Maryland Global Campus Factors Affecting Organization Structure Report

Purpose:

This assignment seeks to have the student identify, and evaluate the internal and external factors that influence organizational behavior by researching and analyzing scholarly articles, thus becoming familiar with academic quality research and the university online library.

Your manager overheard you telling a colleague that you are taking a graduate-level organizational behavior class at UMGC. He remembers his college course on organizational behavior and realizes that he found the knowledge he learned extremely useful over the years. Lately, he has felt that he has been overwhelmed with changes that require him and his employees to quickly respond to situations that he cannot always solve effectively. Experience has taught him that professional development is a lifelong endeavor. To that end he would like you to select some articles for him to read on the following topic: Workplace Environments, Flat Organizational Structures, Organizational Behavior, or Virtual Workplace. Here are the points he wants you to address:

Step 1: Using OneSearch in the online library, conduct a search for at least 3 scholarly articles on internal and external factors that influence organizational structure and culture and their relationship to organizational behavior.

The articles should reflect both current and future catalysts of change in the workplace. Article selection should consider internal and external influences on structure, culture, and workplace behavior.

Step 2: Using the APA template format found here Annotated Bibliography creates an annotated bibliography of each article. The articles should be summarized in at least two paragraphs as the format suggests.

Step 3: Aggregately analyze and explain the articles for the way in which internal and external factors cause a change in workplace behavior. This section should comprise 2 paragraphs using multiple course readings and research to support how the internal and external factors identified in the selected articles can/do cause a change in workplace behavior and ultimately organizational structure and culture.

Step 4: Conclude the paper with a two to three-paragraph discussion of which factors identified in the selected articles are the biggest threat to managing effectively internal or external. You must pick one or the other (factors that are the biggest threat internally OR externally) and defend/support your position using APA formatted in-text citations. Be sure to clearly explain your reasoning for the selection and provide supporting examples and rationale from class readings related to the modern organization.

INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE THE SUBMISSION:

• Read the grading rubric for the assignment!
  • Check the instructions to make sure ALL elements of the assignment have been covered
• Students are expected to use a variety as well as multiple course readings and research to support ideas, reasoning, and conclusions.
• Follow APA style guidelines to ensure that your final submission includes a Title Page, In-Text Citations, and a Reference List.
  • Paraphrase and do not use direct quotation marks. This means you do not use more than four consecutive words from a source document, put a passage from a source document into your own words, and attribute the passage to the source document. Provide the page or paragraph number. Note that a reference within a reference list cannot exist without an associated in-text citation and vice versa.
• The analysis should begin with an introductory paragraph that clearly and succinctly explains what you intend to cover in the body of the paper.
• The analysis should end with a conclusion/summary paragraph that clearly and succinctly explains what you covered in the body of the paper.
• Third-person writing is required. Third-person means that there are no words such as “I, me, my, we, or us” (first-person writing), nor is there use of “you or your” (second-person writing). If uncertain how to write in the third person, view this link: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/first-second-and-third-person .
• Contractions are not used in business writing, so the expectation is that students do NOT use contractions in the assignment.
• The paper must be double-spaced with 1-inch margins with 12 pt. font.
• Submit the final project into the appropriate assignment submission folder. Once submitted, the project is eligible for grading and students will not be permitted to make changes or make another submission (unless otherwise instructed by the professor).