Assume that you are being employed as a consultant by a company that needs to seek your advice on the alleged issuesofpay gaps between the women and male employees in the same positions and performing the same tasks in the company. The company does not want to be accused of practicing gender discrimination which will be bad publicity for its image. Though there was a recent media publicity which suggestedthatwomen should themselves need to do research to know their worth and negotiate effectively, however this alone will not solve this systemic pay gap. 

Your task as the consultant is to find out through interview session/s with the Human Resource manager/director for the company the reasons for the alleged issues,and suggest remedial actions. 

Requirement: 
You are required to hand in a written report on your findings and recommendations. Your report should contain about 2000-2500 words (7-10 pages) and cover the following parts: 

Part 1: The Introduction 
The opening section describes the firm's background & profile, its current position and its internal & external environment. Include the name of the human resource manager's and his background. You are to include pictures, graphs, tables etc, as to illustrate the situation. (10 marks) 


Part 2: Problem 
This section is one of the most important parts of your report. While there are no specific length requirements, the goal of this section is to present the statement of the problem(s) faced by the company. You are required to analyse the problems giving facts and figures. (10 marks) 

Part 3: Proposed Plan of Action 
Present the result/findings from your interview with the HR manager/director of the company. Present your proposed action plan to deal effectively with the major issues and problems of the issue. This should involve a detailed, step-by-step action plan presented in a comprehensive and understandable manner. Your proposed plan of action should be realistic for example, time frames, designation of roles/responsibilities of all stakeholders etc. (15 marks) 

Part 4: Discussion/Conclusion 
Conclusions are drawn and implications presented. 

Assignment 2: Individual Article Review (20%) 

(1) Select an article. 
Select an interesting article on issues pertaining to "skills and productivity of older workers" in an organisation from refereed journals or conferences. 
("Refereed" means that the article has been formally reviewed and recommended by a group of peer researchers.) 

(2) Write the Review 
Write the review of the article in accordance to the following format. 


ARTICLE REVIEW Format 

1. Introduction: 
State the Objectives, Article Domain, Audience, Journal and Conceptual/Empirical Classification. You may adopt the following sample: 

Paragraph 1: State the objectives (goals or purpose) of the article. What is the article''s domain (topic area)? 

Paragraph 2: 

• Audience: State the article''s intended audience. At what level is it written, and what general background should the reader have; what general background materials should the reader be familiar with to understand the article?
• Appropriate Journal?: Why is the journal appropriate (or inappropriate) for this article?

Paragraph 3: 

• State whether the article is "conceptual" or "empirical", and why you believe it is conceptual or empirical. Empirical articles and conceptual articles have a similar objective: to substantiate an argument proposed by the author. While a conceptual article supports such an argument based on logical and persuasive reasoning, an empirical article offers empirical evidence to support the argument. Empirical articles offer substantial, detailed evidence which the authors analyze using statistical methods. Empirical articles must include hypotheses (or propositions), detailed research results, and (statistical) analyses of this empirical evidence. Empirical research includes experiments, surveys, questionnaires, field studies, etc, and to limited degree, case studies. Conceptual articles may refer to such empirical evidence, but do not provide the detailed analysis of that evidence. Of course, both types of articles can use real life examples to back up their points. Just because an article provides examples, does not necessarily mean that it is empirical.

2. Brief Summary 

• For your article review, you do not have to spend much space summarizing the article. Instead the analysis of the article is more important. Thus, in this section, you are only required to summarize the article only very briefly (1-2 paragraphs).

3. Results/ Findings 

• Very briefly summarize the important points (observations, conclusions, findings). Do not repeat lists of items in the articles - just summarize the essence of these if you feel they are necessary to include. (1-2 paragraphs).

4. Analysis 

• What has changed since the article was written? Is the lesson, ideas and theories still applicable? To what extent has the issue has been resolved?
• Optionally, how do find the article''s models, frameworks and guidelines, etc. applicable to your work life or personal life (4-5 paragraphs)

5. General Critique 

• In this section you should state your opinions of how well (or poorly) the authors did their research and presented the research results in the article. Your critique can contain both positive and negative comments. (2-3 paragraphs)

6. Contributions 

• An article makes a "contribution" by adding to the knowledge of researchers in a research field. An article can make a contribution to the research field in many ways. Does it provide a new way to look at a problem? Does it bring together or "synthesize" several concepts (or frameworks, models, etc.) together in an insightful way that has not been done before? Does it provide new solutions? Does it provide new results? Does it identify new issues? Does it provide a comprehensive survey or review of a domain? Does it provide new insights?
• Also, is it salient (relevant and current) to a particular scientific issue or managerial problem? Are the issues addressed introduced in a way that their relevance to practice is evident? Would answers to the questions raised in the article likely to be useful to researchers and managers?
• Alternatively, if you believe the article makes no contributions, explain why clearly. (2-3 paragraphs)