Good line managers do not need human resource managers’ – Discuss.
Academic Assignment and Examination Writing Guidance:
This document is designed to provide you with guidance for writing academic assignments. There is no definitive way to write an assignment. As an ULMS student you will be required in most if not all modules to write assignments that ask you demonstrate an understanding of an area of management theory and practice. To achieve a good mark the structure and content of the assignments and the style in which they are written will need to meet undergraduate degree-level academic standards. All of your assignmentwill be assessed in accordance with marking criteria set by the module teaching staff. The content of your assignments must also be supported throughout by reference to the academic sources you use to answer the assignment question, i.e.: textbooks, journal articles, etc. – not the Internet. Wikipedia and other similar Internet sites are merely sources of very basic and sometimes incorrect information about organization and management studies. All of your assignments should be informed bysources of information taken from the academic textbooks, monographs and journal articles listed in your module handbooks, or recommended to you by your module teaching staff. All of the recommended academic sources you choose to consult, toanswer your module assignments and examinations (to support a discussion, explain a particular organization or management theory or concept, or analyse a particular case-study), must always be referenced in the main body of the assignment and included in a bibliography (see your degree programme handbook).
Your first task when writing an assignment, or answering examination questions, is to pay close attention to what the question asks you to consider, and to remember that what you write should be informed by the literature, not your own opinions. Any university degree course assignment or examination, in other words, must be informed by the theories and perspectives and concepts you have been taught in lectures and seminarsand read about in textbooks and journals.Remember that no theory or perspective in any social and management science subject area provides a full and indisputable account of organizational behaviourand management practices. All theories and perspectives that inform our understanding of organizational and management behaviour are always partial accounts that are drawn from established knowledge informed by certain theoretical claims and / or empirical research data. In other words, when writing your assignments you should remember that you will inevitably find competing theories and perspectives. Some of the theories and concepts you are taught about may reflect your own views, experiences and understanding of work, organizations and management more than others. You mayalso find that you agreewith some theories and disagree with others, or that some more than others seem to make more sense. Because we come into contact with organizations everyday, and because most of us have at least some work experience, the theories and concepts that inform the study of work, organizations and management can seem unnecessarily complex. Most theories are in fact quite straightforward, but more importantly they are the essential building blocks of any social and management science subject area that students are required to learn and acknowledge in their assignments and examinations.
In any assignmentyou write you should be able to demonstrate: (i) that you understand the question (ii) that you haveknowledge and ability to explaintheoretical arguments and empirical-informed claims within the literature about ‘what organizations do’, and how and why people are managed in particular ways to achieve certain goals; (ii) that you are capable of finding and consulting relevant literature, and using the theories, concepts and or empirical evidence presented in the literature (i.e.: textbooks and journals) to make your case for or against particular theoretical arguments or empirical claims. In other words, your assignments (and examination papers) should be written in a way that demonstrate your understandingof the specific requirements of the questionfrom an informed standpoint, which clearly shows you have consulted the relevant academic literature to address the question and used what you have read to qualify the discussion and key critical points of argument you make in answering an assignment or examination question.
Before you start to write your assignmentyou should: (i) identify the key issue the assignment question asks you to consider; (ii) check the command word in the question. For example, the word explainin an assignment asks you to give details about a certain perspective and why is can be supported; evaluateasks you to critically appraise the strengths and weaknesses or limitations of a particular perspective; (iii) discussinvites you to consider two or more sides of a particular argument. In answering the question you may choose to take a particular position and consider the issues the question asks you to address froma certain theoretical perspective, or from one or more alternative and / or competing perspectives. In either case it is important that you explain and justify your reasons for adopting the position you take, showing why you consider one perspective as opposed to others to be the most valid or most useful to make and qualify your particular viewpoint or line of argument.
What you should learn from an assignment is that within the social and management sciences there are different ways of interpreting the nature of organizational and management behaviour. Different organization and management theorists, and different individuals and groups within organizations themselves, often have very different views and perspectives about what ‘organizations and managers do’.In other words, from your reading, and when writing your assignments, you should acknowledge the ideas of the key theorists from each particular theorist’s perspective, without automatically questioning or rejecting a theory because it doesnot necessarily fit with an alternative or competing perspectives you favour, and, more importantly, because it does not fit your own ‘commonsense’ understanding of what you think ‘organizations and managers do’. At the end of reading for anassignment you should have gained a good level of knowledge and understanding of the theoretical ideas and/ or empirical claims organization and management theorists draw upon to support certain perspectives, or to contest others, so that at the end of each assignment you arein a position to build upon what you have learned so that you are able then to go on tofurther develop your knowledgeof the subject area in subsequent assignments.
General tips and advice for writing good academic assignments
The study of organizations and management is based upon longstanding established theoretical and conceptual frameworks that inform our knowledge and understanding of the subject area, drawn more often that not on empirical findings from research. In other words, our understanding of organizations and management practices comes from testing theories through empirical research conducted in organizations through recognised methods of research. Theories, concepts and research are therefore the foundation of anysubject area. You cannot ignore them or merely pass an opinion on them and expect to be awarded marks.
Lets take a typical example. When addressing the concept of motivation students may claim “people are motivated by money and self-interest?. Which is largely true. But they then often say little or nothing at all about the basis upon which this claim has been made. In other words, they often fail to explain or qualify this argument.
Who, which theorists that is, claim that “people are motivated (mainly) by money and self-interest?? Has this claim been proven, and is it absolutely true? Has this claim be contested, proven not to be absolutely true? Yes it has! Through systematic research that clearly shows how many other social and organizational factors shape and influence motivation.It may well be ‘true’ that people are primarily motivated by self-interest: that they are greedy, calculating, manipulative and devious, etc, and we all know from experience that many people often are. But there are historical, cultural and ideological reasons that explain why people have a tendency to “look after number one?!
It therefore stands to reason that to understand any particular aspect of workplace behaviour, organizational control methods and people management practices, etc., we need theoretically informed and empirically grounded research that go beyond everyday common-sense opinionsabout these phenomena. Otherwise both seemingly plausible and evidently ridiculous opinions about the same things would be equally valid!
So why do teaching staff not award you any marks for your opinions? The basic answer to this question is because you are not hereto tell us what you think! You are here to readforyourdegree – to acquire knowledge and understanding of the subject area, and to demonstrate you have achieved this in your assignments, reports, presentations and examinations.
Are students never allowed to express an opinion? Of course they are – in class and especially in tutorials / seminars – but they must be informedopinions. Informed opinions are acquired by: (i) payingattention in lectures, taking lecture notes and dedicating sufficient time to read up on lecture topics through self-directed learning (ii) payingattention to the aims and objectives and the intended learning outcomes that are normally set out for you in most textbooks. When reading textbooks or journal articles look closely at howan article or a chapter is organized, how arguments are presented, how they are supported by reference to theories, concepts and empirical studies. For example, when reading a textbook chapter or journal article, look at how the author uses the introduction to says what he or she will do. More often that not authors start by: (i) briefly outlining the general aims of a chapter or article (ii) indicating how the issues they will consider and discuss will be presented in the main body of the chapter/ article (iii) what they intend to say about the issues they will consider (iv) how they intend to support, concur with, or critique some or all of the issues they will consider (v) how the chapter or article will be broughttoaclose in the concluding section (v) what we can learn from the authors account and/ or critique of the theories, concepts or issues he or she has examined in the chapter/ article.You might also consider whether or not the author really achieves what he or she claims to have achieved, and how and why what an author claims can be contest from a different theoretical position or standpoint.
Planning and Structuring Assignments and Examinations:
The structure of assignments and examination papers is all-important. In all assignments (and examination papers) you should follow this simple checklist:
(i) State clearly in the introduction what you think the question is asking you to do, or inviting you to consider, and briefly outline how you will address the question.
(ii) Identify from your reading which theories, concepts and / or case studies you will use to make and support your discussion, evaluation, analysis or argument.
(iii) Think clearly and plan how you will present and developed your discussion, evaluation, analysis or argument in the main body of assignment, and, most importantly, how you will qualify your claims.
(iv) Summarize in the conclusion how you have addressed the assignment or examination question, what you have argued, discussed or analyzed and what we learn from it, and theories, concepts or case studies you have considered and examined.
(v) Reference all sources you have used to address the requirements of an assignment question – you are not expected to include as many references in answers to an examination questions, nor are you expected to include a bibliography in answers to examination questions.
A final thought: “Intelligence [and good assignment writing, rests on] the ability to be able to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function” (F. Scott. Fitzgerald. “The Crack-Up”. 1936).