Assignment:
Organizational Problem/Challenge Essay
Title: Management and Organizational Behavior
"Are you a student?"
The question asked of all customers by the employee cashiers at CSUN Sierra Center
"At each stage in the process, ask the question ‘why' five times."
Taiichi Ohno (1912-1990)
Goal:
Reflect briefly on a substantive issue germane to this class, and I want to capture a small writing sample from each of you. This assignment is straightforward.
Objective:
In narrative essay format, I want you to describe the most intractable organizational problem or most engaging organizational challenge that you have ever encountered as an employee. If you have little or no work experience, you may describe a problem that you have encountered as a customer. Only choose a problem at the University if you are employed at the University. I am less interested in which problem you select; I am more interested in your attention to detail, critical reasoning, and language use/grammar. More to the point, all issues in organizations are management issues. The challenge for managers, therefore, is to apply the theories and practice of management and organizational behavior to address, and perhaps resolve, the issue to deliver value.
As to structure and level of detail, please follow the "VALUE" critical thinking rubric on the following page. At a minimum, each element of the "VALUE" rubric will require a separate paragraph. Beyond that minimal requirement, students should employ typical expository, composition, and communication techniques in college-level narratives.
Length:
This essay is to be no less than one and one-half pages in length and no more than two full pages in length. Other relevant formatting requirements ("style guide") are linked from the course web page. Recall also that for all written assignments in this course, 10% is deducted from the content score for each type of error in language use.
Performance Measurement:
There are five elements of the VALUE critical thinking framework. Each element is scored with a number-0 is relatively weak, 1 is moderate, and 2 is relatively strong. Therefore, the maximum number of points is 10 (5 x 2).
"VALUE" Critical Thinking rubric:
The following text is excerpted from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU). See:
https://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/pdf/CriticalThinking.pdf