Social innovation and sustainable employability

The Bachelor Course Social Innovation and Sustainable Employability, abbreviated SISE, provides an appealing study of contemporary debates on themes such as social innovation and sustainable employability in relation to modern business enterprise and its changing institutional and technological setting.

Modern workplaces are rapidly changing, which leads to debates on new professionalism, changing institutional settings, new technologies, remote working (e.g., due to pandemic crises such as COVID-19), and the development of new competencies for work (i.e., 'the new way of working'). This implies that employees should undertake lifelong learning to adapt to changes in order to ensure their sustained employability in the new knowledge, mid- and post-pandemic economy. Put differently, employees have to share knowledge and skills to enhance productivity and effectiveness in a diverse, high-tech, workplace. They also have to deal with a revisited work-home balance and recovery opportunities due to these changes.

It is essential to understand trends and debates in the light of organizational, technological, and societal transformations. Central to these transformations is the focus on various forms of innovation, more in particular social and sustainable innovation.

This course has a multidisciplinary character, but has its origin in the field of Work and Organizational (W/O) Psychology. It can merely be considered a 'journey of discovery', leading to interaction and debate. Nevertheless, the course will also attempt to transfer a well-defined body of knowledge. This implies students have to get some knowledge, background and opinions about basic terms and theories as well as past, present, and future trends.

With this course we try to prepare Bachelor students for the fuzzy reality of ongoing technological and institutional changes in organizations, making use of insights from W/O-Psychology. The ultimate pedagogical aim is teaching Bachelor students to position themselves in SISE topics in the light of organizational, technological, and societal transformations.

Additional lecture information:
Based on a series of 9 lectures combined with 3 team debates (5 students per team maximum) in which teams will fulfill 3 roles as defense, opponent, and chair, students will write an academic group paper (5 students per group at maximum) which will be part of the exam.

After this course, students are able to:

1. define the concepts of Social Innovation (SI) and Sustainable Employability (SE) and explain their significance in both society and business,
2. analyze the role of organizations, businesses, Human Resource Management, and other stakeholders in SI and SE,
3. describe and explain the historical, current, and future developments in work and organizations, including the impact of pandemics, like COVID-19,
4. explain particular topics, such as change management, job crafting, learning organizations, social intrapreneurship, employee well-being, and employee sustainable performance,
5. critically reflect on the implementation and (re)design of SI and SE practices in real-world settings,
6. critically analyze key changes in work and organizations and argue how these changes influence SI and SE,
7. actively participate in and position themselves within debates on SI and SE in the context of organizational, technological, and societal transformations,
8. write an adequate academic paper based on relevant literature and the outcomes of the group debates.

You must meet the following requirements

• Registered for a degree programme other than
• HBO-TOP Applied Physics, Pre-Master
• In Block 1 you may not be part of one of the following target groups
• Uitgesloten studentgroepen

• To be announced Selection of academic journal papers