MGT5005 International Management - Assessment 1: Individual assignment

Topic overview

For this assignment you will identify an Australian MNE that has attempted to enter a new foreign market within the past five years. Using theory and knowledge from international management, critically assess the nature of the MNE’s ultimate success or failure.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are not always successful when attempting to establish themselves in new foreign markets. Some of these endeavours are highly successful, such as when L'Oréal entered the China market, but some of these endeavours end in embarrassing and very expensive failures or withdrawals, such as occurred when Bunnings attempted to enter the UK market.

Success or failure may be linked to a variety of factors, including but not limited to initial market assessment; global trends; local alliance partner selection; understanding the local business context and local culture; and/or cross-cultural understanding of management.

Assessment criteria

This assessment will be marked based on the quality of your:

• Case analysis (50%)
• Recommendations (15%)
• Research and evidence (15%)
• Presentation (20%)

Guidelines

From the media or literature, identify a recent (within the last five years) attempt by an Australian MNE to establish operations within a new foreign market.

The MNE’s attempt might have been successful, failed or lie somewhere between the two. Your task is to discuss the challenges that it confronted, explain how it handled those challenges, and make recommendations on what they could have done differently to enhance their success.

Research the case. Use relevant and credible industry/media/opinion sources to gain an understanding of the MNE and this attempt to enter a new foreign market. Identify the motivations and objectives of the MNE - is there evidence of their research and analysis of this market? Review their operations once they entered the foreign market - what worked, and what did not work? Outline the nature of their success or failure.

Analyse the case. Draw on the theory and knowledge in Modules 1 and 2 and scholarly research to assess senior management’s approach to the expansion into the new market. From your analysis, determine the key reason/s for the MNE’s ultimate success or failure in the new market.

Develop recommendations. Based on your knowledge from Modules 1 and 2 suggest two succinct and actionable recommendations for senior management to mitigate identified risks and/or improve their practice.

Submission format

Develop coherent, well-supported and logical arguments following a basic report structure. A concise guide for writing reports in business school is provided here: https://www.business.unsw.edu.au/StudentsSite/Documents/Writingareport.pdf

The report should be approximately 1000 words not including in-text referencing, the references list or any headings.

Referencing guidelines

Your analysis and recommendations need to be informed by relevant international management theory and research. You are expected to read and use information from a minimum of eight academic research articles, 4 of which need to be sourced from the reading list provided in class. ‘Academic research articles’ refers to articles published in academic, peer-reviewed journal articles. The academic research articles should be relevant to the topic, contemporary (i.e. published in the last five years) and of high quality (i.e. published in journals ranked by the Australian Business Dean’s Council or Australian Research Council as A*, A or B; see also list of recommended academic journals below). In addition to the six academic references you may also include relevant and credible industry/media/opinion pieces regarding your MNE and its activities.

Cite all sources in the main text of the document and include a separate reference page at the end of the document. The in-text citations and references should be formatted using the current version of the Harvard style or APA7. Refer to the tips on applying these styles in the Assessments module of the LMS.