Level 5 / 1st year University course assessment

Summary:	Prepare an essay demonstrating your understanding of the issues surrounding culture, diversity business ethics and apply your knowledge of the functions and roles of management within this context.
	4 hours (excluding study of supporting resources and / or prior work experience).

Assessed learning outcomes:

1. Describe roles and functions of managers, where they fit into organisations and their impact on organisations and people. 
2. Explain future trends in management, including skills needed to deal with globalisation, diversity and the increasing focus on ethical practices in business.

(If you are completing this course for formal credit, you must complete and submit this assessment.)

Part A: Ethics, Culture and Diversity Essay (80%)

This assessment focuses on the soft skills in management related to diversity, culture and business ethics. For this essay, you are expected to select an authentic example that demonstrates a company, organization or industry’s failure to promote diversity, culturally appropriate or ethical behaviour. You can choose something you’ve seen in the news or choose from one of the following examples:

1. A list of corporate scandals
2. Uber’s sexism issues (the blog post that triggered the investigation)
3. The gaming industry’s diversity gap
4. Silicon Valley’s diversity problem

Your report should contain the following:

1. Introduction including purpose and objectives
2. A paragraph that explains which diversity, culture and business ethics principles you are going to look at.
3. Sufficient context to explain the misstep or diversity/culture/ethics issue you are examining.
4. Discussion of linkages between your example and relevant theory for managing the issue.
5. A paragraph highlighting future management trends in relation to the topic of diversity, culture and business ethics principles.
6. Conclusions and Recommendations: What could the company or organization have done differently? How would you have handled this situation?
7. Bibliography

Your essay should be 1250 words maximum and you must use the APA referencing style.

When preparing the assignment, learners must consult and cite five (5) relevant books, book chapters, or journal articles (at a minimum). These books and journal articles can be sourced online. Remember to look at the ANU e-Press, of Open Access Journals or the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine when researching your assignment. (For information on finding open access resources, you can consult the OERu course, Digital literacies for online learning.)

Part B: Functions, roles and activities of management (20%)

The purpose of Part B is to indicate how the functions of management and corresponding managerial roles relate to improving efficiency and effectiveness of an organisation’s ability to manage ethics, culture and diversity. Your answers in Part B should be based on the issue you reported in Part A above.

1. Provide a concise description of the four functions of management in your own words.
2. Generate a table with the following column headings:
   • Function of management
   • Management activity
   • Dominant management role
3. For each of the four functions of management:
   • List three management tasks or activities associated with the corresponding function of management relating effective management of ethic’s, culture and diversity in the organization.
   • For each listed task or activity, identify the dominant management role(s) from H Mintzberg’s 10 roles of managers.

Example