| Course | GB542 Strategic Talent Development and Organizational Learning |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Capability gap analysis |
| Length | About 1,150 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB542 Unit 2
Twenty-One of Seventy-One: A Unit 2 Capability Gap Analysis for an Adhesives Maker Moving Into Battery Packs
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB542: Strategic Talent Development and Organizational Learning
Unit 2 Capability Gap Analysis
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The company, its strategy and every headcount are composite and illustrative; the frameworks and sources cited are real.
The Strategy and What It Assumes
The board approved the strategy in one sentence: "Within three years, automotive structural adhesives will grow from 12 percent to 40 percent of Corvane revenue, led by thermal and structural bonding for electric vehicle battery packs." The sentence does not mention people, but it rests on three assumptions about them.
A continuous mixing line in year two. Battery-pack customers buy in volumes that batch reactors cannot supply consistently. The capital plan funds a continuous mixing line at the Indiana plant, starting in the second year, and the line needs people who can run a process the company has never operated.
IATF 16949 certification at two plants. Automotive customers require suppliers to hold the automotive quality management certification and to use its core tools, including advanced product quality planning, failure mode analysis and statistical process control. Corvane's plants hold general quality certification only.
Engineers at customer assembly lines. Structural adhesives are qualified on the customer's own line, where an engineer adjusts dispense rates, cure profiles and surface preparation until bonds pass. Winning programs means stationing engineers with customers during launches.
Defining the Capabilities
Collings and Mellahi (2009) contend that a firm's talent work ought to open by locating the roles where performance does most to create competitive advantage, and only then turn to the people who might fill them. Following that logic, each capability below is defined as work someone performs, not as a department, so that it can be counted in people.
Application engineering: qualifying adhesives on customer lines and solving bonding failures during launches.
Automotive quality core tools: planning, failure analysis and control plans to IATF 16949 standards.
Continuous-process control: running and troubleshooting a continuous mixing line from a distributed control system.
Structural formulation chemistry: designing and adjusting formulations for structural and thermal bonding.
Process safety at scale: hazard analysis and management of change for a larger, continuous process.
Mechanical testing: lap shear, peel, fatigue and aging tests to automotive specifications.
Counting What the Company Holds
Current holders were counted from three sources: the skills inventory employees completed last spring, project and training records, and interviews with department managers. The inventory overstated proficiency. Nineteen employees listed application engineering as a skill, but project records showed only three had led a qualification on a customer line in the past three years, so the count uses three. The same check reduced the quality core tools count from seven self-reported to two who had completed a full failure mode analysis. Where records and the inventory disagreed, the analysis used the records.
The Gap Table
Each row gives the positions required at working proficiency by year three, current holders and the gap.
Application engineering. Required 14; held 3; gap 11. Criticality: high, since no customer program is won without line qualification. Lead time to close: 18 to 24 months, combining four to six months to hire and about a year to reach proficiency on customer lines.
Automotive quality core tools. Required 9; held 2; gap 7. Criticality: high, since certification is a condition of supply. Lead time: 9 to 12 months by hiring experienced quality engineers.
Continuous-process control. Required 22; held 0; gap 22. Criticality: high, since the line cannot run without it. Lead time: about nine months of structured development for experienced batch operators, timed to the line's start.
Structural formulation chemistry. Required 12; held 8; gap 4. Criticality: medium, since existing chemists can stretch for a year. Lead time: 12 months by hiring.
Process safety at scale. Required 4; held 2; gap 2. Criticality: high but narrow. Lead time: 6 to 9 months by hiring.
Mechanical testing. Required 10; held 6; gap 4. Criticality: medium, since outside laboratories can absorb overflow. Lead time: 6 months, partly by cross-training technicians.
Totals. Required 71; held 21; gap 50. Coverage today is about 30 percent.
The company holds less than a third of the capability its strategy assumes, and the largest single gap is in a job that does not yet exist anywhere in Corvane.
Reading the Criticality and Lead-Time Columns
Criticality ranks each gap by what fails without it. Four gaps are rated high: without application engineers no program is won, without quality core tools certification fails, without continuous-process technicians the line does not run, and without process safety leadership the company should not start the line at all. Formulation chemistry and mechanical testing are rated medium because current staff and outside laboratories can absorb part of the work for a time.
Lead time matters as much as size. The continuous-process gap is the largest at 22 positions, but it can be closed by developing batch operators, who already understand the chemistry and the plant, in a program timed to the line's start. Quality engineers and process safety engineers can be hired within a year from a market that has them. Cappelli (2008) argues that firms should match how they source talent to how predictable and how long-lived the need is, and the lead-time column is the first step toward that choice in the workforce plan.
The Gap That Cannot Close in Time
Application engineering cannot close in time. The strategy's first battery-pack programs launch in the second half of year one, and each launch needs at least two engineers on the customer line for several months. Corvane will need about eight application engineers working on launches by then and has three. Even if hiring starts immediately, new engineers will spend most of their first year learning the company's chemistries and the customers' lines. Boxall and Purcell (2022) note that human capital built inside a firm takes time that strategy documents rarely allow for, and this is a clear case.
The analysis does not choose how to cover the shortfall; that is the workforce plan's job. It does record that the company will be short of application engineers through year one regardless of what it does, and that any plan claiming otherwise should be questioned.
Limits
The required counts depend on the strategy's milestones. If the continuous line slips, the technician requirement moves with it. Proficiency counts rest on records from the past three years and may miss skills used earlier. The analysis counts people, not hours, and some roles may be filled by people who split time between two capabilities. Finally, the strategy's revenue target could change after the first customer awards, and a smaller share for battery-pack work would shrink the application engineering and continuous-process requirements most. The table should be rebuilt each year from the latest milestones rather than carried forward unchanged.
References
Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2022). Strategy and human resource management (5th ed.). Bloomsbury.
Cappelli, P. (2008). Talent on demand: Managing talent in an age of uncertainty. Harvard Business Press.
Collings, D. G., & Mellahi, K. (2009). Strategic talent management: A review and research agenda. Human Resource Management Review, 19(4), 304-313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.04.001
The Purdue Global GB542 Unit 2 instructions
GB542 Unit 2 asks you to analyze the gap between the capabilities an organization's strategy requires and those it currently holds. Begin with the strategy and the assumptions about people it contains. Define each capability as work someone performs, so it can be counted. Count current holders from evidence, explaining your sources and how you reconciled them. Build a gap table with required positions, current holders and the gap for each capability, adding columns for criticality and lead time to close. Explain what the criticality and lead-time columns show, and identify any gap that cannot close before the strategy needs it. End with the limits of your counts. Expect about seven pages in APA 7.
How this GB542 Unit 2 example is built
The strategy sentence is quoted and three assumptions drawn from it: a continuous mixing line in year two, IATF 16949 certification at two plants and engineers stationed at customer lines. Six capabilities are defined, citing Collings and Mellahi on starting from positions. Project records cut application engineering from nineteen self-reported to three proficient. The table runs from application engineering, 14 required and 3 held, to mechanical testing, 10 and 6, totaling 50 missing. The highlighted sentence notes the largest gap lies in a job that does not yet exist. Cappelli's sourcing logic frames the lead-time column, and Boxall and Purcell support the finding that application engineering cannot close by year one.
GB542 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
A strong GB542 capability gap analysis is graded on whether every count could be checked against a stated source. Drawing explicit people assumptions out of the strategy earns points because it shows the analysis starts from the business. Defining capabilities as work rather than departments shows conceptual clarity. Reconciling a skills inventory against project records shows rigor. A table with required, held and gap figures that add up shows care. Criticality and lead-time columns show the writer thought past the size of each gap. Naming the gap that cannot close in time shows candor. Collings and Mellahi, Cappelli, and Boxall and Purcell form the APA 7 reference list.
Common GB542 Unit 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Many GB542 Unit 2 analyses list desired skills without connecting them to a specific strategy, so the required counts have no basis. Others take an employee skills survey at face value, which usually overstates proficiency. A frequent gap is time: a large gap that can be closed quickly may matter less than a small one that takes two years. Some writers propose solutions for every gap and lose the analysis in recommendations. Start with the strategy's assumptions, define capabilities as work, count from records, build the table, rank by criticality and lead time and say plainly which gap will not close in time. Leaving the sourcing choices for the workforce plan keeps the analysis focused.
Get a GB542 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
A capability analysis can argue only from the strategy it is given. Paste in the strategy statement or case supplied for Unit 2, the rubric under it, and a gap analysis derived from that plan comes back in 24-48h. The first custom sample is free, and its capabilities come from your strategy rather than a stock list. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GB542 Unit 2 questions, answered
How is a capability different from a competency?
In most GB542 readings a capability is something the organization can do, such as qualifying an adhesive on a customer line, while a competency belongs to a person. The analysis counts people at working proficiency because capabilities are built from them, but each row is named for the organizational ability. Use your course text's definitions where they differ.
Where would the current-state numbers come from?
A skills inventory, project and training records, and manager judgment, ideally checked against one another. The example uses the inventory and corrects it where project records showed less than employees claimed. If your scenario gives no data, state the assumptions openly and keep them modest, since a grader will test whether they are plausible.
Should the analysis recommend how to close each gap?
Briefly, if the prompt asks, but the gap itself is the deliverable here. Sourcing decisions usually come in a later unit with lead times and costs attached. This analysis notes the lead time for each gap and flags the one that cannot close in time, leaving the choice of how to fill each gap for the workforce plan.
Where can I find a free GB542 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page carries a full GB542 Unit 2 capability gap analysis for a composite adhesives maker, with six capabilities, a gap table, criticality and lead time, and APA 7 references.
Why can't the application engineering gap close in time?
New engineers need about a year to become proficient on customer lines, and the first battery-pack launches begin in year one. Even with immediate hiring, the company will be short of engineers through the first year.