Your final research project will provide you with the opportunity to examine a problem or issue of concern in a real organization. You willdevelop a course of action by applying concepts and applications from this course. You may choose a public, private, or not-for-profit organization in which you have been employed (past or present) or you may choose an organization of interest to you. In selecting the organization, it is important to consider the range and depth of research analysis available to you. Information may be accessed through direct communications with people from the organization, data from the media (such as newspapers, webcasts, etc.), organizational literature, the organizations website, professional journals/articles, and other secondary sources.
You must identify a recent problem or issue from within the past three years. This primary focus of this project is your analysis of the problem or issue; it is not merely an historical account of a problem and the company’s solution. Your analysis of the problem or issue may or may not align with the organizations previous or proposed course of action. In general, your final research project should provide the organization with the most effective course of action to address their problem or issue, based on the application of key principles, concepts, and theories of organizational behavior.
For this activity, you will submit an outline for your research project to your instructor for evaluation.
Your outline should follow and expand on the basic Experiential Learning Model, i.e., contain a section for each of the following segments at the highest level of the outline:
Again, rather than simply choosing topics from the text as your starting point, start with one personal experience from the workplace or researched experience from an organization that can be linked to course content/topic areas.
Your submission for this activity should consist of 2-3 pages, and include an outline of your CONCRETE EXPERIENCE and an outline of some REFLECTIVE OBSERVATION based on that experience. Then discuss at least two related course content/topic areas that relate to the topic and experience in the ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALIZATION portion of the outline, and finish with an outline of possible learning you have realized, based on your analysis of theory applied to that experience in the ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION section of the outline.
Obviously, you may experience further learning as you go through this process; therefore, the outline can certainly be adjusted prior to submitting the final research paper. You do not have to re-submit this outline, if it is later altered during the course.
Your assignment should follow APA guidelines by including a title page, and be in Times New Roman, 12-point font, double spaced, with one inch margins.
Compose your work using a word processor (or other software as appropriate) and save it frequently to your computer. When you’re ready to submit your work, click Browse My Computer and find your file. Once you’ve located your file click Open and, if successful, the file name will appear under the Attached files heading. Scroll to the bottom of the page, click Submit and you’re done. Be sure to check your work and correct any spelling or grammatical errors before you post it.
Use the EC Library resources to properly cite your work (Login
