SEMESTER 1 2024/25

COURSEWORK BRIEF:

Coursework Brief:

Please read this brief multiple times throughout the semester to ensure you are clear on what is required. Doing everything here will ensure you get the best mark you can.

You are to write an individual reflective report of 1500 words (excluding reference list) on your experience of working in a team for the MANG1003 group assignment.

You are expected to use all 5 stages of Tuckman and Jensen’s (1977) model in your analysis, and you should also incorporate other relevant theories on teamwork, roles, motivation, communication, and conflict to explain any issues you may have experienced. You can reflect on both negative and positive aspects of the experience. If upon reflection, your team was functioning well then you should make suggestions as to why that was the case. You should conclude your reflective report with ‘My THREE key learnings about teamwork are...’ You need to state here what you have learned and how you might use this knowledge in similar future situations. These should naturally flow and follow from your essay.

In the report, you should illustrate your key points with examples from your group work and support your discussions on group work with studied references. You are strongly advised to read the notes below that give for tips on writing and structuring your work. The grade descriptors for this piece of coursework are on the Blackboard site under the ‘Assignments’ section. Consult these before planning your work.

Your report must refer to the relevant concepts and literature covered during the MANG1003 teaching and studies through your further reading. The content and classes on teamwork, team roles, motivation, organisational behaviour, and reflection writing will help you with this assessment.

It might be helpful for you to individually keep a reflective journal documenting the record of the incidents during your teamwork. You can also take note of your interim reflections to facilitate writing your final report (for example on how you progressed, what happened and why). You should then use the reflective journal to finalise your reflections on your team working experience and to write your critical review report.

2. Writing Your Individual Report

a) Include a front title page which should include the module title “MANG1003 Introduction to Management”, the assignment title “Individual reflective report on team working”, the word count, your student ID number, and your team name. Please do not include your and the names of your team members as the assignments will be marked anonymously.

b) You should use a ‘true type’ font such as Times New Roman or Arial, font size 12, justified and 1.5 line spacing. Do not use ‘clip art’ pictures and do not use a ‘fancy’ font style, or page borders.

c) Structure your report. It is essential to make have a strong and coherent structure and to make the structure obvious, so use numbered headingsto break your report into discrete sections. Adding subtitles (if appropriate) will make the report more structured and easier to read and comprehend. Do this first before you write anything. Your report should have the following sections as a minimum:

i. Introduction (i.e., what is the aim of this report)

ii. Reflection on teamwork

iii. Conclusion (here you should state your three key learnings, clearly labelled, what you have learned and how you might use this knowledge in the future).

iv. References

d) Start with an outline plan as above, and then start to populate the sections with relevant concepts, examples, and references. Writing is a creative process, and you should expect to write and re-write several drafts.

e) Avoid lengthy descriptions and long paragraphs but include more analysis. You should be trying to show us that you can relate the theories and ideas you have learnt about to the incidents of your real teamwork.

f) Make sure that the topic is dealt with properly – address all the issues raised and stick to the point. Keep asking yourself “Is this relevant to the issue I am discussing?” If it is not, then do not write it.

An important writing skill, which is especially important in management reports, is the ability to get your message across in a succinct and concise manner. In other words, every piece of information in the report should add value to your discussions. Hence, superficial information such as the venue or date of your team meetings should be removed from the text unless you are making a specific point with any of these details. Such details will make your text look like a narrative ‘diary of events’ rather than an academic and analytical report. These will add words without enhancing the analytical value of your report.

g) Include a word count at the bottom of your front title page. The word count covers everything in the file (as per the word count function in the software package) including the title page but excluding the Reference list or tables and pictures (if applicable). The word limit is 1500 (+/- 10%). We will stop marking at 1650 words.

h) You can refer to others in your group using a pseudonym. For example, you can refer to the actions of by writing a made-up name such as ‘Bob’ and writing ‘(a pseudonym)’ next to it the first time you use it.

i) You should include a caption and title for any tables or figures you include, along with a source. You should also include your student ID number and page number on each page (use the ‘page x of y’ format) in a header or footer.

j) The Business School requires that you follow the rules on Academic Conduct & Responsibility, and referencing . We will cover these in dedicated classes. Some important things to consider here:

References, using the Harvard system, must be given every time you mention a theory, or an author’s or any another person’s idea(s). In other words, any concept and idea you have learned from the academic resources, and you would like to support your discussions with, need to have a citation as to clearly address where you read it.

It’s a good idea to try to use the original source if you can (so long as you read the original!). Be selective and only include material that is relevant to your case and use examples to show us that you have really read the references and understood the concepts.

Do not be tempted to liberally scatter the names of concepts or references throughout your report as this will be easily picked up by TurnItIn and the marker. Your reference list should only contain references that you have read and used in your text.

The reference list (i.e., NOT a bibliography of everything that you have read) should be sorted alphabetically by first author surname: do not separate out different types of sources (books, journals, etc) into different lists. Do not number the list. We will be looking at referencing in more detail in one of the classes and your wider degree programme.

Avoid (over-) reliance on websites for your sources as they are rarely peer-reviewed and often contain errors so are not considered as academic references.

k) This is an individual report... be sure to have read, understood and followed the guidelines on Academic Conduct & Responsibility that you can find here.

l) Reports can easily be marred by poor grammar and spelling. Computer spell-checkers will not always give you the right word e.g., “there” and “their”, “hear” and “here” (or, more amusingly, ‘steakholder’ instead of stakeholder). If you are not sure about a word, use a dictionary. Read your work before you submit. We expect degree-level reports to contain correct spelling and to be grammatically correct.

If English is not your first language, there are extra support classes provided to help you with this assignment and further classes are available via the Library and the Student Hub.

Use an appropriate writing style. This means avoiding informalities like “haven’t”, “can’t” and “isn’t”, and avoid slang unless you need to use it - in a quotation - to make a point. Do not use abbreviations such as “&” for “and”. Another good rule is to try to keep sentences as short as possible. And please... no text messaging lexis, ‘thnx’.

m) Consult the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ document on Blackboard for further advice and answers to many of your questions.

n) There will be specific classes to help you with this in the latter stages of the course, as well as individual time to discuss plans and ideas.