Summative Assessment: Analysis of Financial and Non-Financial Performance of International Organizat

Specifics of the Summative Assessment

There will be one summative assessment which involves a comprehensive analysis of the financial and non-financial performance of an international organization (of your choice) and its closest competitor. You are required to select an international organization (company A), identify its closest competitor (company B), and analyze their financial performance using ratio analysis. You are then required to summarize and critique the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) literature and develop a balanced scorecard performance evaluation of the organization (company A) and its critical success factors. Finally, you need to provide a critical analysis of the benefits and challenges of adopting Integrated Reporting for your selected organization (company A).

Structure and presentation (Summative Assessment)

The assignment should address the following questions:

Question 1 (30%). Select an international organisation (of your choice – company A) and identify its closest competitor (company B). Present the two organisations and the criteria used for the identification of the competitor. Use ratio analysis technique to evaluate the financial performance of the two organizations; draw a comparative evaluation and critically discuss the findings. You need to access the annual financial statements of the last two years and provide details of the ratio calculations.

It is recommended to use graphs and tables to present your analysis, and cite academic literature.

Question 2 (30%). With reference to relevant literature, critically evaluate Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System. Develop a proposed Balanced Scorecard to include critical success factors (CSF’s) for your selected organisation (company A).

Question 3 (30%). Provide a critical analysis of the benefits and challenges of adopting Integrated Reporting (IR) for your selected organization (company A). Use academic literature and refer to the International Integrated Reporting framework to support your discussion.

Presentation (10%). Mark awarded for presentation refers to overall structure and presentation, academic style of writing, use of Harvard style for references and in text citations. You need to use a comprehensive range of relevant (academic and professional) sources; use of online sources should be limited and the reliability of the source should be verified. All sources need to be acknowledged and referenced properly to ensure the originality of the work. The report needs to follow the below structure and address the three questions. The word limit for this assignment is 3,500 words (10% tolerance) excluding references, tables, figures, and appendix.

Important note: Please refrain from selecting companies that have been shown for demonstration purposes during the sessions (this includes, for example, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Axa, Philip Morris, Monnalisa, Impahla Clothing, Viasat, Dellas).

Any written work should be spell-checked and a contents page should be included. Do not use various font sizes and colours; Black ink, Arial, size 11, 1.5 lines spaced is recommended. Use DIN A4 format and page margins of 2.5 cm or 1 inch.

Proposed structure of the Report:

Provide an overall conclusion based on the reflection from the report (approx. 250 words) References

Appendix - Provide details on the calculations presented in Question 1

The proposed structure above intends to provide a recommendation on the structure of the coursework. This can be enriched with more sections/subsections as you consider appropriate (example abstract, executive summary, table of contents, appendices, etc.).

There will be weekly guided readings and you will be expected to undertake your own review of relevant literature, both academic and professional. Refer to Moodle for guidance on weekly readings.

Essential Readings

You must use the Harvard System.

The Business School requires a digital version of all assignment submissions. These must be submitted via Turnitin on the module’s Moodle site. They must be submitted as a Word file (not as a pdf) and must not include scanned in text or text boxes. They must be submitted by 2pm on the given date. For further general details on coursework preparation refer to the online information at Student Portal and Moodle