The topic of this paper is organizational change. You will find a newspaper story about a formal organization that is currently, has recently, or will soon implement some kind of organizational change. The paper will involve describing the organizational change and applying two key concepts or categories that you learned from the class to this change.
You may use the following newspapers (either online or hard copy) to find your story:
Los Angeles Times (US)
New York Times (US)
Washington Post (US)
Chicago Tribune (US)
Wall Street Journal (US)
The Financial Times (UK)
The Economic Times (India)
Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Japan)
If you choose either of the Indian or Japanese publication, please staple an English translated version to your paper.
After you find the organization and organizational change that you are interested in, you will need to apply 2 of the following concepts/categories to the change:
- Bureaucracy
- McDonaldization
- Scientific Management
- Human Relations school
- Resource Dependency Theory
- Organizational Conflict
- Alternatives to Bureaucracy
We have covered some of these categories already in class, and we have yet to cover others. If you think that your organizational change might involve the categories not yet covered, you will need to read ahead.
Paper Elements
- Introduction of the organizational change. What is the organization you are discussing, and what is the organizational change that you will be focusing on?
- What are the two concepts/categories that you are going to apply to the organizational change? Discuss these concepts/categories in detail: what are they, what are the dimensions? Imagine that you are describing these to the naïve reader.
- Apply the concepts. Be as specific as possible in this section. What is happening in the organization exactly? How does what you have learned about the concepts you chose apply to this change exactly.
Paper requirements
- The paper will be double spaced, type-written, using 12 point Times New Roman font.
- The paper will be 5-7 pages in length.
- Plagiarism will not be tolerated. If we find that your paper is not SOLELY your own work, you will receive 0% on the paper, a fail for the class grade, and referred to the Student Judiciary Committee.
- Do not include title page or bibliography.
- In-text citations are required for paraphrasing and quotations. See the ASA style guide for guidelines on this.
- The newspaper story will need to be printed and stapled to the end of your paper. This does NOT count as part of your page total.
