Scenario and Activity Business Strategy plays a crucial role in guiding a firm’s growth, competitiveness, and success. It offers a roadmap for decision-making, resource providing, and a

Assignment Title: Strategic Management Plan

Achievement of a Pass grade

A student must have satisfied all the Pass criteria for the learning outcomes, showing coverage of the unit content and therefore attainment at Level 4 or 5 of the national framework.

Achievement of a Merit grade

A student must have satisfied all the Merit criteria (as well as the Pass criteria) through high performance in each learning outcome.

Achievement of a Distinction grade

A student must have satisfied all the Distinction criteria (as well as the Pass and Merit criteria), and these define outstanding performance across the unit as a whole.

ALL GRADES ARE PROVISIONAL UNTIL INTERNALLY VERIFIED AND UNTIL EXTERNALLY CERTIFIED BY EDEXCEL.

THIS MEANS THAT A GRADE CAN BE CHANGED AT ANY POINT UNTIL EDEXCEL CERTIFIES IT

As per Pearson policy, you are only allowed two submissions per module. One for final submission and another one for referral. Failure to achieve a grade pass after a second submission will result in you having to repeat the module in the next term.

Any re-submission or late submission (unless authorised due to mitigating circumstances) will be capped at a PASS grade only.

Specification of Assessment

·        Present your work in one report style which should include a cover page, table of contents, introduction, conclusion, reference list, foot or end notes and appendices, if any.

·        Include the reference code of this assignment on your assignment submission front page.

·        Sign the Learner’s Statement of authenticity in the cover page. Failure to do so will result in the submission being declined.

·         Ensure the following information is in the footer on every page:

o   Your name

o   The production date of your submission

o   The code number of your assignment brief

o   The page number (Each page must be numbered at the bottom right-hand side)

·        Spell-check the document and make sure there are no grammatical errors as it may result in the submission being declined.

·        Complete all the tasks in a Holistic manner as set in the brief and without separating the assessment criteria to avoid a potential referral.

·        Create your own titles and sub-headings to structure the work without copying the assessment criteria verbatim.

·        Produce clear specific reasoning and arguments in support of your answers.

·        Submit your work in a single WORD processed document of not more than 5000 words for all learning Outcomes. This word limit is only for guidelines and is not applied to grading. PDF and other types of files are not accepted.

·        You must include a bibliography at the end to show where your information was sourced. Failure to do so may result in the submission being declined

·        Your sources must be identified using the Harvard referencing system. The words used in your bibliography will not be included in your word count.

·         You must use Arial, size 12, 1.5 line spacing and black to format the text.

To access any feedback (formative/summative) you will have to access Moodle and open your assignment. You will have to click on the blue comment box in the righthand side and the feedback will appear within the text. You might have to click on the blue bubbles to see the feedback.

If an extension is necessary for a valid reason, requests must be made in writing using a course work extension request form to the head of department. Please note that the lecturers do not have the authority to extend the coursework deadlines and therefore do not ask them to award a coursework extension.

The completed form must be accompanied by evidence such as a medical certificate in the event of you being sick.

Any act of plagiarism and collusion will be seriously dealt with according to the regulations and MRC Malpractice policy

Plagiarism occurs when a student misrepresents any work submitted as his/her own work, the work of any other person or of any institution. Examples of forms of plagiarism include:

·       the verbatim (word for word) copying of another’s work without appropriate and correctly presented acknowledgement.

·       the close paraphrasing of another’s work by simply changing a few words or altering the order of presentation, without appropriate and correctly presented acknowledgement.

·       unacknowledged quotation of phrases from another’s work;

·       The deliberate and detailed presentation of another’s concept as one’s own.

All types of work submitted by students are covered by this definition, including, written work, diagrams, designs, engineering drawings and pictures.

Collusion occurs when, unless with official approval (e.g., in the case of group projects), two or more students consciously collaborate in the preparation and production of work which is ultimately submitted by each in an identical, or substantially similar, form and/or is represented by each to be the product of his or her individual efforts.

All submissions for assessment must be submitted on Moodle to generate a Turnitin Report on similarity to detect potential plagiarism and collusion.

The maximum Turnitin score admissible is 15% but a submission can be classified as plagiarism and/or collusion with a lower score depending on the size of the submission and size of the text highlighted.

Assignments with plagiarism/ad or collusion will be automatically referred for reworking and resubmission. Please check the MRC Assessment policy as well as MRC Malpractice policy for details of the potential penalties as a procedure.

Including pictures of text (apart from the cover page or table of content) or pictures of any other type of information (diagram for example) without a citation and a Harvard Reference could be deemed to be an attempt of malpractice and could trigger an automatic referral as well as a malpractice procedure.

Any student might be called to seat through a viva with the lecturer to confirm any parts of the submission through an interview which will then form part of the summative assessment.

AI tools have proliferated and become more common and as a result, their usage for research has increased which prompted change of government policies in this matter.

Overall, it remains too easy for students to misunderstand how they can use Generative Artificial Intelligence tools and unintentionally breach academic integrity guidelines.

Research of information and the writing of academic work must always be performed by the student, and while it is acceptable to use an AI tool to start a research process, it is not allowed to use it to write a submission in your place.

The important part is to understand that the best way to produce a work is to research it through traditional methods (books articles, websites, journals).

Yet, AI tools could be used to help with the research but only as a starting point. Having found information, thanks to an AI tool, about a topic you are writing about, you should then research it using these traditional methods and include the references and citations based on these resources in your work.

Once you have the correct information, you need to write the assignment yourself, using an AI tool to do this for you is never allowed. The usage of paraphrasing tools might be appropriate to find alternative to some words and short sentences, but not or a whole paragraph/page/ work.

The same way Mont Rose College is using a similarity detection system, an AI detection tool is embedded in our systems and every submission you make will go through both of them.

Submissions for assessment that consist of large substantially unmodified output from Artificial Intelligence software may be considered as a very poor academic practice as it does not represent the student’s own work.

To this effect, the limit on AI detection has been set at 50%. If a submission is over that allowance, the submission could be rejected and awarded a Referral and/or the student called to seat through a viva with the lecturer to confirm any parts of the submission through an interview which will then form part of the summative assessment.

In cases where an individual persistently exhibits poor academic practice through inappropriate use of Artificial Intelligence tools, such as a lack of evidencing their use of the tools, they may be referred to the academic misconduct procedures and the range of the potential penalties

Textbooks

JOHNSON, G. et al (2023) Exploring Strategy: Text and Cases.13^th Ed. Harlow: Pearson.

KIM, W. C. and MAUBORGNE, R. (2015) Blue Ocean Strategy. Expanded Ed. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

ROTHAERMEL, F. (2018) Strategic Management. 4^th Ed. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill.

Websites

www.businessballs.com

Business Balls, Strategy and innovation (General reference)

www.businesscasetudies.co.uk

Business Case Studies, Case studies, Strategy, (Resources)

www.corporatefinanceinstitute.com

Corporate Finance Institute, Resources, Knowledge, Strategy, (General reference)

www.strategy-business.com

Strategy and Business, Strategy, (General reference)