Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
By the end of the course, you should be able to:
1. Identify and describe a range of issues related to the study and practice of management and how organisations impact on and interact with their stakeholders.
2. Explain and discuss key management and organisational theory and concepts and demonstrate an awareness of multiple perspectives and critical debates within the field.
3. Apply management and organisational theory to real-life scenarios (e.g. in the form of academic case studies and contemporary organisations).
4. Analyse management using relevant theory.
5. Demonstrate an ability to develop critical and theoretically informed arguments regarding the ethics and appropriateness of management practice and of existing management theory.
6. Evaluate management and organisational theory and its impact on individuals and society.
All of the Intended Learning Outcomes will be assessed through the summative assessment (further details below).
5
participate if you do not prepare in advance, and this can also cause disadvantages for your peers.
Assessment information
Summative Assessment Overview
Submission date: Thursday 14th December 2023 @1pm.
The summative assessment for this unit comprises 100% of your overall mark. This assessment is an individual written assignment of approximately 3000 words.
The summative assessment will test your knowledge and understanding of key management and organisation theories and issues, and your ability to analyse and evaluate a case study, drawing on literature and theory to develop conclusions.
You will be assessed upon your ability to:
• Demonstrate thorough knowledge and understanding of management as academic discipline, focusing on key topic(s) covered in the unit. You are expected to engage in significant independent study and to outline and discuss, in the structure of a literature review, critical debates within their chosen topic area(s) (ILO1&2).
• Apply theory and ideas from your literature review to an organisation of your choice (ILO3). Students must gather information related to management practice in their chosen context from a range of sources (ILO1) and draw on relevant theory to inform their analysis (ILO4). Students must develop a critical assessment of that context considering existing academic research within the field, and to appraise the ethics and appropriateness of management practice in that context, and its impact on organisational stakeholders (ILO5&6).
• Evaluate relevant management theory and ideas in terms of its usefulness in studying your chosen topic and context. Students are encouraged to Identify knowledge gaps or limitations in existing theory, and to make analytically informed recommendations for developing theory and conducting future research (ILO5&6).
Summative Assessment Question
How does management and organisation theory enable us to examine, critique and interrogate the structures and practices of a real-life organisation?
The purpose of this essay is to assess your knowledge and understanding of theory, concepts and perspectives covered on the unit. and your ability to apply this knowledge to a real-life organisation.
Essay Brief:
• Drawing on theory covered in the unit, you are requested to critically analyse an organisation of your choice…
• It is best to choose one or perhaps two topics to focus on, otherwise you are likely to achieve sufficient depth to your analysis…
• The organisation you choose can come from the public, private or third sector…
• Remember that you will need to research this organisation, and provide reliable evidence for your claims, so it’s probably best to choose an organisation that is well-known and has been written about in the media/academic scholarship…
• Make sure you address the requirements of the question: it asks you to
“examine, critique and interrogate” an organisation. Your essay should engage critically with the organisation…
• We also expect to see critical engagement with theory…
We recommend you pay close attention to the Summative Assessment Criteria when planning and writing your essay. These are listed below:
1. Explain and discuss key management and organisational theory and concepts and demonstrate an awareness of multiple perspectives and critical debates within the field.
2. Apply management and organisational theory to real-life scenarios (e.g. in the form of academic case studies and contemporary organisations).
3. Analyse management using relevant theory.
4. Demonstrate an ability to develop critical and theoretically informed arguments regarding the ethics and appropriateness of management practice and of existing management theory.
5. Evaluate management and organisational theory and its impact on individuals and society.
6. Identify and describe a range of issues related to the study and practice of management and how organisations impact on and interact with their stakeholders.
7. Explain and discuss key management and organisational theory and concepts and demonstrate an awareness of multiple perspectives and critical debates within the field.
8. Apply management and organisational theory to real-life scenarios (e.g. in the form of academic case studies and contemporary organisations).
9. Analyse management using relevant theory.
10. Demonstrate an ability to develop critical and theoretically informed arguments regarding the ethics and appropriateness of management practice and of existing management theory.
11. Evaluate management and organisational theory and its impact on individuals and society.
Further details
• Format Microsoft word, Font size 12, 1.5 line spaced. Readable front (e.g., Calibri, Arial)
• Cover page on instructions for submitting will be provided on Blackboard closer to the deadline…
• Abstract, table of contents, appendices etc, are not needed but it’s OK if you wish to include these…
• Reference list (and any of the above) are not included in the word count. You need to cite in Bristol Harvard Referencing and ensure that both your citations and reference list abide by the Harvard Referencing conventions.
• There is no ideal number of references for an essay like this, but we would expect to see in excess of 25 academic sources (e.g., textbooks, academic books, and journal articles)
• You will also draw on non-academic sources (e.g. company websites and reports, media articles) as part of your research into your organisation, state the access date in your reference list.
Reading
Core Textbook
The following prescribed core textbook will be your primary resource for this unit:
Bratton, J (2015) Introduction to Work and Organizational Behaviour. Palgrave Macmillan.
However, some weeks other textbooks will be used instead. This will be clearly outlined in your Resource List on Blackboard. Additional core readings will be listed by the week also. Make sure that you set aside enough time to read these.
Recommended academic journals.
Alongside the core and supplementary texts, we strongly encourage you to extend your reading into relevant and appropriate scholarly peer-reviewed journals. In particular, the electronic journal access provided by the library will support you in expanding your reading for the summative assignment.
Relevant journals, which cover good quality articles relevant to the topic areas covered in this unit, include:
• Academy of Management Review
• British Journal of Management
• Culture and Organization
• Ephemera
• Economy & Society
• Gender, Work & Organization
• Human Relations
• Human resource Management Journal
• International Journal of Human Resource Management
• International Journal of Management Reviews
• Journal of Cultural Economy
• Journal of Management Inquiry
• Journal of Management Studies
• Management Learning
• Organization
• Organization Studies
• Work, Employment and Society
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of relevant journals. There are many more you can use, but this small sample will provide you with an indication of the types of academic journals that we expect to see referenced in your assignment.
You are required to read widely and integrate that reading into your ideas and understanding of the topics, not least for the purpose of completing the summative assignment at a satisfactory level. This means you must read good quality scholarly literature that you have sourced independently, i.e., do your own literature searches in conjunction with using some of the references provided in this handbook. Doing so will significantly enhance your chances of success in the summative assignment.