ECF5040: Industry Economics - Research Project Assignment
25% project
1-page writeup of the topic area and question due in class during week 10. Presentations of the full project due during week11 and week12. You will be assigned either to week 11 or 12. The number of minutes available for you to present will depend on the number of people in the class. (to be announced later)
At the same time as your presentation, a writeup of the project, not to exceed 3500 words (that’s around 7 pages in this font I am using) is due, as well. Figures, pictures are not counted towards the limit. Please include references and citations (these don’t count towards the word limit).
The goal of the project is to analyze carefully a firm/industry scenario that you find interesting using the concepts we talked about in class: a strategic decision of a firm or a set of firms or a change in competition in an industry. It is important that you not just describe what happened/is happening to the firm or industry, but analyze using the concepts and ideas we learn in class. The challenging part here is that in the project you will be the one that needs to decide what the important aspects of a given situation are. Answer questions such as why is the firm doing what it is doing? why is the industry competition evolving the way it is? Try to choose something enlightening and complex. Feel free to come talk to me to discuss your idea before settling on it.
Boring sounding or simple companies are often quite interesting to analyze from the perspective of what strategic problems they face. It is harder to analyze strategic options for a large, complex company like Google. Having access to the management of a company makes it easier to understand the firm's situation. For this reason, a smaller, local company is often a good idea to choose, but you do not have to necessarily choose such a company.
To start thinking about ideas, I would advise you to read the business press. On the below link you can find how to access Australian and international business dailies or magazines.