Studyportal

In this task, you will write a critical review of the academic literature relating to the one of the business and management topics listed below.

You must choose ONE of the following topics to undertake your literature review:

·       How does national culture influence the ways that organisations manage their employees?

·       In what ways does investment in new technology enhance a company’s competitive advantage?

·       What impact does transformational leadership have on improving organizational performance?

A critical literature review is a “detailed overview of the significant literature available about your chosen topic, providing a discussion and critical evaluation, and using clear argument to contextualise and justify your research” (Saunders et al., 2018:33).

In this task, you will present how you have developed and structured your literature review explaining how you have gathered your academic sources and how you have critically evaluated the way in which these sources support your literature review.

The assessment will consist of a synthesis matrix of 3000 words and a literature review of 1000 words literature review.

The synthesis matrix will consist of information in tabular form where you will describe the source used, how you located found the source (for example, which internet search engine you used to find the material, the main themes that you hoped to explore in the literature review, and a brief summary of how each academic article supports your argument. You should use around 30 academic sources with each source supported by 100 words of text.

In the literature review, you will provide a critical evaluation of the sources demonstrating how different perspectives exist within the area of business and management research. The literature review will be fully referenced within the text and in the Reference List using the Harvard system. The literature review must use robust and reputable academic sources. We expect you to use the catalogue for your sources utilising academic textbooks and academic journals.

The guideline for this task are:

·       Critically research and select appropriate and relevant academic material on which to base your literature review

·       Create a synthesis matrix demonstrating and justifying your choice of academic material

·       Write a literature review using the material from the matrix to critically evaluate the arguments found within the academic literature

·       Reference the task accurately and comprehensively using the Harvard system of referencing

This task is designed to test the following points to consider:

·       Critically evaluate current issues in business and management

·       Critically assess academic literature in the areas of business and management research 

As part of the teaching programme, we will arrange assessment sessions organised by the International Support Tutor on writing the assessment. We will support the sessions in class with on-line support sessions running throughout October and September 2021.

You will have opportunity to submit a single short extract of your synthesis as a piece of formative assessment to support the assessment. However, your tutors will be unable to read on full drafts of work. If you wish support and advice on the assessment, we can do arrange a meeting where you can provide a verbal outline of the work you intend to present as a summative assessment.

At this level, you are expected to make use full use of the academic sources provided on-line. You need to make full use of the Reading List (this will be provided later on)

Please remember that the Reading List is a starting point, and you should make use the Internet search engines provided. We do not recommend reliance on Google or Google Scholar – these engines will not provide full access to the academic material that you need for this assessment.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

You will submit your task in one document. The synthesis matrix will consist of 3000words and the literature review will consist of 1000 words (excluding the Reference List). The total word count should be 4000 words and the word count should not exceed or be less than 10% of the total. You must use the Harvard referencing system