Human Resources Management (HRM)

THE GOALS:
1. To put into practice the HR concepts that you have learned throughout the program
2. To give you some “hands on” experience in a “real world” setting
3. To help an organization meet a human resources management need
4. To provide an opportunity for critical reflection on the usefulness and feasibility of your
proposed solution
5. To view the functions of human resources management as a system of related parts
6. To give all of us an opportunity to learn from each other
7. To build competencies related to the SHRM Competencies Model
THE PROJECT:
For this assignment, you will work in a team of up to five members to help an organization with
a human resources management issue. The purpose of the assignment is for your team to apply
course concepts to a real world organization and its practices. Think of your team as a HRM
consulting firm that has been asked to submit a response to a request for proposal (RFP) from an
organization seeking to resolve an HR-related issue that it is facing. Your team is tasked to create
a written proposal and present the proposal to a “client.” The client, in this case, will be the
project owners in the Portland State University Human Resources Department. You are in
competition with the other teams in the MGMT 493 class to have your proposal selected. The
overarching steps for this assignment are listed below.
OVERARCHING PROJECT STEPS
Step 1: Meet with your team and create a team contract
I have randomly assigned each student in the class to a team. It is your responsibility to find a
way to get in contact with your teammates to begin coordinating your team. The first step in your
coordination after finding time to meet is to fill in the team contract form. You will find the form
in the Team Project folder on D2L.
Team Assignment #1: Meet and complete team contract and submit the contract to D2L
Step 2: Meet the organization
You will be introduced to the PSU HR department and the issue they are facing through a panel
interview video posted on D2L. The panel interview will provide your team with some basic
background information about the organization as well as the issue that that the organization is
facing.
Step 3: Investigation and Problem Definition
In this step, you will need to conduct a thorough investigation of the organization to better clarify
the HRM issue, to get an idea about the organization culture as well as the organizational
structure. The investigation should include gathering information from internal organizational
informants (i.e., PSU stakeholders that may be impacted by the project) as well as gathering
information from eternal sources like the company website. By the end of this step, you should
have a clear idea and be able to articulate the HRM issue facing the organization.
Team Assignment #2: Create interview questions for the client and submit the questions to the
professor in D2L
Team Assignment #3: Coordinate and conduct meeting with the client where you will be
graded.
Step 4: Research Possible Solutions, Identify the Best Solution, and Develop Method to
Evaluate
In this step, you will use your problem definition to guide your research into identifying
evidence-based HR solutions that could resolve the issue. The expectation is that a part of this
section will dedicated to reviewing and identify best practices associated with the HR process or
function that is the problem (e.g., best performance management practices). During this process
your team will also need to develop the criteria, logic, and arguments as to why one particular
solution may be the most effective for the organization. Your team will also need to discuss the
anticipated challenges that the organization may need to address (based on your investigation of
the organization) in order to effectively implement the solution (i.e., change management
strategies). Finally, your team will need to create a method and metrics for evaluating the
effectiveness of the solution. In other words, how will the organization know that this solution
was successful?
Team Assignment #4: Create detailed outline and submit outline to professor. It should include
details (issue definition, identification of potential solutions, identification of recommended
solution based on criteria, identification of metrics and evaluation method regarding how the
solution will be successful)
Step 5: Write Your Proposal and Present to the Organization
In this step, your team will take the information and research that you collected and write it up
into a proposal that will be submitted to the organization. Your team will also need to create up
to a 15-minute presentation to “pitch” your proposal and it should include describing the process
you followed to investigate the issue, the alternative solutions that you considered, why you
think one particular solution may be most effective for the organization, how you think the
organization should implement the solution, and what metrics the organization should use to
evaluate its effectiveness.
Project Proposal Format
General Formatting and Submission Guidelines
 Double-spaced
 Size 12 Times New Roman font
 1-inch margins on all sides of the paper
 Turn in the paper in Microsoft Word format (.doc, .docx)
 Turn in the completed proposal by the deadline using the D2L Assignment feature
Title Page (1 page)
 Title of proposal
 Name of the team and all group members
Background (1 page)
 Provide a brief overview of the organization
 Provide an overview of the proposal
 Summarize the structure/outline of the paper
Issue Definition (2-3 pages)
 Describe your investigation process of the organization including a summary of the
information you collected from your interview with the client
 Synthesize and distill the information collected into a succinct issue definition
Each student will be required to evaluate their peers on their performance on the project by
submitting the peer evaluation form (posted on D2L in the Team Project folder) after the
completion of the team presentation. I will use these ratings to adjust an individual’s score based
on the team’s final score.
To determine whether to adjust a team member’s project grade, I will compute the average
across all overall contribution scores for each individual, which includes a self-rating. If you
receive an average score that is 10.0 or greater, you will receive the team grade. If you receive an
average score that is below 10.0, your grade will be downwardly adjusted from the team grade
using the following criteria:
It is imperative that you utilize research to aid you in developing your team’s proposal and to
support the logic of your team’s proposed solution. This is the reason why I am requiring the use
of at least 10 peer-reviewed journal articles to support your proposal. Your peer-reviewed journal
articles must come from one of the following approved peer-reviewed journals. These
journals are accessible through the university library and GoogleScholar. I recommend using the
Advanced Search feature in GoogleScholar to constrain your keyword search to a specific
journal
List of Approved Peer-Review Journals
 Academy of Management Journal
 Academy of Management Review
 Human Resource Management
 Human Resource Management Review
 Human Resource Management Journal
 European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
 Journal of Management
 Journal of Applied Psychology
 Personnel Psychology
 Organization Science
 Journal of Management Studies
 Administrative Science Quarterly
 Leadership Quarterly
 Journal of Organizational Behavior
 Human Relations
 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
 European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
 Journal of Vocational Behavior
 Journal of Occupational Health Psychology
 Journal of Business and Psychology
 Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
 Journal of Managerial Psychology

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