Your lecturers will allocate groups. Your group will prepare a report that will be presented as a written business report with executive summary.
You should communicate with your coordinator to gain approval for your case study site prior to proceeding any further. Clearly, as this course is Management across Cultures, your case study needs to be something that has potential to consider and apply several of the topics we have covered in class: culture must be intricately linked to the study and central to your analysis and discussion.
The case study site could be a business as in a company, but it does not have to be.
It could be an organisation; such as a ‘for-profit organisation’ or a non-governmental organisation (NGO), or even a country. Examples could come from your own work-lives (maybe some of your group members work for a company that could be an example), the literature (look up articles on intercultural management, or global management etc.) or the press (for example, the tragic case in 2013 of the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment manufacturing building in Bangladesh).
Once your case is approved, your group is to act as a consulting organisation that specialises in intercultural management. Your group has been asked to improve the performance of the case study organisation or ameliorate a problematic situation. You will create a 4000 word business proposal outlining the background to the case, analysing the case (particularly from the perspective of intercultural management) and finally highlighting 3-5 recommendations. Your research will analyse factors that have led to any issues or difficulties in the past, and provide a structured argument leading to recommendations for changes to practice. Standard referencing is required in Harvard format to enhance the robustness and credibility of the proposal. The report will be provided to the client so it must be presented in a professional format following normal academic conventions.
Marking guidelines
In assessing your work in this report we will attend to the following:
- evidence of research
- critical analysis of contentious issues related to the case study
- application of theory to practice
- structured argument and support for recommendations
- writing structure and
