- Assignment Task
Please note the 3,000 word limit is including tables, headings and executive summaries,
but not including appendices, table of contents, figures, references, etc.
Preamble
This assignment should be based on your current employer/business or a business with
which you have had some recent exposure and with which you are familiar. It is an
academic paper and should therefore also draw on theory from peer-reviewed academic
journal articles as well as texts. The EBSCO data base available to you via e-
Communities ‘My Resource Centre’ may be searched for relevant journal articles.
Your task
1. Introduce your organisation and its objectives and examine its ownership
structure, external and internal governance mechanisms and any forms of
external control.
2. Identify the basic sources of cost and differentiation advantage in your industry.
Position your organisation and its major competitors in a strategic group
diagram – use theory to explain your diagram.
3. Use a value chain analysis of your organisation to identify sources of competitive
advantage.
4. Conduct a VIRO analysis of these sources of competitive advantage to determine
whether they are strategic resources. Connect the development of these
resources with the corporate governance mechanisms you identified in your
answer to question one. The answer to Activity 3.2 should assist you.
5. Make recommendations for the development of strategic resources (including
the corporate governance process) to increase the competitiveness of your
organisation, while staying within the same strategic group. (Recommendations
that create competitive advantage consistent with the organisations current
competitive advantages). You may wish to review your answers to Activity 3.7.
