Assessment Literature Review

Purpose: To allow students to research organisational behaviour theory and to enable students to examine and critically analyse one aspect of recruitment and selection in depth, to understand some of the activities that make up scholarly research and to see the way in which knowledge is built gradually.

Topic: Write an essay on the relationship between personality and job performance. Explain how OB scholars and leaders should apply this knowledge in organisations

You should research the construct personality in order to define personality, and to explain the relevance of different personality types to work behaviour. Collect information from academic peer reviewed journals Once this information has been collected, you should define personality, provide examples of differences in personality and explain the relevance of personality for understanding differences in behaviour at work, including working in teams. Lastly explain how understanding differences in personality could be applied by OB scholars and leaders to manage and motivate people more effectively.

Task Details: Students are required to analyse a range of literature, and make supported recommendations to answer the question. Students need to apply their own interpretation and judgement to the question, based on approved and valid research (see Research Requirements below). Students who simply regurgitate their answers from the textbook or lecture notes risk failing the assignment.

Research Requirements:

Students are expected to support their conclusions and recommendations with suitable references, including the text and a MINIMUM of 6 peer reviewed academic journal articles. Other appropriate, industry valid sources should also be used.

Writing Style: The literature review should be written in formal academic narrative style. Your assignment will be evaluated for clarity of expression, overall presentation, logical organisation, paragraphing, and grammar, spelling and punctuation.

As this is an academic assignment, please do not use abbreviated or casual language, or bracketed comments. For essays, use headings sparingly.

The focus is on using your own words rather than extensively using direct quotes. Direct quotes should be used as little as possible, and only in certain circumstances such as when defining key constructs/terms, conveying a difficult concept that might be misinterpreted if the author's original words are not used, or for literary effect.

Guidelines:

Following are the key aspects that you should cover in your essay.

You need to clearly provide an outline of the topic studied, review the relevant literature, and then draw some conclusions. These three areas are discussed in more detail below.

1. Topic Outline

You need to outline the broad topic that you are focusing on in addition to discussing the specific issue that you will be exploring in the essay. In addition, you will need to provide a rationale for why it is important to explore this issue.

For example, you need to let the reader know in the first couple of paragraphs of the essay what research question you are answering, why this question is important, and what theoretical frameworks and empirical literature you will draw on to answer the research question.

2. Literature Review

In this section of the essay, you will need to provide an overview of research in the broad content area that you are examining and discuss the research that led to the development of the area that you are examining. Provide a review of the relevant literature surrounding your chosen issue, including both theoretical and empirical research.

Ensure that the review covers key articles/reviews in the area, and ensure that it covers critical classic research in addition to current literature.

Develop a coherent argument (e.g. integrate the findings from the different papers you have read, structure the literature logically, ensure the argument has a theoretical base and that it is supported by empirical research, and develop an argument based on the evidence you have reviewed)

Adopt a critical approach (e.g. acknowledge limitations that might exist in the area, highlight theoretical/empirical/methodological gaps in the literature, evaluate the research on conceptual or methodological grounds rather than just listing a number of studies).

We will spend some time in tutorials discussing how to write an essay. It is important to make yourself familiar with the document in the Study Kit about how to write an essay in order to do well on this piece of assessment. Also, make sure that you are familiar with the material on Moodle regarding the Harvard-Anglia referencing style.

3. Conclusion

Your essay should conclude with a summary that describes what is known about the topic and what still needs to be investigated. Identify future directions for research and why it is important to continue to study the area of research. Most importantly, what answers to the research question did you find after reviewing the literature?

Referencing:

Essays must be fully and appropriately referenced using Harvard-Anglia Style referencing. Marks will be deducted for inadequate or incorrect referencing.

You are required to provide an accurate reference list, which includes every book, or journal article which you have cited in your assignment. This reference list is to be placed at the end of your assignment on a separate page.

1800 (+/- 10%) words in essay format. The word count excludes the cover sheet, contents page, references, appendices, and illustrations (e.g. diagrams, graphs and tables)