Title MN2177 - Core Management Concepts - 2018 Examiners Commentaries.pdf ✅

Examiners’ commentaries 2018 3 The key resources that you will want to draw on when looking for ways to support your answer are: a. The subject guide You will find a vast array of theories, evidence and sources with which to support your answer in the subject guide. Draw on these heavily. This is probably where around 80 per cent of evidence to support your answer will come from. b. The Essential readings In many cases, particularly where the Essential reading is Willman, there will be heavy overlap between the subject guide and the reading. However, there are still plenty of additional examples, ideas and theories in the Essential readings that you can make use of. c. Further readings We are not suggesting that you all have the time to find and complete all the further readings. But even if you only make use of three or four over the course of the module, if you are careful which you choose (for example, perhaps choosing some that are focused on principal-agent theory, or Scientific Management, or rationality or another topic that is examined under more than one heading), you will be able to make judicious use of these in your answers. Used well, these will show examiners that you have really tried to understand and engage with the materials. d. Examples As you can tell from the question wordings, the examinations team for MN2177 really like examples. They help you to show how these theories apply to the real world. Sometimes the example will not quite fit and it is fine to qualify it in this way (i.e. to briefly note how the example is limited in the particular context). Other times, you might decide to use an example that disproves a theory. 4. Spending an equal amount of time on all four questions This is another classic recommendation but one which works. In this exam, it simply means spending 45 minutes on each of the 4 questions. While it is possible to get a borderline pass on this subject by only answering three questions, you would need to answer them very well. It often takes a student a lot of extra writing to get from 15 out of 25 to 17 out of 25, and even more to get to 18 or 19 out of 25. However, if you get 15 out of 25 on four questions, you are then getting 60 per cent overall. This is definitely a more sensible exam strategy. Trust us. Examiners mark papers which adopt a range of different timekeeping approaches, where candidates have clearly split their time over the four questions, they almost always come away with a higher grade. 5. Giving your answer an effective structure There are a range of actions you should take to organise your answers that will help the examiners to see what you are trying to do and award you marks accordingly: a. Write an introduction Introductions are most effective when they demonstrate how you intend to answer the question. The examiner instantly knows what you are planning to do and can then read your answer looking for this clear, logical structure. b. Break your answer into paragraphs (and sections) Breaking your text up into paragraphs makes it much easier to read. The points you are trying to make are illuminated more clearly in your answer. This works even better if you can try to use the first sentence of your
Examiners’ commentaries 2018 4 paragraph to signpost what this paragraph is going to do. For example, if you are writing an essay talking about why employers negotiate with unions, and you have just presented all the reasons why it can help organisational performance, you may then want to start a section about the industries where it is not so beneficial. You might begin this with a signpost sentence, such as, ‘However, there are a range of industries in which negotiating with unions can reduce firm performance but managers have little choice’. You have made it clear to the reader what the paragraph is going to talk about and you can now go on to elaborate. c. Plan the main body of your essay Time can feel tight in the exam, but there is usually a benefit to spending a minute at the beginning of each question sketching out a very rough plan for your question. It is particularly important for questions with multiple parts because it will make sure that you do not get carried away with writing and totally forget about the second half of what you are being asked to do. d. Use subheadings It is also perfectly acceptable (and even encouraged!) in this module to use subheadings to divide up your answer. Because we often set candidates questions that have two or three components, organising your answer by using these as headings can show that you have covered all the key points. These subheadings might be the same as the main sections you identify you need to cover in your plan. You will find it helps you to organise your answer. It also helps examiners to extract the key points you’re trying to make. e. Conclusion Even if it is only a couple of sentences, making sure that you provide a conclusion to your answer, which offers a very brief answer to the question, is essential. Feedback on the exam this year There has been a big syllabus change this year. We have removed the chapter on the Evolution of Firms, and significantly rewritten chapters on Organisational behaviour; Financial and management Accounting; Portfolio management; Decision making; Management science. There have been more modest changes to the Marketing chapters (Blocks 17, 18 and 19). The whole syllabus has become online only, and as such, all chapters (old and new) have been enhanced with online activities, images, quizzes and examination preparation exercises. Accordingly, students are, for the first time, experiencing this module in online format with a revised syllabus. On the whole, we feel that this change has been incredibly positive. Initial analysis suggests that fewer of you are leaving the exam unfinished (i.e. there are fewer papers where candidates have answered three questions or less). We are also impressed by how enthusiastically you have embraced the revised parts of the syllabus, with the areas of Management Science and Financial Ratios leading to some very strong answers in the examination. The one major exception to this seems to have been Leadership theory, which has been expanded in the handbook, but with which many of you still seemed quite unfamiliar resulting in a lot of speculative answers. However, there seem to be a few of you still using the old syllabus, and as such referencing concepts and ideas which are no longer on the syllabus (such as the evolution of organisations). You are reminded that the marking guides will use the new syllabus as their starting point, so although you may get marks for extending your argument into these other areas (if it works well as an