Assignment title: Information
Management and Organisations in a Global Environment
Research Paper 1 (E-learning Activities)
-There should be Heading for each blog
- There should be 2/3 references for each blog
-no Wikipedia references
-Total words 1000. Each blog 500 words.
-Plagiarism not more than 25%
Blog-1
In your blog, you should address the following two sections:
(1) Section 1: list the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed e-learning activity.
(2) Section 2: apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to
the topic(s) of this subject.
Visit the following URLs, and use 'Questions to consider' to guide your thinking. Remember
you can select the number of activities to use in your blog (i.e., you can either focus on one
activity or incorporate the ideas from several activities in one blog).
Activity 1: Ford and Taylorism
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdmNbqtDdI
Questions to consider:
1. Would workers in Australia, America or Europe accept the Taylorism in this form
today?
2. Consider the design of scripts for use in Call Centres, can you see Taylorism in that?
Explain.
3. This 'clip' is showing history from 100 years ago. Some would say that 'the world has
moved on' and these ideas are out of date. However, could there be parts of the world today
for which these ideas might be just what they need? Explain.
Activity 2: Fayolism as the Necessary Complement of Taylorism - Pearson, Norman M.
(Feb., 1945) The American Political Science Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 , pp. 68-80
URL: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1948832?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21
103317946303
Questions to consider:
1. While some would argue that this paper, now 70 years beyond its publication date is
'out of date', could there still be value in the ideas expressed here in other parts of the world?
Blog 2
In your blog, you should address the following two sections:
(1) Section 1: list the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed e-learning activity.
(2) Section 2: apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to
the topic(s) of this subject.
Visit the following URLs, and use 'Questions to consider' to guide your thinking. Remember
you can select the number of activities to use in your blog (i.e., you can either focus on one
activity or incorporate the ideas from several activities in one blog).
Activity 1: Structure and strategy
URL: BCG's Yves Morieux view on Organisation Designx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm7d1dzOKmw
Questions to consider:
1. Yves Morieux claims that structure follows strategy. Is this always the case?
Activity 2: Holacracy
URL: Zappos just abolished bosses. Inside tech's latest management craze
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/11/5876235/silicon-valleys- latest-management- craze-holacracy-
explained
Questions to consider:
1. What's your understanding of holacracy? How would you describe it compared to
bureaucracy and team-based structure?
2. Discuss how Contingency Factors of Organizational Design are at work in the case of
Zappos?
3. In what ways do you think innovative culture is related to (agile) organizational
structure?