The Task:
Locally, nationally and internationally, there are many organisations whose failure has been determined at least in part by key organisational behaviour and people factors. Recently, the media has reported on a number of organisations that have engaged in unethical (wrong or bad) or grossly incompetent behaviour where organisational behaviour and people issues played a key role. For example, culture, leadership, and motivation and reward systems were antecedents to Volkswagen’s disgrace in 2015, which is having severe consequences for its stakeholders.
What you are required to do:
1. Choose a real case of an organisational failure (e.g., unethical or grossly incompetent conduct). Describe briefly what happened, the context, and the consequences of the failure for the organisation’s stakeholders.
2. Analyse the organisational behaviour factors that contributed to the failure. These may be individual, group or organisational factors. Your analysis should include a relevant analytical framework (e.g. SWOT or stakeholder analysis).
3. Describe what the organisation did post-failure to prevent a reoccurrence and to recover the organisation’s reputation and stakeholder’s trust. Evaluate the effectiveness of the organisation’s response to the failure, and make recommendations for what could have been done better and/or moving forward. In making these recommendations, be pragmatic and specific (i.e. make recommendations that are viable and within the organisation’s capacity to implement).
In conducting your analysis:
1. Apply relevant models, concepts, theories and literature in the field of organisational behaviour. You are expected to incorporate relevant research and theory from the broader organisational behaviour literature (e.g., journal articles and/or books), not just the text and course materials (in addition to ‘other’ sources, your reference list should include a minimum of ten journal articles, which can include the five artices you examined in Assignment One); Page 9 of 9
2. Conduct desk research to obtain information and/or data and examples to illustrate and support your analysis, evaluation and recommendations (e.g. media reports, interviews, independent investigation reports, organisational reports, etc.). Choosing a Case: • The organisational failure must have occurred in the last 10 years.
• It is recommended that you choose a case where the failure was of considerable magnitude. That is, the failure caused some kind of harm to one or more of the organisation’s stakeholders (e.g. employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, the community, the organisation’s board etc.). • You may not analyse a case that has been used in class (e.g. Google, Nike), nor may you derive your analysis from an existing case study. You will be advised by your LIC the cases planned for the unit.
• Beyond these requirements, the choice of case is at your discretion. Students are expected to select a case they are familiar with (e.g. from personal experience, or through their network). Note, all ‘personal’ case information will be treated as private and confidential. Students who have difficulty identifying a case from their own experience should discuss with their LIC, who will provide guidance re. suitable cases.
2. Project Report. Your project report should not exceed 2,500 words. Appendices and references are not included in the word count; however you cannot assume that appendicised material will be read in detail. Please include a word count on the front page of your assignment and ensure that you reference appropriately. Assignments below/exceeding the word limit in excess of 10% will be penalised