Critically evaluate Chris Smalls leadership style and how he approaches power and politics at Amazon Labour Union.
Critically evaluate Chris Smalls leadership style and how he approaches power and politics at Amazon Labour Union.
Student Number:
Word Count:
Introduction (~100 words)
Overall argument e.g. This essay will argue that
Structure e.g. Firstly this essay will then ...finally
Main body (~1200 words)
Main 1: Leadership
Main 2: Power and Politics
Conclusion (~150 words)
Reiterate overall argumentRemind the reader of your strongest evidenceReference list
UMOD63-15-1 Component B Coursework Case Study (Please Read)
Chris Smalls: Amazon Labour Union founder and Leader
As the leader of the Amazon Labor Union, the first group in the country to successfully unionize an Amazon facility, Chris Smalls is a busy man. By 3pm on a July afternoon Smalls had already given two interviews, talked to a potential donor, and discussed renting an 11,000-square-foot space for the unions headquarters. His recent rise to notoriety means that his phone is constantly buzzing, fielding dozens of messages from workers across the country seeking advice about organizing their own Amazon warehouses as well as media requests from places likeThe Daily Show With Trevor Noah.He explains; Ive gotten messages like, Yo, we need you to save the country; We need you to save gun laws; We need you to save abortion rights, he exclaims; Im the saviour now of everything.
Smalls, perhaps an unlikely leader, smiles with satisfaction, his gold grills glinting. He was decked out in what he called union drip: Versace sunglasses, diamond earrings, chains coiled around his neck. The bling is a core part of his appeal and his politics. For working stiffs used to being bossed around by, well, their bosses, it epitomizes the belief that 40 hours of work a week should afford people more than just basic survival. It should buy a decent apartment, some savings, and maybe even jewel-encrusted fronts Smalls version of bread and roses.
His fashion sense has spawned thousands of #UnionDrip hashtags and grabbed the attention of fashion designers and Hollywood. His image has also resonated with todays blue-collar labour force, especially at Amazon, where the workforce skews young and three-quarters are Black and brown. ALU is part of a burgeoning movement led by young workers instead of professional activists and without the support of traditional labour unions, whose bureaucratic professionalism and non-confrontational tactics are considered by some to be stale and ineffective. Smalls calls this the new school labour movement, and he is its most visible practitioner. Theyre looking at me, Smalls said of old-school unions like the SEIU, which he blames along with Democrats for abandoning low-wage workers and being too cozy with big business to reign in billionaires like Jeff Bezos. If they was doing shit, theyd probably get some attention too. But they aint doing shit. Switching to the third person, he said, Chris is actually putting in the work.HYPERLINK "https://subs.nymag.com/magazine/subscribe/official-subscription.html?itm_source=sitepromo&itm_medium=articlelink&itm_campaign=issue-07-18-2022"
Smalls has been celebrated by everyone from President Joe Biden to Jesse Jackson as the prime author and strategist of what the New YorkTimescalled one of the biggest victories for organized labour in a generation, which came amid spiking rates of union activity across the country, with employees organizing at Starbucks, Trader Joes, REI, Activision, and Apple. But until he was fired in March 2020, Smalls was just another worker at theJFK8 Amazon fulfilment centre in Staten Island where he and 8,000 other employees packed up and shipped nearly every sex toy, phone charger, book, and roll of toilet paper that New York City residents ordered from Amazon.com. He formed the ALU in an audacious attempt to reform the second-largest private employer in America. Last year, Amazon spent $4.3 million on anti-union consultants; on the day of its victorious union vote, the ALU, then a ragtag group of 20 members, had just $3 left in its bank account.
Since then, Smalls task has been to prove that his union could replicate its first win. He dreams of organizingeveryAmazon facility in the U.S. thats hundreds of thousands of workers. As the ALUs leader, it is Smalls job to use his charm and clout to raise funds, corral sympathetic politicians, attract new members, and put pressure on Amazon to capitulate to the unions demands. By making himself as well-known as possible, in other words, Smalls hopes to expand the size and power of his union. Its a lot of pressure, he told me, but my voice was meant for something bigger than packing up boxes in a warehouse.
That project, however, has already run into setbacks, the organization has been mired in infighting stemming from the perception that Smalls is now too busy being a celebrity to join his comrades in the trenches. He thinks everything is about Chris Smalls, an ALU member suggests. Were supposed to be a worker-led union, and he aint a worker no more.
Smalls bristles at the notion that he has abandoned the ALU, underscoring that the success of this union specifically and the new-school movement more broadly has so far been powered by his prominence his celebrity serves the movement, he insists, not the other way around. He noted that his critics wouldnt last one fucking day in my shoes. You want to be on TV? You want to travel the country? You want to have the weight of the world on your shoulders? Sure, take it all.
Who is Chris Smalls?
Destined for leadership, Smalls tells about his childhood in New Jersey, playing Martin Luther King Jr. in an elementary-school pageant and getting his first taste of the gravity of leadership. In middle school, Smalls was athletic, popular, a natural trendsetter. He introduced nameplate belts to his classmates, showing up one day with a big buckle reading CHRIS in bold letters. He and his best friend would play hooky and go to Harlem. I just always had an infatuation with going to Harlem, he said, because Harlem was known as a city that had so much swag.
He studied for his degree in music administration from the Institute of Audio Research in Manhattan and started rapping, trying to break into New Yorks hip-hop scene. At age 19, he lived for a summer in his PT Cruiser on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights while getting invites to VIP clubs and helping put on shows, including one with Meek Mill. I was better than the people around me, he told me, and their careers were taking off, so I know I couldve made it big. One night in 2012, he visited a strip club and was thrilled that one of his tracks was being played on the sound system. He posted about it on his personal YouTube channel, celebrating that his song was ALREADY BUMPING IN STRIP CLUBS!!! He described himself as well on his way on the grind to fame.
Im Chris Smalls, big balls, he rhymes on a track titled Work. Im a big dog, making big noise/Imma get mine; bitch, get yours. He also dreamed of a future in which he was in the mall/Buying everything that I deserve, as he raps on a different song, My Time.
Chris was always into gold, wearing caps and colours, said Gerald Bryson, a co-founder of the ALU. But he wasnt hood he was just a normal guy and a hard worker. His dreams of rap stardom were quickly complicated by reality. By the time he was 22, he was married and had a child. To sustain his young family, he spent the next five years working gruelling manual-labour gigs, loading trucks for FedEx and hauling huge crates for a grocery-distribution warehouse. Amazon was supposed to be a life-changing opportunity. The companys warehouses were popping up all over to serve its rapidly expanding delivery service, and his mother, Dawn Smalls, an administrator at Beth Israel, saw an opening for a job.
In 2015, Smalls started as a picker at a brand-new Amazon distribution facility in Carteret, New Jersey. He was excited by the PlayStations in the break room. Accustomed to working fast and hard, he excelled as a picker, whose job is to race across warehouses and pluck items from shelves, then sort them in preparation for the workers who package them. He easily exceeded Amazons quota of 250 items per hour, and after seven months he was promoted to a process assistant, a sort of assistant manager who oversees and trains their own teams of pickers. I loved the fact that I was being recognized for my work, Smalls said. I was excited, went above and beyond. I was really pro-Amazon.
In August 2018, he transferred to the newly built JFK8, an 855,000-square-foot warehouse on a marsh in Staten Island. Three years after he was promoted to process assistant, his career at Amazon had stalled. Smalls found common cause with a group of his co-workers who would later go on to form the ALU: Bryson, Derrick Palmer, and Jordan Flowers half in jest, they called themselves the Four Horsemen and another worker, Jason Anthony, a 28-year-old with Clark Kent frames who worked on Smalls team of pickers and at times earned so little that he lived in a Brooklyn SRO. According to Bryson, the friends would gather each Saturday to watch Knicks or Nets games and play dominoes. They bonded over clubbing, smoking weed, their families, and their frustrations at work.
Still committed to rising through the ranks at Amazon and desperately trying to pay his child support Smalls threw himself into the project of becoming a full manager. At the Staten Island facility, the quota had by now been raised from 250 to 400 items picked per hour thats less than nine seconds per item, or about 4,000 items in a ten-hour shift and Smalls estimates he and his team had the highest rate in the building. I wanted to be on their crew, recalled Angelika Maldonado, a 27-year-old from Staten Island who began working at JFK8 in 2018. They were always laughing and having a good time but also working really hard.
In the four and a half years Smalls worked at Amazon, he applied for a promotion to manager over 50 times. Ruth Milkman, a professor at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, said the inability of Smalls and others to rise through the ranks was in part a function of the companys business model, which relies on a high turnover of entry-level workers to keep wages down. Meanwhile, according to one 2019 report, employees in the main Staten Island warehouse are injured more often than coal miners, waste collection workers, and other laborers. And according to 2021 OSHA data, the serious-injury rate at Amazon is more than double the rate of non-Amazon workers in the warehouse industry. As a result, the average tenure of an Amazon warehouse worker is just eight months, and the companys turnover rate in its warehouses is around 150 percent each year, more than two times the average turnover rate of American workers.
Minority workers are disproportionately harmed by all of this, critics believe. Although 75 percent of warehouse workers are Black or Latino, only 8 percent of executives are. Workers who have been fired after complaining about conditions have overwhelmingly been people of colour or women, according to former Amazon executive Tim Bray, who characterized such firings as designed to create a climate of fear.
From Amazon Picker to Union Leader
By March 2020, Smalls had accepted that he would never be promoted. His wages had topped out at about $40,000 a year. At only 31 years old, he had begun to suffer back spasms. He commuted over two hours each way from New Jersey to Staten Island. As an additional incentive to promote high worker turnover, Amazon offered employees a $5,000 bonus if they quit after five years, at which point they are prohibited from working for the company again. Smalls planned to take this buyout. It didnt matter whatI did, Smalls said. I had no chance of a promotion at Amazon.
But before he could accept the $5,000, the pandemic arrived in New York. That same month, as the citys COVID death toll was rapidly rising, his bosses informed him that a co-worker with COVID had been in their midst two weeks prior and not only had the supervisors failed to tell employees, but they also now urged Smalls to keep it a secret. On March 25, Smalls, Palmer, and a handful of others walked into the general managers office and insisted the company close to clean the building and send workers home, with pay, for two weeks. A few days later, management told Smallsheneeded to quarantine for two weeks. No one else was put on quarantine. Smalls started planning a protest.
He had never done anything like it before, but from the start, he had an intuitive sense of how to orchestrate the optics of the situation. He reached out to the New YorkPostand said hundreds of workers would be marching out of the JFK8 building that coming Monday, March 30. Smalls had checked the weather and planned the march for lunchtime because he knew that on a sunny day workers would be outside eating, so it would look as if they were part of the rally. He promised the media hundreds of protesters, and thats what they saw. Two hours after the protest peacefully ended, he received a phone call: He was being terminated for violating his quarantine. It turned out to be an enormous blunder on the companys part.
In what is now an infamous memo, notes from a meeting including Bezos and Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky that outlined the companys strategy to undermine the pro-testing employees were leaked to a Vice News reporter. Smalls is not smart, or articulate, Zapolsky wrote. Make him the most interesting part of the story, and if possible, make him the face of the entire union/organizing movement.
At first, Smallshad no interest in forming a union. Instead, he wanted an organization more akin toBlack Lives Matter or the Sunrise Movement, one that would be a group of workers from Amazon and other stakeholders engaging in boycotts, pickets, and protests, putting pressure on Amazons bottom line. He called his group the Congress of Essential Workers, or TCOEW, a first step toward what would evolve into the ALU.
As a result of Smalls growing notoriety, he attracted others who had been waiting for someone just like him to come along. One of these people was Connor Spence, a mousy 26-year-old with a scraggly Lenin beard. By most accounts, it was Spences idea to try to unionize Amazon. When the Zapolsky memo was leaked, Spence was studying aviation at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey and working at an Amazon facility at night. He said he was radicalized simply by how miserable the work was, and only later did he get into reading Marx, Gramsci, and the popular labour organizer Jane McAlevey. Someone like Chris is naturally going to be a beacon for people like me and people who think the same way, he said. Were all going to flock to him. He introduced himself to Smalls at a rally in Manhattan and pitched him on forming a union. Smalls gave him his number, and soon after that Spence moved to Staten Island, got a job at JFK8, and became an integral member of Smalls circle.
At every TCOEW meeting, Spence would introduce himself by saying, Im Connor, and Im here to start a union at Amazon. Smalls was sceptical. What we do is protest, he said. Thats what were known for. Smalls thought McAleveys ideas about a worker-led democratic movement that eschewed the rigid hierarchies of traditional unions were abstract, irrelevant. When Spence and Carolyn Steinhoff, another early member of TCOEW, signed Smalls up for a free, six-week online organizing class given by McAlevey, Smalls agreed to attend but never showed up. She doesnt know what its like to work at Amazon, a member recalled him saying. What does she have to teach me?
Smalls did seek support from his mother, Dawn, who had been part of the SEIU 1199 union as an administrative hospital assistant at Beth Israel. She and Smalls are exceptionally close, and she attended most TCOEW meetings. She loudly defended Smalls when, in May 2020, two people working with TCOEW, Katherine Washington and Emilie Hoeper, accused him of being shady about how he had spent $43,000 in donations collected via GoFundMe. We do not know whether or not Chris redistributed his money to workers, used it for business expenses, or kept the money for himself, they later wrote in a letter they posted on social media.
Smalls, who was still unemployed at the time, admitted to me that he mostly survived off this GoFundMe account, which had been created for him by a supporter in Virginia and advertised as a fund to support us Essential Workers. While it wasnt illegal, or necessarily unethical, for him to use GoFundMe money for whatever he wanted, Smalls had allegedly told the women he planned to file paperwork for TCOEW as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but he never followed through. (Smalls denied he made this promise.)
Steinhoff told me she thought the financial accusations were unfair given that TCOEW would have ceased to exist if Smalls couldnt feed and house himself. Still, she understood how his unreliable communication could anger those around him. He could be arrogant, she said. He was not someone who would step aside and let others speak a lot.
Bryson, the ALU co-founder, agreed that Smalls could be caught up a little bit with himself, but his supposed arrogance was inextricable from his confidence, and to most, he was a leader who inspired awe and trust. Theres something about Chris that makes you want to impress him, said Maldonado. After seeing a story about Smalls firing on the news, Brett Daniels, a blond 27-year-old from Arizona, quit his job at an Amazon facility in his home state and bought a one-way plane ticket to New York so he could work at JFK8, saying he wanted to be part of a revolution led by a Black working-class man. Id been waiting my whole life for something like this, he said.
The disappointments of Smalls life and a whirlwind of new influences were cohering into a worldview. Amazons unforgiving algorithms measuring worker productivity, the companys high injury rates, and the racial dynamics between management and entry-level employees all appeared to Smalls as part of the same system that had enabled slavery and the carceral state. When he thought back to a day when an Amazon supervisor had told him to whip these pickers back in shape, he shuddered with anger. He noted the historical resonances of the wordpickers.Sure, they no longer picked cotton, but they still plucked goods for wealthy consumers who had no idea what kind of labour was required to deliver them so quickly and cheaply. Amazon is definitely the new-day slavery, Smalls reflected on his podcast Issa Small World. Jeff Bezos is definitely an oppressor, definitely a slave master.
People describe Smalls ideology as a mix of narcissism and egalitarianism, of earnest solidarity and ego Chris-ism, as one former ALU member described it to me. But the key to Smalls success is how well he grasps class-war unionism as a moral outlook as well as a strategy. When, on July 20, 2021, news broke that Bezos had flown to outer space on his private rocket, it provided the perfect opportunity for Smalls and the other organizers to bond with beleaguered Amazon employees by skewering the CEO as a feckless billionaire whose head was literally in the clouds. A year earlier, Smalls had demonstrated the same savvy when he had led a protest outside Bezoss mansion in Washington, D.C., in which he set up a guillotine.
A visit to Bessemer, Alabama, in February 2021 finally convinced Smalls that a union was needed in Staten Island. In Bessemer, Amazon employees had invited the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union to help them organize. He couldnt believe what he saw. He wanted to meet with local pickers, but RWDSU staff seemed uninterested in his help. What the hell is this other union doing? Smalls said. We as Amazon workers know how to connect with other workers..
McAlevey, prominent union organiser noted, agrees stating; the established unions lost faith that working people could actually organize. Smalls showed them that regular workers could do this work and they could do it as well as, and for less money than, many professional organizers.
When Smalls and his fellow TCOEW members officially created the Amazon Labor Union and launched their union drive at JFK8 on April 20, 2021, the first thing he did was turn the S40 bus stop in front of the warehouse into a low-budget, welcome-to-all campaign grounds. To collect the signatures required for a union vote, he planted himself there in snowstorms, rain, and heat advisories, playing guitar, serving meals, ordering Lyfts and Ubers for exhausted employees, and handing out free marijuana. Inside JFK8, the growing crew of ALU members built support elbow to elbow with their co-workers.
Such tactics succeeded in uniting the diverse Amazon workforce against its common enemy. One member, Pat Cioffi, an Italian American from Staten Island, was said to have convinced more than 500 workers inside JFK8 to change their votes to yes and support the ALU. Most workers liked how scrappy the union was and the fact that the ALUs union hall was a dingy two-bedroom bachelor pad Spence and Daniels had rented in Staten Island. Meetings were held in their living room.
In May 2021, JFK8s general manager, emailed the letter that Washington and Hoeper had written a year earlier accusing Smalls of financial impropriety to every single JFK8 employee in an attempt to delegitimize the ALU, but this effort backfired. No one was going to believe the word of management over Smalls or their co-workers in the ALU, with whom they spent more time than their own families. This was the strength of a worker-led union.
After ignoring Amazons assistant general managers orders to stop delivering food to workers on Amazon property, Smalls was arrested on February 23, 2022. Some sources suggested to me that Smalls had intentionally tried to provoke the confrontation. If so, it was a brilliant move: The arrest, and the widely shared video of Smalls in handcuffs being shoved around by police, reinforced the notion that Bezos and the company were racist bullies.
Less than six weeks later, on April 1, 2022, nearly 55 percent of JFK8 employees who voted said they wanted ALU to represent them. Smalls celebrated by popping a bottle of Champagne and announcing to millions of viewers on the internet and cable news, We went for the jugular, and we went for the top dog, because we want every other industry, every other business, to know things have changed.
The Chris Smalls Controversy
After the vote,ALU members campaigned to unionize the LDJ5 facility, which sits just across the street from JFK8 and is home to 1,600 workers who sort packages for delivery. But now, Smalls was seldom seen. Following his arrest in February, a judge gave him a deferred sentence, and if he were caught trespassing again, he could go to jail. Smalls was also busy. In May alone, he appeared at an event for a fashion-models union, on the late-night showDesus & Mero,and on the Breakfast Club radio show with Charlamagne Tha God. He visited a school in Staten Island, gave a speech for CUNY law students, partied at various bars, and posed for photos with Questlove and Zendaya at aTime-magazine gala.
Smalls was suddenly hard for ALU members to reach. It has been widely reported that nearly 100 Amazon employees from across the country contacted him after the JFK8 victory seeking advice on how to unionize their own facilities, but according to one source who had access to the ALU inbox, few of those emails were answered.
When one new organizer in the LDJ5 facility told Smalls that she needed help and that his absence from Staten Island was hurting her organizing efforts, he allegedly told her not to be codependent. In a meeting, he berated the same organizer so much that she cried, according to someone who was present. He also said that salts those who get jobs at Amazon only to unionize it and who make up one-third of the ALUs organizers werent real Amazon workers, even while he publicly praised them.
The fact is we was all burnt out. Not just me but everybody, Smalls told me later. Everybody was stressed out at that time.
Under stress, Smalls reverted to an us-versus-them mentality, once going so far as to tell me that he trusted only the Four Horsemen and Anthony. Its crazy how privileged people think they are, he said. They jump onto these campaigns; they get involved at the very tail end and act like theyve been doing this for the last two or three years like I have. Get the fuck out of here none of them have. Where was you when we started the union? Nowhere to be found. I know who was with me. Everybody else are secondary-role players. Everybody else I can give a damn about.
People are starting to see him more as a celebrity in my building and not like someone local anymore, said Mike Aguilar, a worker at LDJ5 and an ALU member. They ran up to him and were like, Can I take photos? And I was just like,Whats going on?People think hes so famous, he has all that money; people are probably going to believe the rumors a little more. Its a distraction.
However, as Smalls celebrity grew rumours started to circulate that Smalls had embezzled money to buy himself a Lamborghini and that he had used union funds to buy another ALU organizer a car. Smalls insists none of it is true. He told me he still largely lives off the GoFundMe, and in June he sold a memoir to Pantheon. Im broke as hell, he told me. When I asked if any of the $400,000 the group had received in donations since April had been used for personal expenses, he said, No. I have a treasurer, and that money goes toward the union. I dont even touch the money. I have no access to that money. If I need something, I have to request it. He said one of the reasons he was sometimes hard to reach was because he had to do speaking gigs to pay his rent and child support. Just cause youre on TV doesnt mean shit, he said. In the future, the ALU hopes to make Smalls its first full-time salaried organizer, but for now, thats just one of the unions many dreams.
The alleged lack of transparency, though, has continued to brew distrust. Dana Miller, a former ALU member from Queens, became alarmed that the organization had no official bank account in July 2021. She also suggests that Smalls and his inner circle refused to delegate any tasks that would have allowed others to have access to financial information. Smalls allegedly removed Miller from the unions, in what she labels a total dictator move.
Something similar allegedly happened to former member Mat Cusick. Cusick said he had overheard Smalls asking Spence, who was then the ALUs vice-president, for $800 in cash, which was given without any sort of receipt. When Cusick started to raise questions, he said, he was ultimately pushed out of the ALU last month. Cusick said no one besides Smalls knew why some key decisions were made. In a democratic union, it shouldnt be that way, said Cusick, and you cant just blame that on being busy.
The infightingin the ALU culminated in the disastrous vote to unionize another Amazon warehouse. When word came down that the ALU had lost, the assembled press had one question: Where is Chris Smalls? The face of the new-school labour movement might as well have been on a milk carton no one knew where he was.
Finally, nearly four hours after the vote count began, Smalls appeared on the edge of the crowd in a patterned robe and sweatpants, like a weary boxer entering the ring. Chris Smalls is in the house! A core member shouted with delight. It turned out that Smalls had been in Detroit accepting the annual Great Expectations Award at an NAACP conference, and his flight back to New York was delayed. But his absence raised the obvious question of whether he could balance the hopes of a public that wants a working-class hero with the demands of Amazon workers who need a leader who can make their lives better. What had initially made Smalls so effective in his battle against Amazon was the way in which his life story connected him to workers but now, as his celebrity grew, that same life story risked alienating him from his base.
Case study adapted from; Enzinna, W. 2022. What Will Chris Smalls Do Next? He did the impossible: Unionize an Amazon warehouse. Then the hard part began. Intelligencer [online] Available: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/chris-smalls-amazon-profile.html [Accessed: 14.09.23]
College of Business and Law
aCADEMIC YEAR 2023/24
Assessment Brief
Submission and feedback dates
Submission deadline:TBC
Is eligible for 48 hour late submission windowMarks and Feedback due on: TBC
N.B. all times are 24-hour clock, current local time (at time of submission) in the UK
Submission details
Module title and code:Understanding Organisations and PeopleUMOD63/UMODDP
Assessment type:Written Essay
Assessment title:
Using theory from Leadership and Power and Politics, analyse examples from the Chris Smalls case study to answer the following brief:
Critically evaluate Chris Smalls leadership style and how he approaches power and politics at Amazon Labour Union.
To answer the brief, you will need to identify Smalls approach usings Mainstream/Managerialist and Critical perspectives and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.
Assessment weighting:60% of total module mark
Size or length of assessment: 1200- 1500 words
Module learning outcomes assessed by this task:
Identify and understand the range factors that influence the behaviour of individuals between individuals and within organisations
Gain a deeper insight into individual and group level experience through theory and be able to apply this to real life organisations
Understand the ways in which organisations are shaped and controlled and how workers experience this
Recognise how contemporary organisational themes are impacting on organisations and the people who work within them
Understand and apply a range of both mainstream and critical approaches to the understanding of people in organisations
Completing your assessment
What am I required to do on this assessment?
For this assessment you need to analyse and evaluate Chris Smalls approach to leadership and power and politics. This means you will need to read the case study on Chris Smalls provided and apply some of the theory and concepts discussed in the lectures on leadership SU3 and power and politics SU2, to relevant examples from the case. This assessment asks that you both identify the approaches to leadership and power and politics and evaluate these, meaning you must consider the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches. All this needs to be written up in a 1200-1500 word essay which includes an introduction and conclusion. Your essay should argue, based on your analysis, what kind of leader Smalls is and how he approaches power and politics.
Where should I start?
Downloading this brief is a great start. Next:
Reread your notes and download the lecture slides for SU2 Power and Politics and SU3 Leadership
Download and read the Chris Smalls case study (dont do any extra research into him outside of this case).
Your face-to-face tutorials
What do I need to do to pass?
The points below are for students looking to get in the 40s. For guidance on how to get a higher mark make sure you also read the next section.
Do not do any extra research into Chris Smalls. Base your assignment solely on the information provided in the case.
Use relevant theories around power & politics and leadership to support your analysis of Chris Smalls management practices. Just using theories from the lecture slides is enough to pass.
Link the theories to examples from the case study.
Do not spend your word count describing theories or describing in too much detail the examples from the case study. Description should be kept to a minimum the emphasis should be on discussion, analysis and building an argument.
Reference any ideas which are not your own.
Use UWE Harvard Referencing.
How do I achieve high marks in this assessment?
In addition to the points above, in order to get a 2:1 or first you also need to:
Let us know your overall argument in the introduction: This essay will argue that Chris Smalls is a You can then build this argument throughout your essay.
Make detailed links between theory and case study examples. Use words like therefore to demonstrate how this analysis links back to your overall argument.
Make sure every point is supported by strong evidence. Avoid making broad statements which cannot be supported.
Build a balanced argument that shows you understand there is more than one perspective. Make sure you include theory from both the managerialist and critical perspectives.
Draw upon a range of sources from the module reading list. Do not just rely on the lecture slides if you are aiming for a higher mark.
Use signposting to guide the reader through your essay. Your essay should have a coherent narrative and the reader should be able to follow your argument throughout each section.
Use the full word count efficiently to maximise your marks. This usually means doing more than one draft. When you redraft remove any words/sentences which dont contribute to your overall argument. Use these extra words to pack in more analysis and evaluation.
Include some critique of theory and link this to your overall argument.
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What do I do if I am concerned about completing this assessment?
UWE Bristol offer a range of Assessment Support Options that you can explore through this link, and both Academic Support and Wellbeing Support are available.
For further information, please see the Academic Survival Guide.
How do I avoid an Assessment Offence on this module? 2
Use the support above if you feel unable to submit your own work for this module. Also get in touch with one of the module team!
The main assessment offices we see are people submitting other peoples work either other students who have taken the module or essays which have been bought. We have software which catches this (even if you make changes). Essay writing services which sell essays (on top of being cheating) arent trustworthy organisations. They frequently sell essays to students which they claim are unique but actually have whole sections which are copied from other essays. Our software compares assessments to work submitted all over the world and is very hard to trick. So, if youre stuck please get in touch, even if you havent attended anything we wont be angry we will just do our best to help you pass the assignment.
Marks and Feedback
MARK THEORY, KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING (30%) ANALYSIS OF ORGANISATIONAL PRACTICES (30%) CRITICAL EVALUATION, COHERENT ARGUMENT (30%) EFFECTIVE SCHOLARSHIP
& COMMUNICATION (10%)
70+ Demonstrates a detailed and comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the theories and concepts used.
Shows excellent evidence of reading widely.
Extensive reference to wide range of relevant literature and media. Perceptive analysis which raises insightful issues and creates a deeper understanding of the given organisational context.
Very good integration of theory and practice, connections are made between what a given theory says and how it connects to the given organisational context.
Well chosen, interesting and highly relevant examples given. Excellent evidence of critical thinking and well supported evaluations.
Concepts are not unquestioningly accepted at face value and are questioned in the light of the analysis, pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses are considered and a sound judgement is formed and expressed.
Development of strong, coherent argument that consistently addresses the purpose of the assignment. Adept handling of the material, well reasoned and written, with a clear line of thought.
Coherent structure; well signposted.References are accurately and appropriately recorded.
60+
Demonstrates a good knowledge and understanding of theories and concepts clearly stated and accurate but some areas could be stronger.
Shows good evidence of reading, going beyond the more basic texts and sources.
Reference to a good range of relevant literature and media.
Good evidence of analysis, that creates insight and understanding.
Good integration of theory and practice not focussing on either one too much
Good number and quality of examples. Some evidence of critical thinking, sound judgement, clear reasoning and support for evaluations
Development of a coherent argument that addresses the purpose of the assignment.
Material is well-handled, with clear evidence of reasoning and narrative thread. Well communicated.
Good structure and signposting
References accurately and appropriately recorded.
50+
Broadly adequate knowledge but contains errors.
Clumsy - may use technical language, but doesnt show full understanding
Adequate evidence of reading.
Some reference to relevant literature and media. Reasonable analysis in places, but sometimes lapses into description rather than analysis
Some linkage between theory and practice (some strong, some weak links)
Adequate number and quality examples. Adequate evidence of judgment, with some attempt at evaluation but tendency towards description.
Has an argument but sometimes difficult to follow.
Generally addresses the purpose of the assignment.
Satisfactory handling of the material, but the reader may sometimes have to work to follow the line of thought. Adequately communicated
Reasonable structure and signposting
References adequately recorded but may contain occasional minor errors.
40+ Weak knowledge and understanding of theories and concepts (generalised/incomplete/has errors).
Limited evidence of reading core text/lecture material only.
Few references to relevant literature and media. Limited analysis, tending toward description.
Little linkage between theory and practice (focussing on one at the expense of the other)
Weak or few illustrations and examples. Poor judgment, some unsupported assertions. Largely descriptive.
Weak argument not developed.
Does address the purpose of the assignment in parts, but often strays off the point.
Poorer handling of the material and the reader has to work to follow the line of thought.
Some structuring and signposting, but much to improve.
Referencing may contain errors
37
30
20
0 Knowledge and understanding of theories and concepts is very weak or non-existent.
Little or no evidence of reading.
Very few or no references to relevant literature and media. Little or no analysis which is heavily descriptive.
No linkage between theory and practice (Either: mostly practice-based with very little reference to theory, OR, theory-based with very little reference to practice)
Very poor, very few, irrelevant or no illustrations or examples.
Unsupported assertions and value judgments.
Little or no obvious argument.
Fails in large part to address the purpose of the assignment.
Handling of the material is weak, with little/no obvious line of thought. Hard to understand.
Poorly structured.
Referencing very weak or missing.
Your assessment will be marked according to the marking grid on the previous page .You can use this to evaluate your own work before you submit
In line with UWE Bristols Assessment Content Limit Policy (formerly the Word Count Policy), word count includes all text, including (but not limited to): the main body of text (including headings), all citations (both in and out of brackets), text boxes, tables and graphs, figures and diagrams, quotes, lists.
UWE Bristols UWEs Assessment Offences Policy requires that you submit work that is entirely your own and reflects your own learning, so it is important to:
Ensure you reference all sources used, using the UWE Harvard system and the guidance available on UWEs Study Skills referencing pages.
Avoid copying and pasting any work into this assessment, including your own previous assessments, work from other students or internet sources
Develop your own style, arguments and wording, so avoid copying sources and changing individual words but keeping, essentially, the same sentences and/or structures from other sources
Never give your work to others who may copy it
If an individual assessment, develop your own work and preparation, and do not allow anyone to make amends on your work (including proof-readers, who may highlight issues but not edit the work) and
When submitting your work, you will be required to confirm that the work is your own, and text-matching software and other methods are routinely used to check submissions against other submissions to the university and internet sources. Details of what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it can be found on UWEs Study Skills pages about avoiding plagiarism.
Understanding Organisations and People 2020/21 Coursework Feedback
Student Number:
Feedback From: Date:
Use of appropriate resources: A 10% reduction in your overall mark for your coursework may be the cased as a result of the use of inappropriate resources. An indicative (but not exhaustive) listincludes: Wikipedia; BizEd; BusinessBalls; BusinessStudiesOnline; Ebea; Tutor2u; TopMarks; RevisionStation;BusinessCaseStudies; Tes; RewardLearning; RevisionGuru; Mindtools 10%
Reduction
YES/NO
Comments:
Please see highlighted comments on Marking Criteria grid (attached) and detailed specific comments on your essay.
In addition to the above, the main ways to improve this assignment are:
Gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the theories you use Define the key terms in the theory and literature Focus less on description of theories / the practices of The case, and more on analysing and discussing the implications Focus more clearly on relating the theory to the practices of The case Make the practices of The case more apparent in your analysis Be clear so that the reader understands the point that you are making Signpost your work so the reader knows how your essay is unfolding Improve structure, clarity and flow Critically evaluate the material Wider reading may have enabled you to have included more critical evaluation Follow UWE Harvard referencing and formatting guidelines carefully Go beyond quoting or referencing only from what is on the slides engage in wider reading Additional Comments (optional)
MARK THEORY, KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING (30%) ANALYSIS OF ORGANISATIONAL PRACTICES (30%) CRITICAL EVALUATION, COHERENT ARGUMENT (30%) EFFECTIVE SCHOLARSHIP
& COMMUNICATION (10%)
70+ Demonstrates a detailed and comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the theories and concepts used.
Shows excellent evidence of reading widely.
Extensive reference to wide range of relevant literature and media. Perceptive analysis which raises insightful issues and creates a deeper understanding of the given organisational context.
Very good integration of theory and practice, connections are made between what a given theory says and how it connects to the given organisational context.
Well chosen, interesting and highly relevant examples given. Excellent evidence of critical thinking and well supported evaluations.
Concepts are not unquestioningly accepted at face value and are questioned in the light of the analysis, pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses are considered and a sound judgement is formed and expressed.
Development of strong, coherent argument that consistently addresses the purpose of the assignment. Adept handling of the material, well reasoned and written, with a clear line of thought.
Coherent structure; well signposted.References are accurately and appropriately recorded.
60+
Demonstrates a good knowledge and understanding of theories and concepts clearly stated and accurate but some areas could be stronger.
Shows good evidence of reading, going beyond the more basic texts and sources.
Reference to a good range of relevant literature and media.
Good evidence of analysis, that creates insight and understanding.
Good integration of theory and practice not focussing on either one too much
Good number and quality of examples. Some evidence of critical thinking, sound judgement, clear reasoning and support for evaluations
Development of a coherent argument that addresses the purpose of the assignment.
Material is well-handled, with clear evidence of reasoning and narrative thread. Well written.
Good structure and signposting
References accurately and appropriately recorded.
50+
Broadly adequate knowledge but contains errors.
Clumsy - may use technical language, but doesnt show full understanding
Adequate evidence of reading.
Some reference to relevant literature and media. Reasonable analysis in places, but sometimes lapses into description rather than analysis
Some linkage between theory and practice (some strong, some weak links)
Adequate number and quality examples. Adequate evidence of judgment, with some attempt at evaluation but tendency towards description.
Has an argument but sometimes difficult to follow.
Generally addresses the purpose of the assignment.
Satisfactory handling of the material, but the reader may sometimes have to work to follow the line of thought. Adequately written
Reasonable structure and signposting
References adequately recorded but may contain occasional minor errors.
40+ Weak knowledge and understanding of theories and concepts (generalised/incomplete/has errors).
Limited evidence of reading core text/lecture material only.
Few references to relevant literature and media. Limited analysis, tending toward description.
Little linkage between theory and practice (focussing on one at the expense of the other)
Weak or few illustrations and examples. Poor judgment, some unsupported assertions. Largely descriptive.
Weak argument not developed.
Does address the purpose of the assignment in parts, but often strays off the point.
Poorer handling of the material and the reader has to work to follow the line of thought.
Some structuring and signposting, but much to improve.
Referencing may contain errors
37
30
20
0 Knowledge and understanding of theories and concepts is very weak or non-existent.
Little or no evidence of reading.
Very few or no references to relevant literature and media. Little or no analysis which is heavily descriptive.
No linkage between theory and practice (Either: mostly practice-based with very little reference to theory, OR, theory-based with very little reference to practice)
Very poor, very few, irrelevant or no illustrations or examples.
Unsupported assertions and value judgments.
Little or no obvious argument.
Fails in large part to address the purpose of the assignment.
Handling of the material is weak, with little/no obvious line of thought. Hard to read.
Poorly structured.
Referencing very weak or missing.
