Assignment:
Task: Students are to choose an organisation they work for/have worked for/have experiences with/have read about. Students are then to identify two major management issues this organisation is facing/experiences. These issues should be analysed and explained by adopting two different Organisation Theory lenses from the following list of Organisation Theory perspectives:
1. Agency Theory
2. Institutional theory
3. Bureaucracy
4. Transaction Cost Economics
5. Stakeholder Theory
6. Power & Politics
7. Ethical & moral dimensions of Organisation Theories.
Students need to discuss, how do these lenses apply to the selected organisation and chosen issues? How well do they apply? What do they capture? What do they miss? Through this assignment students need to demonstrate their understanding of different Organisation Theory lenses and their ability to apply these lenses to specific organisations.
The essay must be structured in three parts:
1. Introduction: briefly describe the chosen organisation and the identified management issues. Introduce the theoretical lenses that will be used to analyse these issues and outline the main arguments developed in the essay.
2. Discussion: describe the two chosen organisation theory lenses and explain their relevance for your chosen case/organisation. Discuss how these lenses explain the identified management issues and the implications from the application of the theories. Outline the theories contributions (how well they explain the management issues) and shortcomings (what are the gaps, limitations, what is not explained). Here students must illustrate their deepening personal and critical awareness of the theoretical and practical limitations/possibilities in the literature they have addressed. 12 Marks will be focused on how well students demonstrate a critical awareness of the literature/organization lenses (for example students' reading of tensions, contradictions, gaps, bias in what they have read). Merely describing the literature ("Smith says, Jones says" etc) will result in major loss of marks.
3. Conclusion: summarise your arguments and insights. Reflect on the applicability of the selected Organisation Theory lenses to management practice/practitioners.
Formal requirements for Assessment 1:
4. Use 1.5 spacing
5. Ensure page numbers are used
6. Use 12 point font (Times or Arial)
7. Use the Harvard method of referencing (more details are at the end of this outline).
8. Page set up:use the standard margin format in Word.
9. Include a reference list at the end of your essay (i.e., a listing of all in-text references that you have cited - and not a bibliography).
10. This is an essay and not a report; therefore it is advised that you do not use bullet points.
11. Do not bind or insert your paper in heavy and cumbersome binding. Please only staple your paper in the top left corner.
12. You must also submit your essay to Turnitin. This process will be explained in tutorials.