The recommendation report culminates your research on your business problem.
It is a persuasive paper that presents your final recommendation and the reasons supporting it. In our scenario, you provide this short report to management/ board for review prior to presenting your persuasive oral presentation. This assignment review covers the report’s content, organization, and format.
Content
The audience for your report and presentation is your company’s Board of Directors and upper management. Your purpose is to persuade them to approve your recommendation. This audience and both of your mutual purposes affect your message in three important ways.
- The board and management will want to know how the issue impacts the company and why they should approve your recommendation. You must show your mutual goals align, so they feel confident approving your recommendation.
- The Board and Management must know the recommendation is feasible and practical and will not be unreasonably expensive or time consuming. The report should provide a brief description of how the recommendation would work in your company, but should not delve into detailed stages and factors of implementation.
- The board and management do not want to make a decision that might later reflect unfavorably on the company and themselves. They want to be satisfied that you have made them aware of all risks. Your research must include one main argument against your recommendation along with your rebuttal to this counter-argument. You must provide evidence of a thorough investigation completed without bias and presented as an ethically complete argument.
Organization
Your language will be persuasive but remain reasonable and appropriate for a board report. Organize your report with the following elements in the following order:
- Introduction Section: brief context for your topic: a description of the company’s line of work and its size, the effect of the problem on your company, the cause of the problem; your report’s purpose; and an overview of your main
headings. - Recommendation Section: a mini-introductory paragraph with a summary of the primary supporting assertions from your introduction.
- Assertions Subsections: discussions of the reasons supporting your recommendation, supported by on-point and relevant research. Relevant research is recent (no later than 8 years old), relates directly to the assertion, and is usually paraphrased. Use direct quotes very rarely, if at all. Do not discuss in detail how the recommended option WILL work or will be implemented; rather, include published research that shows the option has worked for competitors or similar businesses in the past.
- Counterargument and Rebuttal Section: the ONE main opposition to your recommendation and your rebuttal to this argument supported by research; counterarguments would generally concern increases in costs and loss of resources
and time. - Conclusion Section: brief statement recapping the main ideas of the paper, reiterating your recommendation and its benefits to the company, and providing a memorable takeaway.
- Reference List Page: An APA-formatted reference list that includes only works cited in the report. The reference list is on a new page; no annotations necessary.
Format
Follow the short paper format provided for this assignment. Your headings, citations and reference list should follow APA format. Be sure to double-space, use Arial twelve point font and one inch margins. The body of the report (items 1-5) should be 3–5 pages and you must cite at least 5 different references in the text.
The main headings of the report are centered, bold and are titled (1) Introduction, (2) Recommendation, (3) Counterargument and Rebuttal, and (4) Conclusion. The only subheadings that will appear in the paper are your three supporting reasons (assertions) for the recommendation, located in the Recommendation section. Sub-headed sections are bold and aligned with the left margin.
Your language will be persuasive but remain reasonable and appropriate for a board report. As the last major paper of the semester, your Recommendation Assignment should demonstrate careful editing, organization using topic sentences and consistent application of APA formatting techniques. Remember to write in complete paragraphs and avoid bullet lists.
Conclusion: Goals for Recommendation Assignment
As you can see, the content and organization of the report are closely aligned to your oral presentation to the board, except that the report provides more detail. Writing the report allows you to organize your thoughts before presenting them; reading the report allows the board and management to consider the information so they will be well informed when asking questions and approving the recommendation after your oral presentation. This assignment should be saved as LastName.Rec.Assign. and then uploaded to Canvas on or before the date listed in the course schedule.