Paper

Summary:

This is the major assignment of the course, and it gives you an opportunity to synthesize your learning. This paper must be 8 to 10 pages in length. If you are part of a large organization (more than 100 employees), you should focus on the organizational culture of your own work unit.

Note well: For each major section of the paper, use course materials as well as outside research to ground your insights. Many (if not most) of your paragraphs should lead with or contain at least one reference to the course materials.

The first part of your paper should describe your current organizational culture. Demonstrate that you can describe your organization’s culture(s) from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Use, for example, the four major frames from Bolman and Deal and useful categories from Schein. (Since you have already written a paper on the political frame, do not over-emphasize this dynamic in your paper, if you discuss it at all.) Include, as one of the sub-sections, an analysis of your organizational dynamics from a Christian worldview. More specifically, discuss the organizational dynamics in light of biblical teachings using specific Bible passages if possible. Is the organizational ethical? Why or why not? This section should be approximately three pages in length.

The second part of your paper should discuss the major problems and/or opportunities that your organization is facing—issues that are directly related to your cultural analysis in the previous section. This section should be approximately three pages in length.

The third part of your paper should outline at least six, but not more than eight, specific recommendations to respond to the problems and opportunities in the previous section. You may choose to brainstorm ideas using the following questions:

a.    What should we start doing?

b.    What should we stop doing?

c.    What should we continue doing?

d.    What activities or processes should we modify?

Focus on how to lead and to manage in light of your cultural analysis, and ground your recommendations in concepts from Schein (Chapters 8-12, 16-17) and Bolman and Deal (Chapters 15–22). This section should be three to four pages in length.

Include a title page, an abstract, section titles, a title page, and a references page—all in APA format.