Management Analysis
Organizational management drives organizations to accomplish identified goals through analytic processes. Through discussion and analysis, management develops new ways to improve an organization’s efficiency and to increase profitability through reduced costs and increased revenues.
This topic addresses the following competency:
• Competency 3018.1.1: Practice of Management
The graduate explains the theoretical bases, current knowledge, best practices, and trends related to the practice of management.
This topic highlights the following objectives:
• Explain how the four management functions relate to different management activities.
• Explain the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
• Explain how conceptual, human, and technical skills are relevant to managers.
• Define ten roles that managers perform in organizations.
• Describe the innovative use of management principles.
• Explain major developments in the history of management theory.
Tips for Task 2 Organization and Leader Analysis: Please use the following tips to help you complete your leadership analysis.
• Write this paper in third person.
• Read through the entire task instructions and rubric requirements prior to completing task 2.
• Use a different scholarly leadership theory in task 2 than the one chosen in task 1.
• The current leader that you choose must be someone other than yourself.
• Recommend to use the “Sample academic paper” when organizing your task. You are encouraged to create a cover page, a table of contents, headings, and subheadings.
• The paper should be 10–16 pages, not including cover page and references. Please be both descriptive (who, what, when, and where), and explanatory (why and how). Evaluators assess your paper based on the specificity of your response, not on the generalizations.
• Note: Meeting the rubric criteria is more important than writing a number of pages.
Task 2—Section A
A. Organization Description: Describe an existing organization with which you have had personal experience and where you have either had direct access to a leader or have been able to observe a leader. Describe the organization’s objectives. The organization can be a for-profit or a nonprofit business, and you may represent any level of the organization (e.g., the team, department, division, or whole) in your analysis.
• You must change the name of the organization and employee names.
• Provide a detailed discussion of the organization.
• Discuss the history and background of the organization.
• Discuss the vision and mission of the organization.
• Discuss the purpose and objectives of the organization. Think of the goals, financial objectives, and strategic objectives of the organization.
• Provide citations where needed.
A1. Leadership Practices: In this section, you will provide specific descriptions of three leadership practices of the current leader. The current leader must be someone other than yourself.
• Provide specific examples that illustrate the practice.
• Cleary state the leaders title and (fictitious) name. The leader analyzed in A1 will be the same leader analyzed in C1, C2, and C3.
• Write a separate paragraph on each of the three practices.
Note: A leadership practice (or function) is different from a leadership theory. This section, A1, only discusses practice, not theory.
Example: One leadership practice of the CEO is to provide strategic leadership to the organization. In the performance of this responsibility, the CEO forms the organization’s vision and mission, while forming and implementing strategy. The value of strategic leadership is determining the organization’s direction by effectively managing the organization’s resources in pursuit of the organization’s vision. (This is a small draft of the leadership practice narrative. You are required to illustrate further how the individual performs the leadership responsibility and what value the responsibility provides to the organization).
A2. Effects of Current Leadership on Culture: In this section, discuss how the current leader of the organization has affected the culture based on his or her underlying beliefs, assumptions, and values.
A leader’s values and beliefs shape the culture of an organization. Organizational culture is defined as the underlying beliefs, assumptions, values, and ways of interacting that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization.
• Describe how the leader has affected the organization’s culture in a positive or negative manner.
• Provide examples to support your analysis.
Strategic Management
Strategic management is managing of an organization’s resources in order to achieve the organization’s business objectives and to maximize its long-term value. Strategic management involves a defined sequence of steps that encompass the full range of a company’s resources, from creating objectives and identifying resources, to analyzing data and making financial decisions, to tracking and analyzing reasons for the variance between actual and budgeted results.
This topic addresses the following competency:
• Competency 3018.1.3: Sustaining Business Performance
The graduate applies management and leadership theories for long-term global business success.
This topic highlights the following objectives:
• Describe how to perform a SWOT analysis to evaluate a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
• Explain several common strategic tools.
• Apply strategic tools for strategy formulations to improve organizational performance.
Task 2—Section B
B SWOT Analysis: In this section, conduct a SWOT analysis of the chosen organization. In this analysis, please address the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the organization. Remember, strengths are positive, weaknesses are negative, opportunities are unmet, and threats are unresolved.
• The SWOT Analysis should be at the same level of the organization used in the organization description from Section A (e.g., the team, department, division, or whole).
• Note: The accepted model for a SWOT analysis defines strengths and weaknesses as internal to the organization, and opportunities and threats as external to the organization.
B1 Current Strengths: In this section, discuss two of the organization’s current strengths including specific details. Address how the strengths you identify have a positive impact on the organization.
• When assessing the strengths, think about the various functions such as finance, marketing, research and development, etc.
• Write a separate paragraph for each of the two strengths
B2 Current Weakness: In this section, discuss two of the organization’s current weaknesses including specific details. Address how the weaknesses you identify have a negative impact on the organization.
• When assessing the weaknesses, think about the various functions such as finance, marketing, research and development, and so forth.
• Write a separate paragraph for each of the two weaknesses.
B3 Current Opportunities: In this section, discuss two of the organization’s current unmet opportunities, include specific details on how the opportunities have the potential to benefit or improve the organization.
• When assessing the opportunities, think about the various areas of potential benefit or improvement for the organization such as technology, monetary policies, market changes and so forth.
• Write a separate paragraph for each of the two opportunities.
• Note: The opportunity needs to be external to the organization.
B4 Current Trends: In this section, discuss two of the organization’s current unresolved threats. Include specific details on how the threats identified have the potential to threaten or harm the organization.
• When assessing the threats, think about the various areas of potential threat or harm such as technology, competitors, monetary policies, government, and so forth.
• Write a separate paragraph for each of the two threats.
• Note: The threat needs to be external to the organization.
Managing Organizations and Leading People
The life and success of an organization depends on how effective that organization is managed. Leading is the ability to influence the behavior of others and persuade them to follow specific courses of action.
Organizational Structure and Innovation
Organizational management’s objective is to build an organizational structure that leverages core competencies, responds to organizational change, and continually identifies and satisfies customer needs. Innovation is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics is improved through new strategies. Innovation helps organizations sustain operations and remain competitive through increased sales and reduced costs.
This topic addresses the following competency:
• Competency 3018.1.4: Organizational Performance Methods
The graduate analyzes appropriate methods to improve organizational performance.
This topic highlights the following objectives:
• Define the forces that drive organizational change.
• Describe how people and organizational culture affect change management.
Task 2—Section C
C. Leadership Evaluation: In this section, perform a leadership analysis of your current leader’s top three strengths and weaknesses, and make three recommendations to improve his or her leadership effectiveness. Apply one theory to all three sections: C1, C2, and C3. The theory you choose should be different from the theory you chose in task one.
• Transformational leadership
• Transactional leadership
• Situational leadership
• Participative leadership
• Servant leadership
• Behavioral leadership
• Trait theory of leadership
Note: It is highly recommended that you use at least three distinct and unique scholarly sources to support the scholarly leadership theory.
C1. Strengths of the Current Leader: In this section, discuss three strengths of your chosen leader, describing in detail how the three strengths you identified align with the chosen scholarly leadership theory.
• This section of the task requires scholarly research.
• Provide specific examples to support each strength, and include at least one in-text citation using a scholarly source.
• Write a separate paragraph for each of the three strengths.
Note: A scholarly source could be a reputable journal, a published book, any source from a business leader or university faculty member. Scholarly sources also include any article or book in the WGU library.
C2. Weaknesses of the Current Leader: In this section, discuss three weaknesses of your chosen leader, describing in detail how the three weaknesses that you identified align with the chosen scholarly leadership theory.
• This section of the task requires scholarly research.
• Use the same scholarly leadership theory you used in C1.
• Provide specific examples to support each weaknesses, and include at least one in-text citation using a scholarly source.
• Write a separate paragraph for each of the three weaknesses.
C3. Recommendations for the Current Leader: Now that you have evaluated the current leaders’ strengths and weaknesses, recommend three specific actions, behaviors, or practices that would improve the current leader’s effectiveness in leading people and organizations. The recommendations address the current leaders identified leadership weaknesses and align with the chosen scholarly leadership theory.
• This section of the task requires scholarly research.
• Use the same scholarly leadership theory you used in C1.
• Provide specific examples to support each actionable item, and include at least one in-text citation using scholarly source.
• Write a separate paragraph for each of the three recommendations.
D. Sources (Reference Page): Your paper is required to include in-text citations that correlate to your reference page. All sources require a corresponding in-text citation and all in-text citations require a corresponding source on the reference page.
