Students will conduct an in-depth analysis of an organization in the student’s field of work
or industry they aspire to work in. Through this analysis, the student will prepare a detailed
set of recommendations for a specific problem facing the organization as selected by the
student.
To be successful in completing this project, each student should be prepared to spend an
average of 8 to 10 hours per week on the project.
Your analysis should use publicly available information on the organization under study. Any consideration of using private information
must be discussed with your instructor prior to beginning your project.
The Final Project Report will include the following sections:
1. Title page – properly formatted according to APA formatting guidelines.
2. Abstract – properly prepared and formatted according to APA formatting
guidelines.
3. Introduction – What problem will you be investigating? Why is the problem worth
investigating? What is the background to the problem, how did it develop, etc.?
What organization will be the subject of your investigation? Provide appropriate
information about the organization (history, mission/vision, industry, leadership
structure, organizational structure, financial position, etc.) so the reader has a
thorough understanding of the organization.
4. Problem statement – Provide a clear and concise statement to the problem to
include key constructs associated with the problem. Make sure that you define the
constructs within the problem and avoid generalizations. Use academic definitions
to define your constructs. For example, if your problem involves leadership
effectiveness, clearly define leadership and what ‘effectiveness’ means.
5. Literature review – Research each construct that is related to the problem under
investigation. Introduce each construct and then inform the reader of the construct
using academic journal articles to build the body of knowledge on the construct.
6. Methodology – This section should be relatively short and state how you have
developed your resolutions to the problem. This may be accomplished through a meta-analysis and thought experiment. However you approached your resolution
and recommendations to the experiment, they should be discussed in this section
and supported by sound theory.
7. Results – This is an objective discussion of the results of your methodology and is
not based upon your opinion. In this section, provide a brief summary of the
literature review and methodology section (one paragraph each) and then
transition into what these sections have told you. For example, “From the literature
we see that emotional intelligence is a key personality trait for those who emerge
as leaders. Survey results from this study support this finding…”
8. Discussion/Recommendations – In this section, you should apply your results to
the specific problem under investigation in a more subjective way. List and discuss
any recommendations developed in response to your research and results
pertaining to the problem under investigation. “Organization X should identify
individuals high in emotional intelligence as potential leaders within the
organization. Training and development programs can aid in this effort and reduce
the randomness that is currently present in leader emergence and development
within the firm…”
9. Conclusion – a concise conclusion to the paper.
10. Reference page – properly formatted according to APA formatting guidelines.
11. Appendices – include an appendix of key artifacts related to the project as
necessary. Such artifacts may include; survey results, financials, correspondence
with the organization, brochures and other informative material, financials,
organization charts, etc.
The Final Project report should be between 25 and 30 pages in length, not including the
title page, abstract, references page(s) or appendices. The paper should follow APA
formatting guidelines, be typed, double-spaced and use Times New Roman, 12-point font.
The Organization I will be using is Hubspot for this project.
