Leadership Paper (Volkswagen Emissions Scandal)
The paper should be between 1,500 and 2,000 words (not counting figures, tables, references, and appendices).
Recommended Outline:
Introduction (10%) Briefly introduce the case of leadership failure. Why is studying this case important? Explain the paper’s purpose and outline what follows in the remainder.
Leadership Theory (35%) In this section you lay the foundation of the leadership theory that will be used later for your analysis Pick one of the leadership styles and explain how it works and what you know about it.
Specifically, focus on elements relevant for the case analysis.
Transactional, Transformational, LMX, Situational, Horizontal/Distributed, Ethical, Servant, Authentic Case Description (10%) Describe what happened in the case you selected. Clarify why you think this is a case of leadership failure and not a problem mostly unrelated to leadership. Draw on references (news articles etc.) when describing the case but write your own paraphrased summary.
Case Analysis (40%) Use the theory put forward under #2 to analyze the case described under #3 How does leadership theory help us understand what happened? What does leadership theory suggest for fixing the problem?
Create an analysis table with three columns:
1) listing the three core elements of the problem,
2) summarizing strategies to address each of the three elements, and
3) citations of literature to back up the strategies.
Why are the suggested strategies a good fit? How exactly could they be implemented?
Create an implementation table with two columns:
1) adverse effects – when implementing your strategies, what could go wrong, and how could such adverse effects be mitigated?
2) context factors – what are factors unique to the case? How would your strategy have to be adapted if implemented in a different context? Provide examples. Explain the table.
Summary (5%) Summarize the entire paper in one paragraph.
References Provide a least two double-spaced pages of references. Each reference should have been meaningfully included into the body of the paper.
