Persuasion | mgt 420 | trident international university

Assignment Overview

For this assignment take a close look at both the required readings and videos on general concepts of persuasion such as the main principles laid out by Cialdini (2001) or in Section 14.2 of McLean (2012). Then take a look at some of the practical guides to persuasion such as Gorman (2007) and see which one of them is the most useful for you.  

Case Assignment

When you have finished carefully reading these materials, write a 4 page paper addressing the following issues:

1. Which of these readings or tutorials was the most convincing or presented the most useful information? Explain your reasoning as to why you found this source more convincing that the others.
2. Based on the ideas about persuasion that you read about in the background readings, write a memo at least one page in length to your employees trying to persuade them to cancel their weekend plans and volunteer to work next weekend. This memo shouldn’t be an “order” that they need to work on the weekend, but rather an attempt to persuade them to do so. Make sure to use both the general concepts from Cialdini (2001) or McLean (2012) as well as some of the practical persuasion guides to help you craft your memo.
3. Conclude your paper with a discussion of how your memo applied the concepts from the background materials. Be specific as to what sources you used and what sections of your memo was influenced by which source.

Assignment Expectations

• Case Assignments are to be prepared in Microsoft Word and should be 4 to 5 pages in length, in addition to a cover page (course name and number, module number, session name, student name, and date prepared) and a reference list. The paper should be double-spaced, using 12 pt. type in the Times New Roman font. It should consist of a 2- or 3-sentence introduction, a body, and a 2- or 3-sentence conclusion and use Trident University International’s cover page. The reference list page must be in APA format.
• Assignment content should include a brief introduction to the assignment, background information about the organization being studied, and discussion in terms of the concepts or theories being applied in the assignment.
• Use headings and subheadings to improve presentation values.
• Include both a References page and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 11-14 on in-text citations. Attention is to be given to citing sources of information in text as well as in the References page at the end of the paper. Citation and reference style instructions are available at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/ or at APAstyle.org.
• Submit your report in the Case dropbox for this module on or before the date due, as indicated on the TLC Homepage.
• Since you are engaging in research, be sure to cite and reference the sources in APA format. The paper should be written in the third person; this means words like “I,” “we,” and “you” are not appropriate. For more information, see Differences Between First and Third Person.