| | 3,000 words +/-10% Choose an organization Your coursework will have to ultimately answer the following question: What would it take to make your organization a leader in its sector in tackling the climate emergency?Formulate recommendations and explain how you will measure success. You have freedom in how you structure your work. However, your work must cover the following: Examine your organisation’s growth record over the past 10 years. Aspects you may want to cover: – Factors that explain periods of fast and slow growth – Whether the organisation has relied on internal/external growth – Motives explaining the firm’s desire to grow – Evaluate whether the growth strategy chosen – Critically evaluate how the organisation has financed its growth Looking at your organization today, asses and critically discuss the firm’s degree of vertical integration and diversification.From company reports and other sources, identify the most important activities for turnover, profitability and long-term sustainability.Critically evaluate your organisation’s potential for external growth as a way to achieve its objectives to become more sustainable. By comparing the different possible arrangements (merger, acquisition, alliance, JV; horizontal, vertical, conglomerate), specify what type of arrangement could suit your organisation the most, and analytically and critically discuss, using the academic literature and evidence available,what would be the expected advantages, disadvantages and challenges for the organisation. Critically discuss the organisational structure and culture of your organisation and the extent they are aligned with its sustainability objectives.Discuss the role that innovation plays in your organization, the sources of innovation and how can innovation be leveraged by the organization in order to address society’s grand challenges. Word count: You are allowed +/- 10% on your word count. After this, I will simply stop reading and won’t consider anything in excess. Structure: You can structure the coursework in a variety of ways. Some (non-exhaustive) examples below: OPTION 1: answer the questions above in the order they are listed OPTION 2: you can merge related questions together, for example you can combine the discussion of the growth history of your company, its financing and your recommendation for future growth and the internationalization strategy together. This may make sense if, for example, your recommendation entails for the firm to vertically integrate by acquiring a foreign or distributor (hence de facto merging point 1,2,3 and 8). OPTION 3: Another possible structure is to use a question, for example in coursework 2 would be Q. 9 as the starting point to formulate your recommendation for your company and then discuss what strategy would enable that going through points 1-8. Remember that as part of growth strategies we also discussed divestment, so maybe the firm needs to depart from its history and divest in some areas to be able to be successful in the future by becoming sustainable. In the latter two options the list of questions should be used as a checklist of topics to cover. The most important thing is that your work adheres to what we covered in the module, is coherent, the argument flows logically, your analysis and recommendations are well communicated, justified and supported by evidence. Remember that the list above doesn’t constitute the marking criteria and that you will be graded based on the marking criteria. This means that even if some aspects listed above don’t apply to your organization, that will not penalize you. Similarly, if you think that discussion of aspects such as divestment, covered in the module are relevant to your company even if not included in the list above, you are welcome to include them as they will demonstrate knowledge of the subject covered in the module and of the company. To conclude, you can separate your document in sections as you see fit. As long as it doesn’t look like a stream of consciousness, you have freedom on how to structure it. Therefore, if you are not answering the questions above one by one, please use some headings. For example if you go with option 2 above, you may want to have a first section on growth (history, present and future), a second one on organizational structure and culture and a final one on sustainability. This is just an example, the important point is that you don’t write 3,000 words without any sub-headings to support the reader’s navigation of your work. You are welcome to add an introduction and conclusion section if you wish, but you don’t have to. Referencing: Harvard referencing style Structure, clarity, grammar and spelling: Remember that how your work reads will affect the perception of the reader. A sloppy presentation brings into question the credibility of everything else you have done as it brings into question the amount of time and effort put in. Make sure your document is polished and reads well. Give yourself a few days where you don’t look at it before you read it one more time before submission and/or have someone else read it for you. What does the feedback cover? Feedback will cover: Spelling and grammar Document structure Use of language Argument development Referencing Marking criteria for coursework Assessment Domains 80-100 Exceptional 70-79 Excellent 60-69 Very Good 50-59 Good 40-49 Satisfactory 30-39 Fail 0-29 Fail Assessment Domain 1: Knowledge and Understanding 15% Systematic understanding of managerial economics concepts and theories, including acquisition of coherent and detailed knowledge, and of the way in which key concepts relate to one another. Detailed appreciation of the way in which some aspects of the material covered are uncertain or contradictory. Assessment Domain 6: Employability 10% Demonstrates in depth knowledge and expertise of an organisation and industry of choice Assessment Domain 6 (Employability): Professionalism 3% The work looks professional and would impress a prospective employer. It also adheres to the requirements and instructions given. This includes also for example the word count. I will stop reading anything in excess of 3,300 words. Assessment Domain 2: Range and Relevance of sources of information 10% An ability to independently find a wide range of reliable and reputable data and information Assessment Domain 2: Research Informed Evidence 15% An ability to competently use data and information to construct and support a sound argument. Assessment Domain 3 (cognitive skills): Critical thinking 12% An ability to engage critically with academicand non-academic research in the discipline and to critically evaluate and challenge arguments, assumptions, ideas and data Assessment Domain 3 (cognitive skills): Application of theories to real world cases 12% Theories and concepts are very well integrated in the work and critically applied to the analysis of the organisation of choice. Assessment Domain 3 (cognitive skills): ability to make well supported recommendations 10% An ability to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution – or identify a range of solutions – to a problem and to formulate recommendations by also showing awareness of key current global and local challenges. Assessment Domain 4: Logical flow and structure 5% The answer is logically structured and the argument flows. Well organized piece of work, with flow and progression. to devise and sustain arguments Assessment Domain 4: Communication 5% The meaning is clear. Use of clear, accurate English Assessment Domain 5: Referencing, sourcing, acknowledging and coverage 3% Sources used are all acknowledged in the text and reference list, using correct academic citation according to Harvard referencing – including online sources. Referencing is consistent throughout. Bibliography is outstanding in its breadth and depth. |
