LB170 Communication skills for business and management

This TMA is marked out of 100 and accounts for 40 per cent of your marks for the module. TMA 04 has a threshold (a minimum score) of 30 per cent of the marks available. This means you must submit this assignment and will need to achieve a minimum of 30 per cent on it in order to pass LB170.

This TMA is based on Sessions 20−28 (Block 3) of the module. However, it assumes that you will draw on the knowledge and skills you developed in the previous sessions and blocks too. It is intended to develop and assess your business essay writing skills, which will involve case study reading and analysis using business concepts. It also assesses your reflective writing skills.

TMA 04 has two parts:

● Part 1 is a business essay based on a case study. It assesses your ability to develop an argument, which you have learned in Blocks 2 and 3 of the module.

● Part 2 is a reflection on your key learning experiences during your studies on LB170. The marks for this TMA are broken down as follows:

● Part 1: business essay – 80 marks

● Part 2: reflection on your key learning experiences in LB170 – 20 marks.

Learning outcomes

This TMA is intended to assess the following:

● knowledge and understanding of relevant key concepts in business management

● ability to select and analyse information from a range of sources, to support an argument

● awareness of context, purpose and audience

● writing an academic essay applying business concepts

● writing an academic essay following academic conventions

● reflecting on learning and performance

● ability to evaluate your own business communication skills development

● selecting and using appropriate text structure and language, for personal and professional purposes.

Read and analyse the case study on Made.com, a London-based furniture and homewares online retailer in the UK. Then write a well-formulated essay in response to the following questions:

● Which of the four drivers of globalisation has been the most influential in the expansion of Made.com and to what extent do you think it is a globalised business?

Using the written communication skills you have developed in LB170, write an essay that provides a well-supported response to these questions, drawing on relevant business concepts taught in this module

Your essay should contain:

● an introduction

● a main body, which develops your argument

● a conclusion that summarises key points of the essay and answers the questions.

Part 1 of the TMA is intended to assess your ability to write an effective business essay by applying relevant business concepts to develop your argument. You may benefit from applying your tutor’s feedback on previous written TMAs to this assignment where relevant.

This part of your assignment should be 1000 words in length and you should keep to within 10 per cent above or below this limit. Any figures or diagrams should be included in the body of the main text and will form part of the total word count. However, the reference list does not contribute to the word limit.

In this part of the TMA, you are required to use the business essay writing skills taught in Session 20 of this module. You should also draw on skills for developing arguments (Sessions 11, 13 and 15) and persuasive writing skills (Sessions 8 and 9). Additionally, you need to make use of the following skills taught in this module:

● selecting relevant information and synthesising it

● using business concepts to analyse business information

● identifying causes and effects

● building an argument

● writing persuasively

● interpreting numerical information.