Course Description BUSS 422 Business Seminar_Part Time and DLM[1]

7/31/2019 Course Description BUSS 422 Business Seminar_Part Time and DLM[1]

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KENYA METHODIST UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

Department of Business Administration

Course Outline and Syllabus

Course Program: Bachelor of Business administration

Course Title: Business Seminar (DLM and Part Time Students)Course Code: BUSS 422Course Instructor: Muchai A. M.

Course DescriptionThis course is required for all BBA Students and is undertaken in the fourth year. The main purpose of the courseis to provide students with experience in reading, evaluating, presenting, and discussing secondary research in

Cognitive Sciences. The course structure is built around business management issues, providing students with a

richer understanding of the key concepts, which are discussed from many angles.

Course Objectives

The primary objectives of this course are:1. Knowledge. To facilitate the process of in-depth mastery of influential new thoughts in the students area o

specialization,

2. Skill. To develop your capability to identify business management issues, and select and apply theories,

approaches, management tool kits that are the most relevant and helpful in a particular situation, andcombining them in a coherent fashion,

3. Attitude. To build your critical, analytical, and creative mindset, and provide you with opportunity to

practice in the exercise of judgment

Class Requirement

RationaleIt has been observed that our BBA students face difficulties in selecting seminar topic. Increasing there is

a tendency for students to select simple and obvious topics, while other simply select topic that have been

previously done. Cases of plagiarism have also been rampant and sometimes difficult to detect. Given this,and to ensure that students acquires the skills intended for this course it has been found necessary to advice

students to undertake extensive industry analysis as a seminar topic.

Read:

You are expected to select an industry from the list provided below, gather relevant or detailed industry

information and synthesis the issues.

ReportAfter selecting the industry, from the list provided, gather industry information and prepare a report as per the

explained outline. The gathering of data, the analysis and the presentation of the findings should reflect theoverall application of the concepts and techniques learnt in previous graduate years. The following industries

will consist of industries students will select from.

1. The Hides and Skin Industry2. The Textile Industry

3. The Edible Oil Industry

4. The Daily Industry1


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Discuss:

You will then guide a seminar discussion at the end of the trimester, focusing on your topic. The class willread your industry analysis report and participate in the discussion. Before your presentation, you will be

required to submit a written report to your tutors. Please confirm the submission dates and stick to them.

Participate:

When you are not presenting, you are expected to be an active member of the audience. Before seminar

presentation day, you should summit a copy of the PowerPoint slides together with a soft copy of your

report to the Research and Seminar Coordinator. Before finalizing your report please ask yourfriends/colleagues to read through and critiques where necessary. This will help refine your work

Late policy:Failure to do your presentation on the scheduled day will lead to you receiving a zero for the assignment.

If you completely unable to present your seminar report on the scheduled day, please get permission from

the Department Chairman.

Course Evaluation

Style of presentation and leading discussions: 50% (see the department guidelines)

Final written report of your industry: 25 %

Participation: 25%

Some Sources of Information

Useful websites

1. International Monetary fund publishes reports about the economic situation around the world.http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2004/01/index.htm

2. The Financial Times provides various company information; http://news.ft.com/industries

3. Fortune is a magazine which provides a ranking of the Fortune 500 companies; http://www.fortune.com/fortune

4. Forbes magazine provides news of many types of industries; http://www.forbes.com

5. Business Week provides reports about industries and recent news about the business world;

http://www.businessweek.com6. The Economist provide news national economies worldwide; http://www.economist.com/research/Economics

7. The US Securities Exchange Commission; http://www.sec.gov

8. OECDhttp://www.oecd.org

9. World Bankhttp://www.worldbank.org/

10. International Chamber of Commerce http://www.iccwbo.org

11. The Mc Kinsey Quarterly provides reports on specific industries and research papers on specific topicshttp://www.mckinseyquarterly.com

12. INSEAD - Provide research papers, case studies on various sectors http://knowledge.insead.edu/home.cfm

13. Gartner Dataquest provides information about the Information technologies industries.http://www.gartner.com/1_researchanalysis/research_overview.html

14. UBS provides reports about markets and sectoral trends;http://www.ubs.com/1/e/media_overview/media_global/research.html15. INSEE http://www.alisse.insee.fr/european_industry_statistics.html

16. Eurostat: This site provides information about industries, the RAMON database;http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/sectors_en.htm

Recommended Text

1. Porter, M.E. (1979)How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy,Harvard Business Review, March/April 1979.

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http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2004/01/index.htmhttp://news.ft.com/industrieshttp://www.fortune.com/fortunehttp://www.forbes.com/http://www.businessweek.com/http://www.economist.com/research/Economicshttp://www.sec.gov/http://www.oecd.org/http://www.oecd.org/http://www.worldbank.org/http://www.worldbank.org/http://www.iccwbo.org/http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/http://knowledge.insead.edu/home.cfmhttp://www.gartner.com/1_researchanalysis/research_overview.htmlhttp://www.ubs.com/1/e/media_overview/media_global/research.htmlhttp://www.alisse.insee.fr/european_industry_statistics.htmlhttp://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/sectors_en.htmhttp://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2004/01/index.htmhttp://news.ft.com/industrieshttp://www.fortune.com/fortunehttp://www.forbes.com/http://www.businessweek.com/http://www.economist.com/research/Economicshttp://www.sec.gov/http://www.oecd.org/http://www.worldbank.org/http://www.iccwbo.org/http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/http://knowledge.insead.edu/home.cfmhttp://www.gartner.com/1_researchanalysis/research_overview.htmlhttp://www.ubs.com/1/e/media_overview/media_global/research.htmlhttp://www.alisse.insee.fr/european_industry_statistics.htmlhttp://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/sectors_en.htm


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An organisation will look at how loyal customers are to existing products, how quickly they can achieve economy

of scales, would they have access to suppliers, would government legislation prevent them or encourage them toenter the industry.

So to summaries Porter's five forces model is essential to carry to help you understand your industry in depth

before you DESCRIBE IT AS YOUR SEMINAR.

All the best

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Course Description BUSS 422 Business Seminar_Part Time and DLM[1]