Management and Organisation
Behaviour BMOI 102
ASSIGNMENT BRIEF:
GROUP ASSIGNMENT:
MANAGER INTERVIEW AND REPORT.
Part2—Comparison with
Relevant Theory
2018
PREPARED BY: Alan McWilliams
ASSIGNMENT TITLE
Group Assignment: Manager Interview Report. Part 2 — Comparison with Relevant Theor
This part of the assessment task (Part 2) accounts for the following proportion of marks for this unit
LEARNING OUTCOMES BEING ASSESSED
1 . Critically analyse management practices in the Australasian context.
2. Understand organisational behaviour and management theory.
3. Critically analyse the underlying values of these theories.
4. Demonstrate knowledge of management theories and evaluate their impact on practical management decision making in the Australasian context
5. Develop skills and knowledge with regard to individual and group behaviour in the context of organisations and their environment.
See the unit of stud uide for the full list of learnin outcomes for BMOI 102 .
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
Reports must be submitted electronically as a Microsoft Word document file via the VU Collaborate Assignment Submission process. The file name for your essay must be in the format of Family Name 1 _ Student ID Family Name 2Student ID_Family_Name_3_Student_lD_Family Name 4_Student_lD Assignment.
For example:
s1234568 Choi
Re orts submitted with an other file name format will not be acce ted.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
Midnight, Friday Week 2
GROUP REPORT PART 2 - COMPARISON WITH RELEVANT THEORY
1400 — 1500 words
Instructions for Part 2 of the Group Report:
Each group will be assigned a video recording of a manager interview to analyse. Your report will be based on the video recording and this part of the assignment will be included as part of your report.
In Part 1 you were required to watch the manager interview and identify key information to be transcribed. In Part 2 of the assignment you are required to use your transcription of the manager interview to compare the answers given by the manager with relevant theory from your textbook.
The comparison should be written up as a Word document of around 1500 words
(some interviews may require more words). Use the Group Report Template as a style uide. If ou use the template for this first
part of the assignment, it will make your task easier when you start work on writing up the formal business report for part three.
Instructions for comparing the interview with theory:
For this part of the assessment task you will need to identify the main themes of the questions being asked (e.g. planning, leading, organising or controlling) and see how the manager's answers link to theories and practices described in those sections of the textbook. Some students find it helpful to watch the interview more than once, pausing as necessary to identify key information.
For example, the manager might respond to a question about motivation like this:
How do you motivate your subordinates? Manager
Response:
I usually fry to set goals for each of my staff, something that they can achieve in the next six to twelve months. The goals are something that we discuss and agree on. All the goals that are set are linked to the strategic plan for my department. Achieving the goals will result in the staff member getting their bonus — if they achieve all of their goals, they get 100% of their bonus, if they only achieve half of their goals they only get 50% of their bonus. Having the bonus as a reward helps to keep them focussed on achieving their goals — so they work hard for the bonus without me looking over their shoulder all the time.
This question comes from the Leading section of the textbook, and is about motivation (chapter 12). The manager is using extrinsic rewards as part of a goal-setting approach to motivating staff. You should write a brief summary of extrinsic rewards and goalsetting then show how the manager's answer contains aspects of these two theories.
This is the second part of the group assignment. The third part of the group assignment is drawing both parts 1 and 2 together into a single, formal business report.
An overview of the three parts of the group assignment is provided in the next section of this assi nment brief.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE OVERALL ASSIGNMENT (ALL THREE PARTS)
This semester the subject has been structured around the classical management functions of planning, leading, organising, and controlling. We know from the work of Mintzberg and others that managers seldom have the luxury of structuring their day so that they spend a certain amount of time Leading, a certain amount of their time Planning and so on. A manager's day is typically busy with short periods of time spent on many different tasks. Often managers are reacting to events taking place both inside and outside of the organisation.
In groups of four students, your task is to review an interview of a manager in order to find out how they typically spend their day, week, month, or year. The next task is to compare the answers given by the manager in their interview with the theory outlined in your textbook. This process of comparing information and observations with theory is the basis of much of the academic writing that you will undertake during your time at university. Your comparison should lead you to being able to make informed comments about the
role of the manager you interview. By comparing actual management in practice with the theoretical -ideal best practice- described in the textbook and other sources you will be able to see how closely successful managers follow good theory.
Below is a set of questions that form the basis of the interview. The questions are developed from the themes covered in this subject during the block.
How do you plan your workday?
How far into the future do you plan for your job role?
How do you plan for your career, and how far into the future do you plan for it?
What is it about your job that makes it difficult to achieve goals, and what makes it easy?
How do you motivate your subordinates and how do you maintain your own motivation?
How do you approach the task of leading others?
What things do you look for in a person who leads you?
Who do you see as your mentors, and whom do you provide mentoring
How do you mentor?
How do you achieve goals by working with subordinates and fellow managers?
How do you deal with conflict in the work groups you manage?
How do you deal with conflict between you and other managers?
3 What ethical issues do you face in your management role and how do you deal with them?
How important is it for you to be aware of workplace diversity?
Does workplace diversity give your organisation a competitive advantage? If so why (or why not)?
Your next task is to reflect upon and discuss the skills required by your group to complete this assessment task. What skills did you need to plan and prepare for this task, what skills did you need to complete this task and what could you do to improve the outcome in the future? Why would you do things differently? What are the possible problems with your suggestion, and how would you overcome them? Draw upon your group process journals to help you reflect upon how your group worked together. Write a brief section summarising these reflections as part of your report.
Your reflections on the assignment and your group process journals will be submitted as appendixes to your final group report submission (Part 3 of the group assignment).
Each group will be required to give brief oral feedback on progress (no more than 2 — 3 minutes) in each of the block sessions prior to the submission of the group
assignment. All group members must be present for this brief oral progress feedback. The oral progress feedback will focus on detailing the progress made towards completing this assessment task, and outline such topics as: how tasks have been allocated amongst group members; who is being interviewed and any issues related to gaining access to your interviewee/manager; any problems that may be occurring with group members meeting their obligations and completing their group assigned tasks. The feedback on progress should be written up as a reflective -group process journal- (no more than 100 to 200 words) and used in the preparation of your description of team member contributions. These Group Process Journals are to be printed, signed by all group
members and handed to your tutor at the time you give your progress feedback. (See below following the description of the assessment task).
Your manager interview findings are to be presented in formal report format. You will find a template for this report on VU Collaborate. The template will help you to organise your report and show you how a formal report is structured. You will see from reading the template that you need to include the following in your report:
A cover page that clearly states; o The names and ID numbers of the members of your group o Your teacher's name o The name of the organisation and manager interviewed
A table of contents that shows section headings and page numbers
An introduction that tells the reader who was interviewed and where they are a manager. You should also include a short description of the company, the industry it is in and where it is located.
• A main body to your report. The main body of your report will be a logical explanation of your findings presented in clearly defined sections.
• A comparison between what you observed and relevant theory that will be set out with clearly defined sections.
• Be aware of the fact that every organisation is unique, and the way things are done in the organisation the interviewed manager works in may not be exactly -by the book- but it may be the most efficient and effective method for that organisation.
A conclusion section. Your report will have a conclusion that sums up the key points of your discussion and comes to a concluding statement.
A reference list that includes a minimum of three sources as well as your textbook. (This must MATCH the in-text reference citations of your report).
Appendices for your group process journal and description of individual contribution (see appendices I and Il of this document), interview questions and responses as well as any other material that is important to your report but may be too long to include in the main body of the work.
• An appendix containing a reflective discussion of the skills used by you for this assessment task. This section will appraise the skills you used in this field study assignment and outline the strengths and weaknesses of your assignment group in relation to those skills. Refer to the description of Graduate Capabilities in the Unit of Study Guide for a list of skills that your group may have developed by doing this assignment. Draw upon your group process journals to help you reflect upon your current skill levels.
Your final report must be no longer than 3000 words, word processed (MS Word format) with line spacing set at 1.5. All referencing must be done using the Harvard referencing system. Marks will be deducted for poor presentation, spelling, or grammar.
GROUP PROCESS JOURNAL
To be handed in each seminar at the time of your oral feedback on progress
Group Members
Record of Meeting:
You are required to keep a record of every group meeting. At these meetings you should discuss how tasks are to be achieved, who will be responsible for various tasks and when these tasks are due to be completed — usually by the next meeting date.
Date:
Attendance:
Agreed action:
Time, date and place of next meeting:
Signatures:
Date:
TEAM MEMBERS' CONTRIBUTION TO THE GROUP REPORT ASSIGNMENT
Please provide a brief description of the work you contributed to the group assignment. This description of your contribution should be agreed to and signed by your fellow team members.
Each member must:
1. Complete 1 form individually
2. Have it signed by the remaining group members, and
3. Attach all individual statements to the group assignment (e.g. If there are 3 members in the group, there should be 3 copies of this form appended to your assignment).
Brief description of YOUR contribution to the group assignment (in point form).
YOUR name: ..... ..... .... ..... .. .. .
Student No.: ..... ..... ..... ..... .... ...... YOUR signature: .... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..
Fellow group members' verification (fellow group members to write your names and sign alongside, if other MEMBERS AGREE with the contributions indicated in the above statement. If other MEMBERS DISAGREE with the contributions indicated in the statement, please consult your TUTOR).
Names of other team members Student No. Signature
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