Introduction
This is an individual assignment. You have been asked to act as a consultant to a company of your choice, in order to conduct a critical appraisal of recent problems
that have affected it. The problems that you will investigate will relate to one or more of the following aspects of Organisational Behaviour (OB): leadership,
motivation, change management, human resources management. The choice of company will be driven by the need to ensure that there is sufficient publicly available
information about it for you to successfully complete the assignment. A recent problem is one that has occurred in the past 5 years – but the more contemporary it is
the better. The ideal case study will be one where there are ongoing issues that the company is still trying to resolve. You will need to research the company’s
approaches (to one or more of change management / human resources management / employee motivation / leadership) and then use academic concepts and models to evaluate
the appropriateness of its responses to these real-world OB issues. In other words, for each of the issues that you decide to investigate, you need to combine your
theoretical learning with your findings on the organisation. The essence of a good report is one that manages to apply academic knowledge and understanding to the
organisational context. The research is likely to be desk based. While it is possible to conduct primary research if you choose an appropriate organisation, you must
be very clear about this with your tutor. You need to be critical and this will be easier if you choose an organisation that has some obvious deficiencies in the key
areas specified above, as this will allow you to identify areas of weakness and make recommendations for improvement. Your chosen organisation and report title are
subject to tutor approval. Your tutor may well ask you searching questions as to why you have made your particular choice. If you cannot articulate this clearly then
you will not be permitted to use that organisation.
Milestones
There are four stages to this assignment: 1. Secure your tutor’s approval for your choice of company and report title by 27th June 2. Prepare and submit a proposal by
11th July 3. Prepare a draft report for discussion with your tutor, and agree an action plan, in the week commencing 14th or 21st July
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4. Prepare and submit a final report by 1st August
Preparing a report proposal (this will count for 20% of your final mark)
This will be a proposal about how you plan to tackle the assignment. You will be marked on the following elements: ? Your justification for the organisation you have
chosen- this must be clearly articulated. 25% Your research plan – how do you plan to carry out the research? What type of research will you use? What sources will you
access? 25% Your preliminary academic research – this will be evidenced by a list of references that you intend to use and your ability to explain why these sources
are relevant to your study 25% A clearly articulated schedule of work – this should include key milestones for the different sections of the report, when you expect to
have your first draft ready, when you expect to review and edit, etc. 25%
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The report proposal must be submitted to your tutor (as a MS Word document attached to an email) not later than 22:00 hrs on Friday 11th July 2014. You will also
present your proposal in small groups within your class (this will be unmarked and is for you to learn from each other). You will receive written feedback from your
tutor on your proposal.
Extra support with your OB reports
To assist you with your OB reports, during the weeks commencing 14th or 21st July 2014 your tutor will have a meeting with you individually. For that meeting, you will
be required to produce a draft document consisting of the cover page, table of contents, introduction, and first section of the findings, discussion and analysis
section of your report. Your tutor will review your document and provide you with verbal feedback that you can use to develop an ACTION PLAN based upon the template
that I have posted in the Assignment section of the OB site on Study Direct. While this means that you will have to work quite quickly to produce the draft document,
the benefits of getting some preliminary feedback obviously outweigh the disadvantages.
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Preparing the final report (this will count for 80% of your final mark)
The final report must be presented as a professional piece of business consultancy. It must be word processed, formatted as a report (with section/paragraph/page
numbers, headers/footers, diagrams and appendices as appropriate) and it must include the following sections: ? ? ? ? Cover page and title – title must be phrased as a
question such as “How successful are XYZ’s motivation strategies in reducing their high labour turnover?” Executive summary – a summary of the main findings of the
report. Should be in italics, and does not form part of the word count. Table of contents Introduction o the purpose of the report (what is the aim, what are you
trying to establish?) o the rationale for the choice of business (why is it a suitable company to study for this assignment) o a synopsis of the company o a brief
description of the problem issue(s) that you have identified o the research method o the structure of the report (how does it answer the question posed in the title?)
Findings, discussion and analysis – focusing on the business and its problem issues, then applying academic knowledge and understanding to the organisational context
Evaluation and recommendations References – using the Harvard style
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A more detailed marking guide will be issued at a later date.
Word count for the final report
2200 +/- 10% N.B. Penalties will be imposed if you are outside of this range.
Assessment criteria for the final report
The marks for your report will be allocated as follows: ? ? ? ? ? ? Presentation (layout, numbering scheme, clarity, fluency) = 20 marks Reading and referencing = 20
marks Understanding and analysis of company issues = 20 marks Application of theory to your chosen organisation = 20 marks Evaluation, recommendations and criticality
= 20 marks Total = 100 marks
Submission details for the final report
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You will upload your final report electronically and you will be shown how to do this during a lecture or seminar. The deadline for submission of this assignment is
22.00hrs on Friday 1st August 2014.
What guidance can you expect from us?
We have designed the module so that two of the weekly seminars can be devoted to assignment preparation. During these seminars you will need to bring in your laptops
and materials to conduct your research. Your tutors will be happy to talk to you about your chosen organisation and the different concepts and models through which you
aim to examine the key areas. These seminars are not an opportunity to produce drafts and constantly try to get your tutor to read them. Please come to these seminars
prepared to work independently. You must bring a lap top, it is not acceptable to turn up and say that you will carry out your research on your phone.
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Resources
One of the biggest challenges you will face is how to get high quality information about your chosen organisation. Of course you can begin by looking at the website,
but be careful as a corporate website will hardly tell you about the problems the organisation is facing, just click on the two links below for an example:
http://www.co-operative.coop/corporate/aboutus/The-Co-operative-Group-Values-andPrinciples/ http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/18/lord-myners-co-op-group-
bullying As the above example illustrates, your information and what it says about the organisation will depend on where you find it. High quality newspapers can be
helpful and periodicals such as The Economist are also often very helpful. The Economist is available for free in the library. You tube videos may also form part of
your research, but be careful as to how much you use these. Another challenge will be to show us that you have extended your learning beyond the lectures and seminars;
the only way you can do this is by reading and then doing more reading! Make sure your reading is of high quality academic material. You have all passed the academic
skills course so you know how to make safe choices about academic reliability, relevance and criticality.
Finally
This is your opportunity to show us that you can produce a really good piece of business research. Take pride in this piece of work, demand the very best standards
from yourselves, invest lots of time and energy into thinking about this, and above all enjoy the experience. Good luck. Kevin, Sally and Alison The OB teaching team.
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