Organisational Behaviour in the Technology Era

BUS104 (Online) Organisational Behaviour in the

Technology Era

Tutor-Marked Assignment

July 2021 Presentation

BUS104 (Online) Tutor-Marked Assignment

SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES (SUSS) Page 2 of 8

TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT (TMA) This assignment is worth weightage of assignment in 18% of the final mark for BUS104 (Online) Organisational Behaviour in the Technology Era. The cut-off date for this assignment is 10 August 2021, 11:55pm. This assignment comprises two sections:

• Section I: TMA requirements and guidelines • Section II: TMA questions

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SECTION I This section outlines the following: 1. TMA Requirements 2. TMA Scoring Guide 3. Information Sources Credibility

1. TMA Requirements This Tutor-Marked Assignment (TMA) is an individual assignment requiring you to answer all the questions found in Section II of this document. Marks awarded on this assignment are based on the TMA scoring guide found on the next page. Review it before starting your TMA so as to ensure that you fully understand the expectations it contains. You should ensure that your submission observes all the formatting and presentation requirements found in the TMA Scoring guide. You should also download and use the TMA cover page template from your TV course site and include all the necessary information (Course Code, Title of the TMA, SUSS PI No., Your Name, and Submission Date) it requires before submitting your work in your TV course site. Your TMA report should have between 1,000 to 1,500 words, excluding the cover page, table of content (if any), references and appendices (if any). Please, do not retype the questions in your report.

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2. TMA Scoring Guide Marks awarded to your assignment are based on the following guidelines:

Rating Criteria Descriptions

Content

90%

Critical Thinking and Originality

Your answer should: 1. demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the relevant

topic(s)/concept(s). 2. form a sound reasoning through the development of key points

that presented in a clear, logical and succinct manner. 3. be supported by evidence drawn from course materials and

other relevant and credible sources. Refer to Information Sources Credibility to ensure you meet the expectation of the TMA.

Presentation

10%

References and Citations

1. Strictly follow the APA formatting and style guidelines, in particular for: o identifying figures, tables and graphs; o referencing or bibliography; o providing adequate in-text citations from course materials and

other credible sources and o including the less relevant details in an Appendix.

Note: You can find information about APA formatting and style guidelines on a number of websites. The more useful ones are:

• APA website – Introducing the Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style. See it here.

o Focus on the in-text citation, references and Tables and Figures sections

• APA website– You can also go through a very comprehensive tutorial that can be found here.

Use of Quotes

1. Use quotes sparingly. 2. Summarise what you have learnt from the resources rather

than quoting resources throughout. As a rule of thumb: at least 85% of your report content should be original and a maximum of 15% may come from quotes that you drew from credible external sources.

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Spelling and Grammar

1. Use, wherever relevant, the specialised vocabulary and terminology commonly used in discussions about the topic(s) covered by each question;

2. Use sentence constructions that are grammatically and syntactically correct;

3. Free from spelling mistakes; Formatting 1. Use proper formatting, which may: o include a properly formatted cover page; o respect the answer length/word count set out in the assignment

guidelines, if any is prescribed; o present answers in paragraphs with proper spacing and page

margins; o include page numbers and appendices, if necessary.

3. Information Sources Credibility Guidelines When tackling the questions in this TMA, it is essential that you support your answers with specific facts garnered from reliable and credible sources that you found by doing research on the internet and elsewhere. In all cases, you must include a specific in-text citation (Author, Year and page # if available) as well a full reference at the end of your report. If one of the TMA questions provides a particular internet source, you must use it. However, if you wish, you may complement it with additional facts from other credible information sources. Again, in all cases, you must include a specific in-text citation (Author, Year, p. # if available) and a full reference at the end of your report.

When in doubt about the credibility of an external source, consult your course instructor. As a general rule, remember that a credible external source:

Includes Excludes • Course eTextbook, notes, slides, etc… • Self-published books and textbooks

• Textbooks and eTextbooks from popular publishers (Cengage, McGraw Hill, Pearson, etc…)

• Personal and commercial blogs & vlogs

• Printed and online editions of mainstream newspapers & business magazines (excluding advertisements)

• Social media postings (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc…)

• Academic journals

• Wikipedia, MindTools, LawTeacher, etc.

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• Government and Statutory Board websites

• Advertisements

• International Organisation websites

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SECTION II

Read the case Harvest Software Company (A) case (below) and answer the following questions. Note that there is also a Harvest Software Company (B) case included in the Group-based Assignment (GBA) but it should not be used to answer the TMA questions below.

Harvest Software Company (A)

Background Since its creation, Harvest Software Company (HSC) has had a humble beginning as a small software development company. However, with the rise of the digital economy, its business has grown rapidly, and particularly so in recent months. Mr Samuel Tan, CEO and founder of HSC, is very proud of the HSC’s achievements. Known for his ambitious personality, he clinched numerous new major software development projects but to meet the resource demands of these new projects, Mr Tan knows he has to hire a substantial number of programmers quickly. However, the office space that HSC has rented is insufficient to accommodate these additional employees and he has also realised how difficult it now is to hire programmers locally. Expansion Plans Faced with these problems, Mr Tan had to quickly think of solutions. He decided that he would hire new programmers who would be telecommuting on a full-time basis. In other words, the new programmers would not need to work in office at all but would work from home or from any other location. With this arrangement, Mr Tan was able to attract a sufficient number of qualified job applicants who wanted the flexibility of working from home. Furthermore, he is confident that the latest online collaboration software that his company recently adopted will enable his programmers to work seamlessly from different locations. With this approach, office space would no longer be an issue as he would not need to provide space for the new programmers that he hired. He is now even considering hiring offshore programmers. “After all, since technology knows no boundaries, organisations should have no boundaries either,” Mr Tan declared to his staff as he shared his plans to expand HSC. Important Notes:  Answer the following questions using concepts covered in this course. You should

support your views by drawing on evidence from the case. You can also make reasonable assumptions where you think the case is lacking in details.

 You are encouraged to support your answers with relevant studies.  Your answers should follow an essay format with an introduction, a body, and a

conclusion.

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Question 1 (a) “Organisations should have no boundaries...” Based on what you learned about

organisations in this course, comment on Mr Tan’s statement after indicating the extent to which you agree with it.

(30 marks) (b) Imagine that you are a consultant engaged by Mr Tan to study the impact of using online

collaboration tools to enable remote teams at the workplace. Using specific examples, describe to Mr Tan the benefits and issues of using online collaboration tools, with a focus on areas of interest in organisational behaviour.

(40 marks) (c) Discuss why a sound understanding of organisational behaviour would be useful to an

organisation such as HSC. (20 marks)

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