This module will be assessed through an individual report on a chosen company intending to trade in a foreign country or establish a subsidiary/sales office in a new context abroad.

Assessment Brief

Instructions for assessment: Summative components overview

Note that the above table does not include the formative assessments and that formative assessments are not marked.

Instructions for assessmen

Summative Assessment

This module will be assessed through an individual report on a chosen company intending to trade in a foreign country or establish a subsidiary/sales office in a new context abroad.

The report will require you to provide a critical analysis and evaluation of the key international trade and business issues that would potentially affect this business decision, using academic and professional literature to support your arguments.

Your report will include clear recommendations and a plan for implementing your recommendations.

The more detailed best practice of structure and expected content for the assignment will be elaborated in the first assessment clinic’s slides which are to be provided for download on Moodle.

Formative feedback and assessment

This formative assessment should be a Word document written on one side of an A4 paper detailing the key points of your draft report and sent to your lecturer/tutor by email. The details should include the chosen company and specific industry, the country in which the company intends to establish a subsidiary/sales office, reference to the main trade issues that will be discussed, and main references used. You have up to the end of week 9 to submit your draft.

Feedback will be provided by email.

You may also seek oral feedback for your summative draft. This will have to be arranged with your lecturer/tutor.

Note: There will be no marks given for draft reports or an indicative feedback on drafts for summative assessment at any time. Should you perceive any formative feedback in such a way, then please note that it is not binding for your marking. Markers can also always change, and you have no entitlement to be marked by the module convener or tutors.

Additional instructions for Re-sit

The same assignment task as for the main assignment period applies to the re-sit, with further instructions see below.

Re-sit deadlines will be published via Moodle. Visit the module’s Moodle site and check your Roehampton email account on a regular basis. The school is not obliged to check whether you have noticed re-sit deadlines.

You are required to improve and resubmit your original work as well as adding a further reflective commentary in form of a 400-700 words Essay. You must resubmit your work using the specific re-sit Turnitin link on Moodle. This additional word count can be added on top of the original word count of this assignment, if you used the full word count.

The original marking criteria will still apply (see marking grid in Appendix) except that the 10% weighting for Presentation and referencing will be awarded instead to your additional Reflective Essay section. That is, a statement demonstrating how you learned from the feedback and what you did differently the second time. Also reflect how the module contents could be beneficial as knowledge of best practices for future management, public administration, or advisory career.

If you did not submit work at the first opportunity, you cannot reflect on your feedback. However, in such case, your Reflection Essay section should reflect upon a) how the module’s concepts are informing the professions and open up areas of future empirical research and b) how the module contents could be beneficial as knowledge of best practices for your future management, public administration or advisory career.

If you were deferred at the first assessment opportunity you do not need to include the reflective piece as this is the first submission at a later date, not a re-sit.

The Reflective Essay is marked based on the criteria of Criticality and Evidence-based Logic of arguments. It is an independent writing task and no supervision will be provided for conducting the essay.

Structure and presentation

Any written work should be spell-checked and a contents page should be included. Do not use various font sizes and colours Black ink, Arial, size 11, 1.5 lines spaced is recommended. Use DIN A4 format and page margins of 2.5 cm or 1 inch.

Full reading list

Essential Reading 

Helpman, E. (2011) Understanding Global Trade. Harvard University Press.

Hill, C.W. & Hult, G.T.M. (2016) International business: Competing in the global market place. (11^th ed.) McGraw Hill.

Recommended Reading

Ahluwalia, M.S. (2002) Economic reforms in India since 1991: Has gradualism worked? Journal of Economic Perspectives 16(3) pp. 67–88.

Buchan, J. & O’May, F. (1999) Globalisation and healthcare labour markets: A case study from the United Kingdom. Human Resources for Health Development Journal 3(3) pp.199–209.

De Pelsmacker, P., Driesen, L., & Rayp, G. (2005) Do consumers care about ethics? Willingness to pay for fair‐trade coffee. Journal of Consumer Affairs 39(2) pp.363–385.

Feenstra, R.C. (1997) Introduction to “The effects of US trade protection and promotion policies. In: The Effects of US Trade Protection and Promotion Policies. University of Chicago Press. pp. 1–7.

Grossman, G.M. & Helpman, E. (2005) Outsourcing in a global economy. The Review of Economic Studies 72(1) pp.135–159.

Attanasio, O., Goldberg, P.K., & Pavcnik, N. (2004) Trade reforms and wage inequality in Colombia. Journal of development Economics 74(2) pp. 331–366.

Harrison, A. & Hanson, G. (1999) Who gains from trade reform? Some remaining puzzles. Journal of Development Economics 59(1) pp.125–154.

Hesse, M. & Rodrigue, J.P. (2004) The transport geography of logistics and freight distribution. Journal of Transport Geography 12(3) pp.171–184.

Kokko, A. (2004) Markusen, JR: Multinational Firms and the Theory of International Trade.

Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P.M. (2003) Gaining a competitive advantage. Irwin: McGraw-Hill.

Shadlen, K.C. (2005) Exchanging development for market access? Deep integration and industrial policy under multilateral and regional-bilateral trade agreements. Review of International Political Economy 12(5) pp.750–775.

Wacziarg, R. (2001) Measuring the dynamic gains from trade. The World Bank Economic Review 15(3) pp.393–429.

Wade, R.H. (2003) What strategies are viable for developing countries today? The World Trade Organization and the shrinking of development space. Review of International Political Economy 10(4) pp.621–644.

Weiss, K.D. (2011) Building an Import/Export Business. Wiley & Sons.

Relevant key journals

• WTO World Trade Reports
• World Bank Reports
• OECD Reports
• World Economic Forum
• IMF Reports

How will your work be assessed?

Your work will be assessed by a subject expert who will use either the marking criteria provided in the section “Instructions for assessment” or the Marking rubric enclosed in the Appendix, as appropriate for this module. When you access your marked work it is important that you reflect on the feedback so that you can use it to improve future assignments.

Referencing and submission

You must use the Harvard System.

The Business School requires a digital version of all assignment submissions. These must be submitted via Turnitin on the module’s Moodle site. They must be submitted as a Word file (not as a pdf) and must not include scanned in text or text boxes. They must be submitted by 2pm on the given date. For further general details on coursework preparation refer to the online information at StudentZone, http://studentzone.roehampton.ac.uk/howtostudy/index.html.

Mitigating circumstances/what to do if you cannot submit a piece of work or attend your presentation

The University Mitigating Circumstances Policy can be found on the University website: Mitigating Circumstances Policy

Marking and feedback process

Between you handing in your work and then receiving your feedback and marks within 20 days, there are a number of quality assurance processes that we go through to ensure that students receive marks which reflects their work. A brief summary is provided below.

• Step One – The module and marking team meet to agree standards, expectations and how feedback will be provided.
• Step Two – A subject expert will mark your work using the criteria provided in the assessment brief.
• Step Three – A moderation meeting takes place where all members of the teaching and marking team will review the marking of others to confirm whether they agree with the mark and feedback
• Step Four – Work then goes to an external examiner who will review a sample of work to confirm that the marking between different staff is consistent and fair
• Stop Five – Your mark and feedback is processed by the Office and made available to you