Preparing a Case Project: Identifying Applicable Sections and Analysis

Identifies applicable and non-applicable sections of this paper for the purposes of preparing the case project:

Why Write and Study Cases?

What is a Case Study?

Where Do I Begin?

General points in this section for writing your case are important and should be taken into consideration.

You are not required to contact or interview employees/directors of your chosen organisation.

Subsection 2 ‘Finding a Case Site and Subject’ is applicable.

Subsection 3 ‘Selling yourself and the Idea’ is non- applicable.

Subsection 4 ‘Caveats’ is applicable.

General points are important. Again, note that you are not required to contact or interview employees/directors of your chosen organisation..

Collecting the Data’: You are not required to interview participants. Therefore, information on interviewing participants in this subsection is non-applicable.

The Subsection ‘Informational Interviewing’ is non-applicable.

Writing the Narrative’ is applicable.

Discussion Questions’. While your discussion questions are provided below, a thorough case study can develop its own discussion questions over and above those listed below.

Case Analysis

Each student should conduct research into their chosen firm/organisation and prepare their case study and analysis on the issues/events/dilemmas that have taken place. As regards the analysis of the case, each student is required to address the following discussion questions:

1. What were the main corporate governance issues within this case? (12 marks).
2. What does the theoretical, academic, professional, or legal literature/regulation say on these issues? Were such events or features of your case consistent with, or in contrast to, the theoretical, academic, professional, or legal literature/regulation? (10 marks).
3. If the company/organisation addressed these issues, was the response appropriate? Did it address the fundamental issues at stake? If a response has yet to emerge, what would you expect a suitable response to be, and why? (8 marks).
4. Could similar events happen again in the UK today? Why? Do you think the current system of corporate governance and accountability in the UK is sufficient to deal with these issues? (8 marks).
5. What were the general lessons learnt from this case? What have you, as a student, learnt about governance, risk and ethics from this case? (6 marks).
6. Would you invest in this company/organisation? Give the reasons for your decision (4 marks).

Students may also develop their own discussion questions for inclusion in the case project. Additional issues that emerge in the course of your analysis may be presented here and should be reported under the heading ‘Other Discussion Questions’.

Poor internal control and poor risk management

• Poor accountability and transparency
• Shareholder activism
• Unethical business practices
• Lack of board effectiveness - No evidence of challenge or oversight

Some Literature of relevance    

Swiss corporate governance codes (see ECGI website)

• Principles of the UK corporate governance code (2018)
• Principles of the UK Stewardship code (2020)

Notes Regarding Continuous Assessment Submission:

All citations from books, journals, articles, websites and interviews appearing in the continuous assessment must be properly referenced. The continuous assessment should be typed. The bibliography word count does not form part of the word count for the assessment.

Penalties for late submission:

For each 7-day week, or part thereof, that this continuous assessment is submitted late, a 10% deduction in the mark awarded will be applied.

Penalties for exceeding specified word count:

• The above % reduction is based on the student's initial mark for this component, prior to penalty.
• The following can be excluded for the purposes of calculating the final word count of the case project:

Should tables in the case project have a combined word count that exceeds 750 words, any excess word count from such tables will be added to the word count of the case project, which may lead to the student’s case project exceeding the word count limit specified above, and therefore invoke the word count penalty process outlined above.