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Cardiff
School Of Business UK

Leadership, People and Change

Assignment
Winter 2019 - Winter 2022

Important Notes:

• Please refer to the Student Induction document, "Assignment Formatting

Requirements" & "Assignment Submission Rules" sections for advice on how to
set out your assignment.
• You must read Academic Misconduct Guidance and ensure that you
acknowledge all the sources that you use in your work.
• You must complete and sign the "Statement and Confirmation of Own Work".
• Please note the recommended word count. You could lose marks if you write
10% more or less than the word limit mentioned.
• All reports will be checked for plagiarism.
• No group work is allowed.
 Introduction
This assignment requires you to demonstrate the knowledge and skills that you
have acquired during this module by producing a 4,000 word, fully referenced,
academic report that addresses the issues concerning the complexities of leading
organisations successfully through strategic change.
In order to complete the assignment, you will need to choose and research an
appropriate organisation.

Choosing an appropriate organisation

Choosing an organisation upon which to focus comprises three steps:
SteR l : Select an industry in which you are interested. It may be one in which you
are currently working, aspire to work, or are otherwise familiar. It might include, for
example, commercial airlines, banking, fashion retail, food retail, beauty, IT,
publishing, hospitality, leisure and tourism, automotive, construction, insurance,
pharmaceutical, film, oil and gas, mining, sport etc.
SteR 2: Select a business within that industry. This moy be a specific business unit or
company that is part of a larger group.
SteR 3: Identify a strategic change or changes in that business that is planned to
be undertaken or one that you propose.

Researching your industry and organisation

Your research involves systematically studying appropriate materials and sources
in order to establish facts about your chosen industry and organisation.
You can make use of the wide range of web resources available to help you to
understand the context in which your organisation operates, but do not limit
yourself, to web-based sources of information. You should take care also to use
academic, practitioner, industry and company sources.

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 The Assignment
The aim of the assignment is for you to demonstrate your understanding of the
knowledge and skills required to lead organisations successfully through strategic
change.
You are required to do this in a report that provides recommendations for strategic
change to an organisation you choose. Your recommendations should be based
on a thorough analysis of the industry of which the organisation is a part, the
organisation itself and best practice.

Task - Strategic Change Analysis 100 marks

• Identify a strategic change based on a critical environmental analysis of

your chosen organisation
(20 marks)
• Devise a strategy to deliver this change based on a critical review of a range
of organisational change strategies
(25 marks)
• Critically evaluate how the change might impact organisational culture and
recruitment. Make critical recommendations for how the change can be
managed to overcome potential resistance and mitigate impact on
performance
(25 marks)
• Based on close critical analysis of leadership models and theories, evaluate
the leadership capabilities needed to deliver this change and what
approaches might support decisions on how to lead this change
(30 marks)

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 Format:
Your submission should be in the form of a report structured to include:
• A brief (200-word max) introduction covering the background to the
organisation and strategic changes proposed.
• Sections on each element of the task above
• Bibliography
• Appendix/Append ices

Submission requirements
• A single, word-processed document containing material pertaining to all
components of the task.
• The word count is 4000 words, not including the bibliography or any
appendices.
• The document should be structured as a report with a bibliography and
appendices (where necessary) . Refer to the Assignment Presentation
Requirements (see front cover) for more information.
• An electronic copy of the document must be submitted to Cardiff Education
as instructed.
• Work that contains viruses, or work that cannot be run directly, will result in a
fail grade being awarded for this assessment.

Please see Guidance for Students at the end of this document for further
information.

All documents should be submitted in one file per student, using the following
filename format:
student name_lD_module abbreviation

Leadership, People, and Change 4

 Guidance for Students

Purpose of the assignment:

➢ The aim of this assignment is for you to demonstrate your understanding of the
knowledge and skills required in leading organisations successfully through
strategic change. You are required to do this by providing recommendations to
an organisation you choose, based on a thorough analysis of the industry, the
organisation itself and best practice.

➢ 'Strategic change' here concerns the type of change that addresses one or more
of the following:
• The long-term direction of the organisation;
• The scope of the organisation's activities;
• Securing advantage over competitors;
• Changes in the organisation's environment;
• The organisation's capability - its resources and competences including
culture, leadership, and people;
• The values and expectations of stakeholders.

➢ Strategic change is, therefore, complex in nature, made in situations of

uncertainty, and requires an integrated approach. It is different from but affects
operational decisions.
➢ For example, your organisation's key stakeholders may increase pressure to
secure growth by moving into a new area of business. Managers may pursue this
by acquiring another with competencies in that area. All this may be in response
to changes in the competitive or broader environment affecting the firm.
➢ On completion of this assignment, you should have produced a report of your
analysis and a set of recommendations that could be implemented.
➢ Your work will be assessed on your ability to research and identify an appropriate
strategic change, refine it based on the application of appropriate
methodologies to analyse the business and industry, and produce a set of
recommendations to implement the change.
➢ Consult your tutor if you are uncertain about any aspect of the assignment.

Leadership, People, and Change 5

 Academic Rigour

➢ You should give clear and specific justification for the recommendations. They
should be based on evidence, good research and analysis, and thorough
critical analysis using the theories, approaches and methods you have learnt
whilst studying this unit and wider reading. This will achieve far more than simple
description.
➢ You should cite every source you use and give clear references. We
recommend the Harvard referencing system, but any standard system is
acceptable, as long as it is consistent.
➢ Your assignment must, of course, be entirely your own work and there are severe
➢ penalties for plagiarism outlined in the Cardiff documents What is Academic
Misconduct?
➢ Guidance for Candidate and Avoiding Plagiarism and Collusion: Guidance for
Candidates.

Mark Scheme

Please also read the mark scheme thoroughly. This outlines what you need to
achieve to gain marks in each section. It will give you a good idea of the areas you
need to explore and the information, analysis and conclusions you need to present
in each section, It will also show you how effective and thorough your work needs
to be,

Format
The total assignment should be 4,000 words including all FOUR (4) components of
the task, the bibliography and appendix.

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 Appendices

There is no requirement for appendices nor a penalty for not including them, but
they do provide an opportunity to demonstrate that your ideas and
recommendations are supported by relevant academic models and research,
Any appendices should be no more than FOUR (4) pages long. You should use it
to present supporting information that is too detailed to include in the main body
of your assignment.
Appendices are not included in your word count nor allocated any marks. But well
produced appendices can support your report and help you gain marks for those
sections to which they refer. You should only include relevant information in your
appendices and make reference to them in the body of the assignment.
You might, for example, include additional details of your industry or business or
detailed analysis from one of the analytical tools,

Bibliography
You should include a bibliography that references all information you have used
(printed and online materials) to produce your assignment.

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