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Essay Instructions: Term paper

Each student will submit by the end of the final week of class a term paper (10-12 pages) that selects a current management problem or issue, and applies one or more principles of management discussed in the class to the problem. For example, one might select the problem of how NASA ought to organize its decision process to minimize the risk of future disasters from the perspective of organization design and decision-making.


The format of the paper should be as follows:

Introduction of the problem-

Statement of major relevant principles to be applied

Analysis and application of principles

Conclusion

It is expected that the statement of the issue or problem will be drawn from the newspaper or newsmagazine or similar accounts. There should be citations of materials consulted to develop the statement of the problem. At least three sources should be used for the problem statement.

With the statement of major management principles or management conceptual ideas to apply to the problem there should be an articulation of these principles or conceptual ideas with citation of materials consulted. Again at least eight sources should be cited here as well. While the textbook material may be a starting point for the development of this section, it is expected that the student will go beyond the text to the other readings or do additional research in the literature in the development of these principles or conceptual ideas.

In the analysis section the student will systematically apply the principles or conceptual ideas to the problem. This is the analysis part of the paper and it is not expected that new principles or different problems would be introduced here. This is an application section.

The conclusion is expected to be a short section in which the student draws final conclusions from the analysis. The conclusion section might differ from the analysis section in that the analysis might yield more than one option, and the conclusion draws a single inference.

It is expected that each paper will follow the general format specified above. Generally speaking the three main sections ought to be about equal in length. For example, an 11 page paper might be divided: introduction (3 pages); statement of principles (3 pages), analysis (4 pages), and conclusion (1 page). There is not a subpage distribution requirement, but balance among the sections is expected.


Material should not be directly quoted or taken in a substantial way from another source without citation or quotation marks. No more than 10% of the paper should be in the form of direct quotes and any such quotes must be indicated and cited.

There is no mandated form of citation. But students should use an accepted form of citation and be consistent and accurate in the application of that form. Material taken from Internet websites should indicate the URL and the date that you last accessed the site to gather the information as well as other standard information, such as author and title. If the material taken from the Internet originally came from another source (such as a periodical)

Please include these authors as the primary sources: Henry Mintzberg, Max Weber, Thomas Kuhn, Peter Drucker, Michael Porter and Bateman & Snell. The name of the text book is: Management: Leading and Collaborating in a Competitive World. I would prefer that these authors are used and cited for the paper but if you find other sources that will support the paper it is fine.

Essay Instructions: imagine it is July 20, 1969 and you are watching the moon landing live on national television with a close friend of yours. Your friend asks you two sincere questions:

Topic 1: Why did we go through all of the trouble of landing on the moon in the first place?

Topic 2: Why didn?t we use the money we spent going to the moon on improving the conditions of poor people here in the United States?

Do some independent internet research on NASA and the US space program. Reference your findings from that research in your responses to the discussion board questions.

Essay Instructions: Part I. You'll be analyzing NASA through the eyes of an outsourcing consultant. Construct a value chain of NASA's activities (show the value chain in a diagram with boxes and arrows and analyze that value chain for opportunities to outsource on a global scale. This portion of the assignment needs to be 4 pages.

Part II. The second portion of this assignment is this: What are NASA's competencies and capabilities, and would those be in danger of being compromised during outsourcing activities that was outlined in Part I. This portion of the assignment needs to be 3 pages

Part III. Pinpoint several reasons for NASA?s strategic failures in the past 20 years. Need to analyze five failures by NASA, and identify 5 reasons why those failures occurred. Are there common themes to those 5 reasons? This portion is a 3 page paper.

The total page requirement for this paper is 10 pages. Please use the following sources and any additional sources.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/rtf_flash/index_noaccess.html
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/104084main_1968main_strategi.pdf
Reich, R.B. (2005). Plenty of knowledge work to go around. Harvard Business Review, 83(4).
Gottfredson, M., Puryear, R., and Phillips, S. (2005). Strategic sourcing from periphery to the core. Harvard Business Review, 83(2).
Apgar IV, M. and Keane, J.M. (2004). New business with the new military. Harvard Business Review, 82(9).
Kiely, T. (1997). Business processes: Consider outsourcing. Harvard Business Review, 75(3).
Magretta, J.; Rollins, K. (1998). The power of virtual integration: An interview with Dell Computer's Michael Dell. Harvard Business Review, 76(2).

Essay Instructions: Debate Question Assignment
Due: Last Day of Class (DEC 6)
Following is a suggested list of debate questions with which you have the choice to respond in the affirmative or negative.
Debate statements:
a. The NASA budget is no longer a luxury we can afford and should be cancelled.
b. Manned spaceflight is not cost effective and NASA should concentrate only on robotic spacecraft.
c. Intelligent extraterrestrial beings do not exist.
d. There exist intelligent beings in our Galaxy with whom we can communicate.
e. Life arose out of natural physical processes taking place here on earth.
f. Digital computers can, in principle, literally think.
Posted on Blackboard is a reading list relating to some of the topics listed including this document.
The assignment is to present a 1200 word written response to one of the debate questions. (The 1200 word size is a maximum size ??" no minimum). In order to make a convincing argument it will be necessary to research the topic and include references and citations as deemed appropriate. Topics of your own choosing are acceptable but must have prior approval. This assignment is due in class on December 6.