Firm’s survival

To what extent do the structure, culture and leadership of the case study organization encourage long-term sustainable performance such that the organization may survive and prosper in a global knowledge economy?

This assignment will help to develop your ability to link theory and practice, reach conclusions that demonstrate your understanding of how management behavior influences organizational performance and assess your understanding of sustainability in relation to renewing organizations.

PLO1. Apply critical thinking to the analysis of situations, draw appropriate conclusions and make recommendations for action.

PLO3. Apply a critical and reflective awareness of sustainability and ethical issues

Unit Learning Outcomes Assessed

2. Evaluate organizations as complex adaptive systems and select appropriate strategies for embedding principles of sustainability into organizational design and practice.
3. Justify the relevance of organizational culture as a constraint or promoter of survival and growth.
4. Critically assess the role of leadership in delivering organizational efficiency and capacity through the development of human capabilities.

This task requires you to analyze the internal environment of Unilever and measure the level of congruence/harmony it displays with the external environment – i.e. the global knowledge economy. You may consider any of its global operations or you may wish to focus on UK & Ireland. Whichever level of analysis you wish to conduct you must identify the scope of your discussion when outlining the purpose and objectives of your Report.

You need to consider structure, culture, and leadership in relation to whether they are likely to enable the long-term survival of the organization. In other words are the practices likely to deliver sustainable performance. Since we are operating in a global knowledge economy, the context in which the organization is operating must be taken into consideration. So, evaluation must assess whether current practices enable the organization to respond effectively to the factors driving a knowledge economy – capacity for learning, innovation, speedy decision-making, responsiveness to customers/ employees etc. Is it in a fit state to maximize opportunities for innovation and therefore enhance competitiveness?

As a minimum you should access the appropriate corporate web sites where a range of material can be found about their purpose, principles and values, innovation and their approach to approach to sustainability

Objectives

These are what you hope to achieve through compiling the report. The clues are in the task brief and assessment criteria. There will be clues about content and processes to be demonstrated. Content is about the knowledge to be covered and Process is to do with how you treat the content.

The task brief clearly states the content – i.e. knowledge areas that are required – global knowledge economy, sustainable performance, organizational structure, culture and leadership and it also specifies the case study organization.

The task brief indicates that you need to analyze and evaluate practice – these are the key processes. The assessment criteria provides further process information – the need to synthesize, analyze and evaluate theory and practice

In the task brief it clearly indicates that the context is “The global knowledge Economy”, therefore you are evaluating this organization against the requirements of a global knowledge economy. It also suggests some key areas that should be considered.

Your Objectives may look something like this:

1. Identify the nature of the global knowledge economy and determine implications for organizations
2. Critically appraise the key factors most likely to lead to sustainable performance in a global knowledge economy
3. Evaluate the organization against the critical factors to determine level of congruence with its external environment

Having identified the terms of reference and the objectives you can utilize this information to construct the INTRODUCTION to your report.

Collection of Data

• you have been asked to produce a report based upon an organizations practices – either your employing organization or a case study organization – and your findings from the literature
• At postgraduate level you should be utilizing academic literature to justify your arguments.

Part of your preparation for the report will entail carrying out some research into the literature on the relevant topics as suggested in the Objectives.

• You will also need to gather data about the practices of the organization under examination.
• The case study is Unilever. You will need to access to web sites including the corporate site for Unilever and other sources of information such as video clips, news reports, journal articles etc to build up a picture of this organization.