Assessment Overview -

This assignment will allow you to apply the concepts and skills covered in this subject. Its purpose is to draw on the concepts and models used in this course 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.

Upon the completion of the task, you are to provide a formal report documenting your individual reflection and group investigation and analysis.

Assessment Tasks - Requirement

This will consist of two parts: an individual reflection and a group analysis. Both parts will provide students with an opportunity to reflect on individual and organisational problems and challenges and retrospectively apply concepts and frameworks covered within the subject. The group report will comprise an individual element worth 15% to be completed by each member of the group, and a group element worth 20% which will be produced by the group as a whole. Both parts of the assignment will be submitted on Blackboard as a group assignment in report format.

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.

You should draw on concepts covered in the course and use the following headings to present your review:

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: 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: 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.

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

b) choose a well-known organisation which contradicts the theory and provide evidence to explain why you believe this to be the case.

Recommended Structure -

As a minimum, the report should contain the following:

1) A brief Executive Summary detailing the purpose of the report.

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.

3) A section clearly identified as the group element

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

Your report should contain a coherent argument presented within the length limit.

Your evaluation should logically follow from your analysis.

Avoid long and detailed descriptions of the individual situations or management theories, a short description with the necessary details is sufficient so that you can spend most of your time on your analysis and the recommendations.