Assignment guidelines
This assignment has been set to test your competence in understanding and applying the significant concepts and material presented in Module 1 and 2. The purpose of the assignment is to enable you to:
Course objectives being tested in Assignment 1:
The assessment is aligned with the objectives of the course. These objectives are detailed within the course specifications. Each assessment item is based on a range of tasks that attempt to relate the material in both theoretical and practical terms.
Objectives 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 (Please see Course Specification for information).
Instructions for preparing Assignment 1
Special narrative essay with tables & figures as well as appendices
In this assignment you are required to watch a Toowoomba Clubhouse video (see transcript at end of document) presented by Luke Terry, the former Executive Director at Toowoomba Clubhouse. Please note that Luke already resigned as the Clubhouse boss. However, the information presented in the video remains valid and accurate at the time it was videoed. In this assignment you will need to address the following questions based on the information you have obtained from the video as well as from the Clubhouse’s website:
Please note: The above word counts are a guide only. The total word count should strictly adherence to the overall word limit with a 10% margin either way.
Please note that your answers may be based on less than perfect information supplied. You may need to add your own realistic and reasonable assumptions in order to complete the assignment. You are NOT expected/required to contact the organisation for information for the assignment;
Critical discussion
The key is to demonstrate your understanding of & capability to apply relevant concepts and/or theories, to achieve this you need to
You are required to prepare an assignment in a report format (i.e. report writing) based on the information you have found from the Toowoomba Clubhouse video as well as from their website (www.toowoombaclubhouse.org.au). You should write your report in such a way that you start your answers from line 1. That is, there is no need for large introductions that we see in essays. Please refer to USQ Report Writing guidelines for this assignment. Please note that you are NOT required to include a Letter of Transmittal, Table of Contents and an Executive summary/abstract in your report.
You should apply the principles you have learned from lecture material/tutorials/readings that are specific to the case study. Your answers should be written in narrative form (i.e. sentences not bullet points), and should be around 1200 words (+/- 10%), single spaced. Your answers should be referenced appropriately with a full reference list placed at the end of the assignment. More marks are gained by the quality of research applied in practice and the overall quality of the answer. Please Note: Overall word count does not include Tables and Figures which you are free to use if required. Tables and Figures should be placed at where they should appear, not in appendices.
You must use a template for your report. The template has been provided on the StudyDesk for you. It includes: cover sheet with your Name, Student Number, Course Name, Course Examiner, Semester and Date of Submission and the Marking Criteria Sheet. Please save your answers in the template as word document (.doc or .docx) and submit it via the link on the StudyDesk. Your assignment will be sent to Turnitin for checking your writing for citation mistakes or inappropriate copying. Please make sure you remove your marking criteria sheet and reference list prior to submit your assignment to Turnitin for reference check. You will receive a Turnitin report stating your similarity percentage. Please make sure you allow at least 24 hours for Turnitin to generate the similarity report for you. If the actual percentage is or higher than 20% (i.e. the actual content excluding cover sheet, title page, marking criteria sheet, headings and reference list etc.), you should seriously consider revising your assignment. Once you your assignment is ready for submission, you may submit your assignment via the same link on the studydesk as your final submission.
The template has already been set up for you with the required font size, spacing and margins. Please make sure you use the template for the report.
Please quote the relevant texts and readings to support your answers. Answers in the narrative section of your answers unsupported by appropriate texts and/or readings will be regarded as guesswork and generalisations and will not pass the assessment. If you feel you need to attach some other interesting report or facts not required in the main body of your case answer, please add this as an appendix. Then in your text close to where you discuss this, you should add in brackets (Please see Appendix 1) – for example. Please place your appendices right after your reference list (i.e. at the end of the assignment). The ‘Why reference?’ as outlined on the Library website will provide you ideas on how to do referencing for your assignments. Please note that you may require your student ID and password to log on to the website.
You must use a minimum of Ten (10) academic peer reviewed references (of which at least EIGHT (8) must be peer reviewed journal articles) to support your answers. You MUST reference appropriately throughout your report. Please use the following link to find out information on how to recognise peer-reviewed journals: http://www.angelo.edu/services/library/handouts/peerrev.php
The required TEN (10) references do not include the lecture notes and module materials. You can, however, use the selected readings in the course materials as your references. Please make sure you quote from relevant texts and readings to support your answers. References are particularly important when you are making a statement and/or trying to argue an idea. For instance, if you are saying … ‘knowledge sharing definitely enhances organisational performance’, it is important that you have a reference to support your answer and provide further explanation. Any statement or idea unsupported by academic references may be regarded as guesswork and generalisations and may not pass the assessment;
Academic references may include refereed journal articles, academic books, and government reports. You should avoid using references sourced directly from the internet (i.e. references with http://www … addresses) as these references have dubious academic value. Practitioner magazines, business publications (i.e. Fortune or Business Review Weekly) and newspaper articles may be used for illustrative purposes only (i.e. they may not be used to support your main argument but materials in them may be summarised to provide very brief examples). As an undergraduate student in a university, you are expected to produce work to high academic standards. Written materials must be presented well, be thoroughly researched, contain appropriate references, and demonstrate considerable thought and appreciation of the subject matter.
Please note that the overall word count does not include Tables, Figures, reference list and appendices (if any) which you are free to use if required. You are allowed to have 10% +/– allowance on the word count for the assignment. Please refer to USQ Report Writing guidelines for this assignment. Please note that you are NOT required to include a Letter of Transmittal, Table of Contents and an Executive summary/abstract in your report.
To achieve high marks you are expected to demonstrate a high level of understanding of the questions, critical analysis, research capability, technical and academic care, and an application of theories/concepts to a real case in your assignment. Please use the Assignment Criteria sheet as a guide for your assignment. A sample of the Assignment Criteria sheet is attached at the end of this document for your reference.
Marking policy
The course leader either personally marks or individually moderates each piece of assessment for each student, including examinations. Your report will be marked in accordance with the assessment criteria shown on the following page. In the process of marking, a copy of the assessment criteria page with comments will be attached to the front of your assignment and returned to you. If you do not address the assessment criteria as shown you will lose marks accordingly. This can easily result in failure for an item of assessment, or in many cases a reduced mark, which will usually cause disappointment. A sample of the Assessment Criteria sheet is shown on the next page for your reference.
MGT3007 – Assignment 1 marking criteria sheet
Interpretation of assignment question(s) (45%) Extremely high level of understanding the question. May challenge question or pose a different one Very good understanding and interpretation of the question Satisfactory understanding and interpretation of the question Basic understanding of the question. Little or no interpretation Misconception of the assignment question(s). May seem to be answering a different question
Comprehensiveness Comprehensive coverage and discussion of all relevant issues. Introduced new issues Covered all of the issues relevant to the topic Covered most of the relevant issues May have omitted some relevant issues in the discussions Incomplete discussion of relevant issues. May have included material that isn’t relevant
Analytical reasoning Exceptional interpretation and analytical reasoning High level of analytical reasoning Some depth in discussion Discussion lacks depth and reasoning No analytical reasoning
Accuracy and level of correctness of content Content accurate on all counts No or few inaccuracies Maybe minor inaccuracies Some inaccuracies Many or several inaccuracies in discussion
Research (45%) Discussions display broad and in-depth research beyond expectations Thorough research on the topic Satisfactory research is displayed Limited research on the topic Insufficient or no research evident
Interpretation and application of theory, concepts, models or course material Highly developed application of theory. Critique where theory does not apply. Suggests new concepts or theory Clear and appropriate application Satisfactory interpretation and application Limited application of theory, concepts, models or course material Incorrect, non-existent or poor interpretation and application
Critical analysis Highly developed critical analysis. Adds to knowledge Very good level of critical analysis Satisfactory level of critical analysis Uncritical discussion or mostly description No evidence of critical analysis
Critique of sources (theory, references etc.) Assessment of different approaches from different sources, sources subordinate to or supportive of own themes and ideas Integrating themes from sources into analysis, argument, topic, or writing Paraphrasing themes from sources Restates major themes from sources, writing close to sources No evidence of discussion of sources
Technical & academic care (10%)
Written expression No spelling or grammatical errors, clear expression of ideas, work displays flair and mastery in writing, outstanding referencing. Paragraphing is excellent in terms of presentation, readability and focus Clear expression and structuring of ideas, good syntax, grammar and paragraphing Some evidence of fluency in writing, no obvious errors in grammar or syntax. Maybe some corrections and improvements are needed Basic understanding of rules of grammar and syntax, errors still occur. Poor paragraphing Gross spelling and grammatical errors, reader has difficulty understanding
Presentation Assignment looks professional Very good presentation Well-presented assignment Average presentation of assignment Poorly presented assignment. Spacing, font size, numbers, margins etc. do not comply with standards
Structure Excellently structured assignment, logical and superb progression of argument, ideas or themes, with great clarity around sections and flow
Very good structuring and clear argument, ideas or theme throughout Good structuring, although internal problems may still be evident, for example, material in body is not logically ordered. Some progression of argument Some evidence of structure in terms of introduction, conclusion etc. Some argument although may not flow through No structuring, not clear where sections or introduction, body, conclusion etc. start and end. No argument or theme to assignment
Academic referencing technique or format Outstanding referencing technique, correct in every respect Correct referencing. Maybe minor errors Satisfactory technique for referencing Basic technique for academic referencing. Many errors but clearly tried to avoid them Incorrect referencing technique. Limited or no referencing
Video Transcript:
Hi there, I’m Luke Terry and I’m what you would call a social entrepreneur. At the moment I run an organization called the Toowoomba Clubhouse and in Toowoomba and rural Queensland, we work with about 700 people with mental illness to get back to the goals that are relevant in their life. Sometimes that’s to go out and get the confidence to go out and meet people and sometimes it’s getting back to school or university but a lot of the time its employment. Onsite at the Toowoomba clubhouse we have training cafes, training restaurants, we have a men’s shed, therapy gardens, and a whole heap of practical things that give people the confidence they need to get back to their goals. So, this involves a lot of goal planning etc. To work with 700 people that was 5 years ago a very small budget of about $300,000 and is now a budget of around $1.5m mark. We’ve had to really develop community partnerships and to really manage knowledge to be able to get the best outcomes that we can for the community. But as a social entrepreneur we what have been able to do with many of the people coming wanting to get jobs at the end of that, we have had to develop community partnerships to develop social enterprises. And social enterprises are new businesses that are there for social good. So, we have set up labour hire businesses, cafes, gardening enterprises and in the process of building a $5m laundry and so working with different corporate entities, and what we call soft corporates such as universities and hospitals, to be able to develop employment and funding opportunities for the people we work with in our community and with a mental health problem.
Knowledge and knowledge management – what does it mean? It’s tough one isn’t it? So, in our organisation we have got anywhere from 25 to 100 different people coming in to join our activities every day. And coming from a mental health basis, it is sometimes really tough to manage where different people are at and the different opportunities that are coming in. So, if I use as an example at 9.30am or even 8.00am, we will open for breakfast in the morning and we might have 30 people come in for breakfast. Two of those people may not have anywhere to sleep, 3 of those might be looking for new work, and 4 may have just decided that they changed their goals from last week. So as a community, we really need to work out how as a team we are managing that different knowledge that is coming in on a regular basis. So, we interestingly have some set knowledge sharing times throughout the day, so at 9.15am we have morning meeting, we then have unit meetings with the kitchen unit and garden units etc at 9.30am, and we also have knowledge sharing meetings at 1.30pm, but we are doing that side by side with the participants so it is not just staff sharing. Its about having the participants coming into the centre coming to those meetings and sharing knowledge with us side by side. And the reason we are doing that is that we are not sometimes especially in a mental health environment, people think there is secret squirrel stuff going on the side, but if we can truly focus on knowledge sharing as a while group, we can have some real success with that. We also have to think very carefully with knowledge management especially with separate social enterprises and different groups we are setting up across the community. We have to think very carefully about internal succession planning of the knowledge itself. We are a relatively small organization in the scheme of things, we have deep roots in the community, but we only have a team of about 20 staff compared to some organisations that might have 100’s and that idea of internal succession planning for the idea is really important because when you only have twenty and one chief executive and not a big team where you have got deputy vice chancellors and so forth. The board keeps on saying if something happens to you Luke, who’s going to carry on that knowledge? So internal succession planning of the knowledge sometimes we can get carried away a bit with writing things up and if we are writing things up where are we leaving them on the server? And who knows where that information is? So, making sure that there is internal succession planning and all the way through. A very simple example, is where we support someone into a job, we give the employer a promise and this is outside of social enterprise, so we would partner with an organization like a university and we will go in a say our staff members will learn the job first and we will train up the participants and then what we will do once we train the participant up, if that person becomes unwell, we guarantee that the staff member who learnt the job will cover the shift. Now that works very well apart from if the staff member you sent in originally got sick and then that knowledge of that job has gone. So, we have put a knowledge management plan in place for those relationships where there is always two and sometimes three people that go and learn the job first. So even in mental health and even in small community organisations like ours, knowledge management must be at forefront and at every meeting and every project that is set up.
Organisational Learning. I think organizational learning is something that we should always keep on our forefront. I know for me as a leader over the last couple of years, there has been times when things haven’t really worked out and one of my mentors has said to me ‘Luke 94% of the problems in business are systems related. 6% are people related. And the people related are often because you don’t have the systems and learnings in place. And often the case has been around, we become frustrated because the program hasn’t been going around the way we want it to be. And recently at Toowoomba Clubhouse we’ve got 6 new staff starting over the last couple of weeks, and we have had to really overhaul our whole organizational learning process. As I have mentioned in other parts, we’ve sometimes got programs that are two hours west of Toowoomba but for new staff we’ve never sent them out to programs out in these areas to see what they are about. And sometimes our people will come in contact with our other programs that run like other social enterprises but in the past, we haven’t let those people go out and work in these other areas even for a couple of hours and sometimes the face of Toowoomba Clubhouse is these other programs. So, I think from our learnings, we have definitely learnt that we need to think about organizational learning and everyone that comes into contact. I know from a board perspective, some of our greatest mentors on knowledge learning has been those board members that have come in talked about their own experiences and when they have had the opportunity to go to spend time with our employers such as the bank and people get to spend lots of different times at different branches as part of their induction. So, when people are starting with different organisations are they going out to the hearts of the business to have a look at what this is and how it looks and most importantly in our sector, for me, my desk is on the floor and it’s with people that are experiencing mental health issues and crisis and homeless on a daily issue. And for me it’s really rewarding to be side by side in the organization and working with people and really knowing what the problems are. Sometimes in large mental health organisations, you can be in a separate building and all the programs are run all across the community and if you’re not learning knowledge of the real face to face problems and seeing those things going on, you can really get some disconnect with the knowledge. So as an organization from the board coming who are coming on camps and come out to dinners with the participants really getting that knowledge base of question zero. Which is what is it that we are really trying to do here. And if we can get back to question zero, we can really grab the knowledge of what we are trying to do. But I think sometimes on an organization level we can get caught up in the day-to-day bits of what we need to do but sometimes the real knowledge is on the forefront.
Knowledge & learning application. So, I’m going to talk about the idea of social procurement and how that has brought in different knowledge around the community and how its balanced out to get the true desired outcomes that we want to get to. So, social procurement, how we get there? What’s the reason? In Australia at the moment, mental health is a greater burden than diabetes, obesity and heart disease all combined into one. And in Queensland alone, we have got 1 million people who will face mental health this year and about 100,000 of those that we go from a mild to a chronic end. A large amount of those will be looking for work. There’s about a 28% unemployment rate for people living with mental illness from the mild to chronic end. And we know in Toowoomba that it’s the largest disability group that are looking for employment. And the government spends billions of dollars each year on a thing called disability employment services and job services Australia. And we know from some research that recently done with the Queensland Mental Health Commission, that the job outcomes around those programs with the billions of dollars that are spent per year from the Federal Government, is about a 15% success rate into getting people to 13 weeks of employment. And we know programs like the Toowoomba Clubhouse Social Enterprise program, that we are getting 75% success rate. Getting people to 26 weeks and beyond in employment. And the tool we are using to really develop those outcomes and to develop social enterprises is a thing called social procurement. So, in England about 9 years ago, in our pre- global financial crisis, I had the great opportunity to get some European Union funding for a large mental health charity called Mind. To be able to set up in those days (a long time ago now) called social enterprises. And in those days, we would get money to be able to say ‘here’s some money Luke and go and set up a painting or decorating business’ and we would put ads in the paper or online, to be able to say who wants to use our business. And we got some response but all about how good the social entrepreneur was to be able to build those businesses up. Social procurement is the idea that we would go to somewhere like St Vincent’s Health Australia or a large corporate university like USQ, and say what is it that you are using like are using a grounds maintenance contract or sanitary bins or laundry and if you give us that contract, we will be able to build something around that. So, at Toowoomba Regional Council, on about two years ago, we worked very closely with some of the councillors to be able to share the knowledge that we had around how we could build sustainable social enterprises in our region. And so how through the knowledge sharing we were able to develop through a series of ongoing regular meetings, we managed to establish a pattern with them where we were able to win a $2 million a year contract. And the $2 million a year contract was to run the boom gates at 13 waste facilities across the Toowoomba region and the beautiful thing about it was that it was able to create 40 job opportunities for people from disadvantaged communities. Half of those people have not worked in 10 years or more and it created ongoing sustainable funding for community funding programs around employment. I love social procurement for that reason. Now all of sudden we have gone from an environment of social procurement where we rely on Government funding, and we have used businesses as a tool to be able to create employment and support for something that would be requiring ongoing operational funding. So, if we can replicate the idea of social procurement around knowledge, we are going to be in a better place. Over the last couple of years, we’ve developed local social procurement learning groups and tried to work with the corporates to share the knowledge, but it’s been tough. We’ve had to have lots of extra meetings and building the intensity of those meetings to be able to put the idea across. Saying to a corporate ‘what we want you to do, is buy from a social enterprise as opposed to a corporate business so that the profits can go back to do social good in your local community without you spending any extra of your social corporate responsibility budget. For people like me it seems like a simple idea but to the head of a corporate they worry about how that will affect their chamber of commerce, they will think about how it will affect their local mining companies, they worry about how it might be perceived by their procurement teams, they worry about how they might be breaching some procurement rules. We have to meet with all the different layers of the different businesses to be able to get those outcomes made. With St Vincent’s Health Australia, they made a commitment to the Toowoomba Clubhouse and our new social enterprise that we have set up called Van Guard Laundry Services and with the laundry services, St Vincent’s Health Australia and St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Toowoomba, were in this position where they wanted to close down their existing laundry because it wasn’t meeting the quality of what they wanted to get to anymore. And there wasn’t anywhere in Toowoomba that was meeting the health requirements around that laundry, so they were going to have to send and keep the jobs by having the people who worked in the laundry to work in other parts of the hospital. But what they were looking at doing was sending all that laundry to Brisbane. So, they approached us at a very early stage and said what if we give you a 9-year laundry contract to be able to process our linen. There will be some problems with procurement and there will be problems with different parts of the business with risk and mitigation, but the chief executive came out and said we are going to work and support you for the next 2 years if you really want to build it to a 9-year linen contract. And now in linen terms and the laundry business, a 9-year linen contract is unbelievable and just doesn’t happen. The most you will get is a 2-year linen contract with convenience clauses which means they can pull out if something happens. So, to have a 9-year contract with 6 of those with liquidated damages, we have had to do lots of knowledge sharing throughout the whole entire St Vincent’s Health Australia’s organization. And really follow that core idea and getting back to question zero, which is what are we really trying to do here? And what we are really trying to do here in all of our work, is not to just set up businesses and not try and make good money, but put everything we have learnt over the years and all of the knowledge we’ve learnt through the good social outcomes we can get, and getting good job outcomes for those people that have gone through all the programs and being involved in all the things that the Government has put on the table for them and saying these people really want to work. That’s what we are really trying to do here and trying to partner with different corporates and using all the knowledge we have developed over the years to be able to make that a success but sometimes it can be tricky. And so, when we are looking at knowledge and we are looking at doing these partnerships, we can’t just take an idea to a chief executive and expect it to them to be onboard. We have to think about all the teams that it effects in the business and there is a whole heap of teams that a social procurement policy will affect such as the procurement teams, the risk team, the marketing team, PR teams. So there the different things we are looking at when we are doing knowledge sharing. It’s not just the simple cell and something a simple as social procurement, which is simple to maybe you and me but if you are not doing the knowledge sharing the right way, it can become a very complicated process.
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