Gulf College — Faculty of Business and Management Studies — In academic
Affiliation with CARDIFF SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

 Specific Assignment/coursework Brief

THE TASK:

Choose any company has a global presence that interests you as the subject of your study and assume that you have been appointed as an advisor by that company. Your task is to perform a SWOT analysis to determine the effects of these factors on the performance of the company.

You are required to research and report based on the patch work as described below:

Please read this section carefully, so that you are fully aware of what is required of you on this module.

The assessment we are adopting for this module is what is referred to as a Patchwork Portfolio (PP). A PP differs from a “normal” portfolio in so far as it has a theme which ties all the pieces (patches) together. The final element of the portfolio evaluates how this theme can be traced through the body of work you have produced. For this portfolio the theme you will be asked to consider is “the business environment and Emerging Markets”.

The four patches you must complete throughout the year are:

Patch 1: Analyse the Company’s History and Growth. Submission — WEEK 6. A company’s past can greatly affect the present and future state of the organisation. To begin your case study analyse and investigate the company’s founding, critical incidents, structure and growth. Employ descriptive statistics to support your analysis and investigation.

Patch 2: Carry out the SWOT analysis of the Company. Submission — WEEK 8.Using the information you gathered in step one, continue your analysis by examining and making a list of SWOT factors, for example,

n  Strengths: The firm’s strengths are its resources and capabilities that can be used as a basis for developing a competitive advantage, e.g. strong brand name, good reputation, favourable access to distribution networks etc.

n  Weaknesses: The absence of certain strengths may be viewed as a weakness, e.g. high
cost structure, lack of patent protection, lack of access to the best natural resources etc.

n  Opportunities: The external environment analysis may reveal certain new opportunities for profit and growth, e.g. introduction of new technology, an unfilled customer demand, loosening of regulations etc.

n  Threats: Changes in the external environment also may present threats to the firm, e.g. change in consumer tastes, emergence of substitute products, new regulations etc.

Patch 3: Determine the effects of SWOT factors. Submission — WEEK 10.Using the information based on SWOT analysis in Patch 2, determine all the negative and positive effects of SWOT on the performance of the chosen company.

Patch 4: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility. Submission — WEEK 13.Using the information in patches two and three, you will need to create an evaluation for this portion of your case study analysis regarding the compliance of the company to the ‘Stakeholder Theory’.

Patch 5: Reflective Summary. Submission — WEEK 13.The final part of your case study analysis should include your learning outcome from the study undertaken and recommendations for the company. Every recommendation you make should be based on and supported by the context of your case study analysis

References: Harvard referencing must be used.

To complete your portfolio and pass this module, you must undertake the following:

qComplete Patches 1 — 4 (above)

qWrite a reflective commentary for Patch 5 considering how Patches 1-4 contribute to your understanding of the business environment.

Note:

Patches 1- 4 are what we term “formative” assessment, which means that even though the completion of this work is a formal requirement of this module, this work does not contribute to your final grade at the end of the year. Your final grade is determined by the completion of Patch 5. This assessment is what we refer to as “summative”.

If you do not complete all aspects of this assessment, formative and summative, you will automatically be deemed not to have completed the work for the year, and therefore will fail.

By the end of this module students should be able to

·               Identify a range of issues and debates through which to illustrate the impact of the business environment on business activity.

·               Evaluate the conceptual categorisation of the business environment, and use models based on this categorisation in analysis.

·               Describe how different business functions respond to changes in the business environment.

·               Use, interpreter and understand a range of statistical and non-statistical tools and techniques to analyse business data and information.

·               Reflect upon learning and make connections between issues, business activity and appropriate data

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, which can be defined as using without acknowledgement another person’s words or ideas and submitting them for assessment as though it were one’s own work, for instance by copying, translating from one language to another or unacknowledged paraphrasing. Further examples of plagiarism are given below:

Use of any quotation(s) from the published or unpublished work of other persons, whether published in textbooks, articles, the Web, or in any other format, which quotations have not been clearly identified as such by being placed in quotation marks and acknowledged.

Use of another person’s words or ideas that have been slightly changed or paraphrased to make it look different from the original

Summarising another person’s ideas, judgments, diagrams, figures, or computer programmes without reference to that person in the text and the source in a bibliography or reference list.

Use of services of essay banks and/or any other agencies

Use of unacknowledged material downloaded from the Internet.

Re-use of one’s own material except as authorised by the department.

2.  Collusion, which can be defined as when work that has been undertaken by or with others is submitted and passed off as solely as the work of one person. This also applies where the work of one candidate is submitted in the name of another. Where this is done with the knowledge of the originator both parties can be considered to be at fault.

3.  Fabrication of data, making false claims to have carried out experiments, observations, interviews or other forms of data collection and analysis, or acting dishonestly in any other way.

Plagiarism Detection Software(PDS)

As part of its commitment to quality and the maintenance of academic standards, the University reserves the right to use Plagiarism Detection Software(PDS), including Tumitin. Such software makes no judgement as to whether a piece of work has been plagiarised, it simply highlights sections of text that have been found in other sources.

The use of plagiarism detection software fulfils two functions. The first is to enhance student learning (i.e. as a developmental tool); the second is to guard against and identify unfair practice in assessment.

Further information and guidance can be found in the University’s policy on the Use of Plagiarism Detection Software.