Your task for this assignment is to explain what steps the organization should take by reviewing the standard action research and organizational development steps covered in the background materials
Action research is the process of inquiry that is used to assist an individual or organization in solving a problem or improving a situation. For each scenario below, think about the reasons why things did not work out well for the company and more specifically, think about action research in terms of developing a plan for action.
Your task for this assignment is to explain what steps the organization should take by reviewing the standard action research and organizational development steps covered in the background materials. Try to assess which key step is missing in the scenario below.
Then write a 4- to 5-page paper using three scholarly sources from the required and optional readings list addressing the following for the scenario below:
The Perils of XYZ Widget Company
Sales have gone down at the XYZ Widget Company and nobody in the organization, including the CEO, seems to know why. They decide to hire you, an organizational development consultant, to do some action research. You and the CEO spend a lot of time discussing how to proceed and create a contract. The contract specifies that you will limit the scope to finding factors that led to the decrease in sales, come up with a plan of action within one month, and answer the following questions using the background data from the scenario below.
Scenario:
XYZ Widget Company has lost 20% of its market share over the past two years resulting in a sales loss of 1.5 million in 2017 and 2 million in 2018 for a total of $3.5 million. Each widget costs the consumer $29.99 to purchase, and the average customer will purchase three widgets annually. Each XYZ widget is produced for $8 dollars and is of higher quality than the competition.
One competitor (Jim’s Widgets) in the widget industry with a similar product has increased market share by 12% due to a lower production cost of $4 per unit and price to the consumer of $9.99.
The CEO of XYZ Widget Company is reluctant to lower prices and has had to eliminate commissions and bonuses of sales employees who exceed goals. In addition, seven of the 21-member sales team were laid off for non-performance of sales goals.
Develop an Action Research Strategy Plan covering the following Action Research Phases in a report to the CEO.
Data gathering and Diagnosis
Feedback
Planning Change
Intervention
Evaluation
What are the reasons behind the decrease in sales?
What actions or strategy (data/sales/changes) should be taken to turn sales around and regain market share?
What strategy should be taken to increase employee morale?
How long should this strategy take to complete?
Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
Case Assignments are to be prepared in Microsoft Word and should be 4-5 pages in length, in addition to a cover page (course name and number, module number, session name, student name, and date prepared) and reference list (double-spaced, 12 pt. type, Times New Roman font). The paper should include a 2- to 3-sentence introduction, body, and 2- to 3-sentence conclusion in addition to Trident University International’s cover page and a reference list page in APA format.
Support your research with three references that include at least one reference from a peer-reviewed academic journal or textbook found in Trident University’s online library.
Report content should include a brief introduction to the assignment, background information about the organization being studied, the organizational chart, and your discussion of organizational structure in terms of the concepts or theories being applied in the assignment.
Use subtitles, bullets, and tables to improve presentation values.
Attention is to be given to citing sources of information in-text as well as in the reference list at the end of reports. Citation and reference style instructions are available at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/.
Submit your report in the Case Dropbox for this module on or before the date due, as indicated in the TLC Homepage.
Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under My Resources in the TLC Portal.
Since you are engaging in research, be sure to cite and reference the sources in APA format. The paper should be written in the third person; this means words like “I,” “we,” and “you” are not appropriate. For more information, see Differences Between First and Third Person.
Submit the presentation through the appropriate Dropbox by the due date. Your submission will be graded with the assignment’s grading rubric.
Grading Note: Students’ Quantitative Reasoning skills were assessed in the Signature Assignment in Case 3 of MGT301 at the Introduction Level. In MGT401, they were assessed in a second Signature Assignment at the Reinforced Level of Quantitative Reasoning. This assignment is the Signature Assignment at the Emphasized Level of Quantitative Reasoning.
Your submission for this Signature Assignment will be assessed on the criteria found in the grading rubric for this assignment to assess Quantitative Reasoning at the Emphasized Level.
Citation and reference style instructions are available at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/. Also, see Trident University’s Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper.
You will find the following useful as you critique sources:
Cornell University. (2015). Critically analyzing information sources: Critical appraisal and analysis. Retrieved from http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/skill26.htm
Cornell University. (2014). Evaluating Web sites: Criteria and tools. Retrieved from http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/webeval.html
MGT423 Organizational Development and Change
Module 1 SLP
ACTION RESEARCH AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
For the Session Long Project in this class, you will be applying the principles of organizational development to an organization you currently work for or have worked for in the past. For this first SLP, think carefully about the background readings and how they might apply to a specific organizational situation or problem that you have experienced firsthand. Then write a 2- to 3-page paper answering the following questions:
What do you think the biggest problem your current organization or one of the previous organizations you worked for faces? Why do you think management has had difficulty with this problem?
Do you think this problem could be mitigated by hiring an organizational development consultant based on what you’ve read in the background materials? Why or why not? Make sure to cite some of the readings in your answer.
Of the action research and organizational development steps listed in the required readings, which ones do you think would be the more challenging steps that an organizational development consultant would face coming into your organization? Explain your reasoning and cite at least one of the required background readings.
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under My Resources in the TLC portal.
MGT423 Organizational Development and Change
Module 2 CASE
ACTION RESEARCH AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
For the Session Long Project in this class, you will be applying the principles of organizational development to an organization you currently work for or have worked for in the past. For this first SLP, think carefully about the background readings and how they might apply to a specific organizational situation or problem that you have experienced firsthand. Then write a 2- to 3-page paper answering the following questions:
What do you think the biggest problem your current organization or one of the previous organizations you worked for faces? Why do you think management has had difficulty with this problem?
Do you think this problem could be mitigated by hiring an organizational development consultant based on what you’ve read in the background materials? Why or why not? Make sure to cite some of the readings in your answer.
Of the action research and organizational development steps listed in the required readings, which ones do you think would be the more challenging steps that an organizational development consultant would face coming into your organization? Explain your reasoning and cite at least one of the required background readings.
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under My Resources in the TLC portal.
MGT423 Organizational Development and Change
Module 2 SLP
LARGE GROUP INTERVENTIONS
For this assignment, continue to write about the current organization you work for or one that you worked for in the past. Before writing this paper, make sure to thoroughly review the background readings. Think carefully about how Open Space Technology and Future Search could be used at your organization. Then write a 3-page paper addressing the following questions. Make sure to cite at least three of the required readings in your paper:
What issue facing your organization would be most appropriately addressed using Future Search? Explain the issue and why Future Search could effectively address this issue.
If you organized a Future Search Conference to address the issue identified in Question 1 above, who would you include in the initial planning before the conference? Who you invite to the conference? How many people would you invite, and why? Any other specifics planning details that you would address to ensure the success of the conference?
What issue facing your organization would be most appropriately addressed using Open Space Technology? This should be a different issue than the one you discussion in Question 1. Explain the issue and why Open Space Technology could effectively address this issue.
If you organized an Open Space Technology Event to address the issue identified in Question 3 above, who would you include in the initial planning before the conference? Who you invite to the conference? How many total people would you invite, and why? Any other specifics planning details that you would address to ensure the success of the event?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under My Resources in the TLC portal.
MGT423 Organizational Development and Change
Module 3 CASE
JOB REDESIGN
Case Assignment
In the background materials you had a chance to read about the traditional “top down” approach of job redesign as well as the newer “bottom up” approach of job crafting. Before starting on this assignment, make sure you have thoroughly reviewed the readings and understand the key job redesign and job-crafting strategies. Once you have finished reviewing the background materials, apply what you’ve learned to the specific scenarios and questions below. Make sure to cite at least one of the required readings for each answer and try to cite at least four of the readings in your answer. Your paper should be 4–5 pages in length:
Relax Lines, Inc. is a luxury cruise line that has hired you as a job crafting consultant for two groups of their employees. The first group is the ship crew. The crew have responsibility for safety, navigation, and maintenance of the ship. The second group is the hospitality staff. The hospitality staff is tasked with making sure the passengers are enjoying themselves and are properly entertained with various events that this staff plans and prepares. Before arriving at the cruise line to do interviews and make recommendations, you first need to do some reading on what general approach you will use. As a first step, review Dik and Duffy (2012), where they discuss task crafting, relational crafting, and cognitive crafting. Which of these three types of job crafting do you think would be most appropriate for the ship crew, and which one do you think would be most appropriate for the hospitality staff? Also, read up on “job-crafting swap meets” in Wrzesniewski (2014). Do you think a swap meet would be appropriate for either ship crew members or hospitality staff? Any other strategy from Wrzesniewski (2014) that you think would be useful for either pilots or online marketers?
The ABC Corporation has a team of telemarketers. The job description for the telemarketers is pretty basic: They call up potential customers who have visited his company’s web page and requested information about the product. Telemarketers’ performance evaluations depend mostly on their monthly sales as well as customer satisfaction surveys, and they receive monthly feedback reports. Their supervisor gives them some initial training, but these telemarketers have a lot of freedom to choose how and when to call customers. For example, they are free to customize their own sales pitch as long as they don’t mislead potential customers. Also, they are not required to fill out a time card or work at the office (they can work from home, if they want). As long as they are making enough monthly sales they are free to set their own schedules. While the telemarketing team is performing well, the company is concerned about high turnover among telemarketers and wants to do some job enrichment. Which of the five core job dimensions discussed in Bauer and Erdogan (2012) or page 9 of Griffin (2007) do you think should be revised the most during a job redesign intervention? Which ones do you think do not need to be revised? Explain your reasoning and cite some of the required readings in your answer.
Suppose a sports injury clinic has three main practitioners. First, there is a general practitioner doctor who does the basic diagnosis of the injury and works with the patient to come up with an overall treatment program. This doctor also prescribes medicine as needed. Then there is a surgeon who specializes in sports injuries. This doctor only does surgery. Finally, there is a physical therapist who helps patients with exercise programs to help them recover. The owner of the clinic though becomes worried that these three practitioners are becoming bored and dissatisfied with their jobs and there is concern they might all leave unless their jobs change. However, given the high degree of training required for each of their specializations management is not sure how to go about making their jobs less monotonous and more rewarding. In general, would you recommend management undergoes a traditional job redesign approach or a job crafting approach? Which specific job redesign strategy or job crafting strategy would you recommend? For example, if you choose job redesign discuss whether you would recommend job rotation, enlargement, enrichment, etc. If you choose job crafting, refer to one of the specific strategies or interventions discussed in Wrzesniewski (2014) or Dik and Duffy (2012).
Create a table with the definitions of the three main types of job redesign (job enlargement, job rotation, job enrichment) and the three main types of job crafting (task crafting, relational crafting, and cognitive crafting). Then write two paragraphs explaining which of the three types of job crafting are most similar to any of the three types of job redesign, and on what you think are the key differences between job crafting and job redesign based on the definitions in your table.
Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly in 4 to 5 written pages.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under My Resources in the TLC portal.
MGT423 Organizational Development and Change
Module 3 SLP
JOB REDESIGN
As with the Case Assignment, make sure you have thoroughly reviewed the background readings and understand the key concepts of job redesign and job crafting. Then think about your own job and workplace and how these concepts apply to your own work life. Once you have finished reviewing the background readings and have carefully thought about how these concepts relate to your own job, write a 2- to 3-page paper answering the following questions:
Of the three main types of job redesign (job enlargement, job rotation, job enrichment), which one do you think would be the most effective in your current workplace? Explain your reasoning, and cite Bauer and Erdogan (2012) or Griffin (2007) as part of your answer.
Suppose your supervisor decides to use job enrichment to redesign your job. Of the five core job characteristics discussed in Bauer and Erdogan (2012) or page 9 of Griffin (2007), which one do you think should be changed as part of your job redesign?
Which specific job crafting strategy or intervention do you think would be most effective at your organization or for your specific job? Refer to one of the specific strategies or interventions discussed in Wrzesniewski (2014) or Dik and Duffy (2012).
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly in 2 to 3 written pages.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under My Resources in the TLC portal.
MGT423 Organizational Development and Change
Module 4 CASE
APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY
Case Assignment
For this assignment, first carefully review the required background materials. Make sure you remember the standard organizational development approaches covered in Module 1. Then make sure you understand the main principles of Appreciative Inquiry and how they compare to traditional organizational development approaches (action research, problem solving). It is also important to understand what is involved in each of the “5 Ds” – Define, Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny.
When you are finished reviewing the background materials, go through each of the scenarios below and apply what you’ve read to these scenarios. For each scenario, cite at least one of the required readings to support your answer. You should cite at least three of the four required readings in your paper. Your paper should be 4–5 pages in length:
A corporation notices that suddenly turnover in the human resource department has been extremely high. This corporations prides itself on having a dedicated and committed workforce, so this high turnover in one department is highly troubling for this company. Normally the human resource department investigates when there is a high turnover rate in a department. But since the human resource department is now the department with the high turnover rate, the CEO decides that an outside consultant should be hired to investigate the high turnover rate and propose solutions. Should this team use an Appreciative Inquiry consultant, or hire a more traditional Organizational Development consultant? Explain your reasoning with references to the required readings.
An organization hires an Appreciative Inquiry consultant to help the company get back on track and improve the performance of its product design team. The consultant starts by asking members of the team how they would like the team to perform and what their ideal vision of the team would be. The consultant collects all of this input and designs a detailed plan regarding how to achieve this ideal future that the team dreams about. However, once this detailed plan is presented to the team they are all shocked that the consultant came up with such an unrealistic plan. Team members say that the expenses involved in this plan are far beyond their budget, and they would also need to hire many new team members in order to achieve this plan in a realistic time frame. They all agree it would be great if they had the time and money to implement this plan, but they also are in consensus that this plan presented by the consultant is highly unrealistic. What do you think went wrong? What steps do you think the Appreciative Inquiry consultant could have taken to make the consulting process go better? Refer to the specific “5 Ds” of Appreciative Inquiry in your answer.
A group of ten friends decide to start a new social networking company and put their savings together to start this new business. The company grows rapidly for the first five years and morale is very high in the company during this time. Everyone gets along very well and they work together cooperatively in order to continuously improve the company and its services. However, after five years the company stops growing and seems to reach a plateau. Morale seems to drop and there is now noticeable tension between employees including the top leadership team. They are not sure what to do revive the company, so they decide to hire a consultant. Should this team use an Appreciative Inquiry approach or a more traditional organizational development approach? Explain your reasoning with references to the required readings.
A large supermarket chain decides they would like to expand to have an online division where consumers can order online and have their groceries delivered directly to their homes. The supermarket decides to create a special taskforce to come up with a detailed plan on how they should develop and manage the new online division. This taskforce includes a diverse variety of employees including those from the marketing department, accounting department, inventory department, and most of the main departments. These employees do not have much experience working with each other since they are from different departments. After meeting regularly for a few months, the taskforce makes almost no progress and are constantly bickering. Management is concerned that the online division will never get off the ground. To get back on track and find a way to function more smoothly, should this taskforce use an Appreciative Inquiry approach or a more traditional organizational development approach? Explain your reasoning with references to the required readings.
Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under My Resources in the TLC portal.
MGT423 Organizational Development and Change
Module 4 SLP
APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY
For this assignment, think about a team you currently work with or have worked with in the past and how well this team has functioned. Think about both the positives and the negatives, and how the material from the background readings applies to what you’ve experienced. Then write a 2- to 3-page paper answering the following three questions below. Make sure to cite at least one of the required readings for each of your answers, and to cite at least two of the required readings in your paper:
What are some of the key positive aspects of this team? Discuss some specific positives and include some stories of times when the team functioned especially well. Do you think these stories could work in an Appreciative Inquiry approach to come up with a plan to improve the performance of the team?
How is the effectiveness or performance of this team usually measured? Could a traditional organizational development approach help identify problems in this team as well as find ways in which team performance could be improved?
Overall, do you think an Appreciative Inquiry or a traditional organizational development would be better for this team? If your team was to hire a consultant, what type of approach would you want the consultant to take?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you use articles from the Internet, make sure they are from credible sources.
Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under My Resources in the TLC portal.
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