personal experience of management and organisations
Order Description
Throughout the module, and from your previous educational and work experiences, you will be exposed to various activities associated with Organisations and People, such as being recruited, managing employees, training and development, dealing with work-place relationships etc. Think about how management and organisation behaviour relates to you: have you been an employee; have you been a manager; how have you dealt with work-related conflict, perhaps during group-based assignments at university or work? These are all potential areas for you to reflect on. You are now required to write a reflective essay that

(a) makes use of the relevant theory to provide a detailed analysis of one aspect of your experience of management and organisation behaviour and

(b) considers the implications of your analysis for the effective management of people within organisations.

In practice, this means answering four simple questions (these may even be the headings you use in your individual assignment!):

1. What happened to me eg during a job interview, training session, appraisal meeting, or during group work? Give brief details of the context.
2. What worked well/not so well? Why might this have happened? What did I learn? What would I do differently next time?
3. What theories of management can explain what happened?
4. What could line managers and/or Human Resource professionals do to ensure things (continue to) work well in future and/or prevent such problems?

For example, your reflective essay may address one of the following topics:

1. A management training and development session
2. A performance review with your supervisor/line manager
3. A grievance with a colleague
4. Being selected for a talent development programme
5. Conflict within your group (at university or work organisation)
6. Cross-generational working
7. Issues surrounding group leadership/management (or a lack thereof!)
8. The impact of culture on group work

You need not be constrained by this list and should focus on a topic that you are interested in studying (and writing about) in detail.

A high quality reflective essay will involve:

• Meeting the terms of reference (objectives a and b)
• Excellent presentation and layout (style and structure)
• The ability to undertake constructive/honest self-reflection (openness, clarity and realism of reflective critique)
• The ability to analyse and provide explanations, linking to relevant literature
• An overall grasp and understanding of the processes involved.

Assignment guidelines:

• This essay should be word-processed
• Its length should be around 3000 words (10% allowance, and excluding references and appendices)
• It should be presented in essay format – please see guidelines
• It must include correct and appropriate referencing – including Tables and Figures
• It must be submitted both electronically (through Blackboard) and a paper copy handed into the College Admin Centre by 4.00pm on Monday 16th November 2015
• Requests for extensions will ONLY be granted due to SERIOUS personal mitigating circumstances, supported by appropriate evidence (eg medical certificate)

Marking Scheme for individual assignment (assessment criteria)

A ‘first class’ performance will include … A ‘failed’ performance will include…
A 70+ B 60s C 50s D/E/F
REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Clear objectives for the essay No objectives or agenda stated
Appropriate structure and focus Messy, fragmented structure, lacks focus
Addresses all aspects of assignment brief Fails to address all aspects of assignment
Excellent presentation, free from errors Poor presentation, spelling/typing mistakes
Correct referencing throughout Inadequate/incorrect referencing in text and list of references
Appropriate review of relevant literature Superficial, descriptive & limited literature review
Presents ‘new’ material Merely re-presents lecture notes
Excellent personal content eg thoughtful, critical, well researched, & referenced Poor personal content eg no critical reflection, research, inadequate /incorrect referencing,
Demonstrates clear grasp of personal action and relevant topic Demonstrates little understanding of personal action and topic
Uses real examples from experience, to relate theory to practice Makes no attempt to use any examples or draw on experience