Please read the detailed instructions that have been provided regarding your “Final Project” located in both the Announcements and Discussions sections 

Week 3: Phase I

Select your company and provide the following information: 

• Mission and Vision
• Values and Ethics
• Organization structure and culture
• Leadership style and motivational style
• Overall measurements of success for this company

Address the following questions:

1. Who is/are the Top Leader(s) of the company, and under what circumstances did they become leader?
2. What issues did they face?
3. What are the major strengths of the company?

 FINAL PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS ARE BELOW SO YOU CAN KNOW HOW TO COMPLETE:

Final Paper Due Week 5

Purpose: This assignment will provide you an opportunity to examine the impact of effective management on the overall success of an organization. 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.  A minimum of 4 concepts is required.  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. 

You may use the PPTs located in the “Files” section, information located in the modules, the internet, and additional research resources that you have accessible. 

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 of 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. From your research, you will be able to answer the following questions.  Your paper, which should be 5-7 pages in length (not including reference and title page) should follow standard format for citations and presentation utilizing the APA guidelines.  

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 of time 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.

Requirements:

• This project will be broken down into three phases starting Week 3
• The paper should be minimum of 5-7 pages (not including reference and title page) typed in proper paragraph and APA format (See APA Guides in “File” section)  Diagrams and charts are encouraged (ex. Org charts, financials, stock performance, etc.) but will not be counted towards the page count of the paper.
• Over the next 3 weeks you will be working on this project. Your paper should include a minimum of 5 Principles of Management Concepts. The more concepts used in the paper the better. 
• You should use and document at least five references.  All citations must be appropriately identified in your paper.  You must follow APA rules for documentation of citations and references.
• Final paper is due Week 5