Pick a management topic that is of interest to you.

Find a case study in the UMUC virtual library that involves that management issue. A published case study is any article that discusses in sufficient detail the issue facing an actual organization and how that organization addressed that issue. Some of the databases in the virtual library allow you to search using “case study” as a criteria. However, just because the term case study exists in the title of the article may not mean that the article actually gives you enough information to work with; you have to make that judgment. Two of the best sources of articles – ABI/Inform Global and Business Source Complete – don’t allow for searches using case study as a criteria, so you may have to do some digging. Generally speaking, a published case study should be between 10 and 15 pages in length to give you enough information to work with.
Find and read at least five articles in scholarly journals in the UMUC library databases that discuss that management issue. Develop an annotated reference list (see Additional Information in the Syllabus for discussions about both annotated reference lists and case studies), including the UMUC the library database where the article can be found and the date your retrieved it. For any other sources on the Internet, include the site where you found it and the date your retrieved it. You do not need to include the actual URL. Your information on the management issue also has to come from articles in scholarly journals found in the virtual library, not from the Internet, Wikipedia, newspapers, popular magazines (e.g. Time, Newsweek, Business Week), etc. Academic journals are those usually published by universities or by professional societies (e.g. The Journal of the AMA). Just having the word “journal” in the title of the publication doesn’t actually make it a journal; after all, The Wall Street Journal is still just a daily newspaper.
On the other hand, additional information about the organization you’re studying can come from non-academic sources. While there are many organizations that have been the subject of published case studies and even some (such as, again, the American Red Cross) that are more frequent subjects of case studies, you may need to go outside the journals in the UMUC library for additional information specific to that topic as it relates to that organization. That is acceptable provided the primary source of your information about the case is the study in a scholarly journal in the UMUC library. For additional information on how the organization is addressing the management issue, you can use non-library resources (e.g., the organization’s web site, articles in newspapers and general interest magazines, etc.). Note: do not rely on Wikipedia and other encyclopedia-type sources. These are considered “open sources” and are not subjected to the same form of editorial scrutiny as are newspapers and magazines. In a similar vein, be appropriately skeptical of what organizations post to their web sites; they can sometimes be nothing more than puffery. A statement such as “we have increased sales by 4.5% annually for each of the past five years” is one thing, especially if it is backed up by statistics; a statement of “we are the leading provider of quality widgets” is another matter, especially if there are no statistics provided to support that.