Discipline of Management and Public Administration

MG 312: Organization Development (O)

Semester 1 2024

INDIVIDUAL or PAIR BASED PROJECT DETAILS

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Managing the project

This individual or pair-based work must be completed outside your formal class time. In the case
of pair-based work, for logistic reasons, the second group member must be from your campus.

Students will be required to participate in a small project in pairs or individually to examine and
critique a 3500 – 4000-word double-spaced report of an organizational change process in an
existing organization.

All written projects must be completed in Microsoft Word and submitted electronically into the
drop box by midnight on the listed due date. When you submit your paper to me, the manuscript
must be spell-checked and proofread. Please use Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1-inch
margins and double-spacing. You will be scored for the paper’s organization, clarity of
presentation, accuracy, depth, grammatical correctness and completeness of treatment. Refer to
the marking rubric in Moodle on the criterion for assessing your work.

Due date

The final written report will be handed in by the end of week 10 (10th May @11.59 pm). I am
appending a guide on project writing to this outline which you could study and implement.
Late submission and Extensions

Please note that we shall adhere strictly to School policy for late submission of assessed work.
Work handed in up to two weeks after the deadline will not be marked. Extensions may be
granted at the discretion of the course coordinator and must be sought in advance in writing
(email will suffice). Be aware that there will be a 5% late deduction per day for assignments
submitted late unless you have arranged in advance to submit late due to illness, etc.

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PROJECT QUESTION

You are required to participate in a small-scale individual/ pair based project to examine and
critique a report of an organisational change process in an existing organization in your own
country context. The project should consist of a researched report of any organization which has
experienced a significant change situation over the past few years. The examination of the
selected organization should focus on
The project should consist of a researched report of any organization which has experienced a
significant change situation in the recent past. The examination of the selected organization
should focus on the following aspects: (a) Change process/ events, (b) Phases or stages
(including the use of change theories or best practices, (c) outcomes (d) Leadership role
employed to affect the change and (e) an analysis and critique of the organization’s overall
change process. The research paper must include the following sections: 1) Executive summary,
2) Introduction: Description & content, 3) Methodology, 4) Analysis, 5) Conclusion: Key lessons
learned & Recommendations.
The examination of the organization should use the theories, principles and practices discussed in
the class and / or your supplementary research. The report should be based on semi – structured
interviews with some senior and mid - management participants, published articles and books
about the organization, annual reports, press releases and / or other relevant materials. In
critically analysing the overall change process in the organization, your group will need to look
at organisation from a distance and evaluate it from an external observer/ consultant’s viewpoint.
Suggest recommendations and practical advice on how the change should have been
implemented to better suit the strategic objectives of the organisation and ensure the
sustainability of its activities and operations.

Guide to writing reports

Standard formats exist for the structure of a report, which will normally contain the following:

o Title page
o Table of contents
o Acknowledgements
o Executive Summary
o Introduction
o Literature Review
o Methodology
o Findings/ Conclusions
o Recommendations
o Appendices
o References

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The Acknowledgements are an opportunity to identify important change agents within the
organisation who have helped you with the most important aspects of the report’s production. By
sharing the credit, you gain a valuable reputation as a team player. You also spread the
responsibility for awkward issues raised and difficult decisions proposed: it is harder for people
to reject your conclusions outright if you can identify the Chief Executive as a key figure in
drawing up your terms of reference and gathering your data. But avoid ‘Oscar night syndrome’:
the urge to thank everyone, down to your remotest ancestors, who has made the slightest
contribution to your night of glittering triumph. This tempts readers to fast forward before your
peroration reaches its climax.

The Summary should outline both the main findings and recommendations. Busy senior staff
will read only this section. However, the rest of the report lends authority to the summary.
Readers who query a particular finding or recommendation can delve into the appropriate section
in more depth, to reassure themselves that you have done your homework, and that your
conclusions rest on solid evidence rather than an unstable mixture of hype and hope. Such
supporting testimony is excised from the summary, which needs to combine brevity with a
comprehensive account of the most salient issues.

The Introduction should explain who commissioned the report, who was responsible for the
project or issue it is discussing, the purpose of the report, the method of inquiry which has been
adopted and the terms of reference which have been set. It should also explain how the data have
been assembled and arranged, how the report is structured, and whatever general background
factors you consider to be most crucial. In general, this means identifying the importance of the
issue to the organisation at this stage. The temptation here is to assume that, since the issue is by
now over-familiar to you, it will be equally familiar to everyone else.

Literature Review may include pertinent variables, main issues and theories learnt in the course
and that is relevant to the topic you have chosen for the write up. Importantly analyse how your
study relates to the available literature in the discipline and if possible, highlight gaps in research
works identified in the international literature. Not all theoretical aspects learnt in the course
should be covered and as mentioned, highlight those which relates to your subject under
discussion. I will be extremely flexible when evaluating this component.

The Methodology outlines, in detail, the steps which you took to assemble your data - for
example, who you interviewed, what questionnaires you used (and why), what other reports you
relied upon, what tests you carried out, and what other organisations you studied. Each measure
taken should be explicitly related to your starting terms of reference. This helps you to build a
convincing series of steps towards your grand design - the recommendations which you want the
organisation to implement. They should appear logical, rest on irrefutable facts and be supported
by a wealth of impressive detail. Would you buy a house if the builder had neglected to erect it
on solid foundations?

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The Findings/ Conclusions section details precisely what you have discovered. It should also
present your analysis of their significance. If 70% of your customers express a hostile attitude
towards your new product, and a favourable attitude towards that of your main competitor, what
precisely does this mean for your marketing strategy? Add interpretation to the facts. Draw clear
conclusions.

The Recommendations are the heartland of any report, and should emerge clearly from the
findings, rather than appear unintroduced in the middle of your conclusions. Your principal
finding (judged by its importance to your organisation, and as identified in your terms of
reference) should attract the most emphasis in the recommendations. It is vital to frame
recommendations so that they tell people the following:

• Why were we doing the wrong thing before?

• How does this change fit with the previous changes?
• What will remain constant?
• How is this change grounded in our values and commitments?
• What will the organisation look like in six months? In a year?
• What will we gain or lose personally?
• What support will we get to make the change?
• What will executives do to make sure the change works?

Remember also that too many recommendations produce paralysis rather than action. In addition,
anything that irritates your readers or does not support your case distracts from it. You should
resist the urge to drag your own darling hobbyhorses centre stage: other people never find your
children as fascinating as you do. Above all, answer this cardinal question: what can the
organisation do differently to what it already does, and how will this make a difference to the
main problem which it currently faces?

The Appendices should contain supporting material which is important to your case, but which
does not belong logically in the main body of the report. These include examples of data
collection instruments (e.g. questionnaires), tables which are of interest to some readers but are
marginal to the main issues being explored, or more lengthy extracts from interviews with people
who have been surveyed.

The References is a list of main sources cited in your text - books, reports, newspaper articles,
journal articles or official statements. This reassures readers that your methods, findings and
recommendations rest on a solid body of research and experience. It also enables anyone who
wishes to explore in more detail a particular issue you have raised to do so by following up some
of the sources you have cited. If they do, this is also likely to reinforce their interest and hence
commitment to the issues raised in your report.
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Breaking bad news

Reports must also sometimes tell people bad news. For example, they might have to explain that
a crisis is looming, at a time when neither senior managers nor anybody else wants to hear about
it. Only hypochondriacs visit a doctor praying for bad news. In fact, organisations frequently
ignore warning signals that tell them something is dreadfully wrong. How can reports alert them
to warning signs in such a manner that they take corrective action, rather than guillotine the
messenger?

Research suggests that when positive and negative feedback has to be communicated about a
person, object, process or organisation the message recipient is more likely to believe the
message when it begins with the positive comment. This may be because a variety of self-serving
biases cause most of us to routinely exaggerate our proficiency as communicators. In
consequence, a message that begins by confirming what we think we already know (i.e. what I
am doing well) has a greater intuitive validity for most people, and leaves them more favourably
disposed to accept what follows. A report should begin by accentuating the positive, in the form
of stating whatever good news it honestly can.

It is also important to indicate how the findings compare with surveys of this kind in other
organisations, or how much further improvement could be realistically expected at this juncture
of its history. Context is vital to promote understanding and facilitate action.

Above all, the report should be written in non-inflammatory and neutral language, offering
solutions rather than a grievance list. It should be sensitive to the internal politics, language and
values of the organisation concerned. Rather than identify scapegoats, responsibility for
problems should be shared as widely as is honestly possible, thereby encouraging a collective
determination to do something about them. Naming and shaming leads to aggravation,
conflagration and retaliation.

Reinforcing the previous point, it is vital that critical feedback be constructed as non-
judgementally as possible. This means that it should avoid negatively labelling the people
involved (e.g. ‘the marketing department in this organisation is causing blockages for every other
department, and therefore creating nothing but trouble’). Such an approach attacks people’s face
needs, and is thus likely to provoke their immediate opposition rather than attract their support.
On the other hand, a constructive focus on detailed behaviours which can be changed is likely to
be perceived as helpful feedback, and spur further change. Thus, a report could usefully say:
‘Employees require more information about the impact of the reorganisation plan on job security.
We recommend that a short statement be prepared by human resources on this issue, in
conjunction with communications staff.’ Non-judgmental feedback is generally perceived as one
of the foundation stones of supportive communication.