MA E-business Group Assignment

Fall 2003

This part of the assessment constitutes 50% of the total mark and is a group assignment.  You will be expected to make two group presentations; the first one is to be relatively short (approximately 12 minutes) and introduce other students to your project, the second presentation will be a summary of your project and will be longer (no longer than 20 minutes), submit a written report (around 2,500 words; does not include references, footnotes/endnotes, appendices, tables, figures and their captions) and create a WWW site for your project (which will be assessed twice; once at the beginning of the semester and second at the end of the semester).

Due Dates

• Group presentation - last day of classess - 15^th December 2003
• Final report due 5^th January 2004

Group Assignment Deatils

Compare and contrast e-business organisations in 4 different countries.  You must select a set of criteria for comparing and contrasting the organisations that range from the macro-environmental to the micro-environmental level of the organisations itself. What conclusions can you draw about e-business in each of the respective organisations?

You must justify the set of criteria you have selected as a measure for comparison, and then analyse each of the e-business organisations using these set of criteria.  You must finally draw conclusions about e-business in each of the respective countries and organisations.

Extra Information

Arrange yourselves into groups of 7+.  Each group must select 4 companies that have an e-business strategy.  They can be either purely e-businesses or a mixture of traditional and e-business. The companies you select must be submitted to me for approval first to ensure nobody duplicates the companies they select.  This will operate on a “first come first serve” basis.

The four companies you select must be:

1. One UK based
2. One US based
3. The other two must be neither UK nor US based but must be based in different countries.

You must as a group research and agree the criteria by which you will be analysing all the organisations selected to ensure consistency for all the projects. Some of the criteria you may use for measuring e-business performance could include:

• Macro-environmental factors that impact on e-business development
• Micro-environmental factors such as their strategic objectives, the business model chosen, the components of their business model, the activities and processes used to achieve their model, the competitors they face, and an analysis of their organizational culture.
• Stock exchange/financial performance

You can use any or none of the above criteria – these are merely suggestions, but you must justify the reasons for the criteria you have selected.

Guidelines for assessment

The group assignment must demonstrate:

• Clarity of expression, where there is consistently accurate use of grammar and spelling with fluent professional/academic writing style.
• Well-structured argument where the structure guides the listener/reader through argument. 
• a well co-ordinated, grounded and reasoned understanding of e-business and its application in different organisations and countries
• an understanding and application of  content/theory/models/frameworks from a wide range of sources not just the lecture notes.  The application of this will include an evaluation of the organisation and criteria which you have chosen as being rigorous and appropriate
• Analytical and clear conclusions well grounded in theory and literature, showing development of original concepts.

Oral presentations: must demonstrate clarity, pace and confident delivery.   I will be looking for aspects of delivery and content in assessment of the presentation. 40% of the total marks will be awarded for the oral presentations and 50% for the report and 10% for the WWW site.  The areas for the assessment of the presentation will be.

All three parts of the assessment: the oral presentation, the WWW site and the submission of the report are compulsory.