Strategic Thinking: Assessment/Marking Criteria

(Group Work and Individual Essays)

Dear students,
This document explains the assessment and marking criteria.
Good luck with your work!
Best wishes,
Hossam

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Common Purposes of Group Work and Individual Essays

The group work and the individual essays have several common purposes. Both forms of assessment
should help students:

• engage with the topic of corporate-level and business-level strategy

• explore chosen aspects of strategy in depth
• join conceptual thinking with practical application to specific companies
• think critically about strategy theories and concepts; appreciate their limitations
• understand the usefulness of combining different theories to obtain a richer picture of a
practical problem
• demonstrate the ability to analyse a problem systematically and in depth
• derive recommendations that flow logically from the analysis
• impress the audience with originality and coherent argumentation

Students will receive a mark and verbal comments on their project. The markers’ academic judgment is
based on the assessment and marking criteria outlined in this document. The mark offers an overall
academic judgment: a project with a high mark typically performs well on all assessment criteria.

The assessment criteria indicate “what we are looking for”. The marking criteria show the level of
achievement.

How the Group Work Complements the Individual Essays

While the group work and the individual essays have many common purposes, there are also some
differences. We can think of the group work as a preparation for your essay. Moreover, the group work
has an important interactive element in preparing your presentation.

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Therefore, we recommend the following points for your group work and essays:

• The group projects on Strategic Thinking have a strong practical element. You will need to think
deeply about the theories and frameworks learnt in the module and, crucially, apply them to a
specific practical case.

When learning strategy, there are common pitfalls, such as presenting the theories separately
from the case, or applying the theories in a purely mechanistic way. Sometimes students present
a long list of recommendations without making sufficiently clear how these recommendations
build on the prior analysis.

To avoid these pitfalls, you should aim to integrate theories with data from your case to develop
new insights. Moreover, it is important to create an overall narrative or “story”, which connects
the insights from your theoretical analysis with your recommendations. It is not easy to create a
coherent overall narrative—and it often requires revising or even discarding previous drafts of
one’s work. It is important to practise the skill of presenting in a concise way an analysis that
reflects the many hours of reasoning behind it.

• For the individual essays, you can build on the skills acquired in the group work, and you should
continue to:
o engage with the academic literature on Strategic Thinking
o reflect on the different theoretical points of view
o explore the various sources of (quantitative or qualitative) data to test and support your
arguments
o integrate your arguments into a coherent overall story
o practise your academic writing skills (the University’s website on academic writing has
many useful supporting material)
o develop compelling recommendations based on your analysis

Assessment Criteria

Strategic analysis typically involves an engagement with a company’s external environment and its
internal resources and capabilities. Therefore, using a single theoretical perspective will often not suffice.
The skill to combine the conclusions from different theoretical analyses is crucial for strategy. Based on
the module aims, the above discussion, and the WBS marking criteria, we can cluster the assessment
criteria in the following way:

1. Clear and coherent overall narrative

The project offers a coherent overall story, starting by defining the strategic problem, and then
proceeding to the chosen case(s), the applied theories and the developed recommendations. Authors
should connect the different analyses in an insightful way. It should be clear to the reader how the
recommendations flow logically from the analysis.
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The key is that you make a link between your different analyses: After each application of a theory (e.g.
Five Forces), you discuss the analytical conclusions. For example, after Five Forces Analysis, you can
discuss the following conclusions: e.g., what level of profitability you expect in the industry based on the
competitive forces, what your company can do to reduce the impact of these forces and remain
profitable, etc. -- If you discover that your company is in a highly competitive industry, but is highly
profitable, this is a puzzle that needs to be resolved in the subsequent analysis of your project. Thus,
these analytical conclusions are the link to your next analysis (e.g. Resource-based view). They will help
you connect the dots between your different theories and create a coherent story.

2. In-depth analysis that integrates theory and data

A key challenge is to integrate theoretical arguments with (quantitative and qualitative) data. It is not
necessary to explain the theories: you can apply the theories directly. If you choose to present a
table/figure, do not copy-paste it from elsewhere—instead, you can create your own illustration and
populate it with relevant information about the chosen firms. Please consider that the reader does not
know all the background research that you have done. Therefore, focus on the core issues, and guide the
reader from one analysis to the next. Avoid being too descriptive.

You do not need to criticize certain theories explicitly, as this would have already been done in the
textbooks and journals. However, the way in which you apply the theories should demonstrate that you
understand their limitations. When writing an essay, a wider engagement with academic articles is very
commendable. When you explain a specific outcome, try to explore the deeper underlying drivers, for
example, by using the 5 Whys, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys. When you make
recommendations, carefully synthesize the insights from your entire analysis. Critical thinking does not
mean “being critical”. Instead, it means that authors apply their knowledge in a sophisticated way.

A key challenge in discussing an element of strategy is that it typically has advantages and disadvantages.
For example, diversification may be beneficial for some companies (e.g., to leverage their underused
resources), but harmful for others (e.g., due to an overstretch of their resources). Therefore, when
discussing specific companies, the added value comes from understanding why a proposed strategy is
particularly good for this company (but not for any random company in the industry). An analysis that is
tailored to a specific company makes the conclusions more compelling.

3. Allocation of time/space and balance of sources

In a presentation, good time management is important. For example, if a group spends too much time
describing the cases, there will be a “rush” in discussing the insights from their analysis.

Similarly, an essay will benefit from keeping the introduction brief and concise. Authors can allocate
more space to in-depth analyses of key points. A reader will also want to know how these key points
were chosen. This is where self-created tables and figures can be very useful. For example, a table or
figure can provide a comprehensive overview of conceptual dimensions (e.g., Porter’s five forces or the
resource-based view, enriched with (quantitative and qualitative) data about the chosen case). Then, the

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accompanying main text can pick out a couple of these points and explore them in depth, showing
engagement with the academic literature.

It is often a good start to use websites and newspapers (e.g., Financial Times and Economist) as
sources—however, if these are the only sources used, the essay is likely to lack academic engagement.
This is problematic because the sources mentioned above are often subject to fleeting trends and
“management fashions” that may not have a good academic foundation. Using the University of
Warwick Library, you have access to a wide range of academic journals (that are not free to access from
outside). It is important that you use these sources. Academic journals (e.g., Harvard Business Review,
Academy of Management Review) usually have a process to ensure that published articles meet
standards of academic rigour. As a result, you will find that good theories remain influential over
decades, if not longer. You will often find that recent articles try to refine classical theories—rather than
creating a completely new theory as a “management fashion”. In sum, it is recommended that you have
a good balance of sources, including a solid basis of academic literature.

Finally, we hope that you will enjoy the project! As a rule of thumb, the more enthusiastic you are about
the project, the more enthusiastic the audience will be!

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Marking Criteria for This Module (Extract from WBS Marking Grid)

Clear and coherent overall In-depth analysis that Allocation of time/space

narrative integrates theory and data and balance of sources
80+ Fluent and well-structured Highly innovative and Very concise description
expression of ideas; highly effective application and great depth in
of theory; exploring key points;
Outstanding coherence
from defining the problem Highly developed analysis Excellent use of academic
to analysis to discussion literature

70-79 Clear and well-structured Innovative and effective Very concise description
expression of ideas; application of theory; and great depth in
exploring key points;
Very good coherence from Highly developed analysis
defining the problem to Very good use of academic
analysis to discussion literature

60-69 Clear and well-structured Makes a good attempt to Concise description and
expression of ideas; apply theoretical material; good depth in exploring key
points;
Good coherence from Well-developed analysis
defining the problem to Good use of academic
analysis to discussion literature

50-59 Some lack of clarity and Some evidence of Description and fair depth
immaturity of expression application of theory; in exploring key points;

Some confusion on how the Reasonably developed Fair or very little use of
various parts of the work analysis academic literature
connect to one another

40-49 Poorly structured with Only minimal application of Highly descriptive and lack
some confusion in clarity theoretical material; of focus;
and coherence
Little evidence of analysis No academic literature

30-39 Very confused and lacking No obvious attempt at Highly descriptive and lack
in clarity and coherence application of theory; of focus;

Almost no evidence of No academic literature

analysis