Final Assessment in Strategic Management

General Instructions – Please read carefully

1. You are required to complete the Final Assessment outlined below and submit your completed final document through the RKC Online Campus by the end of Unit 6.  Your grade will be based 100% on this final document, to which you will also receive written feedback.

2. Please ask any questions about the Final Assessment in the Forum.

The Final Assessment is a 4500 words paper divided into two parts. It is strongly advised to start working on it early in the course.

The aim of the Final Assessment is for you to demonstrate your understanding of key concepts in strategic management and your capacity to craft a professional document. It will be very good preparation for your dissertation.

1. Choose a concept/model in strategic management. You can choose the concept from the ones discussed in the course or you can choose another one. Examples of concepts are: core competencies, generic strategies, mergers and acquisitions, alliances, CSR, blue ocean strategy, etc.

2. Critically examine the concept: define the concept; identify when it was first discussed and what the arguments were for its creation; discuss how the concept then evolved by identifying the arguments for and against it over time and by noting any adaptations.

3. Explain how the concept fits today with other concepts of strategic management, and discuss how/if the concept is relevant or not to today’s business challenges.

In Part One you must demonstrate you can research and develop a deep understanding of a concept by identifying, examining and challenging different views of it. You should reference a minimum of 10 academic sources: academic books and/or articles from academic journals that are peer-reviewed. This excludes textbooks, articles from business magazines and ‘popular’ books you may find in airport bookstores, but you can use these as additional supporting references if needed.

All sources should be correctly referenced using the Harvard system, as for any professional academic document.

4. Present a real life case study of the concept that you chose in Part One ‘in action’. You can use your own organisation or an organisation of your choice – we recommend you use an organisation you are personally familiar with as it will be easier for you to ‘see inside’ the organisation

Part Two should be like a mini-case study where you will present the situation of the organisation you choose, the issues faced, and how the concept was or is being used to solve the issues and raise the general performance of the organisation.

In Part Two, you must show you can integrate theory and practice. You do this by giving examples of the theory in action, and by evaluating the approach taken and how effective it was in delivering the desired results. By reflecting on events, you may even challenge the theory itself – From the events you describe, is the theory valid? How can it be improved?

Your report for the Final Assessment will be graded using the University’s grading criteria of: Knowledge and Clarity of Reasoning; Interface between Theory and Practice in the Professional Context; Use of literature; Organisation of Material.

Scripts that are excessively long (i.e. exceeding the 4500 word limit of the main report by more than 10%) will not be read beyond the point of the word limit; there is no minimum word limit. Do not put your name on the paper.

The overall structure should be as follows:

1. Cover Page (1 page)
2. Table of Contents/List of Exhibits (1 page)
3. Executive Summary
4. Main Report (within the 4,500 word limit as above)
5. Exhibits (if any)
6. List of references

Submissions should be machine readable and in MS-Word format only; submit only one file.

RKC is committed to fight plagiarism and we use extensively anti-plagiarism software. Do not use external sources without referencing them. Do not cut and paste the work of others. Do not copy the work of others.

A forum will be open to discuss any questions you may have on this assignment.