Project

Assignment one (worth 30% of the total marks for this module)

Strategic Management 2

Hand in date Monday March 21st 2011

Write an academic report that evaluates the strategic options available to the Harley Davidson organisation on the 14th March 2011. Your report will use and evaluate module concepts and techniques. You are not allowed to include any information concerning/related/relevant to the Harley Davidson organisation that occurs after the 14th March.

Your academic report will have a main body and an appendix 1. This appendix 1 is to be a case study of the Harley Davidson organisation. It is to be up-to-date until midnight 14th March. You may wish to look for guidance at some of the case studies at the back of Exploring Corporate Strategy. Text and Cases. 7th edition. G.Johnson, K.Scholes and R.Whittington. Also, on Strategic Management 1 you looked at case studies from strategy textbooks and you will be looking at case studies from strategy textbooks in seminars on this module

Your case study would be expected to show a

1. Brief history of the Harley Davidson organisation.

2. Show the development of the organisation including any key personalities who have help shaped its development.

3. Show who its main competitors have been/ are.

4. To show some of the recent issues/choices it has/ faces as an organisation.

5. In a sense you are being asked to do what the authors of the strategy textbooks cases do.

6. The difference is you will not be getting paid to do it !

Do remember you are doing a case study similar in style/content to what the strategy textbook's provide. Your case study will NOT be a series of worked out theoretical frameworks/tools. In this assignment you are attempting to produce a case study similar to the strategy textbooks case studies. What you are being asked to do in this assignment may well conflict with the type of case studies you have been asked to produce/ read about in other modules . It may be different in nature from literature you have read about on case studies from other sources.

This appendix 1 is the ONLY appendix you are allowed (unless you are choosing to work in a group on the assignment). If you decide to work in a group for this assignment you also need to produce an appendix two. This will be entitled "Group working". There is no word limit on appendix two. In appendix two you are to show a brief log of group meetings and who was assigned by the meeting to undertake tasks and work. Appendix two is compulsory and failure to enclose the appendix will lead to the coursework being failed. If you decide to work on your own for this coursework you do not have to produce an appendix two.

Your appendix 1 HAS to be one of the (though obviously not the only) sources of information for the main body of the academic report.

It is the