ASSIGNMENT ONE
ASSIGNMENT 1: A Critical Individual Essay (Critical Persuasive Essay)
Worth: 35%
Length: 2000 Words Maximum
Due Date: 12pm on Fri, 18th Sept
Task:Students are to choose an organisation they work for/have worked for/have experiences with/have read about. Students are then to identify two major management issues this organisation is facing/experiences. Theseissues should be analysed and explained by adopting two different Organisation Theory lenses from the following list of Organisation Theory perspectives:
1. Agency Theory
2. Institutional theory
3. Bureaucracy
4. Transaction Cost Economics
5. Stakeholder Theory
6. Power & Politics
7. Ethical & moral dimensions of Organisation Theories.
Students need to discuss, how do these lenses apply to the selected organisation and chosen issues? How well do they apply? What do they capture? What do they miss? Through this assignment students need to demonstrate their understanding of different Organisation Theory lenses and their ability to apply these lenses to specific organisations.
The essay must be structured in three parts:
1. Introduction: briefly describe the chosen organisation and the identified management issues. Introduce the theoretical lenses that will be used to analyse these issues and outline the main arguments developed in the essay.
2. Discussion: describe the two chosen organisation theory lenses and explain their relevance for your chosen case/organisation. Discuss how these lenses explain the identified management issues and the implications from the application of the theories. Outline the theories contributions (how well they explain the management issues) and shortcomings (what are the gaps, limitations, what is not explained). Here students must illustrate their deepening personal and critical awareness of the theoretical and practical limitations/possibilities in the literature they have addressed. 12 Marks will be focused on how well students demonstrate a critical awareness of the literature/organization lenses (for example students’ reading of tensions, contradictions, gaps, bias in what they have read). Merely describing the literature (“Smith says, Jones says” etc) will result in major loss of marks.
3. Conclusion: summarise your arguments and insights. Reflect on the applicability of the selected Organisation Theory lenses to management practice/practitioners.
Formal requirements for Assessment 1:
4. Use 1.5 spacing
5. Ensure page numbers are used
6. Use 12 point font (Times or Arial)
7. Use the Harvard method of referencing (more details are at the end of this outline).
8. Page set up:use the standard margin format in Word.
9. Include a reference list at the end of your essay (i.e., a listing of all in-text references that you have cited – and not a bibliography).
10. This is an essay and not a report; therefore it is advised that you do not use bullet points.
11. Do not bind or insert your paper in heavy and cumbersome binding. Please only staple your paper in the top left corner.
12. You must also submit your essay to Turnitin. This process will be explained in tutorials.
You must self-assess your submission, using the following criteria on ReView (or it will not be graded).
MARKING CRITERIA
Weighting
Demonstration of academic and research skills
Written expression, including sentence structure, paragraphing, grammar and layout. 7
Substantive content
Accuracy of information/data relevant to the topic. Awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of different reference materials as a basis for argument. 10
Persuasive Argument
Analysis of the question + Critical analysis of competing ideas and assessment of implications. 12
Conclusions
Ability to construct plausible and coherent conclusion. 6
TOTAL MARKS 35
Tips on writingthis essay (in addition to the guide on writing persuasive essays available on UTS Online and other online materials on essay writing):
1. The focus of the essay is on critically discussing Organisation Theory lenses with the help of a specific example—the organisation chosen and identified management issues.
2. You need to do some reading on the Organisation Theory lenses (start with your text book, look up the foot notes, use our lecture materials, find and read other relevant articles). Do not rely solely on your textbook. Higher grades will be achieved by doing original research and incorporating insights and analysis from other high quality academic papers.
3. Based on your reading, you then need to critically discuss the lenses and their relevance for your selected organisation. The focus is on critically discussing Organisation Theory, referring to academic articles, and then using the selected organisation to provide illustrations/examples.
You MUST study the guide on writing persuasive essays available on UTS Online before you commence writing this essay.