ASB-4413 International Strategic Management
Assignment 2018/19
There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about how industries and businesses need to adapt their strategies to take into account the Circular Economy (CE). CE is about changing from our dead-end, wasteful ‘take, make, dispose’ linear production strategic approach which Su et al. (2013) states is “a traditional open-ended economy model developed with no built-in tendency to recycle, which is reflected by treating the environment as a waste reservoir”.
Su, B., Heshmati, A., Geng, Y., Yu, X., (2013) A review of the circular economy in China: moving from rhetoric to implementation, J. Clean. Prod. 42, pp215-227
What you are required to do in this assignment:
Discuss the key concepts behind CE. Moving to the CE has been discussed for a few years now but there has been limited implementation by businesses – why is this? Giving examples, discuss the barriers for businesses who want to transition to CE? Give examples of businesses that have managed to successful embrace the CE analyzing why?
You MUST draw on academic journal articles and present a summary of the CURRENT ACADEMIC thinking on this emerging discipline.
Format: academic essay with an introduction, main body and conclusion using references based upon the Harvard Referencing System.
Word count: 3000 words (not including references or appendices)
Marking scheme
| Marker’ Comments | Excellent | Good | Satisfactory | Weak | Very Weak |
| Knowledge of the Circular Economy, including academic debates and any recent or anticipated developments | |||||
| Discussion of relevant barriers to the transition to a circular economy | |||||
| Appropriate examples, of innovative organizations who have moved to the circular economy | |||||
| Structure of the answer, including the coherent development of arguments and the use of an introduction and conclusion | |||||
| Originality of interpretation, including depth of analysis and the ability to present arguments based on sound reasoning. | |||||
| Use of appropriate sources, including academic journal articles and authoritative reports | |||||
| Standard of presentation, including the use of language, layout of the text, referencing, and being within the stipulated word limit |
Please do NOT cut and paste from the Internet – this is plagiarism (cheating) and you will be caught.
Remember company websites are biased – they always say nice things about themselves and what they are doing! You will need to find independent, objective sources of information such as academic journal articles to support your work.
Prof G H Griffiths, Oct 9th 2018
