Assignment: Intro to Organizational Communication
PAPER: Company Profile
You will select a company to profile. This could be a company that is admired because of their business practices, a company that has recently experienced a great amount of change, a company that has received negative press, etc. You will "profile" this company using the approaches discussed in class (classical, human relations, systems, critical, etc.).
You will be responsible for writing a 3-5 page company profile paper that examines this organization. The paper should include a brief summary of the company (locations, home office, size, vision, etc.) followed by a description of how the organizational practices can be described/explained using the various approaches. Examples should be specific and cited (company website, interview with employees or management, etc.) For example, you might select McDonalds Restaurants and describe how the organization focuses on consistency across all of the restaurants using classical approaches to organization and a focus on systems.
The following is a (non-exhaustive) list of questions that are applicable for your profile paper:
• Are the policies and processes of this organization more closely related to one approach than another? If so, which one?
• How does the organization present itself to the public? Which approach is this closest to and why?
• How does the company handle change, make decisions, deal with conflict, address issues of diversity, etc.?
• What are the organization's plans for managing work processes to match changing environments, customer bases, and technology?
Paper
The final paperconsists ofthe following sections:
1. Introduction ½ page
This section introduces the organization and thegoal of thepaper.Give backgroundinformationof the organization (size, location(s), organizational structure, etc.).Provide a one-sentence preview of the paper-"In this paper I will evaluate the following...".
2. Discussion/Analysis2-4pages
Using the language of the class, 2-3 work process (conflict, diversity, leadership, etc.) are selected and evaluated. The analysis includes a review of which approaches are most familiar within these processes. Use level 1 APA style headers to separate topics.
3. Conclusion ½page
Thoroughly summarizes the paper.