Goal Setting and Planning
Subject: MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION
OF BUSINESS
The Written Report (15%):
The final report on your topic will be written up as a seminar report (worth 15%) and submitted to your lecturer by the end of the semester. You may incorporate ideas generated in the live presentation. The written report should begin with the broad research topic which is followed by each individual component identified by the individual student who prepared it. (Continued on next page)
Organisation of the research report
A key ingredient to writing a successful report involves the planning or organising stage. Organising can help you to sort out your ideas and to present your report in the order that communicates best to your readers. Organisation is the procedure of constructing an outline that acts as a plan for your writing task. An outline forces you to think before you write.
Your essay is to be structured and written as a business report. It, therefore, must begin with a Management (or Executive) Summary within which you state in stark form (i.e. unsupported by argument) what you are asserting in this report and you must do that in less than two pages.
As already stated above, you begin the main body of the report with some general background on the broad research topic. This introduction should end with a brief paragraph outlining the plan of the rest of the essay.
What follows is the specific issues of each individual component which were considered. As for any good business report these components should be structured into sections and sub-sections and the heading for these should be in the Table of Contents. In these individual components the in-depth discussion of the relevant issues is elaborated based on the existing literature and/or data. You must provide in-text references to your sources.
The last section of the report contains a brief summary followed by a complete list of references that are cited in the text of the essay. Follow a standard referencing method consistently.
Suggested limits are as follows: 2000 words aprox. (+-10%)
- Management Summary: ideally one page but no more than two.
- Sections 1: Introduction 400-600 words,
- Section 2: Main body of the essay consisting of each of the individual components limit each component to approximately 1,000 words each,
- Sections 3: Conclusions 100-300 words,
- Summary and Complete List of References (5-15 references).
Assessment Criteria:
- The Report which is worth 15 marks. It is here that we assess the academic quality of your work (including referencing) as well as your ability to correctly structure a business report.
| § | The Management Summary | 3 marks |
| §
§ |
Report Structure (TOC, Paragraphs, Sections and use of Diagrams)
Academic Quality (incl. Referencing) |
3 marks
5 marks |
| § | Coherence and integration in the flow of argument and logic | 4 marks |
Topic :
Goal Setting and Planning
General Framework
Outline the importance of goal setting in planning and the characteristics of well defined goals.
Individual Components
- 1. Discuss Miles & Vergen’s landmark study into goal setting and the three conditions they identified to be satisfied to ensure best practice in goal setting
- 2. Discuss Management by Objectives
- 3. Discuss contingency factors which influence a manager’s approach to planning
- 4. Discuss different types of plans
