Reference no: EM132306955

Assessment - Reflection on individual and organisational problems and challenges

Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping) This assignment aimed to draw on the concepts and models used in this unit to:
a) analyse a particular situation and the management process involved in it
b) reflect on management theories to determine if and how they are still relevant to organisations today

Assignment Specifications

Purpose:
This assignment aims at providing students with an opportunity to reflect on individual and organisational problems and challenges and apply concepts and frameworks covered within the subject to solving such problems..

In groups of 3-5, students must:

Part A: Individual Reflective Learning

This should be no more than 500 words. Choose a specific incident from your life where you have used the four primary management functions of Planning, Organising, Leadership and Controlling. Analyse the incident and describe the main areas where you used each of these 4 management functions. Reflect on how effective your management of this task/incident was and which areas you would change if you had the opportunity to manage the same thing again and why.

PART B: Group element

This should be no more than 1000 words

Choose 2 of the management theories covered in lecture 2 "Evolution of Management Thinking". Briefly describe the theory and identify its strengths and limitations.

1. For each of the theories you have selected, either a) choose a well-known organisation for whom the theory is still relevant and utilised to some extent today, providing evidence to support your selection.
OR
c) choose a well-known organisation which contradicts the theory and provide evidence to explain why you believe this to be the case.

Assignment Structure should be as the following:

As a minimum, the report should contain the following:
1) Executive Summary
2) A section for each group member containing their individual contribution with their name and student number, clearly identified next to the work they have written (refer to part A). You should draw on concepts covered in the class and use the following required structure:

Overview of Selected Incident: Provide a very brief description of a specific incident that you have managed using the 4 primary POLC functions. Outline the problem clearly so that you set the scene for your reader and provide a basis for your analysis, but don't go into excessive detail. It is important to have a clearly focused starting point for any analytical piece of work.

Analysis of Incident: Break down the task and identify elements of it that fit into each of the management functions (POLC). Clearly explain what those elements are and why you believe they belong to a particular management function.

Critical Evaluation of the Incident: Reflect on your analysis and determine whether your approach was effective. Identify possible alternative actions or strategies that you could have taken and why and whether or not you think they would have been more effective.

3) A section clearly identified as the group element using the following structure:
Introduction
Theory 1
Theory 2
Organisation examples
Summary

4) Reference list (a minimum of 8 academic references with links back to in-text citations).