Master of Human Resource Management

  Institution: Private: Open University

The objectives of the Master in Human Resource Management are to:

• To develop an understanding of theory and practice in the overall human resource management areas;
• To help students prepare effectively, through broadening their knowledge, skills and ability for a career as human resource specialists;
• To inculcate a sense of appreciation for innovative thinking in human resource management areas, particularly in understanding organizational theory and its application to organizational development;
• To develop the ability to sensibly solve employees and organizational issues; and
• To provide a reliable basis for further professional or educational enhancement in the future.

Placing the right people in the right job is the most important role of human resource management. To carry out this task, the human resource management itself must be staffed with the right people in the first place. This is a requirement that a human resource department should fulfill if it wants to recruit people with the right skills. Today, employees are looked upon as assets who can help to rganiz rganizational goals. Therefore, trained and qualified human resource professionals should and would have an edge in the job market.

The MHRM programme in OUM provides learners with the opportunity to enhance their skills and knowledge in human resource management and to manage people in organization effectively.

In the highly competitive business environment, business organisations need people with managerial talents and skills to better manage their organisations more efficiently and effectively.

Managerial competences are prerequisites of successful and excellent organisations today in the knowledge based economy of the information millennium.

The OUM Master of Management programme is designed to provide you with highly commendable managerial skills and competences to enhance your managerial career and professional development.

Entry Requirements

Normal Entry

• Honours degree in any field; OR
• Bachelor degree in any field with at least 2 years working experience.

Flexible Entry

• Malaysian Citizen AND
• Be at least 35 years old on 1st of January (application year) AND
• Possess STPM/HSC (minimum 1 principal) OR
• Recognised Diploma or equivalent AND
• Possess prior learning experience AND / OR knowledge relevant to the programme applied. AND
• Passed Flexible Entry Assessment;

Programme Structure

Core Courses

• Human Resource Management
  This course emphasises a pragmatic approach to the study of managing human resources. Common themes include human resource management potential link to contribute to organisational success and employee well-being and the relationships that exist between employers and employees. This course explores the role of human resource managers and provides a comprehensive foundation to managing human resources for non-human resource managers.
• Organisational Behaviour
  This course provides an overview in understanding people at their work place. It discusses a systematic approach to understanding the actions and attitudes of people that take place in organizations by using organisational behavior theories and models. This course also discusses on the individual differences and personality, perceptions, motivation and its relationship with rewards, teams and groups, different types of power, conflict and negotiations, organisational design and structure and culture in an organisation.
• Human Resource Planning, Recruitment & Selection
  HR planning, recruitment and selection have become the focus of widespread attention in recent years. Thus, this course explores the basis requirements of hr planning, recruitment and selection in an organization. It focuses on the importance and the major components in the process of hr planning, recruitment and selection. Emphasis is also given to the link between the hr planning, recruitment and selection, and their current trends, issues and challenges.
• Human Resource Development
  Developing effective training programmes is a significant concern for today¿s managers. This course is designed to enable students to understand the theories and conceptual underpinnings of training and development. This module emphasizes on structural considerations and processes vital for managers in planning training and development programmes at the micro level. Emphasis is also given to main methods used to train, develop and evaluate employees in an organisation.
• Organisational Development and Change
  This course attempts to explain an in-depth study of organization-wide interventions designed to develop the organization and to implement change in the organization. Tools and alternatives for developing and improving the organization from a holistic management approach are discussed in this course. This course also explores the organization development consultants role as a change agent.
• Career Development
  This course explains the basics of career management to include the necessity of career development and defines career success. Next, this course emphasises on general progression and adult life cycle stages. The roles of organisation, managers, employees and hrm professionals must play in career development are discussed prior to identifying several career development tools and activities that can be used by hrm professionals in implementing career development efforts. Before ending the course with a look at implementing and evaluating career development systems, this course describes several career issues and challenges.
• Performance Management
  This course introduces the concepts and principles of performance management in an organization. It concerns the processes on how organisations plan, coach, review, reward and recognise their individual and organizational performance. This course also highlights the importance of a balanced scorecard, a 360-degree feedback in achieving high performance, and the current issues and challenges in performance management.
• Compensation Management
  This course examines the development of an organizational’s compensation management systems. It highlights the approaches on how organizations design their compensation management systems in an effort to enhance their recruiting, motivation and retention of employees and subsequently to enhance their organizational performance. This course also examines the influential of government, union and legislative framework in determining the work force compensation.
• Industrial Relations
  This course discusses issues pertaining to work and industrial law. Topics covered include employment contract, employer and employee obligations, terms and regulations of work as well as management prerogatives. Principles of wrongful behaviour and domestic investigations are emphasized. This course also discusses matters with regards to industrial relations, workers union, collective bargaining, collective agreements, industrial disputes and resolutions.
• Occupational, Safety and Health
  This course emphasizes on the key aspects of occupational safety and health at a workplace particularly for employees. It disscusses the legal frameworks of osh, how to conduct risk management, osh audits, inspections, training programs, stress management, measuring osh performance and how to communicating osh in an organization. Issues and challanges in osh are also explained.
• Cross Cultural Management & Diversity
  The impact of globalization and workforce diversity in business require employees develop their cross cultural competence to work effectively in international assignments, with diverse work teams and customers; and to compete with diverse competitors, suppliers and other stakeholders. Thus, this course tries to look at the effective cross cultural management and the issues to be faced while working abroad. This course also emphasizes at the international organizational behavior and human resource issues and practices in transnational organizations.
• Research Method
  This course focuses on the research elements, components, and processes in scientific research, its purpose and importance. Various types of research, characteristics of scientific research, methods of reasoning, and hypothetic-deductive method are discussed. Formulating research problems, research objectives, theoretical framework, hypothesis, research design, data collection methods, scale and measurements, reliability and validity, data analysis methods, report writing and presentation are discussed.

Option 1 (Any 2 Elective Courses)

• Accounting for Business Decision Making
  The course is designed for business students without previous in-depth exposure to managerial accounting. Internal or managerial accounting system provides a unique information environment to assist managers in handling the tasks of planning, control and decision-making.

  Today’s management accountants focus on the advisory and consulting services related to strategic planning, organizational control and broad business decisions. Their roles are not only tailored to costing, product pricing, asset and liability management, and investment analysis and performance evaluation but also extended to financial and business reengineering. The type and nature of information supplied by the internal system of accounting is rather flexible and customized to the needs of managers. It is also a dynamic function that evolves consistently as organizational changes occur. Parallel to the current trend in business, issues of global significance are heavily discussed and explored in this course.

• Marketing Management
  The course will cover the major aspects of marketing decision-making: role of marketing in business organisations; analysis of marketing opportunities; development of marketing strategies; and implementation and control of marketing efforts. The course is interactive in nature, involving discussions, case analysis and assignments.
• Organisation & Business Management
  This course is an introduction to key concepts in management and organization theory. Its goal is to enable learners to understand the manager’s role, constraints, leverages and opportunities within complex organisations. It stresses the use of behavioural science based on research and the formulation of systematic diagnoses, which in turn will lead to specific courses of action.

  The purpose of the course is to introduce the learner to the different aspects of organisational business management as a clear understanding of management approaches is critical to effectively manage an organisation. This course takes the perspective of a manager who needs to plan, organise, lead and control.

• Ethics for Managers
  This course is intended to help managers recognize and think through ethical issues when they arise, and to contribute to their overall knowledge of the management process. The honesty, integrity, and good will of those who manage an organization set the stage for effective and profitable results.

Option 2 (Master’s Project)

• Master’s Project

Source: Open University Malaysia (OUM)