Principles of Management
Management 321
Fall 2006

Contemporary Management, 4^th Edition
Textbook Website: www.mhhe.com/jonesgeorge4e

Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune  and other contemporary business literature

Admission to upper division standing or consent of department chair.

Introduces the principles of administration in organizations (both public and private) emphasizing the analysis of planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling.

 To acquaint the student with how global socio-economic and technological forces are affecting the theory and practice of management. To develop the student’s awareness of the challenges faced by today’s managers.

• Students are expected to complete the reading assignments by the date noted in the syllabus.
• Students will be assigned "Topics for Discussion and Action" questions at the end of each chapter. Written responses are due on the date of the assignment and may be collected at the discretion of the instructor. No late assignments will be accepted.
• Three exams will be given during the semester.
• Each student is required to be a member of a 3-person team that will perform an analysis of a Fortune 100™ company. You must assemble your team by September 14^th, provide the instructor a rooster of its members, and the name of the firm that you will research and present. After the 14^th the instructor will assign team members for anyone not on a team.
• The team presentation will be both oral and written. Oral presentations will be scheduled for December 5th or 7th. The maximum presentation time is 15 minutes. Your team will dress in appropriate business attire and utilize audio/visual support (i.e. PowerPoint, etc.).
• The written portion of this assignment will be typed, double-spaced, and not exceed a length of 12 pages, including tables, appendices, etc. It will be bound and in color where appropriate. It will be collected the day of the oral presentation. At a minimum, this document will include the following:
  • Scope and scale of the firm (i.e. products/services produced, degree of vertical integration, etc.)
  • Competitor analysis
  • SWOT for the firm
  • Financial history/projections for the firm
  • Any strategic policies (good or not so good) of the firm (i.e. they outsource 90% of their products/services, they are aggressively attempting to become a ‘green’ company, etc.)
• Semester Paper. Each student is required to research and compose a document which is centered on a management topic found in the text. For example, you may write a document on "Social Responsibility," "Human Resource Management," "Effective Groups and Teams," etc. This well-researched topic will culminate in a typed, double-spaced document that does not exceed 10 pages in length including tables, appendices, etc. It may or may not include color, but it will be bound and have a nice cover (which is not part of the 10 pages!). It will have a bibliography that cites no less than 4 sources of information. Electronic sources are fine, but I need to see the complete URL as well as the title, author, date of publication, etc. You will inform the instructor of your topic on Sept. 19th. The document is due on Nov. 30th.

The Mission Statement of the College of Business states, "The academic programs of the college develop student competencies in: (1) Critical Thinking, (2) Oral Communication, (3) Effective Writing." In this class, these competencies will be given the following emphasis on a scale of 10 (low emphasis) to 50 (high emphasis). At the end of the semester, the students’ perceptions of the emphasis placed on learning these competencies will be assessed.

• Critical Thinking (40): You will be expected to apply critical thinking skills by responding to daily assignments, the team presentation, the semester paper and examinations.
• Oral Communication (30): Effectively organizing and articulating your logic, thoughts and conclusions are essential in a managerial context. By actively participating in classroom discussion and the team presentation, this course will serve to reinforce the importance of this managerial attribute.
• Effective Writing (40): A trait of any good manager is the ability to craft a written document which clearly expresses thoughts, ideas, conclusions, etc. You will be assessed on the effective use of grammar and writing clarity via the semester paper and the completion of daily assignments.

• There will be 3 exams, including a final, that are weighted as 45% of the final grade. The remaining 55% will consist of team company analysis (20%), collected homework (10%) and the semester paper (25%).
• This is a tentative syllabus. Any changes to the syllabus will be announced in class. You are responsible for any changes regardless of whether you attended the class of a specific announcement.
• You are responsible for all enrollment matters.
• Academic dishonesty in any form will not be tolerated. See Part IX 9 of the Student Handbook.
• Calculation of the course grade will follow the standardized format of the MSU-B grading system. This system is defined as follows: 90 and above = A; 80 and above = B; 70 and above = C; 60 and above = D; 59 and below = F.
• There is no substitute for hard work!