The company I am doing is Charles Schwab

Step 1: Organize Your Work

First, review the following resources:

• description of the final deliverable
• instructions on how to create a narrated PowerPoint presentation
• remaining steps to completion for this project

After you have a good idea of the scope of work for this project, consider how you will approach an analysis of your own organization:

• First, review these brief guidelines about conducting research on your organization.
• Discuss with your instructor any limiting factors you may encounter as you write this report. After you’ve discussed these issues with your instructor, if you believe it’s best for you to research an organization other than your own, please read the guidelines about using an outside organization.

As you plan to complete this project, consider the following aspects of the work:

• the information you need
• how to get that information
• allocating appropriate time to each step
• other project management factors that may seem relevant

Step 2: Collect and Analyze Resources

Before beginning your research in business and management journals, there are some preliminary readings you should complete to help you develop a broad understanding of the key theories, concepts, and ideas that are relevant for this project:

• organizational culture
• organizational climate
• business ethics

As you read about each of the key concepts for this project—organizational culture, organizational climate, and organizational ethics—think about the implications for industries and organizations like yours and for their leaders. Jot down ideas and questions you will need to research further to develop the expertise required to successfully complete this project. As previously suggested readings on ethics have highlighted, ethics includes many human resource focus areas: discrimination, hiring, promoting, diversity, and enforcement of a variety of federal statutes.

When researching for your presentation, recall what you learned about good graduate-level research practices in PRO 600 and prior coursework. Be sure to consult with your professor if you have questions about the strategy and process you plan on using to find good resources for this project.

Once you have completed your reading and library research for this project, apply what you have learned to your organization, looking for these useful resources:

• any publicly available policies and procedures that provide helpful insights into how ethical conduct and desired organizational behaviors are managed
• any nonconfidential sources where your CEO or other leaders may have written or spoken about these topics

Step 3: Conduct Independent Research

As you did for the situation audit, adopt the perspective of an outside consultant when working on this report. This will increase your objectivity as you examine your own company. The COO, Kate Lindsay, needs absolute objectivity with this subject. Complete the following tasks:

• Independently research (as a consultant would) the concepts of organizational culture, climate, and ethics.
• Determine the consequences of organizational culture, climate, and ethics to your organization’s operations. Would legal measures (employment laws) need to be used to reshape the culture, climate, or ethics of the organization? If so, what impact would that have on the workforce?

Step 4: Create an Annotated Resource List

Next, create an annotated resource list of four key articles or sources dealing with culture, climate, and ethics that will be used in your memo and presentation. Consult creating an annotated bibliography for help. One of the four annotated resources can deal with the impact of employment laws on organizational culture, climate, and ethics.

Keep in mind that the quality of the resources matters in determining the quality of the memo and the quality of the presentation. A well-researched study or article by an acknowledged authority published in a peer-reviewed academic journal is considered primary research. The use of primary research is preferred over using an interpretation of the same academic content that is published in a newspaper column or summarized in a magazine, trade journal, or internet source—even where such secondary sources contain quotes from the original author’s work or attribute their interpretation to that material.

So even though organizational culture, climate, and ethics may seem like soft issues, I expect strong critical thinking and an evidence-based report. I don’t just want opinions. It might help to imagine yourself as an independent consultant we are counting on for both expertise and objectivity.”