Business Report: Strategic and Ethical Analysis of an Organisation
You are required to select an organisation from Bloomberg resource based (two Bloomberg terminals are on level 10 at Sydney CBD campus and level 2 in building 40 at Wollongong campus respectively), and research and critically analyse firm's strategic and ethical approach in strategic management to achieve organisational key strategic goals that have been sustainably competitive in the market. In your research, analysis and critical investigation, it is expected to critically analyse the selected firm's strategic, CSR, ethical and sustainable practices using major perspectives, concepts, models and strategic practices. You are also required to propose innovative sustainable and sensible solutions to address the current and future complex business challenges and opportunities to deliver superior value for its stakeholders that are sustainable and ethical.
Specific Requirements:
- Assess the selected company strategic direction and ethical approach including corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives and practices by assessing strategic resources and dynamic core capabilities including learning organisation in implementing ethical and sustainable strategic approach in generating and sustaining superior value for its key stakeholders. You need use frameworks and models, theories and concepts in your analysis and discussion on firm level analysis to explore distinct resources and capabilities of the company. You could employ relevant other subjects knowledge that you have studied in the course to carry out a multiple analysis and theoretical interpretation.
- Identify key policies, systems and processes including operational, structuring, control, learning and knowledge management, and performance management related to the strategic and ethical approach of the company that aligns effective strategic planning and execution.
- Examine and justify business/product positioning strategy (value proposition/value creation) including how the company addresses and integrates CSR, ethics and sustainability aspects in positioning (strategy) as a proactive approach to CSR and sustainability meeting and/or exceeding industry and institutional CSR, ethical and sustainability requirements.
- Analyse industry to assess how selected company positions in the industry against key players in the market. In critical industry analysis you may find various unique factors or forces than usual forces. You are required to apply industry and competitor analyses models and frameworks, theories and concepts in your analysis and discussion to explore best practices in the industry to guide to address current and future challenges and opportunities for the company under study.
- Develop a future strategic and ethical roadmap for the firm's growth and development for next 5 years including ethical and sustainable strategic management of value chain to differentiate the company offerings in the market. You may use a diagram to illustrate your strategic roadmap.
Your assignment should be presented as a business report and the format should be as follows
1. Cover Page
2. Executive Summary
3. Content Page
4. Introduction (Business problem, objective and scope of the report)
5. Methods you use to collect and analyse data and information
6. Titles and sub headings to cover the appropriate content described in the assessment
7. Conclusion and recommendations (conclusion and recommendations should be drawn from analysis, discussion and argument in your report)
8. References
9. Appendixes
Business Report - Length & Style
The individual Business Report must be written with maximum 3500 - 4000 words excluding the executive summary, figures, references and appendices.
- It is advised that the format for assignments is to be 1.5 spaced with 2.54 cm margins and font size of 12 pt.
- Please show the word count, along with all other details on the cover sheet.
- Your report will be assessed for relevant research, analytical content and logical flow of your arguments (Please see making criteria)
- You are expected to use quality research materials, literature/s (theoretical/conceptual), theory/ies, theoretical model/s, and/or conceptual framework/s from academic journals/textbooks to analyse/justify your analyses/arguments. Relevance is the key to using such references, not the number of references you present in your report.
- All work must be original and must not have been submitted for any other subject or course here or elsewhere.
- For literature citation, use the UOW Harvard style of referencing and include reference list.
Key Marking/Assessment Criteria
This assessment is expected to assess your ability on critical thinking, discipline knowledge, skills and application, ethical reasoning, problem solving, reflection, research and written communication.
- Evidence: sources of information, research and analysis of company information
- Content, Analysis and Theory: application of relevant theories, concepts, models, and tools for decision effectiveness in strategy development and implementation
- Synthesis and Development of Argument: linking theory, concepts and practices critically in the discussion and justification (
- Effective Written Communication