Creating change and innovation in Human Resource management courses: Developing a model organizational consulting project as a learning application

Abstract

Changes in the various economies have caused many adults to return back to school for additional education and degrees to help them improve their current job status or perhaps enter new careers/professions. As a result, students are seeking courses and degrees focused on help them to excel in certain areas and raise their level of income. In particular, many Human Resources Management students are seeking specializations in areas like consulting and Human Resource Development. This paper will focus on how one school uses its Organizational Consulting course to enable its students to learn more about entrepreneurship and becoming innovative in the field of consulting. This paper will discuss how the teacher-centered approach has been replaced with a more user-friendly, student-centered approach to help to personalize or customize this final consulting project work in the context of an e-Portfolio, as well as focusing on the use of such a strategic tool for future career endeavors. The author will discuss potential applications of e-Portfolios to help student set up a potential electronic consulting practice and learn more about the area of entrepreneurship. Further, this paper will discuss how the e-Portfolio was created and developed in this university program in terms of assessing the student's content knowledge and application towards a potential consulting practice. Rather than just assigning a series of unrelated projects, this course helps students work weekly on practical projects to apply their content knowledge and build up a consulting practice from a basic framework to a final business plan. According to the student input, as well as the faculty members teaching this course, it appears that the implementation of this e-Portfolio element has helped students to learn more about consulting and its potential application in the field of Human Resource Management and Human Resource Development. This particular academic tool has been helpful for the instructor to evaluate the students' abilities and skills to apply content knowledge gained from the course, as well as evaluating their innovative approach to building a potential consulting practice. Finally, this paper will help to demonstrate, from an appreciative inquiry perspective, the positive benefits of incorporating an e-Portfolio into HR and business courses, as well as helping students apply their knowledge in terms of being innovative and creative with a potential consulting business. Also, it will help to illustrate how the students learn from their peers as to how they are achieving similar or comparable results with their approaches to e-Portfolio work.