Posted: April 21st, 2015

International Business Strategy (REPORT)

Group assignment

Weighting: 30%
You will be required to join a group (of no more than four students, preferably three), and develop a 4000 word written REPORT based on the topic detailed below.

Students will be required to select a company, from a selection of industries provided by your lecturer (Our company is HSBC Bank), and prepare a case study which describes a particular issue concerning that’s company’s internationalisation strategy. The report should reflect a genuine strategy issue (not issues related specifically to marketing, HRM etc though elements of these issues may emerge in your research). There should be an emphasis on analysing company data from the perspective of relevant course literature (I will attach all the ppt slides we went through in class).  Reports that are descriptive of company practices only will be penalized. The final report should outline how the organisation manages the strategic issue(s) in question and evaluate the practice by comparing it to the literature from relevant publications.

While writing your report, you should incorporate relevant theories and concepts to justify your arguments. Clear analysis which reflects integration of relevant literature with the organisation’s practices will be rewarded – simply describing the practices will not be enough to pass this assessment task. As a guide your report should incorporate at least 40 different references. These can be sourced from the following:

• Academic articles
• Relevant textbooks
• Periodicals
• Newspapers
• Relevant online sources

Remember to acknowledge your sources throughout the paper using the Harvard referencing system (in text referencing). As this is a group exercise all members of the group are expected to contribute actively and substantially. While it is understood that some members of the group may provide more input in the research, whereas others may do more of the actual written work, the group will be required to acknowledge that all group members have given quality time to the project.
This Assessment Task relates to the following Learning Outcomes:

• Demonstrate the ability to work as part of a team in discussing and analysing international business issues
• Develop capabilities to make effective recommendations for successful strategy implementation