3,000 – 4,000 words
No later than 26/01/2017
PURPOSE
The purpose of this assessment is to require students to:
Analyse the types of issue that can typically arise when commercial organisations wish to exploit resources held in community ownership
Identify a specific organizational problem that is likely to emerge from this type of situation
Identify and analyse a range of potential solutions to the problem so identified
Provide a justified recommendation for the course of action organisations should take in order to secure maximum stakeholder satisfaction with the subsequent outcomes
Identify and assess corporate social responsibility issues and resolving such issues
TASK/ASSIGNMENT
You are to assume you are the Chief Operating Officer of Big Oil Corporation, a major oil and gas exploration company, with its headquarters in Houston Texas. You have obtained a licence from the New Zealand government to conduct some exploratory testing for potential oil and gas reserves in a remote area of the South Island of New Zealand, in order to evaluate whether oil reserves may exist in quantities that would justify the cost of exploration and extraction. You are initially aware of two significant challenges that need to be overcome if you are to be able to successfully carry out your exploration:
The majority of land in the area under investigation is owned by local iwi, whose co?operation will be required if further exploration is to take place.
AAM800001 Capabilities for Managers
One relatively small part of the relevant land area is designated as a National Park, under the management of the New Zealand government’s Department of Conservation.
You are to first read through the attached case studies on stakeholder relationship management (Loi, 2016) and use that material to help you prepare a report to the board of directors of Big Oil, assessing the character of the exploration opportunity that exists in New Zealand, discussing a range of strategies by which you might take advantage of that opportunity, and recommending a preferred course of action that will result in maximum levels of satisfaction for all relevant stakeholders.
ASSIGNMENT REQUIREMENTS
Your submission should be between 3,000 and 4,000 words in length, and follow the structure identified in the “Report Structure” section of this briefing sheet. You should first develop a provisional and fairly detailed level of response, within the constraints implied by word count requirements, to each of the following questions. Note though that these answers are provisional and for your own use only, and should be edited and synthesised into the format required by the “Report Structure” section of this briefing sheet.
Q1:What is the most accurate overview description of the problem that your management report will seek to resolve?
Q2:What specific organisational goals should Big Oil set for its New Zealand operation in order to assist in the determination of alternative responses to that problem?
Q3:Which stakeholder groups have a legitimate interest in the company’s ambitions? What will be the likely tone of each stakeholder’s response to those ambitions?
Q4:What options does Big Oil have in terms of establishing, structuring, and staffing a New Zealand business operation?
Q5:What options does Big Oil have in terms of developing the performance of individuals and teams that work within its New Zealand business operation?
Q6:What options does Big Oil have in terms of managing its communication with the relevant New Zealand stakeholders?
Q7:What are the most likely sources of conflict that Big Oil New Zealand might expect to experience, and what options does it have in terms of managing that conflict?
Q8:What are the most important Corporate Social Responsibilities that Big Oil New Zealand might looked at into?
Q9:What options does Big Oil have in terms of measuring the extent to which it is achieving the organizational goals established at Q2?
Q10: How can the answers to questions 1?8 be incorporated into a recommended course of action through which Big Oil can manage its entry into the New Zealand market?
ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES
This assignment is to be prepared by each student working alone, and no collusion with other students is permitted. The assignment is due for submission no later than the date and time shown on this briefing sheet.
The assignment should be electronically submitted to the Moodle site, and to the relevant Turnitin location, by the due date and time. Late assignments will be grade penalised according to the conditions stated in the course outline.
The assignment will be graded by allocation of a percentage mark, and contributes 60% of the final course grade. It will be graded, and results made available through the Moodle site, within two weeks of it having been submitted.
AAM800001 Capabilities for Managers
The assignment will be graded as if it were a document to be presented in the context of a legitimate business relationship, so its presentation needs to be succinct, well argued, and supported by appropriate evidence. It must be typed and accurately referenced, with supporting evidence drawn from textbooks, journal articles, and supplementary readings.
Grades will be adversely affected by poor formatting, layout, grammar, spelling and any perceived lack of professional impact.
REPORT STRUCTURE
Preliminaries
The report should include a Title Page, Table of Contents, and Executive Summary, prepared in line with the Charles Darwin University briefing supplied as Moodle 5.2. You may choose to include acknowledgments, and lists of figures and, tables, but this is not specifically required. The content of this section is disregarded for the purposes of assessing word count.
Introduction: (approx 300 words)
This section should “set the scene” for the discussion to follow, and briefly background the events that have led to Big Oil being able to plan an entry into the New Zealand commercial environment. It should state what the main goals of this entry strategy are (incorporating your responses to Question 2), and conclude by telling the reader what the remainder of the report contains.
Findings: (approx 1800 words)
This section should identify the primary issues that Big Oil will need to consider as it plans its entry into New Zealand, and present the range of alternative strategies available to the company in respect of each issue. The section needs to include discussion of the following elements.
Problem definition (answers to Q1): what is the principal problem that this report is setting out to address, what are the implications of that problem for the success or failure of the New Zealand business venture?
Stakeholder management (answers to Q3 and Q7): who are the individuals, groups of individuals, and organisations that Big Oil will need to consider as it plans its entry into New Zealand? To what extent are each of those stakeholders likely to be supportive, neutral, or antagonistic towards the company? What are the most likely circumstances in which stakeholder conflict may arise, and what options does the company have for managing those conflicts?
Big Oil New Zealand (answers to Q4): what alternatives are available to Big Oil in terms of setting up an organisational structure and staffing to carry out its New Zealand activities? How many people and what skill sets will be required, what processes will be used to recruit those people?
Stakeholder Communication (answers to Q6): what alternatives are available to Big Oil in terms of designing and implementing a process by which the value of effective stakeholder
AuAM800001 Capabilities for Managers
interactions can be maximized
The Big Oil Team (answers to Q5): what alternatives are available in terms of performance managing the individuals and teams that have been engaged to work for Big Oil New Zealand?
Corporate Social Responsibilities (answer to question 8): what corporate social responsibilities areas that Big Oil should look into support the environment and the society?
Measurement of Progress (answers to Q9): What alternatives are available in terms of measuring the progress made in achieving the goals established in the report introduction?
Analysis: (approx 1200 words)
This section describes the approach you have taken to analysis of the various options you have identified. It presents a justified listing of the criteria you have used to assess the relative merits of each potential solution, and describes the process used to select a preferred alternative in each of the identified issues of interest.
Stakeholder Management: what is the recommended model of initial approach to relevant organizational stakeholders, and why do you make that recommendation?
Conflict Resolution: what is the recommended organizational policy for resolution of stakeholder conflict, and why do you make that recommendation?
Big Oil New Zealand: what is the recommended structure and staffing for the beginning of New Zealand operations, and why do you make that recommendation?
Stakeholder Communication: what is the recommended model of communication with relevant organizational stakeholders, and why do you make that recommendation?
The Big Oil Team: what is the recommended model of performance management to be introduced into Big Oil New Zealand, and why do you make that recommendation?
Corporate Social Responsibilities: What are your Corporate Social Responsibilities and how do you justify them?
Measurement of Progress: what are the recommended methods of evaluating individual and organisational performance, and why do you make that recommendation?
Conclusions and Recommendations: (approx 200 words)
This section provides a brief review of the major conclusions that have resulted from this analysis, and highlights the primary implications of those conclusions for Big Oil Houston. It should also include a formal request for corporate approval of the recommendations outlined in the “analysis” section, and thus an approval for the market entry plan represented by those recommendations.
Supporting Materials
This section should contain any appendices that you feel would be useful for the reader to consider, and a list of bibliographic references for any sources cited in your report. This part of the report is not formally assessed, and is disregarded for the purposes of calculating overall word count.
