The final report fills several objectives of the course. It allows you to acquire a deeper understanding of a specific organization and industry of your choice. It lets you see up-close the impact of the business environment on organizational performance. It gives you an opportunity to practice various forms of analysis developed in the course in a setting of particular interest to you. The project also encourages you not only to reason within but also to extend beyond the frameworks used in the course.
Assignment: In the role of the advisor or consultant to the CEO of a company or organization of your choice, you are to outline and analyze the company’s integrated market and non market strategy to deal with a non market issue (or set of non market issues) the organization faces. The report should clearly identify the issue, argue why it is important for the company’s success, and should conclude with clear recommendations to the CEO. The analysis should make clear how those recommendations have been reached.
Choice of topic: Choose a relatively current issue in the social, political, or legal/ethical environment of a company, nonprofit organization, or (somewhat less desirably) an industry. You may select a company for which you have worked. [If you feel that it is necessary, you may indicate that parts or the whole of the contents is confidential, in which case I and the course grader will treat it as such.]
The issue (or set of issues) may be specific to one country in which the company operates, in which case you are to propose an integrated strategy to deal with this issue for this particular country; or the issue(s) may span a number of countries, in which case the proposed strategy may be specific to each country or be the same for all countries you have identified.
A broad issue (such as “climate change”) should be recast at the company or organizational level. For instance, “trade barriers” is much too broad an issue, but a study of how a Korean semiconductor company should address EU trade barriers is a good topic. If your strategy is designed to address a set of issues, those issues should probably be related in meaningful ways.
Structure: One possible structure for a paper would start with a concise statement of the challenge facing the firm. You then should briefly analyze the particular problem. In your analysis you main emphasis should be on the non-market aspect of the case. You may then discuss a few strategic options and recommend your preferred option to your client. Alternatively, you can discuss and critique the strategy chosen by a company based on your analysis. Whatever structure you choose, your paper must include sound analysis of both the market and nonmarket environments and a clear recommendation for the company. Using the frameworks encountered in class is recommended. A successful final report should be usable as the basis for a future case for this class!
Format: The report should be approximately 2,500 words long (±10% is acceptable). It should contain a brief executive summary (appx. 150 words). A title page, executive summary, exhibits, graphs or references do not count towards the word count. I strongly encourage you however to restrict these to the necessary minimum. The evaluation of your work will be based on the analysis in the main body of the paper. Please use 12pt font, double spaced, standard margins (at least 2.5 cm on all sides), and use page numbers. Include a word count on the front page.
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