Consistent with the developmental nature of the course the focus of the assessment in this unit is on the application of knowledge and skills introduced and developed in the previous units. 

Due to the nature of the psychology of risk where strategic and tactical attributes and skills are required for application, assessments have been designed to assess both i.e. put students under short term pressure to demonstrates proficiency of the learning outcomes without time for significant reflection and analysis as well as more strategic assessments which allow for reflection and application of principles associated with effective demonstration of the proficiency at a more strategic level. 

The strategy for assessment focuses on the construct that this unit requires the demonstration of the foundational concepts in an integrated and synthesised manner. Assessment tasks are designed to assess relevant graduate attributes / generic skills, as well as subject specific knowledge and skills in an integrative manner focusing on application. 

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Cialdini, R. (2016). Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade. Simon & Schuster. New York 

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking Fast and Slow. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. New York.   

Logan, D. & King, J.P. & Fischer-Wright, H. (2008). Tribal leadership: leveraging natural groupsto build a thriving organization. Collins. New York  

Schein, E., (2010) Organisational Culture and Leadership.  Jossey Bass.  San Francisco. 

Sinek, Simon (2009). Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.PenguinGroup. London. 

Schneider, G. (2017). Can I See your Hands: A Guide to Situational Awareness, Personal Risk Management, Resilience and Security. Universal Publishers. Florida  

Schneider, G., Johnston, P. & Down, K. (2016). Dynamic Risk Equilibrium – The next wave. Risk Management Today. Vol 26 No 10. LexisNexis: 180-184 

Schneider, G., Johnston, P. & Down, K. (2017). What is Risk Intelligence. Risk Management Today.Vol 27 No 3. LexisNexis: 43-47 

Standards Australia. (20018) AS/NZS ISO 31000:2018 Risk management— Principles and guidelines. 

Weick, E. & Sutcliffe, K. (2015). Managing the unexpected, Sustained performance in a Complex World (Third Edition). Wiley. New Jersey