Assignment Brief

As part of the formal assessment for the Diploma programme you are required to submit an assignment for each module. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

After completing the module you should be able to:

1 Understand the importance of creative and innovative management in organisations

2 Be able to support creative and innovative management processes for an organisation

3 Be able to influence others to effect change in an organisation

4 Be able to plan to overcome barriers to implementation of creative and innovative management ideas in an organisation

Assignment Task

Task 1 (Guideline word count 1,300 words)

Evaluate how an organisation of your choice which uses processes and techniques to generate creative and innovative ideas. In doing this identify and describe briefly a number of innovative or creative ideas that have been or could have been produced by the organisation using such processes and techniques.

Discuss the mission and vision of your chosen organisation and assess the extent to which expressions of vision and mission by the organisation encourage innovative or creative management processes within it.

Task 2 (Guideline word count 900 words)

The concept of organisational stakeholders can help facilitate useful analysis in a number of different areas of organisational life. Explain what is meant by an organisational stakeholder and give examples of four stakeholder groups for the organisation as a whole you discussed in the previous task.

With reference to one of the innovative ideas, which you introduced in the previous section, identify different stakeholders of that idea and assess how each might be impacted or affected by the idea. Based upon that analysis and any other analysis you wish to undertake, assess the main risks and benefits arising from the idea and produce and state what you consider to be its overall rationale or justification.

Assess the barriers which exist to its implementation by the organisation, in addition to the risks you have identified above.

Task 3 (Guideline word count 1,800 words)

Following on from the analysis above you should:
- plan a strategy to overcome the barriers to implementation you identified in task 2. This strategy should incorporate the use of change models and establish key goals and priorities for implementation of the idea

- explain how you will help lead others to positively embrace the change and how the above plan will ensure innovative change occurs.

- design a communications plan to communicate to the different stakeholders the idea you intend to introduce, highlighting how you will seek to overcome any barriers, which may exist to its acceptance by different stakeholders.

Student Guidelines

1. You should write this assignment in essay format with a separate essay being submitted for each task. No paragraph numbering or headings or sub-headings are required. Simply try and write your answers in a well-structured logically sensible way with one point leading on to the next. It is also good to split your work into paragraphs that each deal with one topic or area of argument

2. You must ensure that the submitted assignment is all your own work and that all sources used are correctly attributed. Penalties apply to assignments which show evidence of academic unfair practice. (See the Student Handbook which is in the Induction Area). Please also refer to the ‘Guide to Unfair Practice in Assessment' on the module page on SunSpace.

3. You MUST underpin your analysis and evaluation of the key issues with appropriate and wide ranging academic research and ensure this is referenced using the Bournemouth University (BU) Harvard system. The ‘My Study Skills' area contains the following useful resources; Study Skills Guide (containing a BU Harvard Referencing section) and a BU Harvard Referencing Interactive Tutorial. You must use the BU Harvard Referencing method in your assignment.

4. You should use diagrams and tables of figures where appropriate ensuring you reference their source using the BU Harvard Referencing method.

5. You are required to write your assignment within 4,000 words in order for your research and summarising skills to be developed, and for effective time management. You are required to ensure that the assignment addresses all of the assessment tasks. In the interests of good academic practice, an assignment submitted with an excessive word count (i.e. more than 10% in excess of the limit) will be returned to you. You will be given a maximum of 48 hours to edit the work to reduce the word count to the permitted maximum. In the event that the submission is still regarded as excessively long then, in line with advice received from Pearson, we will be unable to accept it for marking and you will receive a Refer grade for Non-Submission.

The word count excludes the title page, reference list and appendices. Where assessment questions have been reprinted from the assessment brief these will also be excluded from the word count. ALL other printed words ARE included in the word count. Printed words include those contained within charts and tables.