Delivering Bad News in the Workplace: Strategies for Building Positive Relationship between Manageme

Part 1: Build a Case for Delivering Bad News 'Better'

Using the article below, please ‘build a case’ as to why leaders of organizations should consider ‘how’ they deliver bad news, and the ways this can be delivered ‘better’ as part of a more positive employment relationship between management and employees. (approx. 1000 words).

1. Read the article and highlight evidence in terms of how managers can deliver bad news ‘better’, and the reasons why they should do this (i.e. the business case).
2. Plan how you will organise the information in your literature analysis. You could write up the main points on post-it notes then think about how you will present this.
You may wish to construct a mind-map to help organise yourideas.
3. Use your plan to start drafting the literature review. Your objective is to build a case around the above topic. Use the evidence you have highlighted and organised into a ‘plan’ to build a case around this. Select the key points that you feel a business leader should know. It will be important to think about how you structure this. Start off with the ‘big themes’ and work your way down to the more nuanced. See tips below to avoid being ‘descriptive’.

Tasks to complete for this part

Write a structured literature review around the specified research gap. It should also include an academic definition of delivery of bad news (referenced).
This should reiterate the main argument to this review (Employment relationship and Delivery of bad news DBN) in terms of management activity underpinning ‘better’ delivery of bad news including the reasons why an organisation leader should take this seriously. You need to very specifically signpost the areas of knowledge you chose to use to argue for this gap – making sure you reference each point.
Key reading
The Delivery of Bad News in Organizations: A Framework for Analysis by Robert J. Bies (Georgetown University) [Also available on WebLearn].

Identify a relevant qualitative methodology for researching the delivery of bad news in a particular workplace you are familiar with. Further details on what to include are set out below (approx. 500 words).
1. Identify a qualitative methodology for researching the delivery of bad news. You should explain how your review in Part 1 can help you approach the topic. You should define what a qualitative research methodology is using recommended academic references and explain the philosophical (ontological/epistemological) underpinnings of this methodology.
2. You could then set out the specific qualitative data collection techniques (for example semi structured interviewing, unstructured interviewing, focus groups, diary studies etc.) you would use for this study and justify your choice using recommended readings to reference your justifications.
3. You should also consider an appropriate target population and your sample (who would be included in your sample). Access and ethics should also be covered.
Recommended readings should be used to reference your sampling, access and ethics considerations.
4. You should make an effort to fully justify each aspect of your approach.
5. References to the research methods sections of the recommended books will be essential (Bryman and Bell, Saunders textbooks and others).

Tasks to complete for this part
Write up a brief summary of the qualitative methodology you chose to research the topic of the delivery of bad news in a workplace by addressing the details 1-3 above, and the key justifications 4-5.