Reference no: EM132596218 , Length: word count:3000

MPM735 International Business Management - Deakin University

Learning Outcome 1: Undertake a systematic and critical evaluation of the external global business environment

Country - UAE

Individual Country Report

1) Once you received approval of your research proposal, each group member needs to undertake original research on the business environment in his/her chosen country in relation factors that might make it attractive/unattractive for internationalising the chosen product/service.

2) For each country, and with your product/service in mind you will need to investigaterelevant business environmental factors that may include the following (read the checklist to see what to include under each factor):
a. Economic factors
b. Political factors
c. Legal issues
d. The trade and investment environment
e. Foreign exchange issues
f. Financial factors
g. Cultural factors and challenges that it might pose

3) Once you consider the key factors, you will need to make a recommendation based on your findings as to whether the country is an attractive place to internationalise the product under consideration. You also need to discuss how you arrive at this conclusion.

4) So what makes a good quality assignment:

a. It's based on good quality research and your ability to present a vast amount of information succinctly and in a convincing way. You need to read broadly on theories, models, and frameworksfor assessing business environments. You need to come up with a framework that allows you to evaluate the quality of institutions and the cultural factors of the country in question.

b. You have good quality sources of information (business information sources such as government reports, World Bank, International Trade Organisation, EIU, Datamonitor etc, business databases such as Proquest, Business Source Premier, academic journal articles, textbooks, please don't use Wikipedia or dubious references, or no name references from strange websites).

c. How well you use these resources support to your arguments. In particular, the quality and reliability of your statistical data to support your arguments are very important.

d. Your information is realistic, relevant, and would be useful for a company/person conducting international business.

e. The information is specific to the product/service chosen.

f. You have adequately referenced, and you have used the Harvard referencing system to acknowledge your sources of information (both in-text and as a reference list at theend).

g. Your final report doesn't exceed 3000 words in total(but this can exclude- title page, references, within text tables and appendices).

h. It should be in a report format. Your report should be typed, double spaced, 12-point font, and has headings (further information on report format is provided below).

i. You have time series data where relevant, which demonstrates trends over the last 5-10 years or so, and if possible a forecast into the future.

Your individual country report (3000 words) must follow the following format:

1. Title page - succinct title not exceeding 15 words; Name and student ID.

2. Executive summary- 1 page (no less no more): The executive summary must address:

a. What is the project about and why is it important
b. What is the main question being addressed in the report
c. How did you go about addressing this question / your investigation
d. What did you find - focus on main findings.

3. Introduction: (300 words approx)
a. This is where you introduce the topic to the reader by framing your paper and articulating the what, why, and how of the paper. What is it that you are researching? why is this important? and how are you going to go about your investigation and research?

b. In this section you need to briefly introduce the product/service and explain why you are considering your specific country for internationalizing this product /service. You need to draw your information from credible sources for the country and product.

c. In this section you also need to spell out the aim of the project and come up with a statement of the research question. What is the research question for which you are trying to find answer(s)?. One or two research questions are ok.

4. Business environment of country XX: (700 wds approx)
a. In this section, you need to undertake a review of the literature on how different factors influence the conduct of business. To do this you need to draws from existing research on the topic and summarise what we know on the topic. There is a rich literature on the topic.
b. start with a theoretical explanation of why various institutional factors impact on the conduct of business. For example, you can take an institutional perspective and draw from institutional theory to explain how formal and informal institutions affect the conduct business.
c. Develop a conceptual framework that shows how shows how different business environments can influence the internationalization of your product /service. For example, you can use the PESTEL framework to show how various formal and informal factors are linked in influencing the conduct of business and the performance of your product or service.

5. Data analysis and results (1700 wds approx)
a. In this section you need to undertake original research; collect data on various indicators of the factors that you have identified as being critical for your country and product/service for say, the last 10 years. Your literature and readings will inform you on the relevant data and where you can get these from. In this section you need to describe your data carefully, how it is analysed and what you found. This is a substantial task. Data sources include secondary statistics from a number of credible sources including the websites of governments, industry bodies and international organisations such as World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF), International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations, World Governance Indicators and so on.

b. You are required to analyse recent trends and developments from your data and draw conclusions as to whether the different factors constitute a threat for your product/service. For example, you might find that corruption is bad in your country, but recent trends indicate a major improvement, or that regulations on trade have deteriorated in recent years.

6. Discussion/Conclusion: (300 wds approx)
In this section you summarise your main findings from your analysis and discuss the implications of your main findings of your research.

7. References: about 20 references

8. Tables and Figures: 3-4 tables and figures can be included only if they add value to your report.