capella
mba6004 unit 1 assignment latest 2016 april
Activity Context
This assignment measures your development in the following course
competencies:
- Apply
frameworks and theoretical concepts to systematically analyze business
issues. - Communicate
in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for
members of the business professions.
Your Strategy Recommendation project, composed of several
assignments, provides the opportunity for you to apply what you learn
throughout this course. In this assignment, you choose the business that will
be the focus of your strategy recommendation and use prewriting approaches to
do some brainstorming about your project. Then write a coherent, one-page
description of what you plan to explore and why, following the instructions
below.
In Unit 2, you will identify resources to help you develop your
strategy recommendation. In Unit 3, you outline your approach to the project.
In Unit 4, you draft your strategy, and in Unit 6, complete your final strategy
recommendation, both in a written document and in a PowerPoint presentation.
Activity Instructions
1.
Read the Strategy Recommendation course project description to
ensure that you understand what is required for your final project.
2.
If you have not already done so, review the pre-writing resources
in the Capella Writing Center. Choose a pre-writing approach that makes sense
to you as a good way to come up with some initial ideas for a strategy
recommendation. You might want to pay particular attention to:
o Clustering.
o Idea
trees.
o Free
writing.
3.
Based on what you come up with in your pre-writing, create a
one-page draft of your ideas for your project, which does at least the
following:
o Identifies
the specific business (for example, Barnes and Noble, Mike’s Plumbing) that you
will use for your strategy recommendation.
o Explain
why you chose this business. For example, you might have chosen it because you
are a customer and think they could do a better job. Or perhaps you know the
owners of this business. Maybe it is a business or industry that is of
particular interest to you. The key idea is that, over the next five weeks, you
will be working in some depth on this business. Picking a business that
interests you will make the whole project more engaging for you and the results
potentially more valuable.
4.
When you complete the first three items above, set aside another
few minutes to think about how you used a particular pre-writing approach to
generate this draft. Describe how you used the pre-writing approach, and
reflect on how it might have helped your process.
When you have finished, submit your assignment directly to your
instructor in the assignment area of the courseroom.Note:Do not use Turnitin for this
assignment.
Note:Your
instructor may also use the Writing Feedback Tool to provide feedback on your
writing. In the tool, click the linked resources for helpful writing
information.
Optional Help – Creating Course Papers
The purpose of this assignment is to help you prepare to research
and write your final course project and to allow your instructor the
opportunity to approve and comment on your topic choice.
As with all your papers at Capella, you should ensure this is well
written, well organized, and easy to read. Use subheadings to organize your
paper. Be thorough. When you think you are all done with your paper, revisit
these directions and ensure that you met every requirement. You can also click
on the Strategy Recommendation Pre-writing scoring guide in the Resources to
see the criteria that your instructor will use to grade your work.
capella mba6004 unit 2 assignment
latest 2016 april
Activity Context
This assignment helps you develop the skills to master the
following course competencies:
- Apply
frameworks and theoretical concepts to systematically analyze business issues. - Communicate
in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for
members of the business professions.
In this assignment, you will conduct research to answer five
questions about the company that you chose for your final course project in
your Unit 1 assignment, and you will submit your research in a well-organized
Microsoft Excel file. This work is the first step toward completing your final
project.
In today’s marketplace, the ability to support operational and
strategic decisions with solid information is a critical competency. Finding
information is not difficult today; the hard part is coming up with useful,
high-quality information that you can count on. This competency involves
several sub-skills, equally important for the business world and for your
academic work, including searching for appropriate resources, evaluating the
credibility and usefulness of the information you find, and synthesizing the
information to make evidence-based decisions.
To locate truly useful information, you need to know what you are
looking for and understand the questions you need to ask to get you there.
While this assignment will help you build skills in using the library, the
Internet is sometimes a better source for answering certain questions. For that
reason, you should use both the Capella library and the Internet for this
assignment.
Activity Instructions
Gather some basic information about
your target company.While
you are not required to submit this information as part of your MS Excel file,
it will help you answer the questions.
- Official
corporate name of the company you chose. - Headquarters
location. - URL
of the company Web site. - Description
of the company’s primary products or services (or both). - Industry
category (or categories) in which this company operates.
Answer the five questions in the list
below.Use
both the Capella library and Internet search engines to complete this
assignment. Do not rely on either one exclusively.
1.
What is one way that your chosen company is currently using the
Internet or social media?
2.
What is one way that some other company in the same industry as
your chosen business is already using the Internet or social media?
3.
How might Internet or social media use present ethical problems
for your chosen company?
4.
What technology exists that your company should know about as its
management considers Internet use?
5.
What is one way that demographics, global presence, or diversity
might impact your companies’ choices about Internet and social media use?
Create an Excel document to house the
information for your assignment.Include arowfor each of the five questions.
Include acolumnfor each of the following categories
of information:
- Statement
of the original question. - Analysis
of the information needed to answer that question and description of any
challenges you had answering the question (2–4 sentences). - Answer
to the question with an APA formatted in-text citation. - Source
(or sources) for your answer in full APA citation. - Your
assessment of the credibility of the information you found (2–4
sentences). - Your
rating of the credibility of the source on a scale of 1 to 5, with one
being the lowest credibility and 5 being the highest. - Your
description of the search strategy that you used to find the answer to the
question.
Use the ExcelAVERAGEfunction to find the
average credibility score of all of your sources.Write
one sentence to describe the general level of credibility of the material you
found. If the average score for your sources was 1 to 3, explain why finding
credible sources was difficult. Describe how you will handle this problem in
your final project.
Submit the assignment in your Excel
document.You
are being asked to submit this assignment in an Excel format to demonstrate
your basic Excel skills, in preparation for future courses.
Review the Finding Credible Sources scoring guide in the Resources
to be sure that you have addressed the grading criteria of this assignment.
Optional Help – Brushing Up on Skills
The purpose of this assignment is to help you learn to search for
information that helps you form opinions and support or refute ideas. Use this
assignment to practice using the Internet and Capella library for finding
information. At the same time, remember that determining the credibility of
information that you find is paramount. Of course, sometimes you may not be
able to find credible sources. When that happens, you have to decide whether or
how to use any sources that you question.
Use the information provided with this assignment (linked in the
Resources) to help you search in the library, evaluate your sources, and
properly cite each source.
- If
you have not used an online research library recently, you will want to
access Capella’s Tour the Library presentation. - Remember
the RAILS resources from the second study in this unit. - To
brush up on your search skills, review the Research Guide – MBA. - To
brush up on your APA formatting skills, read the APA Style and Formatting
page on iGuide. - To
brush up on your skills in MS Excel, use the Microsoft Tutorials page on
iGuide. - For
a better understanding of when to use Wikipedia, read Can I Use Wikipedia?
Note:Your
instructor may also use the Writing Feedback Tool to provide feedback on your
writing. In the tool, click the linked resources for helpful writing
information.
capella mba6004 unit 3 assignment
latest 2016 april
Activity Context
This assignment helps you develop the skills to master the
following course competencies:
- Apply
frameworks and theoretical concepts to systematically analyze business
issues. - Communicate
in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for
members of the business professions.
While everyone has their own process for writing, creating an
outline is often an important early step in the process in all types of
writing, even for the most seasoned writers. By creating an outline, you draft
a plan that organizes your thoughts, helps you see gaps in your thought
process, and enables you to decide where in your paper you will address
particular issues.
An annotated outline is a document that organizes the main
sections to be included in your final course paper. The annotations are based
on thinking through your approach to the paper and developing enough detail
that anyone who reads the outline can follow your thought process.
The purpose of this assignment is threefold:
- To
build an outline that shows the content and organization of your paper
both so your instructor can approve it and to make it easier for you to
move forward. - To
demonstrate that you have conducted some research and know how to cite in
APA format by including some quotations. Note that you may or may not use
these sources and quotes in your actual paper; you may have found better
sources in a couple of weeks. - To
demonstrate your ability to create a well-organized document, suitable for
academics or business, that meets established criteria.
Activity Instructions
For this assignment, create an Annotated Outline that provides a
framework, or skeleton, of your final paper and presentation for this course.
Begin by re-reading the Strategy Recommendation project
description for a complete list of the topics to be addressed in your project.
Your Annotated Outline must state the name of your chosen business
and must include the following:
- An
introduction. - A
conclusion. - At
least four other headings in between: - Each
of the four headings must have at least two sub-points to develop the
detail required. - Each
of the four headings must incorporate at least one quotation or
paraphrase from a source that you might use for support, with an APA
in-text citation. - In
your final draft, one of your headings or subheadings will specifically
address the ethical aspects associated with your chosen business.
However, since we will not address ethical issues until Unit 5, you may
include a heading or subheading as a placeholder in this assignment, to
be completed after Unit 5. - One
of your headings should be entitled Recommendations. - A
section for References. In that section, list the full APA citation for
all the sources you used in the annotated outline.
Refer to Developing an Annotated Outline (linked in the Resources)
from the Capella Writing Center for more information on annotated outlines.
Submission Requirements
- Written communication:Written communication is
free of errors that detract from the overall message. - APA formatting:Resources and citations
are formatted according to APA (6th edition) style and formatting. - Number of resources:Minimum of 2 resources.
- Length of paper:2–4 typed, double-spaced
pages. - Font and font size:Times New Roman, 12 point.
Refer to the Annotated Outline scoring guide to ensure that you
meet the grading criteria for this assessment.
Submit your assignment to your instructor no later than midnight
on Sunday of this week.
After you submit your assignment to your instructor:
- Submit
a copy of the assignment to Smarthinking (linked in the Resources),
requesting assistance with ideas and organization (that is,
“global” issues). - Post
a copy in the Peer Review discussion in this unit. By Tuesday of next week,
select the Annotated Outline submitted by one of your peers and provide
your review in the discussion in Unit 4. Focus on what you see as global
issues—questions and comments related to the ideas and the structure of
the outline–rather than local issues such as spelling and grammar.
Optional Help – Brushing Up on Skills
Creating an outline is an important early step in writing.
Outlines are effectively used to create all types of written works, from
academic papers to business documents, movie scripts to novels. As we noted
above, when you create an outline you help yourself to organize your thoughts,
create a flow of information, and identify gaps in what you plan to cover.
Creating an outline also helps to make a larger writing project
less daunting. Once you have an effective outline in place, you have done at
least 25 percent of your work. Then, you need just complete the research and
flesh the paper out. If you experience writer’s block, as both novice and
experienced writers sometimes do, an outline allows you to skip a difficult
section and work on another section, so that you can continue to be productive.
In an academic and business setting, an outline also provides a
great opportunity for you to get feedback from your instructor, supervisor, or
client to ensure that you are on the right track with your content.Developing an Annotated Outline(in the Resources) will help you to
create your outline, so be sure to read this. In short, you will simply list
the main points of your paper, which will later become the headings in your
paper. You can use Roman numerals, numbers, or even bullet points.
Be sure to include everything mentioned above in the Activity
Instructions. You will probably also have a section on company background,
maybe a SWOT analysis, or a mention of diversity. (If you are not familiar with
the term SWOT analysis, seeSWOT Analysisfrom QuickMBA, linked in the
Resources.) As you develop the sections for this paper, consider what question
you want to answer, what information you need to answer it, what you might find
interesting as a reader, and what you want to learn as an MBA learners.
Note:Your
instructor may also use the Writing Feedback Tool to provide feedback on your
writing. In the tool, click the linked resources for helpful writing
information.
capella mba6004 unit 4 assignment
latest 2016 april
Activity Context
This assessment measures your development in the following course
competencies:
- Apply
frameworks and theoretical concepts to systematically analyze business
issues. - Communicate
in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for
members of the business professions.
In this assignment, you will demonstrate your growing skills in
critical, ethical, and strategic thinking, along with your ability to clearly
organize and articulate your thoughts in writing.
Activity Instructions
In Unit 3, you created an Annotated Outline that provides the
basic structure and organization for your project. In addition, you submitted
your Annotated Outline to Smarthinking for guidance on structure and
organization, you posted it in a discussion for peer review, and you submitted
it to your instructor for a grade. This week, use the feedback you received
from all of these sources to help you create a first draft of your project. To
provide additional depth in the topic, locate at least three additional
articles (beyond the two you included in the Annotated Outline) concerning the
business implications of the Internet and social media for this business in the
future.
The paper you submit should be a solid draft. While you will have
the opportunity to revise and refine your draft in Unit 5, you will also
complete a PowerPoint presentation of your final paper in Unit 6. To avoid
having to much work to do in the final week, you will want this draft to be
mostly complete when you turn it in this week. Analyze your issues thoughtfully
and present them in an organized manner, following this overall structure:
- Identify
the business you chose and describe the business and its industry. - Assess
the company’s current use of the Internet and social media. - Analyze
the implications of the Internet and social media for the future of your
chosen business. Highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats. Use the five articles that you found to help support your
analysis. Be careful to distinguish between your opinion and the voices of
your academic resources. Remember to use proper APA formatted citations
and references. - In
your final project, you will also identify and evaluate potential ethical
questions raised by this vision of the future. Since we do not take up
ethical issues until Unit 5, you may simply provide a heading for ethical
questions, leaving this section blank until after you complete the Unit 5
reading. If you think you have some ideas about ethical questions already,
you may want to go ahead and draft something for this section now to get a
jump on this requirement. - If
you were advising this business on future direction, what actions would
you advocate regarding their integration or further capitalization on the
Internet and social media? Why?
Write professionally and in a manner consistent with expectations
for members of the business professions.
Submission Requirements
- Written communication:Written communication is
credible and free of errors that detract from the overall message. - APA formatting:
Resources and citations are formatted according to APA (6th edition) style
and formatting. - Number of resources: Minimum
of 5 resources. - Length of paper:5–7 double-spaced pages,
not including title page or reference page. - Font and font size:Times New Roman, 12 point.
- Due date:Submit your completed
draft to your instructor no later than midnight on Sunday.
Review the Strategy Recommendation Project Draft scoring guide to be
sure that you have addressed the grading criteria of this assignment.
Before submitting your draft to your instructor in the courseroom,
submit your draft to Turnitin to identify areas of your paper that may need
further citations or adjustments. For further details on Turnitin, review the
second study in this unit.
Optional Help – Brushing Up On Skills
Creating a rough draft is an important part of the writing
process. It allows you to flesh out your outline, adding details and support.
The more complete you make your rough draft, the easier it will be to fine-tune
your writing, to discover where you need to add more information or support,
and to complete the project on time. Therefore, this draft should be as
complete as you can make it. The following writing resources, both linked in
the assignment Resources, might be particularly helpful in putting together
your draft:
- The
Four Stages of Writing: Stage 2: Drafting. This Capella Writing Center
presentation provides examples of drafts, illustrating what is important
to attend to in a first draft. - Paragraphing
with the MEAL Plan. This handout from the Writing Center explains the
components of a well-written paragraph.
In addition, you may wish to submit your draft to Smarthinking to
get specific feedback on local issues (grammar, punctuation, mechanics) before
submitting it to your instructor for a grade.
Note:Your
instructor may also use the Writing Feedback Tool to provide feedback on your
writing. In the tool, click the linked resources for helpful writing
information.
capella mba6004 unit 5 assignment
latest 2016 april
Activity Context
This assignment helps you develop the skills to master the
following course competencies:
- Apply
frameworks and theoretical concepts to systematically analyze business issues. - Communicate
in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for
members of the business professions. - Apply
collaborative techniques to the virtual environment.
Activity Instructions
In the Unit 2 discussion, you analyzed a business dilemma posed by
a peer and presented him or her with a strategic course of action. You also
received a strategy from one of your peers for your own dilemma, assessed the
feedback, and made choices about the aspects of that strategy that you would
adopt. In Unit 4, you incorporated feedback received from multiple sources when
you created the draft of your project, and you provided feedback to one of your
peers on his or her draft. Now, take the time to reflect upon the process and
the results of your interactions, both those in the courseroom and those from
your personal experience.
Reflect on your experience in a paper of at least two pages. Your
reflection should include two parts. First, describe your interactions with the
peers who provided review comments to you. Then, describe your interactions
with the peers to whom you provided feedback. Ensure that your paper has an
introduction, body sections where you reflect on your interaction, and a
conclusion. Use subheadings to organize your paper.
Consider addressing the following questions in your reflection:
- Summarize
the interactions you had with your peers on both your business problem
(Unit 2) and your annotated outline (Units 3 and 4). Did you have any
interesting conversations? Was the interaction dynamic, with actual
discussion and collaboration? - What
communication choices did you make when you assessed the strategic course
of action (did you reply in detail, step-by-step, or perhaps generally at
a higher level)? What communications strategy might have been more
effective (for example, live conversation, asynchronous video
presentation, audio notes)? - What
were the challenges and benefits to working with your peer on a business
dilemma and considering his or her approaches and perspectives?
Optional Help
The purpose of this assignment is to consider how collaboration
can be used in academics and in business. The idea is to think about your own
experience with virtual collaboration in this course, although you may also
wish to inform your paper with what you read in this unit (particularly the
Heyman article), as well as your own past experience with collaboration,
virtual or live. Take the time to consider what you learned and how your
experiences, positive or not, can help you be a better collaborator in the
future.
Review the scoring guide to understand how you will be graded on
this assignment.
Submit your paper by midnight on Sunday.
capella mba6004 unit 6 assignment
latest 2016 april
Activity Context
This assignment evaluates your mastery of these course
competencies:
- Apply
frameworks and theoretical concepts to systematically analyze business
issues. - Communicate
in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for
members of the business professions.
Activity Instructions
In Unit 4, you drafted your Strategy Recommendation for your
chosen business. For your final project submission, you will need to submit two
components: your written strategy recommendation and a PowerPoint presentation
that will persuade the business’ leaders to adopt your plan.
Written Strategy Recommendation
Integrate the feedback that you received from your peers and your
instructor, and use the resources provided throughout this course to improve
and refine your written strategy recommendation for your business. Below are
the grading criteria of the written portion of this assignment. They are
identical to the criteria from your Unit 4 draft, but you are expected to
address each clearly, completely, and with academic rigor and professionalism.
Make certain that you include the name of the company involved.
- Identify
the business you chose and describe the business and its industry. - Assess
the company’s current use of the Internet and social media. - Analyze
the implications of the Internet and social media for the future of the
business, identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats. - Evaluate
ethical questions raised by the future vision for the impact of the
Internet and social media on a business. - Propose
a strategy for a company’s future use of the Internet and social media. - Write
professionally and in a manner consistent with expectations for members of
the business professions.
Written Strategy Recommendation
Requirements
- Written communication:Written communication is
free of errors that detract from the overall message. - APA formatting:In-text citations and
references are formatted according to APA (6th edition) style and
formatting. - Number of resources:Minimum of five resources.
- Length of paper:5–7 typed, double-spaced
pages. - Font and font size:Times Roman, 12 points.
PowerPoint Presentation Requirements
In addition to the grading criteria above, you will also be
expected to create a PowerPoint presentation that is clear, concise,
incorporates appropriate charts or graphs, and cites academic resources
appropriately.
- Presentation:PowerPoint presentation is
concise, organized, and free of errors that detract from the overall
message. Ensure that your slides clearly detail your suggested actions for
the business. - Number of slides:7–12.
- Charts and graphs:Include at least two
charts or graphs that provide evidence in support of the strategy
recommendation. - Speaker notes:Speaker notes that provide
context for the slides. - Citations:Cite
sources as appropriate.
To complete this assignment:
- Submit
your written Strategy Recommendation as an attachment in the assignment
area. - Submit
the PowerPoint presentation of your strategy recommendation as an
attachment in the assignment area.
Review the Strategy Recommendation scoring guide to be sure that you
have fully addressed the grading criteria of this assignment.
Note:Your instructor may also use the
Writing Feedback Tool to provide feedback on your writing. In the tool, click
the linked resources for helpful writing information.
Optional Help – Brushing Up On Skills
As mentioned in earlier writing assignments, you have access to a
variety of resources to assist with your writing. If you encounter difficulty
with any aspect of your project, chances are good that the following could
help:
- Instructor
comments on your draft:Have
you acted on the feedback on your draft, provided by your instructor in
the last unit? - Capella
Writing Center: If you encounter difficulty with any aspect of your
project, chances are good that you can find specific help in the Writing
Center. - Smarthinking:
Review the global feedback you received on your Annotated Outline in Unit
3 and the local feedback you receive this week. - Peer
reviews: Go back to the comments and suggestions provided by your peers on
your draft in the last unit. Anything here that might be helpful? - PowerPoint.
If you encounter difficulty with PowerPoint, use the Microsoft Tutorials
on iGuide.
