Henley Business School

International Business and Strategy

MM303 – Strategy and International Business

 

Individual Assignment

The deadline for the Turnitin electronic submission is before 14.00p.m, January 10, 2022.

(According to the UoR, Study Abroad Office, Blackboard IT/ resource access cannot be guaranteed after this date for visiting students from other universities. So, we must follow the university timeframe and apply the submission deadline for all students).

 

Write a piece of individual coursework of the maximum length of 1,500 words in total (+10% variation is already included in the total word limit) and provide answers for ALL five questions. The word limit includes introduction, main body, conclusion, tables, figures, diagrams, citation, notes and end notes in the text and appendices (if any), but excludes the front cover sheet and references. Your materials in the appendices are counted toward the word limit. So, please don’t exceed the maximum word limit of 1,500 words in total.

You are required to use the appropriate materials from the module and from your own research to do this assignment. You should consult various sources of information and data (lecture materials, core textbook, reading lists, books, company websites, company annual reports, filings with the UK Company House Documents, academic journals, business and financial journals, newspapers, such as BBC Business, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Forbes, Reuters, Associated Press (AP), Bloomberg, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washing Post, Nikkei Asian Review, Yahoo Finance, etc.).

 

You are assigned a multinational enterprise parent firm and a foreign subsidiary in the United Kingdom (the UK). Analyse the international business strategy and organizational structure of the assigned parent firm and the management of its foreign subsidiary. Support your answers with well-explained, well-analysed, specific, relevant, real hard facts, data and examples.

 

You should refer to the detailed guidance in the Appendix 1, which explains clearly what is expected in your answer for each question.

 

All questions are directly related to lecture materials, practical application exercises, tutorials and reading lists.

 

Visit the website of the UK Companies House where you can download the UK subsidiary’s full accounts (i.e. annual reports) under the “filing history” tab, and select the box of “accounts”).  Below is the link to UK Companies House website

 

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/

(All you need to do is to cut and paste the link into Google to search for the UK Companies House website. When you are at the UK Companies House website, you will be able to find the assigned subsidiary. Make sure that you use exactly the assigned subsidiary name when you enter it into the box under heading “search the register”)

 

1. All members of team A1

Parent firm: L’Oreal (France)

Subsidiary: L’Oreal (UK) Limited - registered number (company number) 00271555

2. All members of team A2

Parent firm: Air Liquide S.A. (France)

Subsidiary: Air Liquide UK Limited – registered number (company number) 00232592

3. All members of team A3

Parent firm: Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (the United States)

Subsidiary: Air Products Public Limited Company - registered number (company number) 00103881

4. All members of team A4

Parent firm: Amgen Inc. (the United States)

Subsidiary: Amgen Limited - registered number (company number) 02354269

5. All members of team A5

Parent firm: Pfizer, Inc. (the United States)

Subsidiary:  Pfizer Ltd - registered number (company number) – 00526209

6. All members of team A6

Parent firm: Christian Dior (France)

Subsidiary: PARFUMS CHRISTIAN DIOR (U.K.) LIMITED – registered number (company number) 01012371

7. All members of team A7

Parent firm: ABB Ltd. (Switzerland)

Subsidiary: ABB Ltd. - registered number (company number) - 03780764

8. All members of team A8

Parent firm: 3M Company (The United States)

Subsidiary: 3M United Kingdom Public Limited Company – registered number (company number) – 01123045

9. All members of team A9    

Parent firm: Novartis AG (Switzerland)

Subsidiary: NOVARTIS PHARMACEUTICALS UK LIMITED - registered number (company number) - 00119006

10. All members of team A10  

Parent firm: Alstom (France)

Subsidiary: Alstom Transport UK Limited - registered number (company number) - 08462831

 

11. All members of team A11

Parent firm: Sanofi (France)

Subsidiary: Aventis Pharma Limited – registered number (company number) – 01535640

 

12. All members of team B1

Parent firm: Sanofi (France)

Subsidiary: Euroapi UK Limited (previous name Genzyme Limited) – registered number (company number) – 01556886

 

13. All members of team B2

Parent firm: Bayer AG (Germany)

Subsidiary: Bayer Public Limited Company – registered number (company number) – 00935048

14. All members of team B3

Parent firm: Baxter International Inc. (the United States)

Subsidiary: Baxter Heathcare Ltd. - registered number (company number) 00461365

15. All members of team B4

Parent firm: Takeda Pharmaceutical (Japan)

Subsidiary: Takeda UK Limited - registered number (company number) 03362860

16. All members of team B5

Parent firm: Johnson & Johnson, Inc. (the United States)                                  

Subsidiary: Johnson & Johnson Medical Ltd. - registered number (company number) – SC132162

17. All members of team B6

Parent firm: Johnson & Johnson, Inc. (the United States)                                  

Subsidiary: Depuy International Limited - registered number (company number) – 03319712

18. All members of team B7

Parent firm: Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (the United States)

Subsidiary: Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited - registered number (company number) – 02487574

19. All members of team B8

Parent firm: Novo Nordisk A/S (Denmark)

 

Subsidiary: Novo Nordisk Limited - registered number (company number) – 01118740

20. All members of team B9

Parent firm: Biogen, Inc. (the United States)

 

Subsidiary: Biogen Idec Limited - registered number (company number) – 01497267

21. All members of team B10

Parent firm: Stryker Corporation (the United States)

 

Subsidiary: Heartsine Technologies Limited - registered number (company number) – NI034331

 

22. All members of team B11

Parent firm: Mazda Motor Corporation (Japan)

Subsidiary: Mazda Motors UK Limited - registered number (company number) – 04212655

 

23. All members of team C1

Parent firm: Hitachi Ltd. (Japan)

Subsidiary: Hitachi Consulting (UK) Limited - registered number (company number) – 05660638

 

24. All members of team C2

Parent firm: Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings (Japan)

Subsidiary: Nippon Gohsei (UK) Lld - registered number (company number) – 05660638

 

25. All members of team C3

Parent firm: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (The United States)

Subsidiary: Fisher Scientific U.K. Ltd. - registered number (company number) – 02883961

 

26. All members of team C4

Parent firm: Estee Lauder (The United States)

Subsidiary: Estee Lauder Cosmetics Limited - registered number (company number) – 00659213

 

27. All members of team C5

Parent firm: Johnson Controls International Plc. (Ireland)

Subsidiary: ADT Fire and Security Plc. - registered number (company number) – 01161045

 

28. All members of team C6

Parent firm: Airbus Group (the Netherlands)

Subsidiary: Airbus Defence and Space Limited - registered number (company number) – 02449259

29. All members of team C7

Parent firm: Samsung Electronics (South Korea)

Subsidiary: Samsung Cambridge Solution Centre Limited - registered number (company number) - 03086621

30. All members of team C8

Parent firm: Danone S.A. (France)

Subsidiary: Alpro (UK) Limited - registered number (company number) - 03708934

31. All members of team C9

Parent firm: Hermes International (France)

Subsidiary: Hermes (G.B.) Limited - registered number (company number) - 00773076

32. All members of team C10

Parent firm: Merck KGaA (Germany)

Subsidiary: Merck Life Science UK Limited - registered number (company number) - 00660457

 

This is your assignment:

 

Answer the following five questions.  Your answers need to be consistent across the questions, so once you have identified a strategy in question 1, please do not change this in subsequent answers otherwise you will be penalised.  Present and explain suitable diagrams for questions 1, 2 and 3.

1. This question is related to the parent firm in the home country. In which cell of the integration/ responsiveness (I/R) theoretical framework will you place the strategy of the parent firm? Explain clearly why it is placed in a particular cell, and support your answer with one specific well-explained example for the I dimension and one specific well-explained example for the R dimension.

 

2. What is the appropriate organisational structure for the parent firm consistent with the strategy which you identify in Question 1? Explain clearly the characteristics of this organizational structure and provide examples to support the characteristics that you describe. Present a diagram of the firm’s organizational structure in business reality and briefly explain it.

 

3. Use Rugman & D’Cruz’s flagship framework to discuss the parent firm’s flagship relationships which may exist with its network partners. Support your answer with one specific well-explained example for each type of business partners in the flagship network.

 

4. This question is related to the subsidiary in the United Kingdom.  Briefly describe the business activities of the subsidiary. Explain clearly what and how the subsidiary has implemented the I/R strategy of the parent firm which you identify in question 1. Support your answer with one specific well-explained example for the I dimension and one specific well-explained example for the R dimension of the I/R strategy at the subsidiary level.

 

5. This question is related to the subsidiary in the United Kingdom.  Critically analyse all the major financing sources of your subsidiary for each year of the five-year period (2015-2019) and present a table of supporting data. Examine and make plausible arguments whether or not the parent firm has used various mechanisms to potentially manipulate profits (profit shifting) in the subsidiary in this five-year period. Support your answer with specific well-explained evidence, data and facts.

 

Marks will be awarded for the quality of analytical reasoning and critical thinking.

Format:

 

You should use headings and sub-headings.

 

Notes or Endnotes should be used only if absolutely necessary and must be identified in the text by consecutive numbers, enclosed in square brackets and listed at the end of the essay.

 

The general format of this team assignment should include the following parts:

 

Front page: essay title (including the company name), your names, your student ID number, your group, your team number, and total word count (word count excludes the front page, and references).

 

Introduction: briefly introduce the company background information. You may explain the main objectives of this essay, the main arguments/findings, and the limitations of this study, etc.

 

Main body: you need to cover all the issues in the format of answers-to-questions. There is no need to rewrite the questions in your submitted work. You only need to indicate your question number (e.g. Question 1, etc.). This will give you more space to present your answers. You may briefly introduce the concepts and frameworks but do not spend much energy on them. You are expected to demonstrate that you are capable of applying these concepts and frameworks to critically analyse the international business strategy and organizational structure of the parent firm and the management of the foreign subsidiary in the United Kingdom which you are studying. A good piece of work for this module should focus on a persuasive analysis and argument, based on the hard data, facts and examples which you find. In addition, you are expected to present consistent and interactive arguments of the issues, e.g. hard data and thorough explanation could support your analysis on the strategy and the structure of the firm. See the detailed guidance in the Appendix 1 for each question.

 

Specific expectations

• Research skills: find relevant, interesting, specific, real examples, data, information and hard facts to support your answers.
• Insights: identification of key issues; a clear and consistent focus.
• Analysis: a presentation of information that exhibits an understanding, a capable application of key concepts. The rationale and reasoning is explained logically and clearly.
• Synthesis: relevant incorporation of various concepts and pieces of information.
• Appearance: a clear and concise organization and overall style; good grammar and spelling.
• Coherency: the document must appear coherent.
• Consistency: all evidence should be supported by your discussion.
• Originality: an ability to be creative and innovative in research and presentation of information.

 

Conclusion: a brief summary of the essential arguments/findings for the work.

 

Tables and figures: It is your decision to put the figures/tables separately or in the text. Each figure/table needs to be fully referenced and explained. Please do not insert any of them without explanation. 

 

References and Plagiarism: All sources (e.g. books, articles, internet sites) used in the assignment must be listed in the text and in the reference. Reference must be Harvard style, and you can find the Harvard style reference at the end of the assignment (see Appendix 2).

 

Plagiarism is defined as falsely claiming the ideas, passages, data, etc., of another work or author as your own. This is a serious offence and may result in you failing your degree and the circumstances of the plagiarism being placed on your records for further reference. It is therefore essential to be meticulous to keep a full and careful record of all references as you proceed with your research and then citing them in your dissertation.

 

Please note that the electronic copy of your coursework will be checked by the University’s anti-plagiarism programmes and other checks may also be undertaken.

 

Appendices (if any): Materials in the appendices will be counted toward the word limit.

 

Assessment criteria

The assessment criteria are in accordance with the policy of the University of Reading, Henley Business School, Assessment criteria (it is also called as Rubrics) (see Appendix 3 for Henley Business School, marking and feedback e-proforma form where detailed assessment criteria are fully listed).

 

Marking

Each question has the same marks. Marks will be awarded for the quality of analytical reasoning and critical thinking. The coursework will be marked as a whole. There will be no separate mark for each question.

Marking criteria will be in accordance with the University policy – Assessment Handbook – Section 10 – Annex 1 – University marking criteria for level 4-6

http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/qualitysupport/10_Marking_withannexes.pdf

Marking scheme

First class honours: 70%

Second class honours, upper division: 60-69%

Second class honours, lower division: 50%-59%

Third class honours: 40-49%

Fail: below 40%

Penalty for late submission

Penalties for late submission will be in accordance with the University policy:

Where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of five working days.

Where the piece of work is submitted more than five working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

For further details, please refer to the full policy statement which is available as Section 6I of the Guide to Policies and Procedures in Teaching and Learning.

Extenuating circumstances (EC) and request for an extension of submission beyond the deadline

 

Students should follow the university’s guidelines on extenuating circumstances (EC) and submit the EC form where applicable. The Director of Academic Tutoring for Undergraduate Programmes will review the application and she/he will make a decision.

 

http://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/exams/student/exa-circumstances.aspx

 

In case you have any queries about EC, you should contact Henley Business School, Undergraduate Administration Team directly for information.

Please note that the module convenor does not have the authority to grant an extension of submission beyond the deadline. So, please do not send your request to the module convenor.

Feedback

Written feedback for the individual assignment can be found in the icon box - “feedback summary”.

Feedback based on the assessment criteria can be found in the icon box - “rubric/ form”.

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