Link to Syllabus: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B5...
Course Description and/or Objectives (from syllabus): According to the Society for Occupational Health Psychology, Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary specialty which blends psychology and occupational health sciences. The ultimate goal is to build a healthy workplace in which workers can “use their talents and gifts to achieve high performance, high satisfaction, and well-being” (Quick, 1999). To build a healthy workplace, physical-related systems (e.g., air quality, radiation, tools, etc.) and human-organizational systems should be taken into consideration. OHP, arguably, is one of the most heavily researched areas within the work domain, even though it is not well known in the conventional discipline-specific trainings. Topics such as employment assessment, job design, job analysis, organizational changes, leadership, person-environment fit, shift work, job stress, coping and adjustment, personality, work-family balance, safety behaviors and safety climate, workplace violence, and so on, are often studied in the OHP. In this seminar, we will focus on human and organizational systems from a multi-level approach, and explore how human-organizational systems augment physical systems while building a healthy workplace. Conceptually, human and organizational systems in any workplace consist of, at least, four interdependent levels: external contexts (e.g., economic, political, legal, technology), organizational contexts (e.g., policies, surveillance, management, supervisory practices, culture/climate, prevention/promotion/intervention), work context (job design, job characteristics, social support, job control, etc.), and worker characteristics (e.g., interface between work and family; individual characteristics). Each of these levels would likely facilitate or interfere workers from utilizing their talents and maximize their potentials.
