MSc HRM
LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Coursework Essay
Kindly read all instructions!!!
ASSESSMENT
The essays should be typed in 12 points and double-spaced with 1-inch margins (font: Times New Roman or Arial). Figures and Tables are to be used sparingly and numbered sequentially, and more extensive data is to be attached as appendices at the end.
Quality of presentation and format:
A clear , logical structure of the assignment
A competent level of English
Full Harvard- style referencing
Assignment Brief
Essay:
You are required to write a 2,500 word essay (excluding references) on one of the topics below. You are expected to use relevant theory to support your answer and critically evaluate the academic debate on the topic. You could also use relevant data and/ or case examples to illustrate your argument but merely describing cases in detail is not a good approach. Since the topics are set in a general way, you could specify them further and justify your particular approach. Some references are suggested for your start but you need to make an effort to search for more literature to support your analysis and argument.
Word Allowance:
2,500 words (excluding notes, references and appendices)
Topics:
1.“Effective leadership is contingent upon cultural and institutional environment of a professional context or an institutional field.” Discuss and evaluate the methods by which organisations can develop effective leaders with reference to a particular profession such as law, accountancy, medicine, architecture, design or art.
Gardner, H. (1995). Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, New York: Basic Books
Gardner, H. (1993). Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity, New York: Basic Books.
Hatch, M., Kostera, M. & Koźmiński, A.K. (2005). The Three Facets of Leadership: Manager, Artist, Priest, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Hunt, J.G., Stelluto, G.E., Hooijberg, R. (2004). “Toward new-wave organization creativity: Beyond romance and analogy in the relationship between orchestra-conductor leadership and musician creativity”, The Leadership Quarterly, 15, pp.145-162.
Kramer, M.W. & Crespy, D.A. (2011). “Communicating collaborative leadership”, The Leadership Quarterly, 22: 1024-1037.
Scott, W.R. (2008). “Lords of the Dance: Professionals as Institutional Agents”, Organization Studies, 29(2): 219-238.
2.Critically evaluate the social and political conditions for developing female leadership in a particular country.
Alvesson, M. and Billing, Y. D. (1992). Gender and organization: Towards a differentiated understanding. Organization Studies, 13(1): 73-103.
Astin, R. and Leland, K. (1992) Leadership: Why Gender and Culture Matter. American Psychologist, 65, 157-170.
Bowen, C., Swim, J. K., & Jacobs, R. R. (2000). Evaluating gender biases on actual job performance of real people: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30(10): 2194-2215.
Burke, R. J. and Davidson, M. J. (eds.) (2012). Women in Management Worldwide: Progress and Prospects. London: Gower Publishing.
Cooke, F. L. (2001). Equal opportunities? The role of legislation and public policies in women’s employment in China, Women in Management Review, 16 (7): 334–348.
Cooke, F. L. (2003). Equal opportunities? Women’s managerial careers in government organizations in China, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14(2): 31–333.
Cotter, D. A., Hermsen, J. M., Ovadia, S. and Vanneman, R. (2001). The Glass Ceiling Effect. Social Forces, 80(2): 655-681.
Eagly, A. H., and Carli, L. L. (2003). The female leadership advantage: An evaluation of the evidence. Leadership Quarterly, 14(6): 807–834.
Kanter, R. M. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books.
Koenig, A. M. (et al.) (2011). Are Leader Stereotypes Masculine? A Meta-Analysis of Three Research Paradigms, Psychological Bulletin, 137(4): 616-642.
Marshall, M. W. (1991). Leadership Development through Experience. Academic of Management Executive, 18(3):127-130
Ryan, M.K. and Haslam, S.A. (2005). The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women Are Over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions, British Journal of Management, 16(2): 81-90.
Ryan, M.K., Haslam, S. A. and Hersby, M. D. (2011). Think Crisis–Think Female: The Glass Cliff and Contextual Variation in the Think Manager–Think Male Stereotype, Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3): 470-484.
Schein, V. E. (2007). A Global Look at Psychological Barriers to Women’s Progress in Management. Journal of Social Issues, 57(4): 675-688.
Singh, V and Vinnicombe, S. (2003). The 2003 Female FTSE Index. Women Pass a Milestone: 101 Directorships on the FTSE 100 Boards. Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University.
3.What are the core features of an ethical leadership approach? Discuss and evaluate in relation to E. P. Thompson’s theory of moral economy.
Brown, M.E. & Treviño, L.K. (2006). “Ethical leadership: A review and future directions”, The Leadership Quarterly, 17, pp.595-616.
Carroll, A.B. (2000). “Ethical challenges for business in the new millennium: Corporate social responsibility and models of management morality, Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol.10, Is.1, pp.33-42.
Christian J., Resick, C.J., Hanges, P.J., Dickson, M.W. & Mitchelson J.K. (2006). “A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Endorsement of Ethical Leadership”, Journal of Business Ethics, 63, pp.345-359.
Maak, T. (2007). “Responsible leadership, stakeholder engagement, and the emergence of social capital”, Journal of Business Ethics, 74, pp.329-343.
Thompson, E. P. (1971). “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the 18th
Century”. Past & Present, 50, pp.76-136.
Williamson, T. (2008). “The good society and the good soul: Plato’s Republic on leadership”, The Leadership Quarterly, 19: 397-408.
4.Critically evaluate the ways in which leaders can manage creativity and innovation in the context of the digital economy with a case illustration.
Amabile, T. (1998). “How to kill creativity”, Harvard Business Review, pp.77-87.
Barsh, J., Capozzi, M. M. and Davidson, J. (2008). “Leadership and innovation”, McKinsey Quarterly, No. 1, 37-47.
Deuze, M. (2006). “Participation, remediation, bricolage: Considering principal components of a digital culture”, The Information Society, 22, pp.63-75.
Mumford, M.D., Scott, G.M., Gaddis, B. & Strange, J.M. (2002). “Leading creative people: Orchestrating expertise and relationships”, The Leadership Quarterly 13, pp.705-750.
Richardson, J. (1996). “Vertical Integration and Rapid Response in Fashion Apparel”, Organization Science, Vol.7, No.4, pp.400-412.
Tapscott, D. (1996). The digital economy: Promise and peril in the age of networked intelligence, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Tidd, J., Bessant, J., & Pavitt, K. (2005). Managing Innovation, Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, 3rd Edition. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
5.Discuss the role of leadership in tackling global problems such as poverty, health, human rights, inequality and the environment.
There are no specific readings for this question. You need to search for the relevant literature for each topic or problem and then combine them with the appropriate leadership literature.
*You can use a case example(s) very concisely to illustrate your argument!
General Advice on Writing
In addressing these questions, students are encouraged to develop a theoretically informed analysis and critical perspectives on issues of social, political and policy significance. While considering multiple levels of analysis and variety of viewpoints, you need to narrow down the scope of the core, substantive discussion and focus on a specific issue in a particular context.
For all questions you should introduce relevant theories, overview of the chosen field in the form of a brief literature review, and consider the following:
what critical issues or problems emerge in the particular context/ field;
in what ways practitioners perceive the issues and responses;
how organisations/ groups/ people are responding to them;
how you can interpret and evaluate the findings in light of the literature; and
what you can suggest for improvement.
In your analysis, consider not only the current trends but also future prospect. You should examine the dominant discourse of transformation but also the logic of opposition and resistance. You can draw in one or several case examples to support your argument.
In constructing the analysis, you need to consider the following basic questions:
What issues or problems are you addressing (topic)?
Why are they important?
How can you frame them into a body of knowledge (framing)?
What are the central questions or debates identified in the literature (literature review)?
What kinds of views, theories or models are available in the literature and which is the most applicable for your questions?
In what ways can you develop a meaningful, coherent and consistent discussion in terms of research questions, methods, data and scope, level and logic of analysis (research design)?
What kinds of information, evidences and illustrations can you use to support our argument (data collection)?
What are the most significant findings, conclusions and implications of our analysis with respect to existing literature and future directions of research (analysis and discussion)?
What are the contributions and limitations of your analysis in terms of theory and practice?
Are you communicating these in the clearest way (presentation), especially in the introduction and conclusion?
Essay Procedures
Make sure that you conduct a proper literature search using the Social Science Citation Index (ISI Web of Science) and Internet search engines (Google Scholar) before planning the essay. Also try to use the relevant core readings from the course.
Make sure that you reference all the materials consulted and provide the details of the sources.
In terms of evaluation, the following factors will be considered:
Use of literature, critical understanding and framing
Structure of presentation and organisation
Analysis and arguments
Originality and scholarly contribution
Contribution to organisational and managerial practice
Referencing and writing skills
Clear introduction and firm conclusion
Justifications and evidence for your argument.
RECOMMENDED READING
The following book is the key recommended text for this module:
Northouse, P. (2016) Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th Edition), London: SAGE.
Grint, K. (2010) Leadership: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jackson, B. and Parry, K. (2011) A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership, London: SAGE.
Further Reading:
Bryman, A., Collinson, D., Grint, K., and Jackson, B. (2011) The SAGE Handbook of Leadership, London: SAGE.
Collinson, D, Grint, K., and Jackson, B. (2011) Major Works in Leadership Studies, Vols. 1-4, London: SAGE.
Kotter, J. P. (1990). A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management, New York: Free Press.
Pfeffer, J., and Sutton, R. (2006) Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total
Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management, Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Watson G. And Reissener S. (2010) Developing Skills for Business Leadership, London: CIPD
Yukl, G. (2009) Leadership in Organizations (7th Edition), London: Pearson International
You will need to read very broadly for your assignment topics and this will include a search of current research in up-to-date academic journals. The following journals and periodicals will be extremely useful for your further study. It is highly recommended that you look at relevant articles (many of which will be cited in the reference sections of other articles that you read) and that you keep up-to-date with debates by reading the current editions of these publications.
These journals and periodicals are all held in the Templeman Library and current editions are either found in the periodicals section or in the short-loan section of the library. Older editions are held on the third floor of the library. Many are also available on-line.
The Leadership Quarterly
Leadership
Journal of Organizational Behaviour
Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management Journal
International Journal of Human Resource Management
Work, Employment and Society
Journal of Management Studies
Organization Studies
British Journal of Management
Organizational Dynamics
Academy of Management Perspective
Harvard Business Review
MIT Sloan Management Review
People Management
You will find many other sources of good reading by doing simple library searches in journals and books. A good starting point is also to look at the references cited in the bibliography at the end of a relevant article or chapter. This will give you an idea of what reading the author has done to do his/her research. Web searches (Google Scholar etc.) and searches of on-line journals (Web of Science, EBSCO etc.) will also be useful.
If you have a particular interest in a country other than the UK, you will have to do your own research into good source material. Internet searches are often a good starting point. Availability of material varies significantly from country to country.
Referencing and Plagiarism
References are scholarly acknowledgements of work referred to or quoted. Failure to reference works used or quoted is plagiarism.
Proper citation of sources is an essential part of the presentation of academic work. There are a number of ways to provide the references to your bibliography in the text of your essay. This can be done, for example, by incorporating a series of numbered endnotes or footnotes in your essay which contain the reference, including page numbers. However, it is often simpler for both you and the person reading your essay if the references are contained in parentheses within the text of your essay, as shown below:
Cosset and Suret (1995, p. 303) noted that “the considerable increase in the volume of world trade and foreign investment in recent decades has resulted in a need by foreigners for more information on the operating environment of those countries where they have made investments or exported.”
Or: Recently it has been argued (Cosset and Suret 1995, p. 314) that investment in politically risky countries can give several benefits.
The name, year and page number should appear whether you are quoting directly or paraphrasing, and this reference should refer unambiguously to a source listed in your bibliography. If you were using two different papers written by Cosset and Suret in 1995, you should list them in your bibliography and in the text as Cosset and Suret 1995a and Cosset and Suret 1995b.
A list of references or works consulted, in alphabetical order by author’s last name, should be included at the end of each essay or dissertation. Students should make certain that there is a complete reference, including page numbers for every citation in the text and that the cited dates and spelling of author names in both text and references are in agreement. There are several different conventions for referencing, and it doesn’t matter too much which one is used as long as it is consistently used throughout. One recommended convention is that provided in the manuscript preparation and style guide for authors handing in articles for the Journal of International Business Studies which are as follows.
Journal Articles
Cosset, Jean-Claude & Jean-Marc Suret. 1995. Political risk and the benefits of international portfolio diversification. Journal of International Business Studies, 26(2): 301–18.
Books
Donahue, John D. 1989. The privatization decision. New York: Basic Books.
Ashton, Robert H. & Alison H. Ashton, editors. Forthcoming. Judgement and decision-making research in accounting and auditing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chapters in Edited Books
Teece, David J. 1987. Capturing value from technological innovation: Integration, strategic partnering, and licensing decisions. In R. B. Guile & H. Brooks, editors, Technology and global industry: Companies and nations in the world economy. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Internet Sources
Any source material downloaded from the web should include the same
information as an item found on paper, PLUS the website name and adderess.
(However, if the name of the website is obvious from the publication, it is
not necessary to include the website name. See examples below.)
Lall, Somik V. and Sudeshna Ghosh, ‘Learning by Dining: Informal Networks and Productivity in Mexican Industry’,
World Bank Working Paper 2789, February 2002, The World Bank Group / Research: https://econ.worldbank.org/
Nader, Ralph, ‘Letter to WHO Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland’, 23 July
2001, Home Page of the Consumer Project on Technology / CPTech’s Page on Intellectual Property Rights/ Health Care and Intellectual Property: https://www.cptech.org/ip/health/
Turner, David, ‘UK manufacturing sees first growth in a year’, Financial Times, 1 March 2002, https://news.ft.com/
Global Exchange, ‘Banana Background’, Available at: https://www.globalexchange.org/economy/bananas/ (accessed on 23 January 2003)
In the last case, the author is unknown, so the name of the website is treated as a corporate author, and need not be repeated with the address. Also, if the document does not have publication date, you need to add the date of access. In any case, you should try to provide full details of the paper and electronic versions of the document.
Plagiarism
The School takes the issue of plagiarism very seriously and checks all work for plagiarism. A sample of all coursework submitted is scanned and analysed using various electronic resources which compare the text of the submitted work against published sources and essay banks. Please, therefore, write and read your essay carefully before you submit.
