Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer 

For this assignment, you will select an organization that you might like to work for upon graduation, and write a short report examining its strategy and its culture.  If it is a large organization, feel free to focus on the portion of the organization you are interested in – you do not have to comprehensively include everything that the organization does.  Feel free to use personal sources (e.g. your own internship, the internship experience of someone you know) and non-personal sources (newspaper/internet articles, company websites, etc.) to inform your essay.  However, when you do present or cite specific information or evidence, you should make it clear where this comes from.

Your essay should demonstrate your knowledge of the organization you select.  First, you should clearly articulate the strategy of the organization or organizational unit.  In which arenas does the organization choose to operate?  How does the organization seek to differentiate itself?  Which of the five forces are most important and why?  What are some critical resources within the organization?  What are some of the trade-offs inherent in the organization’s strategy?  Do you see any significant downsides?  (This is not a list of questions to be checked off – you should choose and analyze only the elements of strategy which you believe are most important to your organization.)  Note that you should use the frameworks and concepts covered in this course – as opposed to, for instance, taking a marketing perspective. 

Second, you should analyze the organization’s culture.  How does the organization’s culture rate along some of the dimensions we discussed in class?  Are there other key components of its culture (e.g., core values) not captured by these dimensions and if so, what are they?  How does the organization’s culture affect the behavior of its members (employees)?  How strong or weak is the culture?  What are some pros and cons of the culture?  Are there any differences between the espoused values of the organization (e.g., mission statement) and the culture that actually exists within it?  Where does the culture come from?  What are some ways in which it is reinforced or maintained – or is the organization perhaps lacking in these respects?  Your analysis can also include some discussion of organizational structure and/or leadership, if you feel that they are relevant – but the primary focus should be on culture.  Again, you do not need to answer all of these questions – you should pick and choose to focus on those aspects of culture that you think are most important and most interesting.  You should strive to include some specific examples to back up your analysis – e.g., of how the culture manifests itself (e.g., jargon, rituals, slogans, etc.) and how it shapes employee behavior.

In addition to describing and analyzing the organization’s strategy and culture, you should present some analysis of the alignment – or lack thereof – between the two.  Does the organization’s culture fit with its strategy?  Why or why not?  What are some specific instances of alignment, and/or misalignment?  You can choose to present this in a section separate from your cultural analysis – or you can weave the two together (i.e., analyze alignment with strategy as you go through your discussion of the organization’s culture).

Lastly, briefly assess the fit between your own personality, skills, and attributes and the culture and/or strategy at this organization.  Do you think you would fit in well?  Why or why not?