BUSN113: Managing People and Organisations

Assessment Overview

The purpose of this assessment is to identify the key external and internal factors that impact on the practical management of people and organisations, explain the impact on managing your organisation, and generate recommendations relevant to management functions.

Context

A common form of communication used in a business is the memorandum (memo). Memos are written by everyone from junior managers to CEOs. It is important that you learn to master this basic communication form. Memos are generally written to solve problems by informing the reader about new information or by persuading the reader to take action. The most important feature of a memo is that it be concise yet complete and informative.

One format for presenting your business ideas is to write a memo and attach additional information for further reading. In this case, the audience is your CEO, who has asked you to research the external and internal business environment of your company. Your CEO wants you to make "recommendations." Remember—all CEOs are sceptics—they won’t believe your recommendations unless you back it up by carefully explaining potential business problems and presenting your business plans. However, your CEO doesn't want to read 10 pages! Your challenge is to present the important and relevant information in a 400-word memo with attached 800-word research evidence for your CEO to follow up.

Instructions

This individual assessment requires you to choose one topic from a given article, identify and analyse the key external and internal factors that impact the practical management of people and organisations, explain the impact on managing your organisation, and generate relevant recommendations to management functions.

Remember, you need to use this memo to inform your CEO that some changes need to be made in your company in order to adapt to the changing business environment. Your business memo is a brief presentation of your research evidence. Remind your CEO to read your attached research evidence where he/she can find more details.

Process for Completing the Assignment

Step 1:

a) Read the provided article (Future Proofing) and choose ONE topic you are particularly interested in.

b) See the Director’s Playbook: The Future of Work research report and read the pages that are relevant to your chosen topic from the list below:

Topics

• AI and Outsourcing (p.8–9)

• Human Capital (p.18–19)

• Purpose (p.12–13)

• Wellbeing at work (p.24–25)

• Move to Metrics (p.32–33, p.13)

Step 2:

a) Refer to Week 1 slides and concepts to find the common internal and external factors that impact on the practical management of people and organisations. Note that not all these factors are relevant to your chosen topic.

b) Refer to Week 2 slides and concepts to review how to write the business memo.

Step 3:

Identify internal and external factors that are closely relevant to your chosen topic.

Step 4:

Conduct research and analyse how these factors impact your chosen topic in relation to management functions. You can use research journals or quality business sources.

Step 5:

Generate recommendations relevant to at least one management function based on your analysis conducted in Step 4. Explain if your company should improve on planning, organising, leading, or controlling and how you recommend to implement them. Remember, the more specific your action plans are, the more likely your CEO will be convinced.

Step 6:

Drawing on literature, evaluate the risks and benefits of your recommendations. This can include costs, benefits, and ethical implications of your recommendations.

Step 7:

Keep record of the collection of resources and screenshots of key processes that you completed for this assignment (e.g., screen dump of my search and retrieval of journal articles, etc.)

Step 8:

Double-check your assignment to make sure you do not have paragraphs directly copied from other sources. Make sure all sources are correctly referenced following this guide: Home - Referencing - Library guides at Australian Catholic University