1. Create a seven- to eight-slide narrated PowerPoint presentation.
Include a cover page and reference section (these are not
included in the length requirement) and write a two- to three-
page memo to the COO (CAO, CEO, or comparable leader) that
highlights the main points of your project’s findings. Include
your notes for each slide in the note section of your
presentation for each slide. The presentation and memo must
both include proper in-text citations and a references section in
APA format. In designing your presentation, refer to the guide
on creating a narrated PowerPoint presentation. The memo and
narrated PowerPoint are submitted in the last step.
Consider the following among the key things your presentation
will need to address:
· Define concepts—Define organizational culture, climate, and
ethical decisions and practices. Use the academic sources
embedded in the steps or other resources of like quality, written
by authoritative sources.
· Identify consequences—Describe the likely consequences of
these concepts for an organization’s operations. See sample
questions below.
· Describe culture and climate—Describe and differentiate
between the current organizational culture and climate of your
organization. See sample questions below.
· Describe approach to ethical decisions and practices—Think
about the meaning of ethics and how they are applied in your
organization. Does your leadership model them? Are employees
placed in uncomfortable situations? How are ethics
communicated?
· Assess implications for organization—Assess the implications
of the above issues for your organization. For example, what
does it mean to your organization’s practices that the
organization has the type of culture, climate, and ethics you
identified?

2. · Recommend actions—Recommend actions your COO (CAO,
CEO, or comparable leader) should consider implementing to
facilitate a shift in the organization’s culture, climate, and
ethics to ensure desired or improved outcomes for your
organization such as meeting its mission and values. If you
don’t see a need for any changes, why?
Use these sample questions to guide your work:
· -What is organizational culture? How do authorities on culture
define it? How does it relate to my organization? How would I
describe the culture of my organization? Does the culture need
to be changed? How can that be accomplished? If not, why not?
· -What is organizational climate? How do authorities define
climate? Do people enjoy working here? If so, why? If not, why
not? Are our motivation, evaluation and reward system
perceived as fair and equitable? What effect do such measures
have on climate? Do we do climate surveys? What do they
indicate as key concerns? Should we measure climate? How?
· -What are organizational ethics? How do authorities define
ethics? How does my organization enforce ethics? Do we have
fair employment practices? Are we provided clear ethical
guidelines? Do we receive ethics training? How do we measure
compliance? Do our leaders shape ethical decision making or
not? Do we ask or imply certain marginal practices are okay?
Any past scandals? How were they dealt with? What steps have
been or need to be taken to eliminate recurrences?
You will likely want to begin by reviewing annual reports and
other publicly available information. You will have other
opportunities in this program to apply what you are learning to
your organization, and it is therefore important that you take
care in planning and implementing your research for this project
and in communicating about it with others.
When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated
using the competencies listed below. You can use the list below
to self-check your work before submission.

3. · 1.3: Provide sufficient, correctly cited support that
substantiates the writer’s ideas.
· 1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.
· 2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or
problem under critical consideration.
· 2.2: Locate and access sufficient information to investigate the
issue or problem.
· 2.3: Evaluate the information in a logical and organized
manner to determine its value and relevance to the problem.
· 2.4: Consider and analyze information in context to the issue
or problem.
· 2.5: Develop well-reasoned ideas, conclusions or decisions,
checking them against relevant criteria and benchmarks.
· 5.1: Develop constructive resolutions for ethical dilemmas
based on application of ethical theories, principles and models.
· 9.3: Apply the principles of employment law for ethical
practices and risk mitigation.
Course Touchpoint
Now that you have reflected on your progress in this course,
begin your work on Project 3 by reading the scenario below.
Then proceed to Step 1.
The day after you hand in your situation audit, you notice the
following headline in the business section of the newspaper:
Employees Accused of Stealing from Company. Apparently, a
group of employees who worked for a company similar to yours
was routinely lying on their expense reports, claiming—and
getting reimbursed for—personal expenditures, including
Caribbean trips and four-star restaurants.
You nearly spit out your coffee when you read this. You work
in the same sector! After completing your situation audit, you
feel like you have a good grasp on the mission and values of
your company, and you'd be very surprised if such behavior
were tolerated. However, this article still makes you wonder

4. about your industry as whole.
Once you get to your office, you discover that you aren't the
only one interested in this story; everyone is buzzing about it.
You soon receive a message from the COO's assistant stating
that the COO, Kate Lindsay, wants to see you this afternoon.
Why does Kate want to see you?
As you sit down in Kate’s office, Kate lives up to her reputation
for being focused and direct and immediately launches into
what she has to say. "You must have heard about the expense
report scandal at our competitor's organization. We need to
ensure that the same thing is not happening here." She
continues, "I came to this organization because I considered it
to be among the best—are we?" She begins reciting a list of
questions: "How can we be sure what we believe and say
matches what we actually do? How can we be sure we don't
have a culture and climate that are viewed as unethical and
unhealthy? Do we put enough emphasis on ethical and caring
behavior in our decisions and our actions?"
She pauses before going on. "I'm new to this position and to this
sector in general. I'm clearly responsible and accountable for
the climate, culture, and ethical behavior in this organization.
We need to be concerned about these issues, and I need your
help figuring out where we stand and what, if anything, we
should be doing differently." Your help? What does she need?
You look at her expectantly.
She answers your implied question, "I read your organizational
analysis last night, and given your impressive work on that,
think you could handle this particular task. I'm an engineer by
training and I'm methodical, thorough, and detailed," Kate says.
"This report needs to reflect my—and, more importantly, this
organization's—careful and thoughtful approach to these issues.
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."

5. She glances at her phone. "I have a meeting in two minutes."
She stands up. "I really need your best thinking and good advice
on this in three weeks. Talk to my assistant about making an
appointment to see me then, and have a 15-minute PowerPoint
presentation ready along with a brief memo summarizing your
points," she says. "Also, I trust you understand this is a matter
that needs to be kept between us." She looks at you squarely. "I
don't want to learn my questions and concerns have become the
subject of general discussions in the office."
"Absolutely!" you say as Kate heads out of her office. "Oh,” she
says, turning around, “and I want to see some of your work in
progress as you do this project. Talk to my assistant about that
as well."
You return to your desk thrilled that the COO has shared her
concerns and asked you for your input. You have so many ideas
and lots of questions—but you also realize you are going to
need to proceed without all the information you would ideally
have. You know you will need to rely only on publicly available
information and not poke around in confidential work files or
ask others in your office for input or advice.
How will you tackle this project? What evidence will you use to
inform your understanding and strengthen your analysis? What
will you tell Kate when you meet with her?
When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated
using the competencies listed below. You can use the list below
to self-check your work before submission.
· 1.3: Provide sufficient, correctly cited support that
substantiates the writer’s ideas.
· 1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.
· 2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or
problem under critical consideration.
· 2.2: Locate and access sufficient information to investigate the
issue or problem.
· 2.3: Evaluate the information in a logical and organized
manner to determine its value and relevance to the problem.
· 2.4: Consider and analyze information in context to the issue

6. or problem.
· 2.5: Develop well-reasoned ideas, conclusions or decisions,
checking them against relevant criteria and benchmarks.
· 5.1: Develop constructive resolutions for ethical dilemmas
based on application of ethical theories, principles and models.
· 9.3: Apply the principles of employment law for ethical
practices and risk mitigation.
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 conduction 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
Keep the final deliverable (see link above) in mind as you
complete the project. After you have organized your work,
proceed to Step 2, collect and analyze resources for your
presentation.
Step 2: Collect and Analyze Resources
Before beginning your research in business and management
journals, there are some preliminary readings you should

7. complete to help you develop a broad understanding of the key
theories, concepts, and ideas that are relevant for this project:
· organiazational 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.
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

8. culture, climate, or ethics of the organization? If so, what
impact would that have on the workforce?
When you have completed this step, proceed to Step 4 to create
an annotated resource list.
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.
When you have completed Step 4, submit your annotated
resources list in the dropbox located in the last step of this
project for review and feedback. The annotated resource list is
considered with the other graded deliverables in determining the
overall grade for Project 3. Then proceed to Step 5 to present
your final narrated presentation and final memo.
Submit your narrated PowerPoint presentation of seven to eight
slides, excluding a cover page and references, as well as your
two- to three-page memo (with references) to the COO.