OBHR 317 – Group Project
The aim of the group project is to demonstrate your group’s understanding of the concepts
detailed in this course and how they apply to the functioning of organizations. In groups of five,
you will be designing your own companies. But instead of focusing on the product or service you
will provide, you will be focusing on the “people side” of the business. Over the course of the
semester, you will integrate the different OB topics covered to design a company. The group
project involves a written report and a group video that you will work on over the course of the
semester. There will be many classes that involve group time where you can work on integrating
the latest topics we have covered into your company design. At the end of the semester, you
should be working on finalizing your report (making sure it is clearly written, well organized,
detailed, and cohesive) and turning it into a compelling video, rather than just starting to write
the report.
Part A: Team Contract (not graded)
The goal of this assignment is to get you to start working with your team, to create a group
identity, and to set norms and expectations about how you will work together. More specifically,
you are asked to:
1. Assign your team a name and briefly describe the idea for your new company. When
describing your company, you should decide on 1) an industry, 2) the product or service
you will sell, 3) the size of your organization, and 4) where it will be located (this could
be multiple locations depending on your company’s size and business model).
2. Create a set of policies and goals for how you will work together as a team.
Part A is due on D2L no later than 11:59 pm, February 4th, 2021.
PART B: Written Report (30%)
This deliverable consists of an 8-10 page report (not including references) explaining your
company design and policies. The report should provide an in-depth, evidence-based, exploration
of your company’s design.
Detailed instructions
Your report should provide a detailed explanation of your company design. It must integrate
relevant course concepts, and should expand on how we talk about those concepts from class,
applying them to real world organizational concerns. In addition to citing the textbook where
appropriate, you are expected to use evidence-based citations from outside of the textbook. We
will be covering how to find such sources in class.
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Your report should, at minimum, include the following sections but should also include other
relevant information (the “guiding questions,” are illustrative only, not exhaustive):
Section
Guiding Questions
Relevant OB Topics
Overview
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What is your company’s name?
What industry is your company in?
What product or service does your company sell?
People
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What types of people do you want to hire (e.g.,
personality, attitudes, qualifications, etc.) and why?
How will you assess whether candidates meet these
requirements?
How will you support diversity and inclusion?
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•
•
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Personality
Attitudes
Behaviours
Values
Diversity
How will you motivate your employees?
How will you maximize the benefits and minimize the
costs of individual and group decision-making?
What types of procedures will you have in place for
promoting ethical decision-making?
What rules and procedures will you have for handling
different types of conflict?
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Decision making
Motivation
Conflict
Will you have teams, and if not why?
What team composition, processes, and work design
will you use for your teams and why?
How will you promote team effectiveness?
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Teams
Communication
Decision making
What type of leadership do you want in your
organization and why?
How will you encourage that style of leadership?
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Leadership
Power &
influence
What type of organizational structure do you
recommend (e.g., specialization, centralization, span of
control, etc.) and why?
What type of culture do you want to foster (i.e., what
values, artifacts, beliefs, and assumptions do you want
to promte) and why?
How will you promote this type of culture (e.g., core
values, dresscode, the shape, size, and location of the
head office, vocabularies, founders story, etc.)?
What emotions would you like to be frequently felt and
expressed among employees and why?
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•
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Org. Structure
Org. Culture
Values
Communication
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Motivation
and Decision
Making
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Teams
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•
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Leadership
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Organizational •
Structure and
Culture
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Please note, the above sections should be well integrated and cohesive. This means that the
elements under each section should work together and be consistent (for example, the type of
emotions you want frequently felt and expressed in the organization should align with your
approach to motivating employees, etc.) Your decisions in each section should also align with
your overall company and the type of product and/or service being sold.
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Formatting Guidelines
Using APA formatting, the report should be typed and double-spaced on standard-sized paper,
with 1” margins on all sides, and 12-point font. The report should be submitted as a word
document to Dropbox on D2L, unless stated otherwise by your instructor.
Part B is due on D2L no later than 11:59 pm, April 6th, 2021.
PART C: Video (10%)
Finally, prepare a six-to-eight-minute video pitching your company, which will be played for
the class. The video is intended to illustrate to your classmates and instructor the overall vision
of your company and why you believe it will be a success. Your video and written report should
work together to present a comprehensive and consistent vision of your company. While your
written report conveys a more academic tone, your video can be more whimsical and creative.
Videos should be uploaded to dropbox on D2L, or by emailing the professor a link to your video
if the file size is too large to be submitted through D2L. All group members need to be involved
in the video.
Part C is due no later than 8:00 am, April 8th, 2021. In-class viewings will take place April 8th
and 13th.
Peer Evaluation
All groups will complete peer evaluations at the end of the semester. These will be due April
15th. Peer evaluations allow each team member to evaluate the performance of other team
members, and the evaluations of your peers could affect your grade on the whole group project.
For each student I will take the average of the peer evaluations and multiply that percent by the
grade the group got on the group project to assign everyone an individual grade.
If your group is having a serious issue, please notify the instructor as soon as possible so that
corrective action can be taken quickly.
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