Economic Principles Applied to Evaluate a Firm's Strategy and Opportunities

Introduction to Fundamental Principles in Economics

This module will introduce students to fundamental principles in economics and demonstrate that they can be usefully applied to study markets in sport and beyond. The course will cover core concepts including cost-benefit analysis, supply and demand theory and market structure. But the primary focus will be on enabling students to become ‘economic naturalists’ who are able to apply economic insights to better understand the world around them. Students will also develop a clear sense of the difference between positive and normative economic analysis. The module will, thus, develop critical thinking on economic issues. 

Pick a firm or organization (from the sport industry or otherwise) and evaluate its economic strategy and opportunities as an economic naturalist.

(a) Carefully define the market the firm operates in, e.g. what are the competitors, the substitutes and complements.

(b) Discuss the factors which influence supply and demand.

(c) Discuss the market structure.

(d) Consider what changes have happened in the market over the last 10-20 years (or some other timespan relevant to the case study). 

You are strongly encouraged to talk about your case-study with the module leader before starting your essay. The case-study can be any firm or organization you want to study from the local corner shop or tennis club to Real Madrid or Google and Amazon. We strongly suggest you choose a case study of personal interest to yourself rather than something you think ‘will be easier’ to write about. 

This assessment is aimed at allowing students to apply their knowledge to better understand the functioning of markets. 

Due to the nature of the assessment task for this module, none of the assessed work is marked anonymously

Please make sure all work conforms to the following guidelines:

-Write all work in 12-point Times New Roman font

-Double-line space the main body of the text

-Leave a one inch margin around the edge of your written work – this can be done via ‘Page Setup’

-Include a word-count (this is made up of all the text in the main body of the piece – main body, titles, subtitles – but does not include references ( bibliography) on the title page

-Include a bibliography (listing all other publications, websites etc used in the writing of the coursework) on a separate page at the end – see referencing advice sheets, which will be provided separately

-Harvard referencing style

Becoming an Economic Naturalist

-Make sure you put short quotations (less than 50 words) in speech marks (e.g. “example”)

-Make sure you put long quotations (more than 50 words) separate from the text and indented in from the left hand side:

A long quotation such as this should be commenced on a new line (with a line gap) and then written out in its entirety. You should normally use a smaller font (in this case size 11) for long quotations. It should be indented from the left hand side to make it stand out from the remainder of the text. You do not need to put this quote in speech marks or italics.

The assignment must be submitted electronically through the system. The cover page for the assignment must include a word count.

Everything submitted for assessment by an individual student or group of students must be original work. It is vital that work submitted for assessment avoids any plagiarism, fabrication of results, inappropriate collusion, bad academic practice and the reuse of assessed material. Paragraphs 1.3 to 1.7 of the regulations define these as follows:

Plagiarism is the deliberate attempt to gain advantage by presenting work (including drafts and work in progress) that is not the student’s own as if it were. Plagiarism is commonly the word for word substantial duplication of phrases or sentences in written work, or in oral presentations, where the source is deliberately not mentioned.

This definition of plagiarism also extends to non-written forms of production (for example, in performance, design, the making of artifacts or other objects) where equivalent duplications are made. In all cases, such sources may include the work of other students at the University or another institution or contracted third parties. 

Fabrication of results It is an academic offence for a candidate to claim to have carried out experiments, observations, interviews or any form of research which s/he has not, in fact, carried out.

Collusion is the deliberate attempt to gain advantage by presenting work that is not solely the student’s own as if it were, where the source of the unreferenced work is that of another student who has connived to deceive. Being party to collusion in providing material for another student is just as much an academic offence as using such material. Collusion is recognised by the duplication of passages or phrases in written work or in oral presentations, or equivalent duplication in non-written forms, and it necessarily involves a conspiratorial attempt to deceive. Collusion must not be confused with the good practice of collaborative learning and peer support. Collaborative learning means that a student may benefit from sharing third-party material (books, articles etc) but unless the student is explicitly instructed to plan, organize and write an assignment in a group of two or more, the student must plan, organize and write assignment work individually. 

Bad academic practice is the presentation of work that is not the student’s own as if it were. It is the passing off of ideas, data or other information that are not within the realm of common knowledge in the discipline as if such materials were originally discovered by the student, or it is the word for word duplication of short phrases in written work, in oral presentation, or equivalent duplication in non-written forms, where the source is not mentioned, and where such duplication is minor in scale. The expectation is that cases of bad academic practice are only likely to occur at the first level of an undergraduate award. Exceptionally, such cases may appear elsewhere.

It is an academic offence to include in work submitted for assessment material which has already been submitted for a different assessment (whether in the current programme or for a different award) unless such inclusion has been agreed with the appropriate module leader or equivalent and is fully referenced. Students can thus utilise previous work as a building block for future work as long as this is explicitly referenced.