Columbia College
MGMT 330 Research Paper Assignment
Purpose:
This assignment will provide you an opportunity to examine the impact of effective management on the overall
success of an organization.
You will need to utilize resources available through the library and other sources
(including the internet) to obtain information.
You will be required to examine an organization from a variety
of points of view with a focus on its leadership, management style, ethics commitment, strategies and strategy
execution.
In your paper you should discuss and identify as many Principles of Management concepts as
possible.
Conclusions should be drawn regarding the effectiveness of the use of the broad range of management
tools and their impact on the success of the company.
In class you will present the summation of your paper as
well as your specific, critically thought out conclusions.
Introduction:
It has been a belief for many years that the long-term success of an organization is based largely on the quality
of its management.
Much has been written about the “Search for Excellence,” “The Quest for Quality,” “The
Sustainable Competitive Advantage.”
All this research and all the studies of the “100 Best Companies,” have
eventually focused on the importance of the quality of management.
Nothing seems to have a greater impact on
the financial returns, shareholder value or employee satisfaction than the quality of the organization’s
management.
Your challenge is to select a company you can examine from the variety of perspectives covered in this course.
Most specifically, these include
POLC
, Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling.
You will examine the
company you select utilizing a variety of research sources: business publications, the company’s own external
and internal communications, the mass media, etc.
Directions:
Select a publicly traded US company. Companies in the Fortune 500 are strongly suggested. Ideally select a
company that has had new management since 2000.
Research the top management of the organization and
detail the strategies that they advocated to help grow the company. As many companies had problems starting
around 2008 – 2010 which led to lay-offs and retrenchment, that may be a good period to focus on how
management helped move the company through those difficult economic years. Examine the critical issues that
the organization faced, and detail the strategies employed to mitigate them.
All top managers are not
successful.
If the company you choose employed strategies that failed, detail the failure and add analysis as to
why it failed and what may have been done to foster success.
Items that should be discussed with your selected company include:
o
Mission and Vision
o
Values and Ethics
o
Organization structure and culture
o
Leadership style and motivational style
o
Overall measurements of success for this company