1. Critically evaluate and apply tools and theories that inform strategic decision making

Assessment Brief: Component A

Assessment overview

Module leader
Main contact for assessment questions	Module tutor for units 1-5. Please see Moodle for details.
Format	Practitioner report
Weighting	50%
Assessment wordcount	2000 words +/-10% OR 10 minute recorded Powerpoint presentation (further information provided below)
Deadline	See Moodle Note that: Assessments submitted late but within 7 days of the deadline will be capped at 50%. Assessments submitted more than 7 days late will receive a Fail.
Submission	Submission via Turnitin (located under the Assessment Submission and Feedback section on Moodle)
Module learning outcomes assessed	1 and 2
Assessment Regulations	All assessments are subject to the University Regulations.

Module number and title 

HRM11419 Leading Strategic Decision Making

Assessment format

For the assessment, you are required to produce ONE of the following:

1. A 2000-word reflective report

2. A 10-minute recorded presentation. Your presentation should be produced using PowerPoint and should include PowerPoint slides and a recorded oral presentation. You can include as many slides as you like.

Both options 1 and 2 will be assessed using the marking matrix provided at the end of this document.

It is entirely your choice whether to do a written report or a recorded presentation. When making your decision, consider:

• Which format best suits your skills.

• Which format will help you to develop skills relevant to future employment.

• Which format you will most enjoy.

Wordcount

Written report

The maximum word count of the report is 2,000 words. To help you to structure your report you may wish to follow these guidelines:

• Introduction and background section: 200 words

• Strategic position analysis: 1100 words

• Recommendation: 500 words

• Conclusion: 200 words

The word limit for Component A does not include the title page, executive summary, table of contents, reference lists, tables and diagrams, and appendix.

The word count is subject to a ±10% allowance. Where a submission exceeds the stated word limit (allowing for the +10%), the maximum grade awarded will be 50%.

Appendices can be useful to provide additional information from your analysis, but you must incorporate the key analytical arguments into the main body of your answer.

Recorded presentation

The maximum length of the presentation is 10 minutes. To help you to structure your presentation you may wish to follow these guidelines:

• Introduction and background section: 1 minute

• Strategic position analysis: 5-6 minutes

• Recommendation: 2-3 minutes

• Conclusion: 1 minute

The time limit for Component A does not include the title page, executive summary, table of contents, reference lists, tables and diagrams, and appendix.

The length is subject to a ±10% allowance, i.e. your presentation can be up to 1 minute over or under the specified length. Where a submission exceeds the stated length (allowing for the +10%), the maximum grade awarded will be 50%.

Learning outcomes

Assessment Component A will assess you against module learning outcome 1 and 2:

1. Critically evaluate and apply tools and theories that inform strategic decision making

2. Critically review how effective leaders foster innovation in contemporary organisational contexts

Purpose and rationale

You are being asked to do this assessment task to assess your learning against learning outcomes 1 and 2, as stated above.

The assessment task has been designed to help you to develop skills and knowledge relevant to a contemporary workplace.

Requirements for the assessment

Overview

In this assessment, you will identify a key player in the agricultural and food sector of any country/region. After selecting a company of your choice, you are required to produce a report including:

• An analysis of the company’s strategic position

• Strategic recommendations, with a focus on how to implement a sustainable strategy to decarbonise its activities.

Background

The agricultural and food sector contributes to 25% of carbon emissions in the world. Governments, NGOs and private organisations are investing significant sums of money to develop alternate ways to produce sustainable crops. But there is still a long way to go. Alongside this, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have set out a clear vision for 2030 and there is an increasing need for organisations of all kinds to consider these goals when developing their strategy.

Scenario

Following the successful completion of your Masters degree course, you have secured a strategy consultant job in a top-tier consultancy firm. You are attending the first meeting with your team. Your line manager asks you to introduce yourself to colleagues and share your passion for strategy and sustainability. You explain with brio how future business winners need to implement today sustainable strategies for tomorrow.

Task

Enthused by what you enthusiastically conveyed about sustainable strategy, your line manager is keen to test your strategic planning skills. Your manager asks you to select an organisation of your choice in the agricultural and food sector.

Your task is:

• To produce a strategic position analysis for the company of your choice.

• To make recommendations to adapt the company’s strategy for a sustainable future.

You are expected to gather relevant information about the sector and the company of your choice, and to use frameworks and models introduced in the lectures, textbook and academic sources covered in the module. You should use diagrams and tables to illustrate your core ideas.

Note – If tables and diagrams are used we advise that these are created within the document/presentation using word/powerpoint. This will help to ensure that they are good quality with clear and readable text. If it is necessary to paste an image of a diagram/table into the assessment please ensure that the source of that image is clearly stated. If you are the author, please state ‘authors own’.

Structure

Given that your report/presentation is going to be shared with the senior management team, the line manager suggests the following structure:

1. Title

2. Executive summary 

3. Table of contents

4. Introduction

5. Strategic Position Analysis

   1. A description and critical examination of the internal and external analytical techniques that will be applied in section 5b and 5c.

   2. External Analysis: Macroenvironment and Industry Analysis

   3. Internal Analysis: Analysis of resources and capabilities

6. SWOT resulting from the analysis

   1. External (Opportunities and Threats)

   2. Internal (Strengths and Weaknesses)

7. Recommendations for sustainable strategy 

8. Conclusion

9. Reference list

10. Appendix

Content guidance notes

The title should be concise and should reflect the focus of your report.

The executive summary should be approximately 10% of the length of your report (approximately 200 words or 1 minute). If you choose to do a recorded presentation you should read out your executive summary.

The University of Melbourne have produced a helpful video providing guidance on what to include in your executive summary. This can be found here: https://students.unimelb.edu.au/academic-skills/resources/reading,-writing-and-referencing/reports/executive-summaries

The table of contents should ideally be produced using the ‘table of contents’ feature in word.  Please see the guidance here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/insert-a-table-of-contents-882e8564-0edb-435e-84b5-1d8552ccf0c0 If you are not familiar with the headings feature in word (you must use heading in order to automatically create a contents page) you can find guidance here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/insert-a-table-of-contents-882e8564-0edb-435e-84b5-1d8552ccf0c0. If you choose to do a recorded presentation, please list the presentation content at the start of the presentation.

The introduction should set the scene and explain both the importance of sustainability and the SDGs to the agricultural sector, and the need to perform this strategic position analysis. Relevant figures and data should be used to reinforce the background. The introduction should present an overview of the report.

Strategic position analysis: This section should start with a description, and critical review, of the techniques that you intend to use to analyses your chosen company’s strategic position. In this section you should provide a detailed description of the technique, a discussion of its strengths and limitations, and a justification for its use in your report (i.e. why is the technique chosen appropriate for the context). Your description and critical review should be based on reading of academic literature.

Secondly, this section should focus on the external part of the strategic analysis. You should support your analysis using relevant frameworks and evidence from literature. The frameworks should be clearly described, with the help of tables/diagrams where appropriate. You should explain why you have selected the framework/s, considering their suitability to the context you have chosen, and their strengths and limitations.  All elements from the external environment influencing the organisation’s strategy should be considered.

Thirdly, this section focuses on the internal part of the strategic analysis. You should support your analysis using relevant frameworks and evidence from literature. The frameworks should be clearly described, with the help of tables/diagrams where appropriate. You should explain why you have selected the framework/s, considering their suitability to the context you have chosen, and their strengths and limitations.  All elements associated with the internal focus of the organisation should be considered.

This section should culminate in a SWOT analysis that summaries the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats identified in the preceding external and internal analysis

Note: Rember the background to this assessment – your strategic analysis and SWOT should focus on sustainability and the SDGs!

Recommendations and Conclusion: The recommendations should be Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant and Time-bound (SMART) and should recommend a clear strategy for a sustainable future for your chosen organisation.

Reading to evidence your work

You must support your statements with evidence, doing this via in-text citations and adding a list of references. In addition to company specific sources used in your analysis, you should use at least 10 high quality sources (inclusive of books, academic peer-reviewed articles and formal sources) to develop your understanding of the frameworks used. Please note that failure to use the minimum number of sources will have a negative impact on your grade and may result in you failing the assessment.

The essential reading from units 1-5 will help you to understand key frameworks and to perform the strategic position analysis for this assessment.

Presentation and referencing

Reflective report

A good piece of work is attractively styled and logically structured, with a high standard of written English.  The report should be written using British English spelling: avoid “z’s” such as “organization” and use the standard British English spelling of “organisation”, “behaviour”, “centre”, etc.

Use the report format and include appropriate headings. Do not label the body of your report as “main body” and do not use long questions as headings; instead, use descriptive headings which signpost the content of each section. A contents page should be included at the start of the report (please see guidance below).

Format your report using a professional font (e.g. Calibri or Arial), and use 1.5 line spacing.

Appendices can be useful to provide additional information, but you must incorporate the key arguments into the main body of your report. Any appendices should be referred to in your report.

Recorded presentation

Recorded presentations should be created using PowerPoint.

The slides

A good presentation is attractively styled and logically structured, with a high standard of written English.

• Avoid putting too much information on each slide. Use bullet points rather than block of text to covey the most important information. Remember that you presentation will be accompanied by a recorded oral presentation so you don’t need to cover all information in your slides.

• Use a limited colour pallet, and ensure that coloured text is visible by using high contrast colours.

• Use a professional font, such as Calibri or Arial, and ensure that your font is consistent throughout the presentation

• Think carefully about the size of text. In general, avoid using text smaller that 18pt.

• Include images to make you slide more attractive BUT only do so if the images are relevant and enhance the slides.

Your presentation should be written using British English spelling: avoid “z’s” such as “organization” and use the standard British English spelling of “organisation”, “behaviour”, “centre”, etc.

The oral presentation

The video below explains how to record a presentation in PowerPoint.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOEdiIV31_s

Please note that you should not save your presentation as a video. Please see the information in ‘File format and naming’.

Here are some tips that will help you to produce a clear oral presentation:

• Write some notes, or a script. This will help you to create a clear and well-structured presentation that covers all the required information.

• Speak clearly and take care not to speak too quickly. You may need to speak more slowly that you would when talking to a friend.

• Record your presentation in a quiet location. Background noise can make the presentation difficult to hear; and if we can’t hear you, we have nothing to mark!

• Listen back to your presentation. I know that this can be an uncomfortable experience, but it is important to ensure that your presentation is clear.

• Make sure that what you say in the recording and what you present on your slides match up!

• As demonstrated in the video above, you can turn on your camera during the recording. Ideally, we would like you to have your camera on. This will make your presentation more engaging and will make your oral presentation easier to follow. However, you can record your oral presentation with the camera off if you prefer.

Citing and referencing

Any sources used to inform your essay should be cited, and all the works cited must be referenced. References and citation must be correctly formatted using the APA Referencing system, and should adopt a consistent font.

Please use the Citing and Referencing checklist (available on Moodle under ‘Academic Skills and Support’) to self-assess whether you have met the core citing and referencing requirements.

Do not cut and paste phrases or paragraphs from published material without citing your sources. You should seek to use your own words to explain concepts and theories while acknowledging the work of other scholars through proper referencing, both in-text and reference list. Please refer to the University guidance notes on the avoidance of plagiarism.