Strategic HRM: Key Resourcing Challenges in Today's Global Business Environment

Questions:

TASK DESCRIPTION

 

Students are required to demonstrate their achievement of the above Learning Objectives by individually completing a written assignment (Assessment Component 1).  

The written assignment (Component 1) for 2019/20 is as follows:

Taking account of the Strategic HRM concepts, practices and learning, complete an essay of 2,500 words (+/- 10%) to:

•    Evaluate the key Resourcing challenges facing HRM professionals in today’s global business environment.

 

Students should contextualise their assignment, by citing evidence and examples from a number of Multi-National Corporations and researching specifically how they overcame or addressed their Resourcing challenges in delivering sustainable business and organisational success.

 

GUIDANCE FOR STUDENTS IN THE COMPLETION OF TASKS

NOTE: The guidance offered below is linked to the five generic assessment criteria.

1.    Engagement with Literature Skills – 20%
Your work must be informed and supported by scholarly material that is relevant to and focused on the task(s) set; you should make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources, as appropriate (for example, refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to the discipline).    You should provide evidence that you have accessed a wide range of sources, which may be academic, governmental and industrial; these sources may include academic journal articles, textbooks, current news articles, organisational documents, and websites.

You should consider the credibility of your sources; academic journals are normally highly credible sources while websites require careful consideration/selection and should be used sparingly.  

 

Any sources you use should be current and up-to-date, mostly published within the last five years or so, though seminal/important works in the field may be older.  You must provide evidence of your research/own reading throughout your work, using correctly a suitable referencing system, including in-text citations in the main body of your work and a reference list at the end of your work. 

 

Guidance specific to this assessment: Students should focus particularly on the Resourcing challenges of International HRM (I-HRM) faced within Multinational Corporations.   Research areas should include academic texts (Armstrong in particular) and other independently sourced material.   HRM journal and business journal articles will be a good source of information, as well as company websites and CIPD website. 

 

Credible Podcasts can be referenced where of relevance.  

You should use and apply the Harvard Referencing and Citation System within your assignment.    

Up to date, contemporary references are critical to supporting this assignment.  

TASK DESCRIPTION

Students should include at least 10-12 sources of referenced material.

 

2.    Knowledge and Understanding Skills – 25%
At level 7, you should be able to demonstrate a systematic understanding of knowledge, and a critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of your academic discipline, field of study or area of professional practice, with a comprehensive understanding of techniques applicable to your own research or advanced scholarship. Your work must demonstrate your growing mastery of these concepts, principles, current challenges, innovation and insights associated with the subject area.  

 

Knowledge relates to the facts, information and skills you have acquired through your learning.  You demonstrate your understanding by interpreting the meaning of the facts and information (knowledge). This means that you need to select and include in your work the contemporary concepts, techniques, models, theories, etc. appropriate to the task(s) set.  You should be able to explain the theories, concepts, etc. meaningfully to show your understanding.  Your mark/grade will also depend upon the extent to which you demonstrate your knowledge and understanding; ideally each should be complete and detailed, with comprehensive coverage. 

 

Guidance specific to this assessment:  You should demonstrate a systematic understanding of key aspects of HRM concepts, including acquisition of coherent and detailed knowledge, at least some of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of HRM academic research and practice.  This involves the selection of the most appropriate and/or suitable concepts and frameworks including key HRM resourcing concepts and challenges that should be reviewed e.g. multi-cultural work environments, diversity awareness selection & retention issues, relevant to creating or increasing awareness within the context of your chosen organisation, innovation/idea, product or service.  

3.    Cognitive and Intellectual Skills – 25%
You should be able to: evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship in the discipline; evaluate methodologies and develop critiques of them and, where appropriate, to propose new hypotheses; deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively to make sound judgements in the absence of complete data. Your work must contain evidence of logical, analytical thinking, evaluation and synthesis. For example, to examine and break information down into parts, make inferences, compile, compare and contrast information.  

 

This means not just describing what! But also justifying: Why? How? When? Who? Where? At what cost? At all times, you must provide justification for your arguments and judgements.  Evidence that you have reflected upon the ideas of experts within the subject area is crucial to you providing a reasoned and informed debate within your work.  Your choice of methodologies to gather data and information must be rigorously defended. Furthermore, you should provide evidence that you are able to make sound judgements and convincing arguments using data and concepts.  Sound, valid, persuasive conclusions are necessary and must be derived from the content of your work.   Where relevant, alternative solutions and recommendations may be proposed.

GUIDANCE FOR STUDENTS IN THE COMPLETION OF TASKS

 

Guidance specific to this assessment: You should devise and sustain arguments, and/or solve practical real-world problems, using HRM ideas and techniques, some of which are at the forefront of the HRM discipline and conclude whether your chosen organisations have coped well or otherwise with the Resourcing challenges identified. Recommendations/proposals should be convincing, persuasive, possibly challenging and derived from evaluation of the evidence where alternatives might be considered where an approach or practice is not impacting on business success.

 

4.    Practical Skills - 20%
At this level you should be able to demonstrate originality in the application of knowledge, together with a practical understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to create and interpret knowledge in the discipline. This includes acting autonomously in planning and implementing tasks at a professional or equivalent level, originality in tackling and solving problems, and decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts or situations.

 

You should be able to demonstrate mastery of the leading edge subject-related concepts and ideas as they relate to real world situations and/or particular contexts.  How do they work in practice?  You will deploy models, methods, techniques, and/or theories, in those contexts or circumstances, to assess current situations, perhaps to formulate plans or plausible, justifiable recommendations to solve problems, or to propose new models, or to create artefacts, which may be innovative and creative, thereby demonstrating your understanding of how the boundaries of knowledge are advanced through research and/or application.  This is likely to involve, for instance, the use of real world artefacts, examples and cases, the application of a model within an organisation and/or benchmarking one theory or organisation against others.  

 

Guidance specific to this assessment: You should deploy your chosen techniques, models and/or theories, to the chosen organisation, to identify the contemporary HRM Resourcing challenges they are facing, giving real-life examples to illustrate the points you make. Where possible you should show awareness of the limitations of the model used when applied to the chosen organisation.  

5.    Transferable Skills for Life and Professional Practice – 10% 
Your work must provide evidence of the qualities and transferable skills necessary for postgraduate-level employment in circumstances requiring sound judgement, personal responsibility and initiative in complex and unpredictable professional environments.  This includes demonstrating: the independent learning ability for continuing professional development to advance existing skills and acquire new competences of a professional nature that will enable you to assume significant responsibility within organisations; that you can initiate and complete tasks, projects and procedures, whether individually and/or collaboratively, to a professional level; that you can use appropriate media to effectively communicate information, arguments and analysis in a variety of forms for a variety of audiences; fluency of expression; clarity and effectiveness in presentation and organisation. Work should be coherent and well-structured in presentation and organisation.

Guidance specific to this assessment:

 

You should use an essay of a recognised format.  All writing should be academic in style, formal, focused, concise and subject specific.  It should use a font of Times New Roman 12 or Arial 11 Point.  Structure and articulation of your assignment will support effective professional presentation and fluency.