Group Project Information

The purpose of the project is to give your group a chance to explore an area of special interest. The product will be a written report that analyzes a specific strategic question from the point of view of a particular firm or possibly some other type of organization such as an NGO or government agency. You are free to choose any firm or other entity of particular interest to your group. The thrust of your analysis should integrate significant elements of non-market issues and strategies that we have discussed in the course.

A successful project will include relevant background information about the firm, the project/investment of interest, and the country or countries in which the action would take place. Analysis of the firm's possible actions should follow, based on the strategic concepts we have developed in the course. The “theory” should be supplemented by descriptive evidence from the news media and hard data.

The report should be approximately 12 pages in length (1.5 spaced, 12 point font size, ordinary margins) not including appendices, which may include up to 8 tables, graphs, and exhibits. The project will be due on the final day of class.

Key Project Dates

• Session 5. Provide list of group members
• Session 13. One-page Description (10% of project grade).
  • The purpose of the description is to show me that you have a focused question in mind and that you have gathered enough preliminary information to underake a successful analysis.
  • The description should do four things. First, it should define the firm or other organization whose perspective you are taking. Second, the report should define a particular question of interest. Third, it should define a set of likely strategic issues that will come up and that you will analyze. Finally, it should provide a preliminary list of sources - for facts, issues, data, etc -- that will allow your group to produce a careful and textured analysis.
• Session 20. Final Report due (90% of project grade)

Evaluation

I weight three criteria in evaluating your group project.

• Quality of reasoning (40%).
• Facts/Research (30%).
• Presentation (30%).

To help ensure fairness, I will also ask you on the final exam to assess the relative contributions of your group members.

Data Sources

For many projects, you may find some sources that have come up in class to be useful in producing tangible background information for particular business environments. Transparency International, for example, may be useful for assessing corruption.  More generally, you may find the World Development Indicators and the World Business Environment Survey, both of the World Bank, to be useful (depending on the setting and issues you choose).  You can access these sources here:

Transparency International: http://www.transparency.org/

WDI data:  http://devdata.worldbank.org/data-query/

WBES data:  http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wbes/

For business and sector-specific information, the Economist Intelligence Unit often provides detailed information: EIU Link. (Use Firefox, not Internet Explorer to access! Call the Northwestern Library if you are having trouble.)

Using References

Using other sources is excellent, and generally the more outside information the better. But be sure to cite anything you draw from another source. Here are two links regarding proper use of citations:

http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html
http://www.writing.northwestern.edu/avoiding_plagiarism.html

Group Project Examples

Example #1

Example #2