- 14 Mar, 2021
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Economics please refer to the assignment brief
Instructions
Your task is to write a report that describes, explains and analyses three relevant news articles published in the UK national press (in print or online)
Each news article should refer to a specific firm that is going through or responding to a particular kind of change. Each of your three stories should feature a different firm.
Story 1.
A firm that is bringing a technological change to its industry.
Story 2.
A firm that is either merging, is attempting to take over other firms, or is diversifying.
Story 3.
A firm that is experiencing competition from an online business.
The news articles you use should have been published between 7 October 2019 and 16 February 2020. They should come from quality news outlets (e.g. The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, BBC). It is fine to use either print or online versions.
However, ‘Tabloidesque’ news outlets such as the Sun or The Mirror are not acceptable as sources and neither are blogs or social media reports. Only news reports are acceptable, so background articles from for example The Economist (published weekly) are not acceptable.
Your report must be submitted through Canvas by the date and time specified above.
Guidance and Requirements
You are asked to describe, explain, and analyse.
The description is simply a short summary in your own words what the article is about, that is, what particular event or issue does it deal with and which are the main parties involved.
The explanation is the relevant background to the story. In order to understand the story well you should perhaps give some more information about the firm involved, or about its industry, or about the reason why the particular event or issue reported in the article has arisen. The information for this background is not always found in the article, you may use further sources.
The analysis often involves the application of theoretical concepts. For example (and this is just an example), often firms that are planning to merge say that they expect to benefit from synergies or economies. You can apply such concepts in your story 2 by discussing whether the firm in you article will experience synergies or economies, and if so, what kind. The concepts you use will often have been covered in one of the Economics for Business sessions and the textbook (in this case, for example Sloman et al. pp.249-253). Try to make connections between the newspaper articles and general concepts. You may use graphs or other visual aids to clarify your analysis but no special credit is given for this.
In order to help you make notes in preparation for writing the three stories, there is a table at the end of this brief that you can fill out for each story (make multiple copies if needed). You do not have use this table, it is there just if you think it’s useful. And if you use it you do not submit completed tables with your assignment.
Report requirements:
⦁ A front cover with title (for example: “Three firms and their changing business environments”) and date.
⦁ Contents page naming the three stories.
⦁ Three stories, each following the format description, explanation and analysis.
⦁ Aim for a length of 500 words for each story. The total word count of the report should be between 1300 and 1700 words.
⦁ On the last page of your report you should list your references. This should include the three articles you have used and all other sources that you have used. References must be written using the Harvard referencing style. Make every effort to avoid plagiarism (see the information about avoiding plagiarism at the end of this brief).
⦁ The report should be a Word document.