HOLMES INSTITUTE
FACULTY OF
HIGHER EDUCATION
Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines
Trimester T2 2020
Unit Code HC1052
Unit Title Organisational Behaviour
Assessment Type Group Assignment
(Group Report)
Note: Groups of 4 students (Max) must be formed by week 6 and you must individually self-enrol into a group in Blackboard. Once a group is formed and entered into Blackboard, no changes are allowed.
This is strictly required to be your own original work. Plagiarism will be penalised. Students must use correct in-text citation conventions in accordance with the Harvard format.
Assessment Title Group Report
Purpose of the assessment and linkage to Unit Learning
Outcomes (ULO) This assessment will address the following unit learning outcomes:
1. Integrate diverse OB theory and practices in critical analysis of problem situation and communicate those ideas in a clear and coherent manner.
2. Apply problem solving and critical thinking abilities by identifying and analysing the choices available for developing alternative organisational behaviour approaches in the workplace
Assessment
Weight Group Report
30%
Word limit Report not more than 3,000 words
Due Date Week 10 (25th September, 2020, 11:59 pm)
[Late submission penalties accrue at the rate of - 5% per day]
Submission Guidelines • All work must be submitted on Blackboard by the due date along with a completed Assignment Cover Page.
• The assignment must be in MS Word format, 1.5 spacing, 12-pt Arial font and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings and page numbers.
• Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list, all using Harvard referencing style.
Consult your lecturer if you are unsure or you require clarification on plagiarism.
Note: You may not get the assignment submission links unless you are registered in a group on Blackboard.
Note: All students must contribute equally to the assignment or marks will be deducted for students who do not contribute to the assignment.
Assignment Specifications
Required Structure/Format of the report
• Holmes Institute Cover Page [This is essential and must be completed accurately] • Executive Summary – This should be a concise synopsis of the whole report.
• Table of Contents – This should be well formatted with numerical sub headings • Main Body of the report contains Section Headings for each paragraph listed • Sub-sections are numbered.
• Appropriate paragraphing must be used.
• Introduction – Briefly introduce the purpose of the report. Within the introductory paragraph, you need to address the key topics you will address in the body paragraphs.
• Body Paragraphs – With headings/sub-headings: Please remember to support your claims/arguments with in-text scholarly references.
• Conclusion – The conclusion must briefly summarise the key points in the body paragraphs.
• Reference List – Please include all in-text references in the list of references formatted in Harvard style. A minimum of 10 peer-reviewed academic articles is required.
• The report must be within the 3,000-word limit.
Note: Please note that the lecture slides may contain the basic key concepts only and students are expected to have read a wide range of scholarly literature to complete the assessment. Students are expected to have undertaken additional research using Google Scholar and ProQuest research database. In addition, please note that a ‘0’ mark will be awarded to this assessment if the references provided are not peer-reviewed academic articles. If you’re in doubt about what is a peer-reviewed article, please ask your tutor in the interactive tutorial sessions or the unit coordinator in the drop-in sessions.
Each group of 4 students will select and analyse one of the following exercises and submit a collaborative written report.
Students’ reports will vary widely. Your writing should reflect an understanding of the basic concept(s), thorough research, and logic and critical thinking skills
Please choose One Exercise only from the following:
GROUP EXERCISE 1: Strengths-Based Development
Learning Objective: This exercise incorporates many ideas in this unit with the main point reinforcing the fact that each individual is different. Intelligence is a related concept in this situation and identifying other personality traits when deciding the corporation’s course of action.
Summary: When drought threatened the survival of a farming corporation (Auglaize Provico), CEO Larry Hammond realised that he would have to change the business model. Hammond then implemented strengths-based development to leverage the unique strengths and talents of each employee. The strengths approach recognises that everyone has different talents and natural patterns of thought, feeling, and behaviour. Recognising and building on those talents with pertinent skills and knowledge creates strengths. Auglaize’s management had previously used a “deficit” development approach, spending a lot of time identifying employees’ weaknesses and trying to correct them. This meant that a lot of Auglaize’s management was relatively negative. Hammond wanted to change that approach. Every employee in the corporation took an assessment to measure and identify his or her top five talents, and received at least two consultations on their individual strengths. This enabled Auglaize to build on what its employees naturally do best. Employees became more engaged, productive, and energised, and the organisation became more successful.
Task: A Group of 4 students should answer the following questions:
1. Do you think it is better to focus on assessing and developing employees’ weaknesses, or to focus on their strengths? Why?
2. Why would strengths-based development increase employee engagement? Provide examples.
3. If you were a manager, how might you interact with employees differently if you were using strengths-based development rather than deficit-based development?
GROUP EXERCISE 2 – Motivating Your Sales Staff
Learning Objective: Explain why different people are motivated by different things.
Summary: The goal of this exercise is to give students practice aligning individual and organisational goals, and thinking like a manager in managing employee motivation. Imagine that you are the management team of a new retail clothing store named Threads. Your company’s business strategy is to provide high-quality customer service and to provide high-quality products. You are not the cheapest store in town, but you expect your employees to create a service-oriented atmosphere that customers will be willing to pay a little extra for. You recognise that your sales staff will be essential to your store’s success, and you want to create a system that motivates them to help create a competitive advantage for your business. Because this is the first store you have opened, you have the opportunity to decide how to best motivate your staff. Market-competitive starting salaries have already been established, but you have decided to allocate 10 percent of the stores’ profits to use to motivate your sales staff in any way you see fit.
Task: A Group of 4 students should answer the following questions:
1. What behaviours would you want from your sales staff?
2. What goals would you set for your sales staff, given your answer to Question 1?
3. What type of system would you set up to reward these behaviours?
4. What challenges would you be on the lookout for? How would you proactively address these potential challenges to prevent them from happening?
GROUP EXERCISE 3 – Ethical Decision-Making at Black Diamond Equipment
Learning Objective: Explain the impact of diversity and its benefits in contemporary organisations
Summary: Black Diamond Equipment specialises in climbing and skiing equipment. The global company looks for employees who share the company’s attitude, values, and passion toward outdoor sports and ethical values. Black Diamond also promotes fair labour practices, sustainability, and low environmental impact.
Task: A Group of 4 students should answer the following questions:
1. How can Black Diamond integrate social responsibility into its culture? Provide examples.
2. How does the global nature of the company and its markets influence how it thinks about employee diversity? Provide examples.
3. If you were the CEO of Black Diamond, how would you create a culture of inclusion to help your company realize the benefits of diversity? How can diversity be a source of competitive advantage at Black Diamond?
GROUP EXERCISE 4: Emotional Intelligence at FedEx
Learning Objective: To explore the significance of emotional intelligence for managers in modern organisations
Summary: Global shipping company FedEx has a “people first” philosophy and believes that for the company to deliver world class customer service, its managers must also have an attitude of service in managing their associates. FedEx recognises that leadership has grown more complex, and wants to develop leadership capabilities in its managers to manage its changing workforce. FedEx decided to increase its focus on emotional intelligence in its leadership development training. The emotional intelligence training and coaching program focused on showing managers how to manage themselves first and take charge of their own emotions and behaviours so that they can be effective influencers and role models.
Task: A Group of 4 students should answer the following questions:
1. Do you think that emotional intelligence would be important for a manager at FedEx to have? Explain your answer.
2. How does FedEx develop its new leaders’ emotional intelligence?
3. What else do you think that FedEx can do to enhance its managers’ emotional intelligence?
GROUP EXERCISE 5: Attitudes, Values, and Perceptions
Learning Objective: To explore several concepts discussed in this unit, such as attitudes, values, and perceptions and how they affect behaviours.
Summary: The case begins by outlining a scenario of VPs reporting monthly sales when the president of the company throws a chair at a VP reporting low monthly sales results, stating: ‘Next time, I won’t miss.’ Consultant Lynn Taylor calls bosses like this Terrible Office Tyrants, or TOTs. Managers who can’t control their power when they’re placed under stress. Taylor provides 20 common traits characterising TOTs, including bragging and bullying. Taylor offers some concrete coping techniques for subordinates of TOTs including putting everything in writing and be a star performer.
Task: A Group of 4 students should answer the following questions:
1. According to some experts, the sort of behaviour reported here is more prevalent in the business world than in the rest of society. Assuming this is true, why do you suppose that’s the case?
2. How might attitudes, values, and perceptions affect the behaviours illustrated in this case?
3. Many people think of stress as a simple problem. In reality, however, stress is complex and often misunderstood. Discuss some stress management techniques.
Marking Rubric
Criteria Ratings
HD
8.5 – 10 D 7-8 CR 6-6.5 PA
5 – 5.5 NN
0 – 4.5
Knowledge of the
material presented
Max 10 marks Has understood and responded to each of the task requirements appropriately. Has understood and responded to most task requirements appropriately. Has understood some task requirement and attempted to respond appropriately. Limited understanding of the task was
evident, but some requirements are missing. No evidence that the student has understood what is required in this task.
HD
8.5 – 10 D 7-8 CR 6-6.5 PA
5 – 5.5 NN
0 – 4.5
Use of Evidence
Max 10 marks Uses refined academic
research skills to locate credible and authoritative information/ data. Uses Harvard referencing style and in-text citations with no errors. Evidence from scholarly literature is integrated strongly with to explain and support the analysis.
Uses academic research skills to select 8 or more current, credible and authoritative academic references. Uses academic research skills to locate credible and authoritative information/ data. Uses Harvard referencing style and intext citations with some errors.
Relevant evidence from scholarly literature is linked to explain and support the
analysis. Uses academic
research skills to select 6 or more current, credible and authoritative academic references. Uses academic
research skills to locate credible information/data . Uses Harvard referencing style and in-text citations, but with consistent errors. Includes relevant evidence from scholarly literature to explain and support the analysis. Uses
academic
research skills to select 4 or more current, credible, and authoritative academic references. Uses general academic
research skills to locate information/ data.
Inconsistently applies Harvard referencing style. In-text citations and reference list show multiple errors. Includes evidence from scholarly literature to explain and support the analysis, although links to research may not always be clear.
Uses academic research skills to source 3 academic references. No evidence of any research skills apart from a basic web search. Use of a referencing style and some citations with consistent errors throughout. No evidence of any research findings undertaken or selected references do not meet the task requirements.
Structure,
Synthesis of
Research
Max7marks
HD
6.5 -7
D
6
CR
4-5
PA
3.5
NN
0 – 3
Cohesive paragraph structure consistently encourages engagement with the content. New information from research is synthesised and presented thematically (topic by topic) to address the assessment questions in an analytical way. Cohesive paragraph structure supports engagement with the contents. Uses discrete paragraphs to present information. New material from research is structured into themes to address the assessment questions in an analytical way. Some effort to achieve cohesive paragraph structure. Ideas are not always presented in discrete paragraphs. Some effort to include new material from research into themes to address the assessment questions in an analytical way. Has used a report structure to organise information logically. But has presented response composed of a series of discrete paragraphs based on the summary of main ideas from each
article. This report reads more like a book report than a piece of analysis. Limited or no attempt at a report structure. Information presented randomly or as a series of questions/ans wers only. No sense of cohesion between ideas. No evidence for synthesis of new ideas from research. No analysis attempted.
Written
Expression
Max 3 marks HD 3 D
2.5 CR
2 PA
1.5 NN
0 – 1
Uses discipline language appropriate for an academic or professional audience. Writing is fluent and uses appropriate paragraph/sent ence structures. No critical language or grammatical errors. Includes disciplinespecific language sufficient for an academic or professional audience. Writing is generally fluent and uses mostly appropriate paragraph/sent ence structures. Minor language or grammatical errors usually do not interfere with meaning. Some disciplinespecific language included to meet general expectations of an academic or professional audience. Writing is generally clear and mostly uses appropriate paragraph/sente nce structures. Limited use of disciplinespecific language which may not always meet expectations of an academic or professional audience. Inconsistent paragraph and sentence structures.
Language and grammatical errors are frequent. Limited vocabulary. Inappropriate or incorrect use of disciplinespecific language. Consistent and numerous
errors in writing
(grammar, paragraph and sentence structure) make reading difficult.
Marking Criteria
Marking Criteria Weighting
Knowledge of the material presented 10
Use of Evidence 10
Structure, Synthesis of Research 7
Written Expression 3
Total Weight 30%
Academic Integrity
Holmes Institute is committed to ensuring and upholding Academic Integrity, as Academic Integrity is integral to maintaining academic quality and the reputation of Holmes’ graduates. Accordingly, all assessment tasks need to comply with academic integrity guidelines. Table 1 identifies the six categories of Academic Integrity breaches. If you have any questions about Academic Integrity issues related to your assessment tasks, please consult your lecturer or tutor for relevant referencing guidelines and support resources. Many of these resources can also be found through the Study Sills link on Blackboard.
Academic Integrity breaches are a serious offence punishable by penalties that may range from deduction of marks, failure of the assessment task or unit involved, suspension of course enrolment, or cancellation of course enrolment.
Table 1: Six categories of Academic Integrity breaches
Plagiarism Reproducing the work of someone else without attribution. When a student submits their own work on multiple occasions this is known as self-plagiarism.
Collusion Working with one or more other individuals to complete an assignment, in a way that is not authorised.
Copying Reproducing and submitting the work of another student, with or without their knowledge. If a student fails to take reasonable precautions to prevent their own original work from being copied, this may also be considered an offence.
Impersonation Falsely presenting oneself, or engaging someone else to present as oneself, in an in-person examination.
Contract cheating Contracting a third party to complete an assessment task, generally in exchange for money or other manner of payment.
Data fabrication and falsification Manipulating or inventing data with the intent of supporting false conclusions, including manipulating images.
Source: INQAAHE, 2020