RECENT ASSIGNMENT

Assessment
Assessment details
Description Marks out of Wtg(%) Due date
Assignment 1 15 15 21 August 2015
Assignment 2 45 45 16 October 2015
2 hour examination 40 40 TBA
Note:
The examination is scheduled to be held in the end-of-semester examination period. Students will be advised of the official examination date for the exam after the timetable has been finalised. The total working time for the exam is 2 hours.
The exam
Content
There are no essays or short answer questions in the exam. There are 40 multiple choice items. Questions come from modules 6, 7, 8 & 9 of the course. Only content from the text book is tested in the exam. Instructions
The exam will be a closed exam. This means you cannot take in any notes or books or study aids. Please note each question is worth one (1) mark. No marks are deducted for incorrect answers.
Assignment 1
Description Marks out of Wtg(%) Due date
Assignment 1 15 15.00% 21 August 2015
How assignment 1 fits in this course
The assessment in this course is made up of two assignments. Assignment 1 is worth 15% of the total marks available in this course and is designed as a learning experience for you. You will complete one structured reflection paper in assignment 1. You will be given quite detailed feedback on this paper in terms of comments by markers and the marks allocated for each part of the structured reflection paper.
Which parts of the course materials will help me with my assignments?
The assessment for this course is not based on the traditional essay format. Indeed many of you may have had no experience of the kind of thinking and writing skills required in these kinds of structured reflection papers. I have therefore tried to give you lots of guidance and information about the assessment so that there are no tricks involved. I have however spread that guidance across a few places in the course materials, so as not to overwhelm you all in one hit.
The section of your course materials that you are reading now will give you the theory topics you must address in your individual papers. It also includes information on how to physically present your paper, marking criteria sheets and an exemplar assignment. But, you will need more information than this to be successful in this assignment.
Before you begin your assignment you also need to read Module 3 of the course materials. It includes some selected readings that spell out the intention and some the techniques you can use to perform these kinds of reflective activities. It also includes expanded information about the marking criteria that will be applied and content that should be included in each section of your papers. After reading Module 3 and this assessment section of the course materials you should be clear about what you are being asked to do in this assignment. However, you may still be wondering how you go about actually doing them.
Therefore you also need to access the assignment 1 tutorial activities included for module 3. These are located on your StudyDesk in the Module 3 week. They lay out a step by step approach to completing these assignments. This is not the only way you could approach this assignment, but it is a very good place to start.
Assignment 1 details
This assignment is made up of one (1) structured reflection activity that has three (3) parts. It is marked out of 15.
The first part of this assignment – titled ‘The experience’ – requires you to write up a brief but specific case study of a personal experience you have had with a manager or as a manager. This section is to be 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count) in length and is worth five (5) of the fifteen (15) marks available for this paper.
The second part of this assignment – titled ‘Integrating theories with experience’ – asks you to make some quite specific types of links between your experience and Mintzberg’s and Katz’s theories as covered in module 1 of the course materials. You are however expected to include theories beyond the course materials. In the best papers students will articulate one major learning about or insight into the theories that they have identified by integrating their experience with the theories. This section is to be 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count) in length and is worth five (5) of the fifteen (15) marks available for this paper.
The third part of the assignment – titled ‘Personal reflections – asks you to engage in a more personal and introspective form of reflection where you are asked to identify previously unidentified personal strengths of yours that are worth cultivating and or previously unidentified (and possibly unhelpful) assumptions you have made about management and or what managers do. Or you could identify a preferred approach to work that you use which you have only just identified. This section is to be 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count) in length and is worth five (5) of the fifteen (15) marks available for this paper.
This assignment is designed to test your mastery of theories covered in module 1 and your ability to make a link between theories and your life experience. Module 1 will not be tested in the end of semester exam.
Do not be fooled into thinking that this assignment will be easy because it is short. The shortness of these papers makes them very difficult to do well. You will need to allow plenty of time to edit and re-edit what you write, down to the required length while still including enough depth and detail.
Format for the assignment
You should present your assignment using double spacing, in the body of your assignment and single spacing in your List of References. Use Times New Roman 12 point font throughout. Use Harvard AGPS referencing protocols as outlined on the Library website.
Coversheet for the assignment
As the diagram below indicates, the front page of your assignment should list your name and student number, the course name and number and the number of the assignment.
Please also list the length of each section of your assignment separately. Specifically, please list separately each of the following
? The experience. This should be 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count) in length. (This word count excludes direct quotes from expert sources).
? Integration of theories with experience. (This section of your assignment should be 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count) in length. This word count excludes direct quotes from expert sources)
? Personal reflections. (This section of your assignment should be 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count) in length. This word count excludes direct quotes from expert sources).
You are asked to do this, as this assignment requires you to exercise considerable judgement as to what you include or exclude. Students who submit over length or under length assignments will be penalised. You cannot use the same content of one part of the assignment for the other part of the assignment. For instance, you cannot write up a short ‘experience’ and then use the same content for the 'personal reflections'. You will lose marks if this is the case. This means you will have to write carefully and separately for different parts of the assignment.
Student name
Student number:
MGT2002 Managing
Organisations
Assignment number: 1
Word length: The experience Integration of theories with experience:
Personal reflections
The body of your assignment
As the diagram below indicates, title the first section of your assignment ‘The Experience’. Immediately under this title write up the incident you are using in 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count).
As the diagram indicates, title the second section of your assignment ‘Integration of theories with experience’. Immediately under this title write up your analysis of your experience and accompanying commentary on the theories in 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count).
Title the third section of your assignment ‘Personal Reflections’. Immediately under this title write up what you have learnt about yourself from this process in 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count).
The three sections of your assignment will be spread across a couple of pages – although this diagram makes it appear that the assignment will fit into one page. It is not necessary to use a fresh page to start each section of the assignment.
You should write the actual word count in each section. The word count in the diagram below are indicative only. Each section should be 300 words (10% +/– allowance on the word count).
The Experience
300 word description of the experience
Integration of theories with experience
300 word analysis (of the experience using theories) and commentary on the theories
Personal Reflections
300 word description of what you learnt about yourself from this experience
The List of References
Conclude your assignment with a List of References. Start this on a fresh page. Use single spacing, Times New Roman 12 and follow Harvard AGPS protocols as outlined on the Library website.
List of References
List at least 3 sources published 2000 to present in addition to the course text book and readings
Submission expectations
Your assignments must be submitted in Microsoft Word format. The two acceptable word document formats are .doc and .docx. Please note that you are only allowed to submit ONE Word document file (either .doc or docx) electronically. The file size of your document must not exceed 1 GB. No hard copy assignments will be accepted. Please do not submit PDF files as they will not be marked. Please do not submit additional files. Your course examiner (or marker of the course) will only mark one file per assignment. Please do not submit files of excessive size containing photos and other large graphic presentations.
Finally, occasionally there are problems with the EASE system. You will not be penalised if the problem is with the EASE system. If you are having a problem submitting your assignment do not panic. In the first instance contact the ICT HELP desk telephone +61 7 4631 1900 Fax +61 7 4631 2798 or email a message to ictservicedesk@usq.edu.au. If the problem is likely to persist, contact me and we can discuss your options. Also contact me if it is a problem likely to impact on other students. I can then email your colleagues, confirm that I am aware of the problem, let them know when it is likely to be fixed (usually this is impossible to predict accurately!) and confirm that students are not penalised for system errors at our end.
Exemplar assignment – of a high credit to distinction standard
The experience (298 words)
My manager approached me to attend a meeting for him at very short notice. I had never attended one of these meetings before, let alone represented our section at one! I accepted the task despite my anxieties and he gave me the necessary documents and briefed me on the purpose and some of the underlying politics of the meeting.
The underlying message from him was to keep my head down and to avoid drawing attention to any performance problems in our unit. I was uncomfortable with this brief given the stated quality control purpose of the meeting. I felt I was possibly colluding to cover up some performance problems in our section – I was worried there may even be problems my manager had not told me about that I could be accused of covering up at some future date. More importantly I felt disappointed that performance problems were not to be addressed in an open and honest manner.
Despite these misgivings, I did as he requested. I knew these meetings could be brutal and I felt I did not have enough experience to do other than he requested. I later understood why he had adopted this approach.
The meeting was monopolised by one of the unit managers who specialised in finding problems in other sections and then insisting that the offending units complete a range of onerous and unnecessary tasks to supposedly remedy these problems. I later found out this was this manager’s strategy for avoiding scrutiny. It subsequently emerged that his section had major performance problems that he had not addressed.
I felt he should have been called to task by this group of peers, but to be perfectly honest I was not sure how I would have actually done this if I had been a regular member of this group.
Integration of theories with experience (324 words)
I have found some benefit in using Katz and Mintzberg’s theories to explain what happened in this incident. This incident illustrated for me the largely unacknowledged number of ethical dilemmas evident in day-to-day management activities as represented in both Katz and Mintzberg’s theories. Ethical dilemmas are ‘situations in which individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct’ (Robbins et al. 2008, p. 693). Although I am unsure how I could have managed the situation differently, misrepresenting my sections’ performance and letting the unproductive conduct of the manager go unchallenged, both felt ‘wrong’ to me. Further, I could not find a clear place in either of these theories where the ethical element of management was overtly acknowledged.
Certainly the managers Katz describes are implicitly decent and to this extent are ethical. For example, they strive to create an atmosphere in which subordinates can freely contribute to discussions without ‘fear of ridicule’ (Katz, 1974, p. 91). However, the manager as Katz presents them seems to me to lack an overt moral compass. They seem highly competent at doing what they are required to do, with less consideration of the ‘rightness’ of what they are being asked to do. Similarly, while Mintzberg’s (1994) integrated model of management acknowledges the role of a manager’s values in influencing their approach to management, this theory also falls short of overtly identifying ethical conduct as being a routine component of management.
This criticism may seem unfair in that no theory can reasonably be expected to present every aspect of what managers do. As Mintzberg (1994, p. 12) wrote there is a considerable history of management experts focussing on selected aspects of what managers do to the exclusion of other aspects and a consideration of management as an integrated activity. Nonetheless, in this post Global Financial Crisis era ethics in management is a huge issue and arguably warrants a greater visibility in any theory which seeks to describe what managers do.
Personal reflections (306 words)
Reflecting on this incident forced me to identify my own lack of office politics skills as a real weakness. For example, I still find it very difficult to imagine how I could have actually managed the difficult manager differently and successfully. Paradoxically however reflecting on this experience also helped me to identify my very real concern with ethical conduct, which I now regard as a strength.
Understanding both these aspects of me made it suddenly clear why I had simultaneously wanted to develop political skills in the past and yet had hesitated to do so – given my unarticulated ethical concerns about political skills. (I realised I equated political prowess with the behaviour of the difficult manager, and the avoidance behaviour of my supervisor- neither of which I found satisfactory, ethically speaking).
Goodstein’s (2000) case for moral compromise (as an ethically and personally defensible stance) when juggling ‘multiple commitments’ also now makes much more sense to me. Perhaps I did the best I could under the circumstances. While I did not challenge the difficult manager, I did defend our unit from unhealthy scrutiny, which may have been all I could realistically achieve.
The incident also reflect on my other learning in Module 1 in relation to high organisational performance that requires the efficient and effective use of resources through the management functions of; planning, organising, leading and controlling. In particular, I have gained a better understanding of the difference between efficiency and effectiveness and their importance for organisational performance during the meeting as I listened to the reports from other unit managers. The incident also gave me some thoughts about what it meant to me if I were a manager of a company. The ten manager roles (Samson & Daft, 2012, p. 27) also provide me insight of what I could do to become an effective manager. List of References
Goodstein, JD 2000, ‘Moral compromise and personal integrity: exploring the ethical issues of deciding together in organizations’, Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 805–19, viewed 21 April 2011, Business Source complete, EBSCOHost item: 3916555.
Katz, R 1974, ‘Skills of an effective administrator’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 90 –103, viewed 21 April 2011, EBSCOHost item: 3867195.
Mintzberg, H 1994, ‘Rounding out the manager’s job’, Sloan Business Review, pp. 11– 26,
The Citadel School of Business Administration, viewed 21 April 2011,
http://faculty.citadel.edu/betterton/BADM731/Rounding%20Out%20The%20Managers%20 Job%20-%20Mintzberg.pdf .
Robbins, S, Judge, T, Millett, B & Waters-Marsh, T 2008, Organisational behaviour, 5th edn, Pearson French’s Forest.
Samson, D & Daft, RL 2012, Management, 4th edn, Cengage Learning Australia, South Melbourne
Marking Criteria Sheet – Assignment 1
The experience marks 5 This criterion focusses on 1) the clarity of the description of the experience and 2) the focus on the self throughout the write up of the experience. Fail standard assignments will have an unclear time line for events and a confused description of who did what throughout. They will include virtually no references to the student's thoughts or feelings of the incident. Higher achieving descriptions will present the experience almost like a movie in the reader's mind. They will incorporate significant references to the student's thoughts and feelings.
__________________________________________________________________________
Fail Pass Credit Distinction High Distinction
Integration of theories with experience marks 5 This criterion f ocusses on 1) the range and depth of the theories content a nd 2) the calibre of the student's in sights into the theories. Fail standard assignments will use limited amounts and types of theori es, for example citations of irrelevant sources or the only s ources used will be course material s or sources outsi de the date period or sources that lack credibility. In fail assignments th e Harvard referencing protocols will not be followed – whi le minor errors in relation to pun ctuation are acceptable anything else is not. Further, in a fail assignment practices such as overuse of direct quotes will be apparent. The links between the theories and the experience will not be clear. Higher performing students will use a wider range of theories. They will make judge ments about the theories or use the theories to make judgements ab out their experiences. In the higher ac hieving assignments citations will be relevant, used effectively by the student to build their case and will be synthesised or integrated in so me way. Technic ally speaking, no errors will be evident i n Harvard referencing.
____________ ______________________________________________________________
Fail Pass Credit Distinction High Distinction
Personal Reflections marks 5 This criterion f ocusses on the quality of the student's personal reflections. Higher achieving assignments wi ll identify underl ying assumptions of the students, will identify strengths in the student and or preferred ways of working by the student. They will also i dentify the significance of these findings. F ail standard assignments will have a stream of consciousness feel, with no re ferences to or insight into the self.
____________ ______________________________________________________________
Fail Pass Credit Distinction High Distinction
Marks The experience Integration of theories and experience Personal reflection Total
X/5 X/5 X/5 XX/15
Assignment 2
Description Marks out of Wtg(%) Due date
Assignment 2 45 45.00% 16 October 2015
This assignment is made up of three (3) questions. The Assignment is worth 45% of the total marks available for this course. This assignment is designed to test your mastery of theory covered in modules 2, 4 & 5. Modules 2, 4 & 5 will not be tested in the end of semester exam.
Assignment 2 details
This assignment is made up of three (3) questions. You have to answer all the questions.
Question 1 (a total of 15 marks)
Are managers necessary in organisations? In your response you should consider the functions and skills that managers perform in terms of planning ONLY. Provide examples to support your position. (This question is to be 900 words with 10%+/- allowance on the word count.)
Remember, you are to demonstrate your understanding of management functions in organisations. To save word count, additional information may be attached in an Appendix.
In order to attempt to obtain full marks for references, you need to try to have at least 3 different references in your reference list. These references should be references published from 2000 to the present, other than the textbook and selected readings from the course. The reference list should commence on a new page after the conclusion of your assignment. The correct referencing methods to be used both in the body of the assignment and in the reference list are explained in Chapter 2 of the Communication Skills Handbook on ‘Referencing’.
Question 2 (a total of 15 marks)
‘In the long run, those who do not use power in a way that society considers responsible will tend to lose it.’ Discuss the statement using relevant examples and theories. (This question is to be 900 words with 10%+/- allowance on the word count).
Remember, you are to demonstrate your understanding of the concepts of ethics, social responsibility and sustainability in an organisation. To save word count, additional information may be attached in an Appendix.
In order to attempt to obtain full marks for references, you need to try to have at least 3 different references in your reference list. These references should be references published from 2000 to the present, other than the textbook and selected readings from the course. The reference list should commence on a new page after the conclusion of your assignment. The correct referencing methods to be used both in the body of the assignment and in the
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Assessment
reference list are explained in Chapter 2 of the Communication Skills Handbook on ‘Referencing’.
Question 3 (a total of 15 marks)
‘Cultural intelligence is the key to organisational success in today’s business environment.’ Discuss the statement using relevant examples and theories. (This question is to be 900 words with 10%+/- allowance on the word count.)
Remember, you are to demonstrate your understanding of managing an organisation in a global environment. To save word count, additional information may be attached in an Appendix.
In order to attempt to obtain full marks for references, you need to try to have at least 3 different references in your reference list. These references should be references published from 2000 to the present, other than the textbook and selected readings from the course. The reference list should commence on a new page after the conclusion of your assignment. The correct referencing methods to be used both in the body of the assignment and in the reference list are explained in Chapter 2 of the Communication Skills Handbook on ‘Referencing’.
Format for the assignment
Unlike Assignment 1, Assignment 2 should be in essay format. This means that each question should have an introduction, a body and conclusion. As a guide, an introduction and conclusion should be no more than 100 words.
Please refer to Chapter 5 of the Communication Skills Handbook on ‘Essay writing’ for more information.
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