Reference no: EM133103398

MGT501 Business Environment - Laureate International Universities

Assessment - Internal and External Stakeholder Analysis

Learning Outcome 1: Analyse and synthesise the fundamentals of business practices in the contemporary environment.

Learning Outcome 2: Construct and justify a professional value proposition as a business practitioner.

Assessment Task

Critically analyse stakeholder theory in a real-life business or a project setting, with specific emphasis on relevant internal and external environment factors. In doing so, you are required to employ a stakeholder matrix and mapping techniques to determine the extent of stakeholder influence and interest.

Context
Stakeholder analysis is a technique for identifying stakeholders and analysing their roles in a given business or project scenario. The aim of the analysis is to map out and manage the stakeholders' level of influence and degree of interest. Stakeholder analysis can also be used to assess the relationships between different stakeholders, as well as the issues they care about in the internal and external business environments.

Internal stakeholders are individuals or groups who are directly involved in a business/project and includes owners, board members, managers, employees, and investors. External stakeholders, such as customers, suppliers, competitors, society and government are stakeholders who are indirectly impacted and influenced by the business or project activities. Understanding both internal and external stakeholders of a business/project is important as it helps to:
• engage and enhance communication with relevant stakeholders
• reduce/prevent/manage risks, and identify opportunities
• improve internal stakeholder commitment, and
• improve business reputation amongst external stakeholders.

Instructions

1. Selection of the business or a project scenario
You are required to select a verifiable real-life business organisation or a specific business project in an industry related to your course of study/area of specialisation (e.g., MGPM, MEM, MBA, MBIS, GCBA).

The chosen business/project can be one that you have worked for or would like to work for in the future. Please note that the chosen business/project MUST be approved by your Learning Facilitator before it can be used in your Assessment 2 Discussion Forum activities, and Assessment 2 Report.

2. Assessment Discussion Forum activity

• Each of these learning activities requires you to address a given topic as it relates to your chosen business organisation or project, and subsequently post your responses in relevant discussion forums. In addition, on each Discussion Forum topic, you are also required to comment on the response posted by one of your peers in a dissimilar industry and business/project.

• It is very important to NOTE that completion of these four discussion forum activities will help you to build up information and resources required for your Assessment 2 Report (stakeholder analysis).

3. Based on the selected business organisation or project, you are required to write an up to 2500-word report on its internal and external stakeholder analysis.

Please note that the business or the project selected for Assessment 2 Discussion Forum Topics (1-4) must be the same as the business/project selected for the stakeholder analysis report. Failure to adhere to this requirement may result to a zero grade in Assessment 2.

4. The stakeholder analysis report should address the following points:
• Identify and analyse the functional areas of the business/project.
• Scan the macroeconomy for recent developments and comment on the future economic outlook of the business. Based on verifiable evidence, discussion MUST include the current macroeconomic environment, industry outlook and competition landscape.
• Identify the important internal and external stakeholders, and comment on their interests and level of engagement in the business/project.
• Create a stakeholder matrix, and corresponding stakeholder mappings.
• From the discussion forums, choose a peer's contribution, which MUST be in an unrelated industry and business/project to yours. Then, compare your industry and business/project against that of your chosen peer's.
NOTE: if your assessment is on a project, it MUST be compared against another project in an unrelated industry.
• You are required to support your observations, statements and claims with relevant theoretical and conceptual frameworks, including evidence from credible sources.
• Note: PESTEL and Porter's 5 Forces are good tools to help you identify most of the external stakeholders.

5. Structure and format of the report
Your individual stakeholder analysis should follow standard report structure and include the following:
• Cover page: You MUST use the formal Torrens University coversheet.
• Executive Summary: Provide a concise summary of the report in bullet points.

• Introduction: The aim of the report, and background information about the selected business/project.
• Main body:
o Identify the functional areas of the business/project.
o Present the macroeconomic scenario and outlook.
o Identify internal and external stakeholders, and their roles.
o Identify the nature and degree of main stakeholders' interests, and implications of conflicting interests.
o Identify the level of the main stakeholders' influence.
o Create a stakeholder matrix, and corresponding stakeholder mappings.
o From the discussion forums, choose a peer's contribution, which MUST be in a dissimilar industry and business/project to yours. Against your peer's:
- Compare your industry and business/project operations; analyse the competition landscape, and
- Identify the main points of stakeholder dissimilarities, and analyse the differences in their interests and influences.
• Conclusion: summarise the aim and findings of the report. There should not be any new information that was not captured in the introduction and main body in the conclusion
• References
• Appendices

Referencing

Please review and provide a minimum of 15 reference sources compare at least one (1) peer's response, whose business or specific project should he in non-related industry to your own.

In 300-400 words, describe the size of the business or specific project (structure, outlets and turnover), geographical location, core product (goods/services) and its industry.

Your contributions to the Discussion Forum will be graded as part of your overall Assessment 2 report. Select a verifiable real-life business organisation or a specific business project in an industry related to your course of study/area of specialisation (MGPM, MEM; MBA; MBIS; GCBA).

The chosen business or project can be one that you have worked for or would like to work in the future. Please note that the chosen business/project MUST be agreed with your Learning Facilitator at the end of Module 2.

Please note that the chosen business/project MUST be agreed with your Learning Facilitator at the end of Module 2. You should make some references to relevant subject contents, induding other readings.

You are required to employ minimum of 3 reference sources two (2) academic (textbooks & peer-reviewed journal articles) and one (1) other
sources (newspaper article or businesstriade publication). You are required to critique and compare at least one (1) peer's response. whose business or specific project should be in non-related industry to your own. In 300-400 words, describe the size of the business or specific project.