Technology Management : Apple Inc Case Study… 1 answer below »

The Task

Individual Assignment One

11:55 pm on Sunday, 1/4/18

Please submit online through iLearn as a single PDF document (https://ilearn.mq.edu.au)
This is a Turnitin assignment.

20% of subject
Approximately 2000 words (1,500 to 2,500 words maximum)

For this assignment you are to research publically available material on Apple Inc and its competitors to provide comprehensive answers to the following questions. It is expected that each section be answered in 300 to 500 words. Bullet points are fine. Feel free to add diagrams or tables. Ensure that you use in text referencing. Remember, this is a Turnitin assignment. Do not copy and paste. If your plagiarism score is more than 30%, you will score zero. If you are quoting a reference, ensure that you use quotation marks and acknowledge the source.

Each section carries an assignment weighting of 25%. Complete all FOUR sections. Ensure that you provide a cover sheet, answers to each section (do not repeat the questions as Turnitin will pick it up as plagiarism) and your list of references. I suggest you design your own cover sheet as Turnitin will pick up the MQU standard version as plagiarism. Your reference list is not included in the word count.

Appendix 1 contains information on academic writing and the correct way to cite references.

Consider the principles discussed so far from our textbook, Robbins et al. Consider the chapters on contemporary management trends, organisational culture, managing in a global environment, social responsibility and managerial ethics, managing change and innovation, decision making, planning and strategic management. Complete answers for each section will need to include a mention ofpertinentsections of the textbook. Do not use the textbook as the authority on Steve Jobs or Apple. There are more comprehensive and up to date sources.

1. Consider the post 2000 period for Apple. What do you think were the driving forces that led to Apple’s phenomenal success to become the world’s largest company by market capitalisation? How did Apple identify and capitalise on market trends? How did they achieve global success? Which companies lost market share? Which market segments grew as a result of Apple’s strategies?

ISYS360 Assignment One Page 2 Semester 1, 2018

Describe Steve Jobs’ management style. What was itlike working for Jobs? How would describe the culture at Apple? How would you rate Apple in terms of social responsibility and managerial ethics? Has Tim Cook adopted a different style?

Provide an overview of Apple’s current market position. Why has itdeclined from its pinnacle of market leadership in the smartphone and tablet segments? Is Apple losing its ‘cool’? Why did Apple fail to adequately defend its market position?Will Android expand its dominance of smart phone operating systems? What about Xiaomi, Huawei, Honor and OnePlus, will they effectively compete globally against Apple?Apple had a first mover’s advantage, market leadership in its major segments and a massive cash flow to fund investment. What went wrong?

ApplecontinuestoinnovateitsproductlinewiththelatestupgradestoiPhonewith the 8 and X, iPad, iMac Pro, Watch, MacBook Pro etc. If you were the CEO, how would you steer new product development at Apple? The Board and shareholders would certainly like to see Apple regain its reputation as the market innovator, not follower. Where will the next generation of innovative products and services come from?

Submission

This is a Turnitin assignment. Do not wait until the last minute to submit as Turnitin can take up to 24 hours to process a submission. Your submission time will be time stamped by iLearn. You will fail if 30% or more of the report has been plagiarised.

Resubmitting through Turnitin can be very slow, so if you want to pre-screen your submission for plagiarism, you can use the free software Viper: http://www.scanmyessay.com/index.php

The usual 10% per day (or part thereof) will apply for late submissions.

This assignment will contribute a maximum of 20% to the final assessment grade, and is a compulsory component of the course.

ISYS360 Assignment One Page 3 Semester 1, 2018

Marking Criteria

You will be marked according to the following criteria, these criteria will be applied to each of the four sections, with each section worth 25% of the total mark:

Element

Excellent to Good (30)

Pass (15)

Incomplete (10)

Demonstrates understanding & interpretation of the key management concepts covered by the question.

? Demonstrates high level of understanding of key concepts

? Skillfully organises description of issues and application of references.

? Demonstrates some understanding of key concepts

? Organises description of issues in some cases; shows some application of references.

? Demonstrates little understanding of key concepts

? Little organisation used to describe issues; shows little application of references.

Element

Excellent to Good (50)

Pass (25)

Incomplete (10)

Justifies the responses to specific aspects of the question

? Addresses all elements when justifying the responses to specific aspects of the question

? Refers to references, including the text book, to strongly support arguments. ? Addresses some elements when

justifying the responses to aspects of the question

? Refers to one or two references to support arguments.

? Addresses few elements when justifying the responses to questions

? Does not refer to references to support arguments.

Element

Excellent to Good (20)

Pass (10)

Incomplete (5)

Technical

? Clarity of expression, correct grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling– excellent in all areas

? Used consistent referencing system in- text and bibliography

? Clarity of expression, correct grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling – some difficulties determining meaning, some errors

? Missing some references either in-text or in bibliography; or included references in bibliography that were not included in text

? Poor clarity of expression, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling–limited readability; requires many corrections/further explanation

? Very poor use of referencing system; inconsistent style, incomplete bibliography

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Appendix 1

Writing at university level meansacademicwriting. Academic writing is not like writing a novel. Informal writing styles are not encouraged. You are required tosubstantiatewhat you write/say in your academic and professional lives. It is only in rare instances where you will be permitted to write works of fiction at university, it is also for similar reasons that the first person singular (I feel, I think, I did, My feeling is …), is generally to be avoided in writing university assignments (there are some exceptions to this rule, for example law faculties often adopt the first-person-singular in their writing style).

As insulting as this may seem, as a student you are not considered to be an expert at anything (that usually comes with the title Dr. and then later Professor). The point is you need to state the source of your information in assignments. Furthermore it is generally considered politically-correct to avoid gender specific writing styles; in other words don’t refer to authors/people/whoeverashe, unless they actually aremale- examine the following link. http://mq.edu.au/on_campus/diversity_and_inclusion/inclusive_language_tips/discriminatory_language/

For the purposes of this assignment, we will use theHarvardreferencing style, although if you are comfortable withfootnoting, please do so.

Citing vs. quoting Where an idea is ‘adopted/adapted’ from an author but restated in your words one uses citingas a means of establishing where the information was derived from. For example …… Smith (1990) was inclined to believe that … blah blah blah, … (where blah blah blah areyourwords, but theauthor’sideas). No page number needs to be included for citing authors (but you must include the author’s surname, and date of publication of the reference where you have derived the information from).

No, you cannot cite your friends (or lecture/tutorial/practical material).

Where the words have simply been lifted/copied directly by you, is referred to asquoting someone. For example ….. it was felt that “of all the database schemas, the object relational approach is…..” (Zhang, 1990 p. 53).In this case quotation marks are used as well as a page numberstating where the informationdirectlycame from.

Lecture notes/course notes DO NOT count as references!These arenotto be referred to in written assignments/reports (this is considered amateurish).

Report Structure

For this assignment, a formal report structure with Table of Contents and Executive Summary are not required. Simply number your sections as 1 to 4, corresponding to the questions being answered.

The entire submission should be single spaced and use an 11 or 12 point common font style. To improve readability, feel free to use bullet points, short paragraphs, tables and diagrams.

Reference List
Theminimum level of detailfor each book/journal reference used in either a list of references or

bibliography is as follows.

ISYS360 Assignment One Page 5 Semester 1, 2018

For abook:
Busch, P., (2008)Tacit Knowledge in Organizational LearningIGI-Global Hershey

Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
For ajournal article/conference paper:

Venkitachalam, K., Busch, P., (2012) “Tacit Knowledge: Review and Possible Research Directions”Journal of Knowledge Management16(2) pp: 357-372.

Forelectronic publications(e.g. ones you’ve pulled off the internet):

Busch, P., (2006) “Organisation Design and Tacit Knowledge Transferal: An Examination of Three IT Firms”Journal of Knowledge Management Practice7(2) URL: http://www.tlainc.com/articl111.htm(accessed 26/2/15).

At the end of your assignment, you simplyplace all types of references together in alphabetical orderof author surname.You do not list them separately by book, conference paper and electronic publication.

If you are usingfootnoting, then number each reference and include it at the bottom of the page as a footnote.