ASSIGNMENT: Annotated Reading List

Purpose:

This assignment seeks to have the student identify, and evaluate the internal and external factors that influence organizational behavior by researching and analyzing scholarly articles, thus becoming familiar with academic quality research and the university online library.

Your manager overheard you telling a colleague that you are taking a graduate-level organizational behavior class at UMGC.  He remembers his college course on organizational behavior and realizes that he found the knowledge he learned extremely useful over the years. Lately, he has felt that he has been overwhelmed with changes that require him and his employees to quickly respond to situations that he cannot always solve effectively. Experience has taught him that professional development is a lifelong endeavor. To that end he would like you to select some articles for him to read on the following topic: Workplace Environments, Flat Organizational Structures, Organizational Behavior, or Virtual Workplace.  Here are the points he wants you to address:

Step 1:  Using OneSearch in the online library, conduct a search for at least 3 scholarly articles on internal and external factors that influence organizational structure and culture and their relationship to organizational behavior.

The articles should reflect both current and future catalysts of change in the workplace.   Article selection should consider internal and external influences on structure, culture, and workplace behavior. 

Step 2:  Using the APA template format found here Annotated Bibliography creates an annotated bibliography of each article. The articles should be summarized in at least two paragraphs as the format suggests.

Step 3:  Aggregately analyze and explain the articles for the way in which internal and external factors cause a change in workplace behavior.  This section should comprise 2 paragraphs using multiple course readings and research to support how the internal and external factors identified in the selected articles can/do cause a change in workplace behavior and ultimately organizational structure and culture.

Step 4:  Conclude the paper with a two to three-paragraph discussion of which factors identified in the selected articles are the biggest threat to managing effectively internal or external. You must pick one or the other (factors that are the biggest threat internally OR externally) and defend/support your position using APA formatted in-text citations. Be sure to clearly explain your reasoning for the selection and provide supporting examples and rationale from class readings related to the modern organization.

INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE THE SUBMISSION:

NOTE:  All submitted work is to be your original work. You may not use any work from another student, the Internet or an online clearinghouse.  You are expected to understand the Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism Policy and know that it is your responsibility to learn about instructor and general academic expectations with regard to proper citation of sources as specified in the APA Publication Manual, 7th Ed. (Students are held accountable for in-text citations and an associated reference list only).