Posted: September 13th, 2017

UWBS038g Assessment Briefing for Students

UWBS038g Assessment Briefing for Students

if tested here
LO1    To analyse primary or secondary research undertaken on a specific sector and organisation (small firm/ organisational context), using a range of data sources to evaluate both the external competitive environment and internal strategic capability issues of a small firm or organisation.

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LO2    To apply critical analytic tools and techniques in the construction of a cogent strategic growth plan addressing the issues of business success within the small firm context.
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LO3               To develop innovative and enterprising solutions to strategic issues of
small business/ organisational growth.
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Assessment types    Weightings (%)
Individual Report
100

Assessment type, weighting and LOs tested by this assessment indicated in the shaded area above by a ?
Important requirements (Delete where appropriate, if other please provide detail)
Mode of Working:              Individual
Presentation Format:             Report
Method of Submission:             Paper submission to MX student Office
Mark required to pass this coursework:     40%

(Complete following detail)
Hand in date & time    Summative assessment : Friday, 08th May 2015
Date & method by which you will receive feedback    Formative feedback will be available during workshop sessions.

Summative feedback will be available w/c 08th June 2015

Resit/retrieval date    July 2015

Assessment limits (in accordance with UWBS assessment tariff)
No more than:  5000 words, excluding references/ appendices

Do clearly state your student number when submitting work but do not indicate your name.
Always keep a copy of your work.
Always keep a file of working papers (containing, for instance, working notes, copied journal article and early drafts of your work, etc.) that show the development of your work and the sources you have used. You may need to show this to tutor at some point so notes should be clear and written in English. This is an important requirement. There may be circumstances where it is difficult to arrive at a mark for your work. If this is so you may be asked to submit your file within 3 working days and possibly meet with your tutor to answer questions on your submission.
Explanation of submission requirements and further guidance

•    Assessments are subject to a word limit to ensure consistency of approach across all modules. Your work should not exceed the limit indicated (excluding references and appendices). Do not feel that you have to “achieve” this word count in your work.  What is important is that the work satisfies the stated learning outcomes which are articulated through the assessment criteria (see following page).
•    Care is taken to ensure that work has been marked correctly. Checks are conducted by both a second lecturer and an independent expert from outside the University on batches of work.
•    Your work will not be returned to you but you will receive detailed feedback explaining how your mark has been arrived at and how your work could have been improved upon.
•    Always use the Harvard style referencing system. The University’s Learning Information Services have produced a series of guides covering a range of topics to support your studies and develop your academic skills including a guide to Harvard referencing http://www.wlv.ac.uk/lib/skills_for_learning/study_guides.aspx
•    Expensive or elaborate bindings and covers for submissions are not required in most instances. (Refer to guidelines however in the case of dissertations).
•    The Business School has a policy of anonymous marking of individual assessments which applies to most modules.  You should not identify yourself directly in the work you submit and you may need to use phrases such as “the author of this assignment ….”in the detail of your submission.
Avoid academic misconduct
Warning: Collusion, plagiarism and cheating are very serious offences that can result in a student being expelled from the University.  The Business School has a policy of actively identifying students who engage in academic misconduct of this nature and routinely applying detection techniques including the use of sophisticated software packages.
•    Avoid Collusion. The Business School encourages group working, however to avoid collusion always work on your own when completing individual assessments.  Do not let fellow students have access to your work at any stage and do not be tempted to access the work of others.  Refer to your module tutor if you do not understand or you need further guidance.
•    Avoid Plagiarism. You must use available and relevant literature to demonstrate your knowledge of a subject, however to avoid plagiarism you must take great care to acknowledge it properly. Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone else’s work and passing it off as your own.  This includes incorporating either unattributed direct quotation(s) or substantial paraphrasing from the work of another/others.  For this reason it is important that you cite all the sources whose work you have drawn on and reference them fully in accordance with the Harvard referencing standard. (This includes citing any work that you may have submitted yourself previously).   Extensive direct quotations in assessed work is ill advised because it represents a poor writing style, and it could lead to omission errors and a plagiarism offence could be committed accidentally.
•    Avoid the temptation to “commission” work or to cheat in other ways. There are temptations on the internet for you to take “short cuts”. Do not be tempted to either commission work to be completed on your behalf or search for completed past academic work.
When you submit your work you will be required to sign an important declaration that the submission is your own work, any material you have used has been acknowledged and referenced,  you have not allowed another student to have access to your work, the work has not been submitted previously, etc.
Assessment Brief
The detailed requirements for this assessment are as follows:
Task Brief
You are required to produce a Strategic growth plan for an existing small/ medium sized business of your choice.
Your first task is to select a suitable small or medium sized business to base this growth plan on. Ideally the company should be independently owned and employing between 10 – 50 people (250 is the maximum within the definition of an SME) & seeking to grow.
This can be a company that you have some contact with or knowledge of; alternatively you can select an existing organisation that you are able to gather secondary data on in order to complete the growth plan.
You need to start identifying possible suitable small firms to base your strategic growth plan on, your tutor will discuss the suitability of these with you at the start of the module; please be aware that this can take several weeks to finalise, so you need to start the process of identifying & carrying out some initial background research now!
For the purposes of this assessment you will have to write the report based on an assumption that the organisation is actively seeking substantial growth over the next 1-5 year period. This may of course not be a realistic aspiration of the actual owner(s)/ managers but you are to assume that the long term goal is to achieve high levels of growth.
The strategic growth plan is divided into four sections for which the recommended word length of the entire plan is approximately 5,000 words. This does not include appendices to support the main report; tables/ charts/ diagrams etc and a short reflective learning experience statement having completed the module.
Section 1 of the report requires you to produce a summary of the strategic position of the organisation (10% overall grade)
Section 2 of the report requires you to complete a critical analysis of the industry/ sector/ market & competitive positioning  (30% of overall grade)
Section 3 of the report requires you to produce a comprehensive growth strategy for the business. (40% of the overall grade)  It is recommended that you present this in three integrated stages:
Stage one discussing/ explaining your rationale for short term strategies over the next 12 month period
Stage two from the end of year 1 to end of year 3                                                                                                Stage three end of year 3 to year 5.
It is important that these growth strategies demonstrate clear connections from one stage to the next & make sense in light of the analysis given in the previous sections of your plan i.e. capitalising on what the organisation is good at, responding to market changes, looking to take advantage of new opportunities, overcoming looming threats or developing new innovative services or products..
Section 4 of the report should detail the different issues that will be involved in managing the growth (20% of overall grade)
Additional briefing notes on the content of your 5000 word report are available on WOLF – please note the different weightings assigned to each part of the strategic growth plan.                                                        The plan will require a great deal of information gathering, so it is essential you start working on this project now.