This specialist needs to:
1) Go through all documents carefully including the course outline (attached) and familiarize with subject topic areas;
PRODUCT ONE - CASE ANALYSIS
Requirements for Case Analysis:
When you work on a case analysis assignment, you can use the questions at the end of each case as your guidance. However, when you write case analysis, please do NOT just answer those questions.
RIVER WOODS PLANT MANAGER
Heritage Appliance Company recently announced plans to construct the River Woods manufacturing plant, replacing the company's original, flagship facility adjacent to the company headquarters in Edgemont. In announcing the new plant, the company stated that to the extent possible it would be staffed by Edgemont plant personnel and that the excess personnel would be transferred to other Heritage plants in neighboring states.
Heritage management views the River Woods facility as the plant of the future featuring new methods of production and lower processing costs and manpower requirements. In a recent press release, the Heritage CEO noted that they were replacing one of the least automated plants in the industry with a plant using new forms of production not previously seen in appliance manufacturing.
Heritage Appliance is also using the River Woods plant to pilot a new decentralized management structure. In the past the firm's marketing activities were directed from the home office by a vice president. Manufacturing operations and certain other departments were under the control of the company's senior vice president. In this centralized, functional, arrangement none of the company's four plants had a general manager. Instead, each department in a plant reported on a line basis to its functional counterpart at the home office (e.g., director of production, director of engineering). In contrast, the new River Woods plant manager will be responsible for the management of all functions and personnel, except marketing and sales.
There is general consensus among the top management team that the long-term viability of the firm depends on the success of this initiative. However, some have expressed concerns about the difficulty of the task facing the River Woods general manager. They point to the shift from the functional lines of communication and accountability to a plant-level focus, as well as the challenges of upgrading the skills of the Edgemont plant personnel, working out the bugs in new applications of advanced manufacturing processes to appliance design and production, and dealing with the inevitable complaints from employees in a small company town who are not satisfied with new assignments and who might serve as the catalyst for unionizing the only nonunion U.S. appliance manufacturing firms.
Questions to consider before class:
1. If you were part of the selection committee for the River Woods plant manager position, based on what you have learned about the sources of personnel power in Chapter 5 of Whetten & Cameron, describe what you would consider to be the ideal candidate's qualifications.
2. If you were offered the new River Woods plant manager position, based on what you have learned about the sources of position power, what actions would you take to insure that as the company's first general manager you had the necessary clout to accomplish your assigned duties?
3. Using the information on influence strategies in the second half of the Whetten & Cameron chapter as your guide, strategize how you would address the challenges you are likely to encounter if you accepted the position of River Woods plant manager.
Be ready to discuss these matters with your team.
A good case analysis should follow the four steps as below:
1. Identify critical issues and/or problems and explain why.
2. Provide possible solutions to the issues/problems you have identified, based on resources you may have. Please remember you often do NOT have endless time and a limitless budget to solve all those issues/problems. You often need to handle many projects at the same time as most managers do in real life. So you need to prioritise your time and resources in your solutions. Think of urgent vs. important issues here.
3. Analyse why some options are feasible, and others are not, using available data and other supporting evidence. You can build your analysis using concepts, theories/models you have learned in the course.
4. Give your recommendations. Good recommendations should offer optimal solutions to your issues/problems, given the time and resources available to you, as well as the priorities of your organization, yourself and other important stakeholders.
PRODUCT TWO - INDIVIDUAL REFLECTIVE PAPER:
Write a individual Reflective paper - 2,500 words only catered to the course subject topic areas and use the marking guide to make it interesting and insightful.
What is a Reflective Paper?
At the end of the semester, each student is expected to write a reflective paper of how what you have learned in this course can be applied in your work or life or both. A reflective process requires you to consider what works and what does not, and to identify shortcomings in your own skillset that need to be overcome. The self-assessment exercises will be very helpful in identifying gaps that need to be filled in your managerial skills. It is recommended that from the start of the course you keep a journal in which you record the insights you have gained from the learning devices and your reflections on them. The paper will be evaluated on the basis of its comprehensiveness, the depth of your insights into the issues discussed, your understanding of the contents covered in this course, and the detail and logics of your action plan for further improvement. Each reflective paper should be between 2,500 (+/- 10%) words and must be handed (via email or online) to the instructor before the due date.
Purposes:
- To test your understanding of core concepts and theories.
- To assess how the knowledg you acquire in class is applied in a real-life context.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of the internalization of the contents covered in this course through a self-reflective process.
The reflective paper is designed to:
- Assess the extent to which you have undertaken the work specified for the course [in that sense, while it might emphasize certain issues or topics, it should be comprehensive in its coverage];
- Assess the depth of self-insight and understanding it demonstrates in relation to your existing management competencies and skill base;
- Assess insights you have gained that you believe will enable you to improve your managerial performance;
- Assess the detail and reasoning underlying the action plan that you are setting for your personal improvement in relation to your management competencies and skills;
- Be a record of what you have undertaken and learned during the course, such that you can refer to it later for the purposes of further self-evaluation and learning.
Marking guidance:
To earn a good mark for your paper, you might want to use the following approach:
1. An analysis of your strengths and weaknesses in your skillset
2. A plan to enhance your strengths and improve on your weaknesses
3. A demonstration of a good grasp of the concepts and theories learned in this course
4. An illustration of appropriate applications of the concepts and theories in your real-life situations
5. An internalization of what you have learned in the course into your skillset development
6. A reflection on how what you have learned in this course can help you develop desirable managerial skills and what can't
Both products need to be referenced 'Harvard style' with a Bibliography. They need to be well researched with no spelling or grammar mistakes and quality assured.
Session 1 - 13 Attachments are lecture/reading notes, that the specialist needs to use to give the Case Analysis and Individual Reflective Paper some local content.
PRODUCT ONE - CASE ANALYSIS Words - 7000
PRODUCT TWO - INDIVIDUAL REFLECTIVE PAPER: Words - 2500
Assignment
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gtbrnj96sg7uoxp/Attachment.zip?dl=0