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Version 1.0: 0609

HIJGeneral Certificate of Education

Applied Business 8616/8619

BS12 Managing People

Report on the Examination2009 examination - June series

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Further copies of this Report are available to download from the AQA Website: www.aqa.org.uk

Copyright 2009 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved.

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from this booklet for their own internal use, with the following important exception: AQA cannot give permission to

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The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number 3644723) and a registered charity(registered charity number 1073334). Registered address: AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EXDr Michael Cresswell Director General.

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General Comments

Centres continue to teach this unit very well, with most candidates well able to tackle the fullrange of the specification. Candidates have also been clearly schooled in analysis and the full

development of their answers and make firm conclusions supported by their analysis.

In the evaluative (12 mark) questions, candidates must focus on developing in-depth answers.A basic description type answer only scores low marks, and to secure higher marks candidates

must apply, analyse and make judgements on the likely outcomes for the business or staff inthe case study.

It is really pleasing to see the very mature answers some candidates are now producing which

show the ability to look beyond the obvious answer, and to explore the wider impacts of thechanges proposed - this shows a depth of understanding of the subject and also demonstrates

exceptional teaching.

Very few candidates failed to complete the paper in the time available.

Question One

(a) (i) Most candidates could identify and describe what a reactive approach was, although aminority used such vague language that it was not clear that they understood the term.

(ii) Most candidates were able to clearly identify a problem with reactive decision making inBCL, and most also developed their answers to get into Level 2 or 3.

(b) This question was well answered by most candidates, and they seemed to have no

problem in identifying two distinct problems with the management approach in BCL.

(c) This question allowed candidates to look at why Terry left the business and virtually allcandidates identified some reasons for his resignation. The real differentiation came inhow well candidates were able to use motivational concepts and theory. Some weakercandidates confused themselves by trying to use two or more theories but, in theprocess, this led to some poor answers. Whilst the most able candidates can comparethe different theories, weaker candidates may be well advised to stick to one theory anddevelop it fully.

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Question Two

(a) (i) Most candidates were able to identify a role (although a few confused roles and skills),but too many candidates missed out on easy marks by failing to use the Item and thusgiving a very generic, as opposed to a contextualised, answer which would have allowedthem to score Level 3 marks.

(ii) In general, this was a well answered question with most candidates clearly identifying

and developing an argument for a relevant skill, although a few candidates, as with theprevious question, needed to do more to relate their answer to the context in the Item.

(b) The first of the 12 mark questions proved to be accessible to virtually all students. Themost able developed very mature answers which recognised the pros and cons of thenew structure and made very valid observations on the impact it would have on staffretention. At the lower end, weaker candidates were able to identify some basic issueswith the new structure but needed to focus more on the impact it will have in order tohave gained higher marks.

(c) This question was answered at a basic level by virtually all candidates and they couldclearly identify the different decisions each layer of staff would make. Unfortunately,most candidates did not respond to the second part of the question, Use Item B andFigure 1 to justify your answer and this, inevitably, held back their marks. For a fullanswer candidates needed to recognise the differentiation of roles and explore how thiscould work in practice.

Question Three

(a) Most candidates coped well with this scenario and produced good answers on the type

of power which Sue was proposing to use.

(b) Weaker candidates needed to do more to explain why Sues power and position in thebusiness may not be enough to convince staff to respect her authority and needed toassess whether she could succeed if she adopted this approach to power.

(c) Virtually all candidates were able to select an alternative leadership style for Sue.To develop full answers, however, candidates needed to explain the advantages this

alternative style would create and assess whether it would keep the staff happy andcommitted to the business. A full range of marks were awarded for this question.

Mark Ranges and Award of Grades

Grade boundaries and cumulative percentage grades are available on the Results statisticspage of the AQA Website.