Please read the following all information carefully. And also have uploaded the relevant materials and PPT. especially, the PPT session 5 and session 6 is the most important I think. I also give core and suggested reading list, question and structure in the following, so please read carefully. Thanks a lot.
The course assessment will be based 100% on a 4,000 word individual assignment. Please use following essay question and develop a critical analysis of the subject matter drawing on the relevant literature and using examples from business organization.
Question:
‘An organization that learns does not automatically mean that it is a learning organization’. Using examples critically assess this statement and illustrate how might an organization that learns look like in practice and how could one distinguish it from a Learning Organization. Explicate the relationship between the two.
Structure (Very Important)
Some pointers as to how you might want to structure your essay:
(i) Start with an introduction in which you provide a statement of what it is that you are looking at (i.e. draw the boundaries around the topic you are going to focus on and identify the issues you are going to cover in the subsequent sections). Then outline the structure of the essay and provide a summary of the themes to follow. (This part could be about 400 words.)
(ii) Offer a literature review of the relevantmaterial on change, focusing in particular on those aspects that are connected with the topic you are discussing. Provide a synthesis and critique of the literature. Don’t merely reproduce whatever the textbooks say but try to probe deeper and wider in a reflective manner. The more “value” you add to the literature via critical synthesis and commentary the higher a mark you will get. (About 750-800 word)
(iii) Describe your case study as lucidly as you can. Describe the content, the context and the process of HRD issues, and provide whatever evidence is necessary in order to convey a rich picture of the issues you are dealing with to a lay reader. Be descriptive yet concise, analytical but coherent.(900 word)
(iv) Offer an analysis of the case drawing on the relevant conceptsoutlined earlier in your literature review. This is perhaps the most crucial and “value-adding”section of your essay. Use the concepts, models, frameworks and theories you discussed earlier in order to illuminate what you take to be the key and significant aspects of the case material. If, for example, your analysis is based on mere common sense, it means that your literature section was virtually redundant. Ideally, the concepts you earlier discussed should be used in this section to make sense of the case phenomena. Substantiate your claims with appropriate evidence from the case. (about 1300 word)
(v) Conclude your essay by drawing out the key general lessons derived from your particular case and, if you can, relate these lessons to similar examples published in the literature. Reflective comments on the dynamics of HRD/HRM more generally will also be welcome and will be rewarded appropriately. (550-600 word)
Core Reading
Antonacopoulou, E.P. (1998), Developing Learning Managers within Learning Organisations, Chapter in M. Easterby-Smith, L. Araujo and J. Burgoyne (Eds.) Organisational Learning and the Learning Organisation: Developments in Theory and Practice, ondon: Sage, pp.214-242.
Antonacopoulou, E.P. (2006a), ‘Working Life Learning: Learning-in-Practise’, in Elena Antonacopoulou, Peter Jarvis, P., Vibeke Andersen, Bente Elkjaer and Steen Hoeyrup, (Eds) Learning, Working and Living: Mapping the Terrain of Working Life Learning, London: Palgrave, pp. 234- 254.
Antonacopoulou, E. and Chiva, R. (2007) ‘The Social Complexity of Organizational Learning: The Dynamics of Learning and Organizing.’ Management Learning 38(3): 277-295.
Antonacopoulou, E.P. (2006b), ‘The Relationship between Individual and Organisational Learning: New Evidence from Managerial Learning Practices’, Management Learning, 37(4), 455-473.
Argyris C. (2004), Reasons and Rationalizations: The Limits to Organizational Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Dierkes, M., Berthoin Antal, A., Child, J. and Nonaka, I., Eds. (2003). Handbook of Organizational Learning & Knowledge. Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press.
Easterby-Smith M and Lyles M (2003) The Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning Blackwell, Oxford
Jarzabkowski, P (2005) Strategyas practice an activity-based approach [electronic book] London; Thousand Oaks : Sage.
Macpherson, A. and Antonacopoulou, E.P. (2013) “Translating strategy into practice: the role of communities of practice”, Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. 6(3), 265 – 285
