Reference no: EM132317513
Topic - Professional communication skills for academic study
Learning outcomes - The work that you do in this topic will help you move towards achieving the following learning outcomes:
- critically analyse and evaluate a variety of management and organisational theories and practices in the context of the contemporary business environment
- research and communicate effectively and professionally in a variety of organisational settings
- reflect critically on management issues such as ethics, sustainability, innovation, entrepreneurship, and how they are shaping 21st century organisations.
You will be studying three things in this topic:
1. Critical analysis.
2. Academic writing.
3. Referencing.
Learning activity 1 -
In this activity, you will be practising critical analysis. Read the following article by Harding and Rouse, two partners at Bain & Co in the United States. This article is relevant to the work you will be doing in the assessment tasks.
Harding, D., & Rouse, T. (2007). Human due diligence. Harvard Business Review, 85(4), 124-131.
We'd like you to practise your critical thinking skills by answering the following questions:
1. What is the essence of the argument made in this article?
2. Select two claims made by the authors. What do you believe is the quality of the evidence provided to support these claims?
3. What do you think might explain the quality of evidence provided?
Are there points of debate that you would raise in regard to the authors' claims? For example, how would you rate the quality of evidence?
Learning activity 2 -
We'd like you to critique this piece of writing, using the tips outlined above. Consider the effect of this writing on a reader or a marker. This is taken from an information source on human resource management.
'The famous jargons nowadays on the news are, "staff cut" "staff retrenchments". This has led us talking to machines. Organisations are investing huge capitals on humans to create technologies then the cost saving by cutting the man powers. But when an error is made the organisation are looking for the right person/ team to investigate the issues and then spend huge $ to rectify the matter. So many new trends have been in the recent years such as virtual office, off shoring, multinational businesses, call center services etc. But at the end it is HRM role is ensures that the right staffs are available at the right time in the right place. Even Henry Ford had to offer an incentive of the "five dollar day" in an attempt to reduce staff turnover, and today many workers in the financial sector eagerly await their end-of-year bonuses.'
Learning activity 3 -
In this learning activity, we want you to practise formatting a reference.
1. Locate an academic source of information on mergers and human resource management. Practise the information research skills that you started working on in Topic 2.
2. Using the APA summary document, prepare a full reference for this source.
3. Now, prepare a (short-form) in-text reference for this source.
Attachment:- Assignment File.rar