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Semester 2, 2016 BUSM3125 (Strategic Management) Assignment 2 Guide

How we deliberately design your assessment to not only be a test of what you know, but to also build lifelong learning skills.

Assessment in this course refers directly to the Australian Qualifications Framework (Level 7) learning outcomes criteria for Bachelor Degrees. These criteria are expressed as Knowledge, Skills and Applications:

Knowledge: Graduates of a Bachelor Degree will have a broad and coherent body of knowledge, with depth in the underlying principles and concepts in one or more disciplines as a basis for independent lifelong learning

Skills: Graduates of a Bachelor Degree will have:
•cognitive skills to review, critically, analyse, consolidate and synthesise

knowledge

• cognitive and technical skills to demonstrate a broad understanding of

knowledge with depth in some areas

• cognitive and creative skills to exercise critical thinking and judgement

in identifying and solving problems with intellectual independence

• communication skills to present a clear, coherent and independent exposition

of knowledge and ideas
Application: Graduates of a Bachelor Degree will demonstrate the application of

knowledge and skills:

• with initiative and judgement in planning, problem solving and decision making

in professional practice and/or scholarship

• to adapt knowledge and skills in diverse contexts
• with responsibility and accountability for own learning and professional

practice and in collaboration with others within broad parameters

These learning outcomes are, of course, for your whole Bachelor’s Degree and as such we are not required in this specific course to address all of them – some of these learning outcomes will have been addressed in other courses you have undertaken as part of your degree.

This course uses a case study approach to learning and assessment. This case study is ‘live’ in that it consists of working with an existing organisation in real- time. You will be engaged in the case over a whole semester within which time you are required to;

undertake an analysis of the organisation and its operating environment(s)

determine what you believe to be the current strategy of the organisation

make strategic recommendations based on your analysis for the organisation over the next five years.

Your assessment will involve you designing and publishing a document for use by our partner organisation – as the basis for their ongoing strategy. This is a real-life organisation with a real-life need.

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Semester 2, 2016 BUSM3125 (Strategic Management) Assignment 2 Guide

Your assessment pieces have been designed to give you the best possible opportunity to help the organization to survive and thrive into the future. The skills that you will be developing include:

cognitive conceptualisation skills critical thinking and analysis skills creative application skills.

All these are valuable skills you will need in future employment. How well you are able to demonstrate these skills and knowledges will impact not only on you and your group (in terms of a mark) but also has the potential to influence the future of the case study organisation. Your work matters.

You will be working in groups of six throughout the semester. Your groups will be allocated to you.

Assignment 2: Strategy Formulation
Length: A maximum of 7,500 words (35%)
Due date: Friday, October 14th, 2016 – 7:00pm (local Time) via myRMIT BlackBoard Electronic Submission.

Overview

In your group of six, you are required to write a strategic plan for the organisation. This piece of assessment is designed to assess your skills of critical review,
analysis, consolidation and synthesis of knowledge.

Your group will be required to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the relevant theory and application of that theory in a way that creates a document/plan that the organisation can act upon.

How this assignment connects to the learning opportunities afforded by this course:

This assignment is designed to enable assessment of your knowledge, skills and abilities across four dimensions:

1. Your ability to learn and understand the strategic management theory and concepts contained within the course and any others that you discover through your reading of the (strategic) management literature.

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Semester 2, 2016 BUSM3125 (Strategic Management) Assignment 2 Guide

2. Your ability to critically evaluate theory and to understand the implications of applying the theory.
3. Your ability to apply the theory in an appropriate or creative manner.

What you have to do: the thinking and doing

1. You will use the findings from your first assignment to develop a strategy for the organization encompassing a five year time horizon. Your focus should be on integrating the findings and feedback from your first assignment and then building upon these to create an actionable strategic plan. The plan has to be achievable and realistic and you have to clearly demonstrate why your plan will help the organization achieve and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.
2. You should focus on defining a strategy that can be implemented at the business level within Victoria and Tasmania (Australia). You may want to think carefully about which markets the organization competes in, whether these are the optimal markets and what the organization should do over the next five years.

Some key areas of theory that you may wish to investigate (although you may decide not to use them) include:

1. Horizontaland/orverticalintegration
   b. Relatedand/orunrelateddiversification
2. Describe how the organization will implement the strategic plan. Focus specifically on:
3. a) the fit between any core competencies and skills that the organization has and that they can leverage to further effect
4. b) or indicate which ones are currently missing and outline a plan for acquiring or developing (the buy/make decision) those core competencies.

Any decisions must be supported by analysis/data/research and must take into consideration the present level of resources available to the organisation.

You are required to justify thoroughly why your recommendations are the best possible choice for the organization. Not only do you have to justify your choices, but you have to explain how these choices help the organization avoid ‘bad strategy’.

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Semester 2, 2016 BUSM3125 (Strategic Management) Assignment 2 Guide

4. Explain how the organization will measure and evaluate the success (or otherwise) of your recommendations. You must use analytical tools/frameworks that have been published in recognised scholarly publications.

Focus on critically evaluating the effectiveness of the chosen method(s) and make an argument that outlines both the positive and negative consequences of adopting your measurement and evaluation solution.

5. You are to include (as an appendix) a 500 word response to the feedback that you received from the marker in your first assignment. This response would outline what you have done to address any advice that the marker has given you to help you improve your performance in the second assignment beyond that which you achieved in the first assignment.

Your report must include an executive summary of no more than 300 words.

How we’ll assess your work

Assessment of your work will be based on how well you research, conceptualise, critically analyse/evaluate and apply the theory based components of this course with your ability to apply these theories/tools/frameworks in an appropriate or creative manner to produce and publish a strategy for the organization. Within this we are seeking to understand:

• howwellyouhavelearnedthe‘what’ofdoingastrategicanalysis
• how sophisticated your understanding of the theory/tools/frameworks that you

have chosen to use is

• • whetherandhowwellyoucanjustifyyourchoiceswithasoundargument.
  • how well you can take the theory and apply it in a real-world situation. We will be assessing the depth of your analysis, the logical structure of your arguments and the appropriateness of your final conclusions. Check the marking rubrics to make sure that you understand the criteria against which you will be awarded marks.

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