MGTB442F Extended Essay

Part One: Students are required to write an essay (of length 1,000-1,200 words) to recommend an HR Development (HRD) method(s) to a selected company.

• Students can select one company and are assumed to be taking up the role of HR Manager. 

 The company must come from one of the following industries:
1. Innovation and Technology
2. Import and Export Trade
3. Green Technology & Environmental Services
4. Financial Services
5. Design
6. Convention and Exhibition;
7. Legal Services
8. Testing and Certification
9. Real Estate and Construction Services
10. Accounting
11. Management Consulting
12. Logistics
13. Film Entertainment
14. Publishing
15. Information and Communication Technology.

Note: Students are not allowed to use the same company in the group assignment.

Instructions for Part One: Writing the essay 
1 Use between 250-300 words to describe the background. Search on the website of the selected company to find out the vision, mission, values, nature of the business, products and services alike. Students need to understand the business nature of the company to make a recommendation.

2 Use between 600-700 words to describe the HRD method(s) that you recommend and explain the reasons. The recommended HRD method(s) should enable better learning and development of the employees in the selected company. The recommendation must make use of the contents of this course.
            2.1 Students are required to consider the impact of technologies and generational characteristics on the selection of HRD method(s).
            2.2 Students may include additional factor(s) such as culture or business strategy, if you can find them from the company’s website, to substantiate your recommendation of the HRD method(s) to the company.

3 Use between 150-200 words to discuss the limitations of the recommendation.

MGTB399F Reflective Journal

Part B: Reflective Journal 
You are required to work on the following reflective journal in not more than 300 words. 

You have to apply the knowledge that you have learnt in MGT B399F when you are preparing your extended essay. Which concepts/theories/models do you think is/are the most difficult to be applied? Why? How are you going to solve this difficulty? Explain your choices in detail.

MGTB399F Extended Essay

You are required to work on the following extended essay in 1000 - 1200 words.

Under the current situation in Hong Kong (i.e. the threat of COVID-19), Hong Kong has been undergoing an economic downturn. Assume you have identified a business opportunity under this circumstance in a specific industry and you are going to start a company to exploit this opportunity.

Please prepare a business proposal including the following:

• Identify the business opportunity. Please provide concrete evidence to support your idea. (150 – 200 words) 
• Based on the above business opportunity, describe the type of industry that you are going to compete in, products/services that your company is going to provide, and types of customer needs that these products and services are going to satisfy. (250 – 300 words) 
• What strategic actions will you take to compete in the industry? (600 – 700 words)  

                Who are your target customers?
                 What are your selling points?
                 What is your business-level strategy?
                  What is your corporate-level strategy?


Justify your choices and make assumptions when necessary.

The word limit for each section is just for your reference. You can adjust the number of words for each section according to your own needs.

MGTB342F Reflective Journal

Complete a reflective journal with reflection on your learning process and the application of knowledge of MGT B342F, specifying the following:

• Which topic(s) are you interested in the most and the least, and why? (no more than 150 words)
• Which concepts/ theories/ models that you learnt in MGT B342F can you apply in your current life or future career? Explain your choices in detail. (no more than 150 words)

MGTB342F Extended Essay

Instructions:
1. Both parts of the extended assignments (i.e., extended essay and reflective journal) are COMPULSORY. Failure to submit either part will result in a “Failure” grade of this course.
2. Students must allow enough time to upload the extended assignment. You are strongly advised to submit both parts of the extended assignment once completed before the last date.
3. No extension will be allowed for the extended assignment. Late submission of extended assignment will also result in a “Failure” grade of the course.



Due to the outbreak of new coronavirus (COVID-19), many local employers have implemented the work from home policy and required their employees to stay and work at home during office hours. Some employees may work from home for the first time, so they may need help to figure out how to stay on task at home and to keep on their productivity, thus leading to numerous challenges to human resource management among companies. For example, a recent news reported that a group of young management trainees at a local bank flouted work-from-home rules to go hiking and posted their photos online, while they were supposed to be working from home as part of company measures against the coronavirus outbreak (SCMP, 11 February 2020).

Assume you are an HR manager of an existing company (i.e., you can choose a company that you currently work or previous worked for or a company that you are familiar with; please specify the company and its background information in the introduction section). Your CEO has asked you to draft an action plan of HRM under a work from home policy, which aims to ensure the productivity of current employees when they are working from home. The action plan will cover three important HRM areas, including training, performance management, and compensation. With reference to the knowledge learnt in MGT B342F and the information you collected about the chosen company, prepare the action plan of HRM in the form of an extended essay specifying the following:

1. Introduction (100-120 words)

• Brief background of the chosen company (such as industry, business, products or services, areas of operations, customers, etc.) 
• Objectives of the action plan 

2. Training (200-250 words)

• Training provided to employees to ensure their productivity when they are working from home (hints: specify training content and training method(s) of training programme with clear explanation) 

3. Performance Management (300-350 words)

• Ways to monitor and appraise employees’ performance when they work from home (hints: specify the performance standards, appraiser(s), technique(s) and method(s) for appraising performance with clear explanation)

4. Compensation (300-350 words)

• Financial or non-financial compensation to ensure and motivate high productivity of employees when they work from home 

5. Expected Impacts and Limitation (100-130 words)

• Short discussion of the expected impacts and limitation of the proposed ideas on the chosen company 

6. References (in OUHK referencing style)

MGTB345F Reflective Journal

You are required to submit a reflective journal of not more than 300 words, with reflection on critical learning events or experiences during the learning process of this course. The critical learning event or experience should be related to any topic(s) covered in the course. Discuss the most important, or interesting, or relevant, or useful aspect of the event or experience, and what you can learn from it and how it can be applied to your personal or work life.

Your reflection on the critical learning event(s) or experience(s) in MGT B345F should provide answers to the following:

- What actually happened?
- What was the related course topic(s)?
- What was its impact on you personally?
- What did you learn from the event(s) or experience(s)?

You are advised to read the rubric carefully before writing the reflective journal.

MGTB345F Extended Essay

MGT B345F helps you synthesize and apply various management concepts, theories and approaches to different organization contexts. Read the following newspaper excerpt, and write an essay within 1,000 to 1,200 words to make specific recommendations on how to improve the government’s effectiveness in resolving the controversy over the proposed alcohol ban policy.

“Hong Kong is facing an alarming surge of coronavirus infections, both imported and spread locally. The tally of confirmed cases stood at 386, including four fatalities in the city. In an attempt to guard against a wider spread of contagion, Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Monday announced plans to ban the sale of alcohol at 8,600 restaurants, bars and clubs holding liquor licenses. But questions were raised about the effectiveness of such a move.” (South China Morning Post, 24/03/2020)

In presenting your recommendations, you are expected to write an answer that includes:

• Brief background information leading to the proposed policy (~100-150 words) 
• Choice of key concepts and theories in your analysis and justification of their relevance(~100-150 words) 
• Application of specific course concepts and theories (e.g.leadership / power and conflicts / organizational decision making / organizational learning, etc.) in diagnosing the problem issue (~400-450 words)   
• Recommendations and conclusions (by drawing on your theoretical foundation) of how the controversy could be resolved to alleviate public discontent(~400-450 words)  

[Note: Assuming it is now 24 March 2020 when preparing your write-up. Most topics covered by the course can be relevant in formulating your analysis. It is not the number of concepts or theories that matters, but their relevance and your own articulation. You may choose a big topic/theory, or alternatively, a combination of different concepts and smaller theories in formulating your analysis. A major challenge will be to decide on which one(s) to use, given the scenario in question.]

You are advised to read the rubric carefully before writing the extended essay. Give a word count at the end of your essay. References, diagram, tables and graphics can be put in an appendix which will not be included in the word count.