c: business
Order Description
Assignment 2 – Service Management Report 3,000 words (80% weighting).
• You are required to write a report profiling two service organisations.

• The report needs to show how organisations provide services to their service users and how they differ in their approaches. Show what is good, bad or what could be improved.

• You can use organisations in the same business sector or two different sectors.

• The report is required to identify possible refinements or changes that the organisations could make to improve the service/s that they provide; there may be things that could be learnt and copied from one organisation to another.

The expectation is that students provide reflective insights on how services are delivered with a degree of critical analysis.

Students are expected to show where service management theories could be used to improve how organisations are run for both the benefit of the service users and for the organisations.

To complete this assignment you need to choose services that are easily accessible; you will need to visit the organisations to observe their operations. Your visit may include a discussion with a member/s of staff to obtain more information about the service. Making time for visits to organisations is time consuming; students are therefore strongly advised to start working on this assignment in October, really October. 2015.

Students who do interview an employee/manager are advised to include a summary of the interview in the report Appendices.

Your views and arguments should be supported by reference to relevant theories.
Your report should include:

an evaluation of the way in which the service(s) is designed, managed, marketed and delivered.
The style should be that of a management report, see below.
To be submitted as a hard copy to the Admin Office and via Turnitin.
Presentation of Final Report

A typical report format would use the following headings:

Title Page
Contents Page
Introduction (approximately 200 words)
Findings (approximately 2,500 words)
Conclusions and
Recommendations (approximately 300 words)
Bibliography (no word limit)
Appendices (no word limit).

The report can deviate from this format but should follow a logical report structure. All pages and all appendices should be numbered and where appropriate for diagrams, tables et cetera should be individually labelled for ease of reference. This is an ‘academic report’ and as such you are expected to use academic references where appropriate. The report should be done to a professional standard as befitting third year management students.

This assignment can be done individually or in pairs.
Assessment Criteria

Please note that quotes, diagrams, tables and appendices do not constitute part of the word allocation.

The assessment criteria for the assignment will be:

20% Presentation and structure, which includes a concise written style, logical progression of arguments, and adherence to referencing conventions.

15% Evidence of both secondary and primary research into the service organization;

50% A critical evaluation of the organisation’s service operation which examines the following areas with reference to relevant literature;

an evaluation of the nature of the service being provided and the implications this has for management;
an evaluation of the way in which the service is designed, marketed and delivered;
an analysis and evaluation of the role of the employee in the service organisation;

15% Clear conclusions and recommendations based on the critical evaluation discussed in the report.

Submission Date: 26/04/16
Return Date: 19/05/16

Please note you are allowed to hand-in work before the deadline.
Report Feedback to Students
Programme

Lecturer

Year

Submission Date

Module

Student Name

Assignment No.

Student Number

Is this a re-sit?
Yes
No

Assessment Criteria

Criterion:

Excellent
70-100
Good
60-69
Average
50-59
Weak
40-49
Poor
0-39
Presentation and Style
Conforming to Instructions
Content and Knowledge
Thinking/Analysis/Conclusion
Methodology
Practical/Interpersonal Skills
General comment:

Marker
General comments for written work

All assessments (apart from Turnitin based) must be submitted to the Administration Office (RG02) and a receipt obtained. You must keep a copy of your assignment and the mark awarded for your own records.
Please include a front sheet with your name, degree, module, date, assignment number and title, word count, and seminar tutor name. (See Blackboard>Course Documents for a sample cover sheet format to accompany all assessments.)

Standard academic presentation is required, including:
• Concise and appropriate business language
• Fully referenced using the Harvard system which includes a single alphabetical order bibliography containing all sources used for each piece of work
• Unless advised otherwise, all work should be typed and space 1½ , and handed in without any plastic cover, folder or casing. Just staple your work in the top left hand corner.
• Please note that all submitted work must use the Times New Roman font, regular style and font size 12.

For brief guidelines on the required Harvard referencing style please refer to https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/library/help-and-advice/citing-references/citing-references.asp. For more detail, click on the ‘referencing’ tab at the top of ClicLearn.

Late Coursework in the BA/BSc and GMS Scheme