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MGTS1301
INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT
Managing in the Digital Economy
Semester 2, 2023
Course Coordinator: Dr Sandra Figueira
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Learning objectives
This assignment is designed to help you:
• Apply theory and research evidence of management to practical situations.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of managerial decisions in the context of an organisation’s ethical
and social responsibilities.
Assignment overview
You will research media articles to identify and describe a management issue related to the digital
economy on the topics of ethics, corporate social responsibility, or social inclusion. You will then
undertake some research of journal articles related to your chosen issue. In your written
assignment you will apply the insights you found in the journal articles and make
recommendations about the management issue you identified.
The essentials
At the end of semester, you will submit your Management Issue Assignment via Blackboard.
Due date: Friday 13 October 2023, 1PM
Worth: 45%
Task description
1. Research media articles to identify a management issue
Find a minimum of five media articles concerning an ethical issue facing managers in the digital
economy. Your issue should be related to one of the functions of management (planning,
controlling leading or organising) and to ethics (including corporate social responsibility, diversity,
or social inclusion).
Possible management issues about the digital economy include:
• The ethical challenges of leading in the gig economy.
• The ethical challenges of controlling cyber security issues especially the privacy of
customer data.
• The ethical challenges of planning for artificial intelligence.
• The ethical challenges associated with controlling workers in the gig economy.
• Controlling for the potential negative impacts of artificial intelligence on social inclusion.
• Planning for the corporate social responsibility challenges associated with the influence of
social media companies on politics.
• The implications of remote work on leading diverse organisations.
• The ethical issues associated with bossware and the control of employees.
These are suggestions only. You may investigate other issues as long as they relate to one of the
four functions of management, to ethics (including corporate social responsibility, diversity or
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social inclusion) and to the digital economy. If you choose one of the suggested issues you may
need to refine it further by choosing specific industries or situations to focus on.
1. Research journal articles to identify scholarly management evidence.
Find three journal articles published in scholarly management journals which relate to ethics
(including corporate social responsibility, diversity, or social inclusion). Ideally, these articles
should be relevant to the ethical issue facing managers that you have identified. For example, if
your issue relates to the implications of remote work for leading diverse organisations, you should
find journal articles that discuss the equity and inclusion issues associated with remote work.
Your articles must be published in journals on the approved list of journals on the course
blackboard site. You do not need to choose your three articles from three different approved
journals. However, you cannot choose an article from a journal not on the approved list. These
journals have been chosen because they represent high quality, peer reviewed scholarly research
in the field of management.
2. Write up your assignment.
Your assignment should be structured into sections, as outlined below. Please use the template
provides on the course blackboard site.
Section 1: Introduction (150 words)
Write a brief introduction that outlines your issue, explains the focus of the journal articles that
you found and outlines the three recommendations you identified.
Section 2: Management Issue (450 words)
Use media articles to describe a management issue related to the digital economy. Be sure to
explain how the issue you identified relates to one of the functions of management (i.e., planning,
controlling, leading, and organising) and to ethics (including corporate social responsibility,
diversity, and social inclusion).
This section should not contain more than 10% direct quotes from the media articles (i.e., 45
words).
Section 3: Scholarly Management Evidence (450 words)
This section should be structured into three paragraphs with one paragraph written on each
journal article. Write 150 words on each article discussing the insights it offers into one of the
topics (ethics, corporate social responsibility, diversity, or social inclusion). Rather than
summarising the whole article, focus on explaining what you learned about the topic from the
reading the article.
One option is to paraphrase the author’s ideas and insights into your own words by answering the
following questions:
• What question is the author(s) trying to answer in their research?
• What did they find?
• How are their findings interesting and relevant to the ethical issue you have chosen?
• What new insights does the article offer?
This section should not mention your management issue.
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This section should not contain more than 10% of direct quotes from the journal articles (i.e., 45
words).
Section 4: Application of Evidence to Issue (600 words)
In this section you should show how one insight from each journal article relates to how
managers, leaders and/or organisations have addressed your management issue. You should use
these insights to explain the elements of ethics, corporate social responsibility, diversity, or social
inclusion that were done well and elements that needed improving. You might also comment on
whether the management evidence from the journal articles seems to support or contradict what
happened in practice.
Be sure to cite each journal article as you discuss it, so it is clear which insight came from which
article.
This section should not contain direct quotes from the media articles or journal articles.
Section 5: Recommendations (350 words)
In this section you should outline three recommendations that logically flow from the application
section. Given everything you have read, what advice would you give to a manager, leader, or
organisation who needed to respond to a similar issue in the future? For example, if your
application suggested that a certain ethical approach was ineffective you might recommend an
alternative approach.
You may make one recommendation per journal article OR three recommendations that are a
synthesis of the three articles. Either way it should be clear that you have incorporated ideas from
all three journal articles to make your recommendations.
Be sure to cite each journal article as you discuss it, so it is clear how the recommendations relate
to each article.
This section should not contain direct quotes from the media articles or journal articles.
Presentation
• Your assignment should be 2000 words (+/-10%).
• Your assignment must be presented using the sections as sub-headings (note: each section
does not need to start on a new page).
• Be sure to use double-spacing, 12-point font, page numbering and 2.5cm margins on all sides
of the page.
• Include in-text referencing, followed by an alphabetised reference list using the APA 7th Edition
referencing style: https://guides.library.uq.edu.au/referencing/apa7
• Please proofread your assignment for spelling and grammatical errors.
Referencing and Citing
Assignments must be substantially your own work. If you wish to report another author's point of
view you should do so in your own words, and properly reference in accordance with an approved
referencing style. Direct quotations should be used sparingly, form a small part of your work, and
must be placed in quotation marks and referenced.
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Students are encouraged to discuss issues that arise in this course together, however, the written
work you submit must be entirely your own. Similarly, you must not help another student to cheat
by lending assignments (present or past).
For more information on referencing styles, visit the library or see:
https://web.library.uq.edu.au/research-tools-techniques/referencing/referencing-style-guides.
If you do not reference correctly, you could be found guilty of academic misconduct. Please see
this link for more information: https://my.uq.edu.au/information-and-services/manage-my-
program/student-integrity-and-conduct/academic-integrity-and-student-conduct.
Use of Generative AI
You may use Generative AI to help brainstorm ideas and/or to assist with summarising journal
articles. However, you must do your own independent research for media articles and journal
articles and write the assignment up yourself. Please do not use text generated by AI in your
assignment.
Remember that information obtained from generative AI may be inaccurate or biased. You must
always verify information with another source.
Please follow the UQ library’s guidelines for acknowledging the use of generative AI in your
assignment. Include a few sentences to explain how you used AI after the References section of
your assignment: https://guides.library.uq.edu.au/referencing/apa7/chatgpt-and-generative-ai
Criteria and Marking
You will be assessed on your ability to identify and articulate a management issue related to one
of the following topics: ethics, corporate social responsibility, diversity or social inclusion, your
understanding of the scholarly management evidence, your application of the evidence to your
issue and on the logic and actionability of your recommendations. A detailed marking rubric is
available on the course blackboard site.
A detailed marking rubric is available on the course blackboard site.
Submission
Ensure you receive a Turnitin submission ID or Learn.UQ confirmation number, and retain this
number as proof of submission. If you do not receive proof of submission, you should regard your
submission as unsuccessful and take steps to address the issue. It is your responsibility to ensure
the assignment has been successfully submitted. Any requests to waive the late submission
penalty without proof of submission will not be considered under any circumstances.