Reflective writing
The completion of the assessments provided me with many opportunities for learning. I have learnt about several aspects of the small business in Australia and their employment role. I must mention that working on the two assessments have been a tremendous experience for me as I have gained the opportunity to learn the trading practices in Australia. I have learnt how small businesses have been struggling to increase their survival rate in the industry. I did not have a proper idea how a small business gets into the crow of large firms and makes their ways for survival. The experience that I have gained carries a significant value as with the help of this experience, I could work in a new project. I could develop new marketing strategies for the small firms. The gaps I found in my current projects could be resolved or fulfilled in my next project.
This learning experience could help me in two ways- future career and programs. When I will work in my next project, I could use the experience of literature review. This means that if I have to collect secondary data or the general data for making analysis, I might require previous studies. In my assessment, I conducted the literature collecting the journal articles on small business, strategies of small business and Australian trading conditions. Therefore, in my next course project, I will apply the techniques of data collection and assessing the journals. While conducting the literature, I developed the analysis comparing the opinions of authors of previous studies. Based on the opinions and facts, I have also put my own statements in the discussion. Similarly, in the next project I expect that I could use this learning experience of critical analysis.
Moreover, in my future career, if I start working in an organization, I could use this learning experience of small business. However, if I join a start-up organization, I might have to develop new strategies for the company. Hence, I will transfer my knowledge into the given responsibilities. For example, if I have given the responsibility of managing the external environment of the business, I would focus on the external factors like political environment of the market, economy, bargaining power of competitors, customer preferences and other significant aspects. Likewise, to use my learning experience in my job responsibility, I also might collect the secondary data about the above-mentioned external factors.
The learning process has been quite facilitative to me, due to the weekly lecture notes. We have been provided with the lecture notes regarding the assessment 1 and assessment 2. In the lecture note of week 2, I have read that literature review needs to be collected with the previous journals. As I have been given the topic of small business and employment in Australia. I have collected the journals regarding the contribution of small business to exports. I have gone through other journals, where I have observed that small business also contribute a large percentage to the employment. I have also read that Australian economy is stressing Australian entrepreneurs as well as entrepreneurs. While collecting the data for the assessment, what I saw is many studies have been conducted on the small business and their employment opportunities. I have observed that many small and large organizations in Australian have suffered a lot due to global economic crisis in 2008. Due to the economic crisis in Australia, many start-up and small firms have lost their positions in the market.
I must mention that business research was significantly useful to my research learning process because I have conducted the research through certain steps. Initially, I did not have any idea and knowledge about how a business research can be conducted considering the objectives. In the initial stage, with the help of class learning experience, I have identified the problem of my research topic. I found that millions of people in Australia are dependent on the small, whereas, the large businesses also contribute a lot to the employment opportunity. Thus, my agenda was to identify the percentage or the extent to which the small businesses contribute to the employment opportunity of Australia.
In the learning process, I met many circumstances of learning. For instance, while working on the small the business, I have learnt how a small business can extend to a significant competitor in the market. In addition, the Australian business context also helped me to learn about the global business context. Especially, when I learnt about the small business, I also developed the insight a large business performs both in domestic and global environment. The current assignments on small business and their contribution to employment helped me to know about their available opportunities. Hence, I want to mention that working on the small firms I come across the global business context. While analyzing the contribution of small business to employment, I studied about the global organizations such as Pearson and its contribution to employment.
I have studied that many global organizations are performing their operation and hiring the regional workforce, which is treated as their contribution to the increase of employment of the host nation. In addition to this, I have also gained knowledge regarding the research methodology. I have understood that studying a research process is not enough for conducting a business research. Therefore, I have studied about different types of research philosophies and their use in the research context. However, the selection of research philosophy was a challenge to me, as each of the philosophy has different purpose and their implementation requires other techniques. Nonetheless, positivism research philosophy seems to be effective to me because it provides the opportunity for extracting the hidden truth from the facts. Similarly, I have learnt about both primary and secondary data collection techniques. I included literature review in the assessment 1, as the purpose of the research was to identify the contribution of small business to employment. Thereby, assessing the previous studies, I have learnt that previous scenarios of small organizations. Based on the gaps found in the literature, I developed the research plan in the assessment 2.
