Assessment Brief
Course Bachelor of Business / Bachelor of Accounting
Unit Organisational Behaviour
Unit Code B01OGBH201
Type of Assessment Assessment 3 – Group Report and Presentation
Length / duration Written Report - 2500 words
Oral Presentation – 12 to 15 minutes
Learning outcomes addressed a. understand the contemporary theories and concepts in organisational behaviour,
b. understand human behaviour at the work place and the importance of evidence based approach to management and organisational behaviour,
c. develop personal and interpersonal skills and knowledge to effectively manage oneself and others in an organisational context,
d. understand the importance of team work and how to develop effective teams,
e. identify organisational problems and apply OB theories to resolve them.
Submission Date Written Report - End of Week 9
Oral Presentations - Weeks 10 to 12
Assessment Brief This will be both a written assignment and an oral presentation undertaken in groups of four students. The written element will be in the form of a long business report addressing a case study, and the group oral presentation will present the findings and recommendations of the report to the class.
The structure of the report will be consistent with that detailed in the Academic Learning Skills handout on Report Writing and the presentation will be a team presentation where each member speaks for a minimum of 3 minutes. See the Academic Learning Skills handout on Oral Presentations for guidance.
The report and presentation will be expected to address all the issues evidenced in the case study and make recommendations to rectify the problems.
Students will be required to undertake peer assessment of the contribution made by team members and this will contribute 50% of the individual assessment.
Total Mark Written Report – 65
Oral Presentation – 35
Weighting 20%
Students are advised that any submissions past the due date incur a 5% penalty per day, calculated from the total mark e.g. a task marked out of 40 will incur a 2 mark penalty per day.
More information, please refer to the Academic Progression Policies on https://kent.rtomanager.com.au/Staff/StaffControls/StaffPages/Staff_DocView.aspx
Assessment Description:
The Logical Solution
PC Solutions was established in 2007 by Frank Wallace. Frank was an IT professional who started up PC Solutions as a one man band. Originally it was only a sales organisation selling desktop computers to home users. But over the eight years it has grown to an organisation with 75 employees structured on functional lines into four departments, Sales, Administration, Customer Services and Software Development.
The Sales Department is managed by Scott Punter who was a friend of Frank’s who he employed early in the development of the organisation because he didn’t have a job. Scott was initially employed as a sales assistant to Frank and as the organisation grew he was promoted until now he manages the complete sales team.
All the sales people report directly to Scott as do the administration staff. Scott’s sales team comprises 25 sales people and 5 administrative support staff. The sales people have customers allocated to them on the basis of the salesperson establishing them as a client through making the original sale to the customer. They then go on to manage all hardware and software sales to their clients.
The Customer Services Department, managed by Louise Machin, is made up of 25 people. They are divided into three teams:
Training - this team of 8 trainers conduct group and individual training on application, operating system and network software,
Networking and Software Support - this team of 7 systems/software engineers provide telephone and on site support to clients with software and networking problems including developing networking solutions for larger corporate customers, and
Hardware Support – this team of 10 technicians repair hardware breakdowns in a centralised workshop situated at the offices of PC Solutions.
Louise has appointed team leaders to lead the teams but she allocates priorities and manages the provision of support services to all customers.
The Administration Department is under the management of the Finance and Administration Manager, Sylvia Chia, who is an accountant and is responsible for purchasing, warehousing, managing debtors and creditors, payroll and personnel services. It is made up of 15 staff.
Finally the Software Development department is managed by Ted Keating. This department was acquired by PC Solutions because of a need to provide customised software solutions for PC Solutions clients. Frank had identified that one of the problems with PC Solutions was its inability to meet their customers’ software development needs and had been looking for an organisation with this capability to acquire and merge with PC Solutions. He identified and acquired an organisation called Software Solutions for this purpose and it was purchased and merged with PC Solutions three years ago.
Frank has noticed that while the organisation has grown increasingly the level of customer and employee satisfaction has been decreasing.

What you are to do:
You are members of an external management consultancy team engaged by Frank to make recommendations to him on the following four aspects of PC Solutions:
1. Review the present organization and recommend any changes that may overcome the problems in the organisation at the moment.
2. The strengths and weaknesses of the organisation’s culture and what aspects of the culture need changing.
3. Sources of resistance to change and develop a plan to how to implement your recommended changes within the organization.
4. What leadership role should Frank adopt to facilitate these changes?
Prepare a “Long Report” to be presented to Frank addressing these issues and making your recommendations.
Present the findings of your report in a group oral presentation.
Your report must include:
• At least five reference sources including the text book, none of which are internet sources, e.g.
websites.
• Correct report structure. Refer to the Academic Learning Skills handout on Report Writing and Dwyer, J 2013 Communication for Business and the Professions, Strategies and Skills, 5th ed., Pearson Education, Australia .
• Harvard referencing for any sources you use. Refer to the Academic Learning Skills handout on Referencing.
Assessment Submission:
This assignment should be submitted online in Moodle. You are also required to upload a softcopy of your assignment in Turnitin.
The assignment MUST be submitted electronically in Microsoft Word format. Other formats may not be readable by markers. Please be aware that any assessments submitted in other formats will be considered LATE and will lose marks until it is presented in Word.
For assistance please speak to our Academic Learning Skills Coordinators, Andrew Kelly in Sydney (andrew.kelly@kent.edu.au) or Leah Kerr in Melbourne (leah.kerr@kent.edu.au). They can help you with understanding the task, draft checking, structure, referencing and other assignment-related matters.
Organisational Behaviour
Group Report – Marking Guide
Student Name: …………………………………………….
Student Number : ..............................................
Marks for the major assignment will be allocated as follows:
1. Introduction and Identification of problems /10
2. Identification and discussion of relevant theories /15
3. Application of the theory to the case study /15
4. Relevance and quality of recommendations /15
5. Report Format including citing sources etc. /10
TOTAL /65
Marking Guide: Oral Presentation
Criteria Detail Score Comments
Structure Clear introduction, body and
conclusion. Each part included necessary parts. /5
Information Clearly presented, interesting, relevant /10
Communication Skills Displayed engagement and interaction with audience /10
Vocal qualities Clarity, pace, fluency,
pronunciation, vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar /5
Use of visual aids Carefully prepared and utilised
well. Minimal errors, welldesigned. /5
Total score /35
General notes for assignments
The work must be fully referenced with in-text citations and a reference list at the end. We strongly recommend you to refer to the Academic Learning Skills materials available in the Moodle. For details please click the link http://online.kent.edu.au/cms/course/view.php?id=437 and download the file “Harvard Referencing Workbook”. Appropriate academic writing and referencing are inevitable academic skills that you must develop and demonstrate.
We recommend a minimum of FIVE references, unless instructed differently by your lecturer. Unless specifically instructed otherwise by your lecturer, any paper with less than FIVE references may be failed. Work that includes sources that are not properly referenced according to the “Harvard Referencing Workbook” will be penalised.
Marks will be deducted for failure to adhere to the word count – as a general rule you may go over or under by 10% than the stated length.
General Notes for Referencing
High quality work must be fully referenced with in-text citations and a reference list at the end. We recommend you work with your Academic Learning Skills site
(http://online.kent.edu.au/cms/course/view.php?id=437) available in Moodle to ensure that you reference correctly.
References are assessed for their quality. You should draw on quality academic sources, such as books, chapters from edited books, journals etc. Your textbook can be used as a reference, but not the lecturer notes. We want to see evidence that you are capable of conducting your own research. Also, in order to help markers determine students’ understanding of the work they cite, all in-text references (not just direct quotes) must include the specific page number/s if shown in the original. Before preparing your assignment or own contribution, please review this YouTube video by clicking on the following link:
Plagiarism: How to avoid it
You can search for peer-reviewed journal articles, which you can find in the online journal databases and which can be accessed from the library homepage. Wikipedia, online dictionaries and online encyclopedias are acceptable as a starting point to gain knowledge about a topic, but should not be overused – these should constitute no more than 10% of your total list of references/sources. Additional information and literature can be used where these are produced by legitimate sources, such as government departments, research institutes such as the NHMRC, or international organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO). Legitimate organisations and government departments produce peer reviewed reports and articles and are therefore very useful and mostly very current. The content of the following link explains why it is not acceptable to use non-peer reviewed websites: Why cant I just Google? (thanks to La Trobe University for this video).