Submit a detailed research paper. This report should be a brief description of the fundamental concepts surrounding the topic and a descriptive case study of one or more organisations that have been regarded as successful (or not successful) practitioners of the concept(s) you are discussing. A typical project is 10-15 pages. (3000-4000 words)

Ideally you would search out various information sources in order to successfully complete this assignment. Although textbooks and lecture notes are useful starting points, using these sources alone is not acceptable. The aim is to give you experience in seeking out information from various sources and incorporating this into a coherent and concise report.

The first section of your report could be a discussion of the topic that you have chosen to investigate. Perform a literature review of recent and different information sources such as academic journals, newspapers, magazines, and textbooks to see what a number of different authors have written on the subject. Present these various ideas in the form of a literature review which is a clear and concise summary of the major points or common themes you perceive to be emerging from the articles and books that you have read. Your literature review should make note of what the rationale is for adopting these theories (ie What are the anticipated benefits to the practitioner who wants to make use of them?). If there are any limitations to the theories presented, what do authors, or even yourself, think about those limitations.

In particular, you should attempt to identify those characteristics and/or practices that would identify the successful adoption of the theoretical concepts. This should provide a coherent link between a review of the theoretical concepts discussed in the literature and the example(s) you have chosen to discuss.

The second part of the assignment requires you to identify and describe an organisation that is supposedly a successful practitioner of the topic you have chosen. To better illustrate your case, you might choose an organisation that is not a successful practitioner of the topic you have chosen.

You should begin your case study by providing a brief background to the company outlining its history in order to give the reader some idea of how it had come to adopt the topic you have chosen.

Your case should also look at examining how well the organisation you are discussing has (or has not) adopted the practices suggested by the concept you have chosen. Has it successfully implemented the concepts that you have described? How has it achieved this? Are there any discrepancies between the theoretical concepts and the way they have been implemented in practice?

Everyone in the group receives the same grade regardless of the effort or contribution of each group member.

One of the objectives of this assignment is to provide you with experience in finding information from sources other than the textbook and your lecture notes. Since, for some of you, this will be the first time you have conducted any form of research, we do not expect a thoroughly detailed account of a specific company which has been meticulously researched and corroborated through a variety of sources. What is required however is to uncover enough information about the topic and company you have chosen to be able to write an informed opinion about the subject matter.

Your assignment should at least contain the following elements:

–      Title page

–      Thesis

–      Executive Summary

–      Table of Contents

–      Introduction

–      Body

–      Conclusion

–      (Appendices)

–      References

–      Bibliography

As a starting point, you might want to scan these publications as useful sources of information:

–      Harvard Business Review

–      Sloan Management Review

–      The Economist

–      New Zealand Herald

–      National Business Review

This research assignment should be treated as an active learning experience in which the students who are interested in a specialised subject go out on their own and discover knowledge that is new to them. The project would usually begin with

-[if !supportLists]–>·      a question,  for which they seek an answer

·      a problemfor which they seek a solution,  or

·      a thesis,  for which they seek substantiation.

You must have a strong thesis – good writing starts with having something worthwhile to say. Most research papers suffer from a lack of a central proposition or point of view, and therefore they offer dozens of facts, but not in support of a focused thesis.

Watch for good strong topic sentences that introduce a new topic and control the ideas. This is particularly necessary when several different sources of information are drawn together.

Watch also for the use of key terminology. The same key terms should be used throughout and not slightly different terms as used by the various authors.

We will mark this assignment by incorporating the following questions and guidelines:

·         Who is the audience? Has the report been aimed at the Graduate Diploma / MBA class.

·         What is the thesis? The report does not have to open with a thesis; it could build up to it inductively and presented in the conclusion.

·         What is the tone of writing? Is it formal, semi-formal or casual?

·         What kind of ethos is being projected? Are the students stuffy and pedantic or do they come across as inquisitive and honest human beings?

·         Have the students focused on the main issues?

·         Have they presented assertions alone, or have they substantiated assertions with sufficient evidence?

·         Evaluate the evidence presented. Have they used statistics, testimony, personal experience, comparisons?

·         Have they been biased in the interpretation of the evidence? Have they presented only the benefits of one side and only the disadvantages of the other?

·         Have they committed any logical fallacies – post hoc, oversimplification, or hasty generalisation?

·         Have they sufficiently established a link between cause and effect? Have they discovered the underlying causes or just the surface causes? Have they identified long-term causes as well as immediate consequences?

·         Are the technical descriptions clear?

·         If they examine a problem, have they offered a viable solution or outlined the pros and cons of the available solutions?

·         Is the language concrete and precise? Have they avoided clichés?

·         Are the sentences emphatic, concise and clear?

·         Are the referencescomplete and consistent?