Research Report

The final report on your topic will be written up as a seminar report. That written report should begin with the broad research topic which is followed by each individual component.

Organisation of the research report – a key ingredient to writing a successful report involves the planning or organising stage. Organising can help you to sort out your ideas and to present your report in the order that communicates best to your readers. Your essay is to be structured and written as a business report. It, therefore, must begin with a Management Summary within which you state in stark form (i.e. unsupported by argument) what you are asserting in this report and you must do that in less than two pages.

As already stated above, you begin the main body of the report with some general background on the broad research topic. This introduction should end with a brief paragraph outlining the plan of the rest of the essay What follows is the specific issues of each individual component which were considered. As for any good business report these components should be structured into sections and sub-sections and the heading for these should be in the Table of Contents. In these individual components, the in-depth discussion of the relevant issues is elaborated based on the existing literature and/or data. You must provide in-text references to your sources. The last section of the report contains a brief summary followed by a complete list of references (Harvard referencing) that are cited in the text of the essay. Follow the standard referencing method consistently.

Suggested Structure and limits are as follows:

·       Management Summary: ideally one page but no more than two. 500

·       Sections 1: Introduction 500 words,

·       Section 2: Main body of the essay consisting of each of the individual components limit each component to approximately 900 words each(3,600 in total)

·       Sections 3: Conclusions 400 words,

·       Summary and Complete List of References (5-15 references). (Harvard referencing)

·       (5,000 words in total)

Topic: Motivation: Content Theories

General Framework

Describe the difference between a content theory and a process theory of motivation citing examples of how some process theories, under criticism, have been reduced to content theories.

Individual Components

1.    Discuss Maslow’s theory and detail the criticisms that have been levelled against it. (900 words)

2.    Discuss Hertzberg’s theory and detail the criticism that have been levelled against it. (900 words)

3.    Discuss McGregor’s theory of work motivation. (900 words)

4.    Behavioural science research expects to be scrutinized and criticism levelled against it. Summarise with examples from Hofstede’s work through to the theories of motivation. (900 words)

5.    (5,000 words in total)

Harvard referencing

Management and Organisations in a Global Environment

1. Choose 3 activities from week 1 to week 5(can only pick 1 activity from the week). Based on the activities, you are required actively to engage with the material by writing a short discussion of how the material that was prescribed relates to the topic(s) of this subject and how it relates to your own personal experience. In the blog, you mention any extra material relevant to the activity that you have researched on the net.

2. Each blog should be in two sections(250-300 words):
Section 1: lists the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed activity.
Section 2: you apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to the topic(s) of this subject.

3. After finished 3 blogs, two blogs selected to complete a report(1000 words)
Report instruction:
1. Executive summary
2. Introduction
3. Main body
4. Conclusion
5. References

Instruction:
In your blog, you should address the following two sections:
(1) Section 1: list the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed e-learning activity.
(2) Section 2: apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to the topic(s) of this subject.
Visit the following URLs, and use ‘Questions to consider’ to guide your thinking.

Week 1:
Activity 1: Ford and Taylorism
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdmNbqtDdI
Questions to consider:
1.    Would workers in Australia, America or Europe accept the Taylorism in this form today?
2.    Consider the design of scripts for use in Call Centres, can you see Taylorism in that? Explain.
3.    This ‘clip’ is showing history from 100 years ago.  Some would say that ‘the world has moved on’ and these ideas are out of date.  However, could there be parts of the world today for which these ideas might be just what they need? Explain.

Activity 2: Fayolism as the Necessary Complement of Taylorism – Pearson, Norman M. (Feb., 1945) The American Political Science Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 , pp. 68-80
URL: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1948832?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103317946303
Questions to consider:
1.    While some would argue that this paper, now 70 years beyond its publication date is ‘out of date’, could there still be value in the ideas expressed here in other parts of the world?

Week 2:
Activity 1: Thomas Friedman on Globalisation; 3 Eras of Globalisation; World is flat
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp4znWHvsjU

Questions to consider:
1.    What would be some of the key drawbacks or risks of living in the flat world of Globalisation 3.0 as Friedman describes it?
2.    Do you agree with Friedman’s iron rule of the flat world? Explain.
3.    Is the level of globalisation uniform across the world? Explain.

Activity 2: Pankaj Ghemawat on Globalisation
URL: http://www.ted.com/talks/pankaj_ghemawat_actually_the_world_isn_t_flat.html
Questions to consider:
1.    Has your view on globalisation changed after listening to Professor Ghemawat? Explain.
2.    Consider where you have seen the fears that people have about globalisation. Do you think these fears may subside with some data points that may suggest otherwise?

Activity 3: Online tool to explore different countries’ 5 dimensions by Hofstede
URL: http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html
Questions to consider:
1.    How does the Australian culture compare to other world cultures (eg. Your home country or other countries that you have visited)?
2.    Do you agree with the survey results for the Australian culture? Why or why not?

Activity 4: ‘The myth of national culture’ – Counter argument to Hofstede’s work by Professor Brendan McSweeney at Royal Holloway, University of London
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_l84Dj2eXY
Questions to consider:
1.    Do you agree with Professor McSweeney’s view on national cultures? Why or why not? After viewing the survey result done by Hofstede on your home country, who do you think offers a more compelling argument on national cultures? Can a single culture be used to determine the actions of entire population?

Activity 5: Riding the waves of culture’ – Talk given by Fons Trompenaars at TEDxAmsterdam
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmyfjKjcbm0
Questions to consider:
1.    Consider your experience with cultural conflict or culture shock. What were the different viewp01oints that you had to reconcile? And how did you overcome the differences?
2.    What would be the benefits of connecting different viewp01oints as Trompenaar suggests?

Activity 6: Building a cross-cultural web design for a wider audience’ (Christian Arno in Design on 22nd Jun 2010)
URL: http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/06/22/building-a-cross-cultural-web-design-for-a-wider-audience/
Questions to consider:
1.    Can the concept of High and Low Context cultures be applied to other areas of business? – marketing and advertising, PR, customer and supplier relationship management, etc.

Week 3:
Activity 1: Corporate culture and strategy
URL: ‘Culture clash: When corporate culture fights strategy, it can cost you’  http://knowledge.wp01carey.asu.edu/article.cfm?aid=31
Questions to consider:
1.    Can you think of any examples where you experienced various culture types (Market, Clan, Adhocracy and Hierarchy culture) as a consumer to, or employee of, an organisation?
2.    If so, what is your evaluation of the aligment between its corporate culture and strategy?

Activity 2: Definition of culture
URL: What is Organizational Culture? And Why Should We Care? http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/05/what-is-organizational-culture/
Questions to consider:
1.    Why do you think people’s definition of culture may vary?
2.    Which definition of culture do you agree with most and why?

Activity 3: Corporate culture instilled in HRM practices and customer satisfaction
URLs:
(1) ‘Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit–And You Should Too’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQLTQAv5JQA
(2) ‘Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh talks about building a culture-based company’  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdKZapHZL4c
Question to consider:
1.    What does building a culture-based company entail?

Activity 4: Toyota’s corporate culture and the problem of spreading its culture
URL: ‘MIT’s Steven Spear Discusses Toyota’s Corporate Culture’ (Interview on Bloomberg TV) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCaKFPjfG7s
Question to consider:
1.    How would you describe Toyota’s culture using the seven dimensions of organisational culture and/ or the Cultural Web?

Activity 5:Cultural web and its use in practice (call centre)

URL: ‘Using cultural models for changing corporate culture’
http://www.changefactory.com.au/articles/change-management/using-cultural-models-for-changing-corporate-culture/

Questions to consider:
1.    Do you agree with the author’s view on the effectiveness of cultural web model in changing corporate culture (compared to other models of corporate culture) as presented in the article? Why or why not?
2.    What would be the benefits of using typology type instead?

Week 4:
Activity 1: Structure and strategy
URL: BCG’s Yves Morieux view on Organisation Designx http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm7d1dzOKmw
Questions to consider:
1.    Yves Morieux claims that structure follows strategy. Is this always the case?

Activity 2: Holacracy
URL: Zappos just abolished bosses. Inside tech’s latest management craze. http://www.vox.com/2014/7/11/5876235/silicon-valleys-latest-management-craze-holacracy-explained
Questions to consider:
1.    What’s your understanding of holacracy? How would you describe it compared to bureaucracy and team-based structure?
2.    Discuss how Contingency Factors of Organisational Design are at work in the case of Zappos?
3.    In what ways do you think innovative culture is related to (agile) organisational structure?

Week 5:
Activity 1: The Milgram Experiment
URL:
(1) Milgram Experiment –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk
(2) Milgram Experiment replicated in Australia (Psychology study by La Trobe University in the 1970s) – http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3489852.htm

Questions to consider:
1.    To what extent would you be capable of inflicting real pain (physical, mental and/or emotional) on another human being?

Activity 2: Solomon Asch and Group Conformity
URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuvGh_n3I_M
Questions to consider:
1.    Does your own personal decision-making always reflect an objective process?
2.    Does the desire to be accepted as a part of a group leave one susceptible to conforming to the group’s norms?
3.    Identify and discuss situational factors that can enable a group to exert pressure strong enough to change a member’s attitude and behaviour.

Management and Organisations in a Global Environment

1. Choose 3 activities from week 1 to week 5(can only pick 1 activity from the week). Based on the activities, you are required actively to engage with the material by writing a short discussion of how the material that was prescribed relates to the topic(s) of this subject and how it relates to your own personal experience. In the blog, you mention any extra material relevant to the activity that you have researched on the net.

2. Each blog should be in two sections(250-300 words):
Section 1: lists the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed activity.
Section 2: you apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to the topic(s) of this subject.

3. After finished 3 blogs, two blogs selected to complete a report(1000 words)
Report instruction:
1. Executive summary
2. Introduction
3. Main body
4. Conclusion
5. References

Instruction:
In your blog, you should address the following two sections:
(1) Section 1: list the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed e-learning activity.
(2) Section 2: apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to the topic(s) of this subject.
Visit the following URLs, and use ‘Questions to consider’ to guide your thinking.

Week 1:
Activity 1: Ford and Taylorism
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdmNbqtDdI
Questions to consider:
1.    Would workers in Australia, America or Europe accept the Taylorism in this form today?
2.    Consider the design of scripts for use in Call Centres, can you see Taylorism in that? Explain.
3.    This ‘clip’ is showing history from 100 years ago.  Some would say that ‘the world has moved on’ and these ideas are out of date.  However, could there be parts of the world today for which these ideas might be just what they need? Explain.

Activity 2: Fayolism as the Necessary Complement of Taylorism – Pearson, Norman M. (Feb., 1945) The American Political Science Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 , pp. 68-80
URL: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1948832?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103317946303
Questions to consider:
1.    While some would argue that this paper, now 70 years beyond its publication date is ‘out of date’, could there still be value in the ideas expressed here in other parts of the world?

Week 2:
Activity 1: Thomas Friedman on Globalisation; 3 Eras of Globalisation; World is flat
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp4znWHvsjU

Questions to consider:
1.    What would be some of the key drawbacks or risks of living in the flat world of Globalisation 3.0 as Friedman describes it?
2.    Do you agree with Friedman’s iron rule of the flat world? Explain.
3.    Is the level of globalisation uniform across the world? Explain.

Activity 2: Pankaj Ghemawat on Globalisation
URL: http://www.ted.com/talks/pankaj_ghemawat_actually_the_world_isn_t_flat.html
Questions to consider:
1.    Has your view on globalisation changed after listening to Professor Ghemawat? Explain.
2.    Consider where you have seen the fears that people have about globalisation. Do you think these fears may subside with some data points that may suggest otherwise?

Activity 3: Online tool to explore different countries’ 5 dimensions by Hofstede
URL: http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html
Questions to consider:
1.    How does the Australian culture compare to other world cultures (eg. Your home country or other countries that you have visited)?
2.    Do you agree with the survey results for the Australian culture? Why or why not?

Activity 4: ‘The myth of national culture’ – Counter argument to Hofstede’s work by Professor Brendan McSweeney at Royal Holloway, University of London
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_l84Dj2eXY
Questions to consider:
1.    Do you agree with Professor McSweeney’s view on national cultures? Why or why not? After viewing the survey result done by Hofstede on your home country, who do you think offers a more compelling argument on national cultures? Can a single culture be used to determine the actions of entire population?

Activity 5: Riding the waves of culture’ – Talk given by Fons Trompenaars at TEDxAmsterdam
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmyfjKjcbm0
Questions to consider:
1.    Consider your experience with cultural conflict or culture shock. What were the different viewpoints that you had to reconcile? And how did you overcome the differences?
2.    What would be the benefits of connecting different viewpoints as Trompenaar suggests?

Activity 6: Building a cross-cultural web design for a wider audience’ (Christian Arno in Design on 22nd Jun 2010)
URL: http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/06/22/building-a-cross-cultural-web-design-for-a-wider-audience/
Questions to consider:
1.    Can the concept of High and Low Context cultures be applied to other areas of business? – marketing and advertising, PR, customer and supplier relationship management, etc.

Week 3:
Activity 1: Corporate culture and strategy
URL: ‘Culture clash: When corporate culture fights strategy, it can cost you’  http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?aid=31
Questions to consider:
1.    Can you think of any examples where you experienced various culture types (Market, Clan, Adhocracy and Hierarchy culture) as a consumer to, or employee of, an organisation?
2.    If so, what is your evaluation of the aligment between its corporate culture and strategy?

Activity 2: Definition of culture
URL: What is Organizational Culture? And Why Should We Care? http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/05/what-is-organizational-culture/
Questions to consider:
1.    Why do you think people’s definition of culture may vary?
2.    Which definition of culture do you agree with most and why?

Activity 3: Corporate culture instilled in HRM practices and customer satisfaction
URLs:
(1) ‘Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit–And You Should Too’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQLTQAv5JQA
(2) ‘Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh talks about building a culture-based company’  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdKZapHZL4c
Question to consider:
1.    What does building a culture-based company entail?

Activity 4: Toyota’s corporate culture and the problem of spreading its culture
URL: ‘MIT’s Steven Spear Discusses Toyota’s Corporate Culture’ (Interview on Bloomberg TV) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCaKFPjfG7s
Question to consider:
1.    How would you describe Toyota’s culture using the seven dimensions of organisational culture and/ or the Cultural Web?

Activity 5:Cultural web and its use in practice (call centre)

URL: ‘Using cultural models for changing corporate culture’
http://www.changefactory.com.au/articles/change-management/using-cultural-models-for-changing-corporate-culture/

Questions to consider:
1.    Do you agree with the author’s view on the effectiveness of cultural web model in changing corporate culture (compared to other models of corporate culture) as presented in the article? Why or why not?
2.    What would be the benefits of using typology type instead?

Week 4:
Activity 1: Structure and strategy
URL: BCG’s Yves Morieux view on Organisation Designx http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm7d1dzOKmw
Questions to consider:
1.    Yves Morieux claims that structure follows strategy. Is this always the case?

Activity 2: Holacracy
URL: Zappos just abolished bosses. Inside tech’s latest management craze. http://www.vox.com/2014/7/11/5876235/silicon-valleys-latest-management-craze-holacracy-explained
Questions to consider:
1.    What’s your understanding of holacracy? How would you describe it compared to bureaucracy and team-based structure?
2.    Discuss how Contingency Factors of Organisational Design are at work in the case of Zappos?
3.    In what ways do you think innovative culture is related to (agile) organisational structure?

Week 5:
Activity 1: The Milgram Experiment
URL:
(1) Milgram Experiment –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk
(2) Milgram Experiment replicated in Australia (Psychology study by La Trobe University in the 1970s) – http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3489852.htm

Questions to consider:
1.    To what extent would you be capable of inflicting real pain (physical, mental and/or emotional) on another human being?

Activity 2: Solomon Asch and Group Conformity
URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuvGh_n3I_M
Questions to consider:
1.    Does your own personal decision-making always reflect an objective process?
2.    Does the desire to be accepted as a part of a group leave one susceptible to conforming to the group’s norms?
3.    Identify and discuss situational factors that can enable a group to exert pressure strong enough to change a member’s attitude and behaviour.