Assessment Task 1 - Business Report

The scenario: Assume you have completed your Deakin degree and are applying for a graduate position at either the Australian Football Federation (AFF) OR ALDI Australia. As part of the selection process the organisation requires you to use management ideas (theory and concepts) to examine specified aspects of their organisation.

This task allows you to demonstrate your academic knowledge about management as well as your academic integrity, research, writing, and analytical skills. You must use Deakin Business Report Format and Referencing Style. You can only use reputable academic, media, government and business sources to inform your report. Do not contact the organisation directly.

Academic Integrity Module

Report Preparation Task

To manage in the real world, managers need to know how to find, research and write about academic theory and concepts using management texts, academic journal articles, and reputable government and industry sources. The following Report Preparation Task will help you learn these skills and assist you to prepare for the Final Report. Specifically you will learn to:
- Plan your report by way of your proposed Table of Contents (TOC).
- Use academic theory and concepts to understand, analyse and critically examine real world organisations.
- Find academic journal articles relevant to understanding management of organisations.
- Provide in-text citations and a reference list of your sources using Deakin Harvard style.
- Develop your academic and business writing skills.
- Check your answers meet the requirements shown in the assignment marking rubric.

Complete the following Report Preparation Task

1. Provide the section headings you plan to use in your A1.3 Table of Contents (TOC).

2. Identify the main academic ideas (i.e. theory and concepts) about an organisation's general environment. (Start by reading pp. 34-41 of the textbook). Use relevant academic concepts to identify and discuss one real-life factor/condition relevant to your chosen organisation's general environment in 2016/17 and analyse the impact of this factor on your chosen organisation. (500 words).

In this answer include:
(a) a citation from the textbook
(b) a citation from a suitable management academic journal article
(c) a direct quotation using Deakin Harvard referencing style
(d) an indirect (paraphrased) quotation using Deakin Harvard referencing style See Summarising, paraphrasing and quoting in the Deakin Referencing Guide.

3. Provide a correctly formatted reference list that includes the sources used in this task and the sources you plan to use in the Final Report using Deakin Referencing Guide.
In this reference list include:
(a) the MMM132 textbook
(b) five relevant academic journal articles. One relevant to question 2 above and one relevant to answering each of the questions 1-4 in the Final Report
(c) at least one reputable source of information about your chosen organisation

Below are examples of how to use academic ideas (theory and concepts) in your writing. They show how to link management concepts and theories from academic sources to real-life examples.

Provide a business report that answers the following questions in relation to your chosen organisation. In this report include an Assignment Student Cover page, Report Title page, Executive Summary, Table of Contents, Introduction and Conclusion and References (Appendices are not required) and answer the four questions below in sections in the Body of the report. (See report format below and Template provided in the Cloud unit site.)

Check your answer to every question meets the requirements shown in the marking rubric and...
- Remember to use the textbook and at least one academic journal article to answer each question. These assist you to identify academic theory and/or concepts relevant to each question.
- Remember to use government, company and reputable industry and media sources to find information relevant to your chosen organisation in 2016/7.
- Remember to cite and reference all sources.
- Remember use academic concepts and sources to underpin, frame, inform, analyse and evaluate the information you present about your chosen organisation.

The report questions
1. Use academic ideas (theory and concepts) to define, describe and discuss an organisation's purpose. Identify the purpose of your chosen organisation, its mission in 2016/7, and its profit/not-for-profit orientation with reference to relevant theoretical concepts. (Start by reading pp. 93-94 and Table 4.1 in the textbook). (200 words)

2. Use academic ideas (theory and concepts) to define, describe and discuss an organisation's specific environment. (Start by reading pp. 34-41 in the textbook). Use relevant academic concepts to identify and discuss one real-life factor/condition in your chosen organisation's specific environment in 2016/17 and analyse the impact of this factor on your chosen organisation. (600 words).

3. Use academic ideas (theory and concepts) to define, describe and discuss an organisation's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ethics. (Start by reading pp. 52-59 in the textbook). Use relevant academic concepts to identify and discuss the CSR and ethics of your chosen organisation in 2016/17 with reference to relevant theoretical concepts on ethics and CSR. (600 words).

4. Use academic ideas (theory and concepts) to define, describe and discuss an organisation's internal culture. (Start by reading pp. 42-44 and 46-47 in the textbook). Complete and report on your results in the personal insights quiz ‘What's the Right Organisational Culture for Me?' (Robbins et al., p. 46). Remember to cite the quiz with an in-text citation. Use relevant academic concepts to evaluate your results from this quiz and reflect on how well you think you might fit into this organisation and its organisational culture. Use academic ideas (theory and concepts) to support your reflection. (600 words).

Executive summary This is a summary of the whole report. Outline the task and explain the research process used, what you found, and what your findings mean (Approximately 200 words).

Table of contents (not included in the word count) List the headings of the main sections and sub-sections of your report. (Use the MSWord template provided in the unit site to learn to create heading
styles and an automatic Table of Contents - TOC).
Introduction Set the scene; give some background information about the report/organisation; state the aim/purpose of the report. Provide an outline of the main sections in the body of the report (Approximately 150 words).

Body Organise the body of the report into sections. You should have four sections and each section answers one question with a clear section heading. The analysis of each question should define and describe academic theory/concepts on the topic of the questions, describe what you found about the organisation, as well as your interpretation and analyses of what you found, with correctly cited references drawn from appropriate academic textbook and journal sources (see the list above). Remember to include at least one academic reference for each question (Approximately 2000 words).

Conclusion Summarise what has been achieved in the report. Use the information from the body of your report to identify the anticipated future direction of the organisation in light of the environments discussed in the body of the report, and the ‘match' between you and that organisation in a graduate role (Approximately 150 words).