Assignment
You will create a leadership and management profile of Barnes & Noble. Your ‘role’ will be a Management Consultant or trusted employees hired by senior management to write a report on the organization.
The analysis should provide you with opportunities to further enhance your understanding of ways to improve the organizations in which you will work. It will also help to foster your long-term understanding of Management and Leadership, and the complexity of many of the issues managers / leaders must face. This is particularly critical in understanding issues of Strategic Management, Organizational Culture, Organizational Change and Development, and Managing Organizational Growth. These topics / issues are inherently complex and interdisciplinary and require knowledge of many fields and prior readings.
The requirements for your paper are as follows:
• APA formatted and at least 7 pages off of the outline provided (Please make sure you go off of the outline attached and feel free to add more if need be….thank you!).
• Use a variety of sources in discussing the issues and concerns and in developing possible ‘solutions’ to these issues and concerns. More specifically, you should have at least 4 references/sources beyond our text, assigned readings, and discussions. These sources should include interviews with colleagues, scholarly articles from professional / academic journals, and articles from noteworthy business resources (including newspapers, magazines, trade publications, and reputable online resources).
• Part 1
1. Provide an overview of the organization, and the following issues ( decline of physical book sales, lack of effective leadership and reduction in profit margin)/concerns you plan to address. Include any brief history or other information that will be pertinent to understanding the issues, your discussions, and the recommendations you will make. Describe the mission and vision of the organization.
2. Describe the business strategies. This is how the organization competes. What are the sources of competitive advantage?
3. What is the role of leaders in driving the business strategies? Include an overall ‘assessment’ of the management/leadership based on course resources and class discussions. Focus on the inter-relatedness of the readings and class discussions from throughout the course. What is good about the management/leadership? What areas seem to be most lacking or need of improvement? What positive or negative impacts have the management/leadership had on other people or the organization?
• Part 2
4. Briefly describe the organization’s structure and how compatible it is to their business strategies.
5. Conduct a SWOT, including competitors.
6. What are some of the diversity practices observed or identified through research?
7. Describe the Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics policies, if they exist.
• Part 3
8. How do the financial measures (you can identify a few such as stock price, return on assets, etc.) compare to competitors?
9. Discuss situational constraints that affect the management/leadership within the organization (or work unit or team). Identify issues related to organizational structure, culture, industry, or personnel that might complicate or facilitate the development or application of good management/leadership.
10. Propose solutions addressing the issues and concerns, including why they are most appropriate or better than others. Also discuss any potential limitations or unintentional consequences of your proposed solutions.
*** Ensure your paper meet all requirements to include grammar, spelling and punctuations being correct. ***
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