Posted: September 16th, 2017

Managing Business Responsibly Portfolio

Managing Business Responsibly Portfolio

Order Description

This assignment requires you to write a 2000-2500 word original portfolio comprising 5 written responses (plus appendices if used). There is no word count for each of the 5 responses but you are advised to write between 400 and 500 words per item.
Your written entries will build upon seminar activities and online activities which will be released throughout the semester. 8 will be issued in total and you will choose which to present in your portfolio.

348SAM – Portfolio Question One

When I say that I have a ‘Personality clash’ with someone I am really trying to avoid taking responsibility for my part in the relationship.  Discuss this statement with reference to the reading and the seminar work and briefly explain why it is important for a manager in an organisation.

Additional Notes:
1.    Chapter 1 of Burr, V. (2003) Social Constructionism, 2nd Edn. London and New York: Routledge. (text available through the module web) is essential reading
2.    You will also need to participate in the seminar one activity ‘Oh, I can’t get on with Bill’.
3.    You might also want to read the ‘Positioning’ article (link in section 8 of the module web) and Chapter 4 of Burr

348SAM – Portfolio Question Two
Briefly define what a ‘breaching experiment’ is and how awareness of such experiments might be helpful to a manager.   You should also discuss the difficulties in breaking out of patterns of behaviour and conversation once they have become a historical part of a relationship and what alternatives are open to anyone wishing to shift perceptions that others might have of them.
Additional Notes:
1.    To support this task you can experiment by becoming a stranger in your own house in order to observe how this challenges the taken-for-granted assumptions of your room-mates, friends, partner etc.  You should also consider how this challenges you to think about your relationship with those closest to you.  For a short time e.g. ten or fifteen minutes (and please stop earlier if the experiment causes any kind of distress) change your normal pattern of behaviour.  Don’t do the things you normally do and question everything that might normally be taken for granted in the relationship.  You might sit in a different chair to normal or watch a different programme on the television.  Questions like ‘What do you mean?’ and ‘Please explain’ are often useful.
2.    Chapter 1 of Burr provides a useful starting point to the academic discussion.
Resources and links are also provided through moodle.

348SAM – Portfolio Question Three

Present an analysis of an organisational change with which you are familiar using Lewin’s Force Field Analysis.  Then present a brief explanation of Weick and Quinn’s model and discuss how this might alter your understanding of change in organisations. You will need to clearly identify promoting and resisting forces.

Additional Notes:
1.    For this question you will need to read Chapter 1 of the text by Jabri, M. (2012) Managing Organizational Change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
2.    The change being considered does not have to be a huge or strategic one.  The introduction of a new computer system at work or a new way of dealing with customers would be appropriate.  Or if you have no work experience then think about a change in your personal life such as getting someone you know to change their behaviour e.g. to do their fair share of the cleaning, cooking or shopping).  If you are struggling to think of an example then you might also draw upon a scene from a film or television programme.
3.    This task is an extension of the work we have been doing in challenging taken-for-granteds.  Many of the theories and models that are used by business theorists are very useful.  However, if we become very experienced at using them there is a danger that we can only see the world in terms of a Boston Matrix or Porter’s Five Forces etc.  This exercise is designed to encourage you to think critically about such models and theories.

348SAM – Portfolio Question Four
Briefly describe a ‘complacent’, ‘resigned’ and ‘cynical’ conversation that you have been part of or have overheard or have viewed in a film or television programme. Use the prompts in Table 10.1 (Jabri) to outline the behavioural tendencies that you can clearly identify from your cases (you can put these into table form if you wish); some examples of utterances and then extend the table to include what might have been said.

Additional Notes:
1.    For this question you will need to read Chapter 10 of Jabri, M. (2012) Managing Organizational Change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
2.    An example of a cynical conversation might be where you have achieved a coursework mark that is much lower than you expect or where a large order or an important customer has been lost and you blame the lecturer or the customer for the problem.
3.    e.g. complacent conversation might go something like this…
Behavioural Tendencies    Examples of Utterances    What might have been said
Contempt
Disapproval    ‘I failed that coursework because the lecturer didn’t explain it properly’    ‘Other people passed with good marks.  I should have asked the lecturer to go over the coursework in more detail’

4.    This question extends our work on challenging conversational patterns and taken-for-granteds but we are now also looking at how we can introduce simple changes and interrupt conversations that are damaging to both organisational and personal development.

348SAM – Portfolio Question Five

Task
For this question you will need to read Chapter 4 of Jabri, M. (2012) Managing Organizational Change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.  After reading the chapter, briefly outline a story from the perspective of a victim (fictional characters from books, films or televisions are acceptable if they are plausible and appropriate).
Now retell the same story but highlight only your/their strengths/heroism.  For instance, if your first story described events in which you were overlooked for a promotion in your second story you might go on to describe how you learned from the experience and helped another colleague to avoid making some of your mistakes.
What have you learned?
Note:  this question requires appropriate references and academic underpinning.
Additional information
This question extends our work on participative approaches to organising (specifically storytelling).  Storytelling helps us to avoid the difficult question of what is the truth and allows us to present several versions or truths according to the impact we wish to make upon our audience.
A responsible manager should be able to listen to several versions of events and treat them all as credible.

348SAM – Portfolio Question Six

Task (adapted from Jabri, 2012: 68)
For this task you will need to read Chapter 3 of Jabri, M. (2012) Managing Organizational Change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.   After reading the text a) List the personal characteristics and competencies of change agents that enhance the prospects of change taking root.  B) Outline your own style of influencing change and provide an illustrative example.
Note:  this question requires appropriate references and academic underpinning.
Additional information
This exercise is designed to enable you to consider your own experience as a change agent using academic theory.  You might want to begin with the items highlighted on page 57 of the text.

Portfolio Question 7

Corporate Social Responsibility as a Marketing Tool

Some academics argue that businesses only demonstrate corporate social responsibility because it helps raise the profile of the organisation for marketing and PR purposes.

Watch this video from the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k44WifxDSX4

a)    In your opinion do you agree or disagree with this viewpoint?
b)    How do organisations use language, imagery and other types of media to promote their products/services in a socially responsible way?

You may use an organisation of your choice (not The Body Shop) to demonstrate your understanding of the questions above.

You are encouraged to use credible sources of information to demonstrate wider reading, you must also use the Harvard Referencing System to record accurate citations and references.

348SAM Portfolio Question 8
Managing Business Responsibly – reflecting back on the module as a whole, select any business organisation of your choice and explain why you believe that your chosen organisation is either “a responsible business” or “not a responsible business”. Ensure in your answer you draw upon relevant theory, examples, images, and discourse to help justify your answer. You might wish to consider things like Business Ethics, Corporate Governance, Corporate Social Responsibility, etc.
Optional: try to make the assignment interesting by selecting an unusual organisation or an organisation based in your country or something different from your friend.
Additional Information
The exercise is designed to enable you to think critically based on your own experience and publicly accessible information why a selected organisation might be argued to be “responsible” or not.  Remember a discourse is a taken-for-granted truth so base your answer on your personal truth about this organisation (i.e. it is good or it is bad) justified by the evidence you present.

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