Final paper – Solving an organizational problem
Orgnztl Behavior in Business
The goal of this project is to take a deep dive into applying organizational behavior concepts to real world contexts. The theories and concepts taught in this course will only contribute to your professional success if you are able to apply what you have learned to your work and career experiences. For this project, you will identify an organizational problem, describe factors that contribute to the problem, develop a solution plan for solving the problem, and discuss how the effectiveness of the solution plan will be measured.
You can approach the “organizational problem” in one of two ways:
a) you may decide to do a case study on a specific problem within a certain organization or industry (e.g., increased turnover at X organization or the lack of diversity within the technology industry)
OR
b) you may identify a general organizational problem and provide examples of how this plays out across different companies and industries (e.g., gender gap in pay; conflict with coworkers).
Your final report should be based on evidence from research in organizational problem. That is, once you identify the problem, your should do research to understand factors that contribute to it and conduct research to support your recommendations for solving the problem. You should select a problem and approach your project in a way that allows you to apply more than one OB concept (e.g., do not solely talk about leadership; rather, incorporate multiple OB concepts into your project).
You must use the following four-step model for writing your report:
Step 1. Identify the Problem: Describe and diagnose the situation and organizational problem using concepts from the course. As appropriate, provide evidence of the problem (e.g., statistics or numbers showing the occurrence and effect of the problem). You should choose a problem that allows you to apply OB concepts to understanding and solving it. Your approach to the problem can (and should) push beyond what we are reading in the text book to take a deeper dive into concepts we may not cover (in addition to what we are covering). Some example problems include:
• Working with an unreasonable supervisor (conflict management, communication, leadership)
• Absenteeism or turnover issues (motivation, job satisfaction, reward structures)
• Conflict with coworkers (conflict, negotiation, personality)
• Movement toward virtual and remote work (teamwork, conflict, motivation)
• Diversity issues in organization (diversity, leadership, organizational culture)
Step 2. Research the Problem: Outline the factors that contribute (have contributed) to the situation using research to support this. You should use academic research to support this step and you must have sources outside of your textbook.
Step 3. Develop a Solution Plan: Develop and describe a step-by-step action plan for addressing the problem and provide a timeline or target dates for each step of the plan. You should use academic research to support this step and you must have sources outside of your textbook.
Step 4. Develop a Measurement Plan: Develop and describe a measurement plan to evaluate the effectiveness of the solution. In other words, describe how an organization will be able to tell whether the action plan is working. It will be helpful to do research on different approaches to this as well. Some examples may include quantitative measurement ideas (e.g., implementing surveys, examining changes in productivity, profit, etc.) or qualitative measurement ideas (e.g., conducting interviews or observations as a way to gather information). You should provide some justification for why you selected the measurement that you did, details of implementation (e.g., when does measurement occur, how often, etc.), and potential issues that may arise with measurement.
**Note on Academic Research: academic research refers to external sources that have been published by researchers. You can use books that cite research as well as academic research articles (available online through the campus library). Some academic journals that will be useful for your research include Journal of Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Academy of Management Journal, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Managerial Psychology. This list is not exhaustive. There is no maximum number of sources that should be used; however, you should examine and include at least 7 outside sources.
