Organizational Leadership

Guidelines and Strategies:

The student’s written Position Paper is designed to invite the student to provide an in-depth and critically reflective written examination of a selected collection of assigned articles that address a specific theme. This paper is a response to the guidelines below:

Sources to be used and properly cited for the Week 2 HBR Position Paper:

There are two HBR articles that students must use for the Week 2 Signature Assignment:

• What Leaders Need to Know about Organizational Culture by Warrick
• How Starbucks’s Culture Brings Its Strategy to Life by Leinwand and Davidson

Additionally, students should include at least two of the articles that address the organizational culture of Amazon. All Amazon articles are posted in the Week 2 Moodle Shell.

Guidelines for the Week 2 HBR Position Paper:

Students are strongly encouraged to read GGU’s Academic Integrity Policy to ensure they clearly understand the University’s standards regarding any form of cheating, stealing, or illegally borrowing material from another source without proper APA citations. This includes all written information the student provides in this course.

Note: All submitted student papers will be rigorously examined for any form or expression of plagiarism using the TurnitIn platform.

When any student paper has been found to be plagiarized, either in part or in whole, the student will receive an automatic F (0 points) on the assignment. Additionally, students will be referred to the Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs for additional academic sanctions including possible probation or potential expulsion from GGU.

Understanding organizational culture can be challenging for most students of leadership. One of the reasons for this is that there are many factors the create an organization’s culture many of which are visible and many of which are not.

Moreover, an organization’s culture is a powerful force that can create a positive or negative impact on people and performance.

First, students are to read Warrick’s article (from the HBR Coursepack) to build a baseline understanding of the components that create culture and why leaders should be concerned about culture.

Second, students will explore two brief case studies about culture based on two additional articles.

• First students are to read and incorporate into this paper at least two (or more) of the Amazon articles posted in the Week 2 Moodle Shell.
• Second, students are to read the Leinwand and Davidson article (from the HBR Coursepack) and include both articles in this paper.

Third, students will write their papers following the guidelines below:

• What are the key components of organizational culture as seen through Warrick’s article and what are the roles of leaders to ensure the development of a functional and healthy culture vs. a dysfunctional and toxic culture.

• Describe the key components of Amazon’s culture and its impact on people and processes.

• Describe how Starbucks has worked to create a healthy and positive culture and how Starbucks has used culture to support and energize its strategy its products and the customer experience.

• What are the primary differences between the cultures of Amazon and Starbucks. Explain why these differences exist.

• How do both cultures incorporate, or fail to incorporate practices of Transformational Leadership based on the reading of Kouzes and Posner to- date? Which practices and how are they demonstrated, or not, in both cultures?

Students are to write papers in a narrative flowing format using paragraphs. Do not rewrite the bulleted questions above in the body of the paper.

Structure and Style:

Position Papers, or otherwise known as Signature Assignments, are designed to demonstrate student’s learning of specific concepts and whether students can apply those concepts in professional practice. Papers are to have a cover page, references page, and between no less than 3.5 pages of written narrative (this page total does not include the cover page and references page). Papers must follow APA formatting regarding font style and size, spacing, intext citations, direct or indirect quotes.

The student must keep the Turnitin “similarity index” at or below the recommended level of 15%. Students can submit their papers to Turnitin to check on Similarity Index percentages and correct citations as often as they choose up to 24 hours before the Saturday midnight deadline.

NOTE: If student’s attempt to submit papers to Turnitin at or just after the Saturday midnight deadline and are unable to do so, they must send an email to the professor immediately which include the following two attachments:

• An attachment showing a copy of the Turnitin timestamp and
• An attachment of the full completed paper (word.doc)

Students who email the professor but who do not attach the Turnitin timestamp and who do not attach their completed paper will be subject to a 30-point grade reduction immediately. There are no exceptions.

All papers must adhere to the APA writing guidelines found in the syllabus and clarified through the APA writing style at: http://www.apastyle.org/.