21 October, 2016
Waikato University leads MBA human resource programme nationwide
The University of Waikato’s Management School has been selected to help ensure AUT, Auckland, Waikato, Victoria,
Canterbury and Massey universities are offering high quality human resource management courses in their MBA programmes.
MBA directors from six New Zealand universities have agreed to do a calibration exercise in December 2016 on various
disciplines, focusing on outlines, assignments and outcomes of their HR programmes. The disciplines to be scrutinised
are human resource management, operations management, management accounting, economics and strategy. All six
universities had the opportunity to offer topics in which they felt they had significant expertise.
Waikato Management School was nominated to assist with the calibration exercise as it has the leading MBA human resource
management programme in New Zealand.
As a result, human resource management expert Professor Mark Harcourt has been appointed to the new role of Founding
Calibrator for the module.
Professor Harcourt will calibrate the quality of marking and assignments across the universities.
He says the new initiative will help universities reflect on how their specific MBA programmes are operating relative to
others in New Zealand. “Once I’ve assessed the programme I’ll report back to the teaching staff at the universities to
ensure their outlines, outcomes and assignments match the standard at other universities nationwide,” says Dr Harcourt.
Dr Harcourt has studied workplace issues in some of New Zealand’s well-known organisations, including staff turnover at
the Bank of New Zealand, stress at the Reserve Bank, commitment at the Police and Fire Service and occupational overuse
syndrome at BRANZ.
His research has covered various aspects of human resource management, including performance appraisal, health and
safety, discrimination, and recruitment through social media. Recently, he has been focusing on employee representation
and dismissal.
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