MGT 496 On Campus
Small Business Analysis & Strategy
Overview
MGT 496 provides opportunities for students to act in a management consultant relationship with selected small/medium regional entrepreneurial organizations. Overall strategy and policy issues are emphasized.
Text
Small Business Analysis & Strategy. By Justin G. Longenecker, Carlos W. Moore, J. William Petty and Leslie E. Palich. South-Western CENGAGE Learning. ISBN 032467844.
Please note that this is a custom published text that is not available from e-tailers such as Amazon.com.
Grading
45% Chapter Tests
15% Individual Summary Business Plan
15% Team Comprehensive Business Plan
25% Team Consulting Report
Grades are adjusted based on periodic peer reviews completed throughout the course.
Chapter Tests
We'll have 3 chapter tests with each test counting 15% toward the final course grade. Chapter tests consist of true-false and multiple choice questions. You may take tests early by prior arrangement. You may also take tests late although approximately 25% of the true-false and multiple choice questions will be converted to short answer/essay for late tests.
Individual Summary Business Plan
You'll write and present a five-page minimum, single-spaced summary business plan for a business you may consider starting in the future or for a business you have already started but that is still in an early developmental stage. Your summary business plan must follow the outline in Appendix A of your text.
Your individual summary business plan grade is composed of two parts: 20% for your presentation and 80% for your written plan. Your presentation grade is based on the professionalism of your presentation as well as how well you respond during a question and answer session. Grading is based on the quality of your work relative to the business plan in Appendix A.
We'll use your summary business plan to move forward to the team comprehensive business plan.
Team Comprehensive Business Plan
We'll form teams of 5 or fewer students per team to work on a 20-page minimum, single-spaced comprehensive business plan. Teams will choose their business plan topic from among team members' summary business plans. In other words, the business plan of one student per team serves the basis for the comprehensive business plan. Teams use the selected individual summary business plan as the basis for the comprehensive business plan. Teams should select the business plan having the most promising business idea.
As compensation, the student from each team whose summary business plan is selected will receive a final course grade increase of 10%. Each team has complete autonomy over which plan it selects; it pays to do a good job of selling your plan to your team members.
Team Consulting Report
Teams of 5-7 students will prepare a consulting report for a small to medium-sized regional entrepreneurial organization. The course calendar lists due dates for each stage of the consulting report and provides details of each step. Teams will make presentations to update the class on the progress of the team's work throughout the semester.
Course Calendar
The course calendar provides considerable details about the course including grading information for various course activities. The course calendar is considered part of this syllabus for purposes of final course grades. You can access the course calendar for the Wednesday evening section here and the course calendar for the Thursday evening section here.