Management Issues in Organisations - Case Study Report

The assessment suite in this subject is designed to provide students with a framework to understand organisational behaviour and the dynamics of the business environment. The assessment suite aims to equip students with the necessary skills to understand the constraints managers and emerging leaders face in developing strategies to leverage advantages and overcome constraints and barriers in organisations.

Students will draw up a report on an organisation they are either working or have worked recently. You will work on the same organisation for both your assessments; so choose your organisation carefully. Your report will demonstrate your clear understanding of the modules that includes the role of a good leader, functions of management, management theories, ethics and diversity. You will use all the information from 1-3modules and will then expand your discussion on a specific management issue relevant to the organisation. A specific management issue could include the organisational structure; communication and employee morale; the management style of leaders; ethical business practices; or a lack of organisational diversity – or there could be other issues. You will need to critically evaluate this issue in the chosen organisational
context drawing from a relevant management theory.

an introduction to the organisation and a brief justification of why you have selected this organisation;

a methodology outlining the qualitative research method, your data sources/collection techniques, and your data analysis and interpretation
technique (e.g. content analysis);

a review of management theory discussed in Modules 1 and 2 which is relevant to the is40sue of investigation in the chosen organisational context (e.g. management style);

a critical examination of the role of ethics and diversity relevant to the chosen organisation is important (Module 3);

drawing from the findings, provide recommendations and suggestions to the organisation on how to improve the management issue in the
future; and

evidence of research should be reflected through the use of a reasonable number of high-quality relevant academic materials (see the list of potential journals below).

The word limit for this report is and this excludes the following sections: title page, executive summary, table of contents, references list, appendices, citations, tables and graphs. Students should submit one file through Turnitin. Please review the Turnitin percentage carefully to confirm that the total percentage does not exceed 25% as well as any single source does not account for more than. There are a number of forms this report could take. The exact form of the report will depend on the additional research the student will undertake. For example, students may find sufficient data from internal publications or external media reports. Students should aim for the demonstration of deep learning, founded on theory from academic sources and data from their own research.

Students should also refer to the Handout in Module Two – Information Gathering and Naturally Occurring Data. This handout highlights a variety of data sources available to the manager, both internally and externally, to help them make decisions. This data is also available to students if they select the right organisation and are prepared to conduct the research. Students should search for internal data about the organisation – official websites, annual reports, strategic plans, other publications (newsletters, CSR reports, codes of conduct) and also media releases, digital media and social media published by the organisation. Students should also search externally for data about the organisation.

Statistics, Ibis world, industry associations’ database, media reports, journal articles, feedback from customers or commentary from employees and other stakeholders. Students will need to filter the data from the above sources and use only data that is relevant to the management of the organisation. The relevant data sources should be summarised in the Methodology section, and then used throughout the report to explain the management practices of the organisation.

Students should stay focused on the topics from the first three modules of the subject and not be distracted by other functions of the organisation (for example marketing, financial performance). Students should commence this assignment early, keep regular backups and ensure they submit the correct, final version. Students should use this brief as the instruction set for the assignment requirements. Additionally, the rubric below can be used to describe what unacceptable, functional, proficient, advanced and exceptional assignments might look like according to the criteria in the leftmost column of each row.

As this is a Masters level subject, students are expected to engage with high-quality academic journal articles, using the Torrens University Library. Textbooks, Wikipedia and, in general, anything that can be obtained through an open Google search page are considered supplementary material.