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Capstone Project

Create a 15-20 page capstone paper that analyzes a business topic and provides recommendations and is supported with credible resources that demonstrate evidence-based thinking.

Introduction

Throughout your MBA program, you have worked to develop as a business professional and prepare to meet future challenges as a business leader. Your program culminates in the capstone project, which forms the primary focus of this course, the final course you will take in the program. The capstone project is intended to provide for you the opportunity to demonstrate your MBA program outcomes in these ways:

  • Planning and executing the strategic and tactical elements of a comprehensive project.
  • Integrating and demonstrating the business leadership skills and techniques you have learned throughout the MBA program and your own growth as a business leader.
  • Communicating your analysis and recommendations for a real organization both in written form and in a formal presentation.
  • Completing your MBA program with an experience that reinforces what you have learned throughout your MBA program.

Assessment Description

For complete details, refer to the MBA Capstone Project Description [PDF] and scoring guide. Your capstone project should address these expectations:

  • Apply foundational knowledge and an understanding of business systems, processes, and technology within and across core disciplines.
  • Integrate information across disciplines from differing perspectives.
  • Develop logical, well-supported, evidence-based solutions to business challenges and opportunities.
  • Apply innovative, strategic, and sustainable approaches to business practice and planning.
  • Apply leadership and collaboration principles and strategies for virtual, global, and culturally diverse environments.
  • Integrate principles of ethics and integrity into business decisions.
  • Communicate clearly and effectively in a business environment.

Additional Expectations

  • Include an executive summary following your cover page.
  • Include various body sections that contain the analysis and recommendations.
  • Include a conclusion that summarizes main points of the paper.
  • Before you submit your assessment for grading, submit it to SafeAssign as a draft. Review your SafeAssign report and address any flagged issues to ensure you have properly cited all quoted or paraphrased material.

As an MBA learner, you have access to a free subscription to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Take advantage of that subscription, and do some of your research in the WSJ. Try to include at least one source from the WSJ in your final draft.

Submission Requirements

  • Style: Your paper should follow the corresponding MBA Academic and Professional Document Guidelines (available in the MBA Program Resources), including single-spaced paragraphs. Use a professional writing style.
  • Communication: Ensure written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message and quality.
  • APA guidelines: Format your citations according to current APA style.
  • Resources: Use at least six citations from credible sources.
  • Length: Your paper should be 15–20 pages, not including front and back matter (cover page, executive summary, table of contents, references, appendices). Papers that do not meet this minimum will be immediately returned for revision.
  • Font and font size: 12 point, Times New Roman.

EPORTFOLIO

You should consider adding this to your personal ePortfolio. Your completion of this comprehensive capstone project demonstrates your ability to identify a problem or opportunity to be researched, analyze the data, apply your own leadership abilities to suggest solutions, and then present your analysis and conclusions in a credible way. This key program deliverable will be an invaluable part of your portfolio.

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

  • Competency 1: Apply foundational knowledge and an understanding of business systems, processes, and technology within and across core disciplines.
    • Apply foundational knowledge and an understanding of business systems, processes, and technology within and across core disciplines.
  • Competency 2: Integrate information across disciplines and from differing perspectives.
    • Integrate most relevant supportive and conflicting information (data, insights, best practices) across disciplines from differing primary functional perspectives individually and holistically.
  • Competency 3: Think critically and analytically to provide evidence-based solutions to business challenges and opportunities.
    • Develop logical, well-supported solutions based on relevant, sound, logical, and credible evidence (data, insights, analyses, best practices) to solve business challenges and opportunities.
  • Competency 4: Apply innovative, strategic, and sustainable approaches to business practice and planning.
    • Apply innovative, strategic, and sustainable (long-term) approaches to business practice and planning.
  • Competency 5: Lead and collaborate in virtual, global, and culturally diverse environments.
    • Apply leadership and collaboration principles and strategies for virtual, global, and culturally diverse environments.
  • Competency 6: Integrate principles of ethics and integrity into business decisions.
    • Integrate principles of ethics and integrity into business decisions by assessing ethical implications and resolving ethical conflicts and dilemmas.
  • Competency 7: Communicate clearly and effectively in a business environment.
    • Write coherently to support a central idea with correct grammar, usage, and mechanics as expected of a business professional.

Timmco Case Study

Timmco Case Study
[WLOs: 1, 2, 3] [CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
This Final Paper is comprehensive reflection of the knowledge you have learned in this course. Thus, prior to beginning work on this assignment, review each of the chapters of the course textbook. Then, review the following case study:
For this class, The Timmco Case Study Final Paper will apply toward Folio. Be sure to upload your paper to Folio once you have completed it and share a link in your submission in addition to uploading it to Waypoint to be graded. Learn more about Folio by reading the Folio Quick-Start Guide.
Timmco Case Study
Timmco, Inc. is a publicly traded corporation located in Denton, Texas that makes and sells high pressure industrial spraying equipment used in all sorts of commercial liquid spraying applications. It prides itself on top quality and promotes its products as “100% made in the USA”. Sales have been declining recently due to competition from lower priced competitors and Timmco is looking for ways to reduce costs. One option under consideration is to find a new source for the high-pressure valves used in its products. These valves are complicated mechanisms that operate under very high internal pressure. If the valve was to burst, it would spray pieces of metal in all directions and pose a significant hazard to anyone standing nearby including the operator of the equipment. Timmco currently has a contract to purchase 1,000 valves a year at $2,500 per valve from Blagg Industries, a small  owned business located in Boone, North Carolina. The contract has been in place for three years and has two more years to run.
Blagg Industries has a dozen employees. Timmco is its primary customer. If Blagg Industries loses Timmco’s business, it will have to lay off employees and might even go out of business.
Timmco is considering outsourcing the valves from Sanco, an overseas supplier in the country of Slawrovia, instead of buying valves from Blagg Industries.
The Sanco valves only cost $1,000 each, but are known to be of lower quality than the Blagg Industries valves and are more likely to burst. Sanco can supply these valves at such low cost because they pay their workers, including children, less than the equivalent of $5 per day and work them long hours in hot, dangerous conditions.
Slawrovia is a poor country, but it has a large government bureaucracy and there is a lot of red tape involved in getting approval to export manufactured goods to other countries. In fact, it might take more than a year for Sanco and Timmco to obtain the necessary approvals for Sanco to export the valves to Timmco. Fortunately, the CEO of Sanco is related to the Slawrovia Minister of Commerce and has told Timmco that the necessary approvals can be obtained in less than a week if Timmco makes a $20,000 “gift” to the Slawrovia Minister of Commerce.
In addition to finding a new, low cost valve supplier, Timmco plans to increase sales by running a new marketing campaign that focuses on their commitment to American made quality. The tagline will be “Made in the USA by Americans, for Americans.”
You are a high-level executive at Timmco. Analyze the legal and ethical issues presented by the Timmco scenario. Your legal and ethical analysis should include breach of contract and remedies, negligent torts, product liability, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and deceptive advertising and should incorporate a discussion and application of one or more of the ethical theories from Chapter 4 of the course textbook Business law: The Ethical, Global, and E-Commerce Environment.
Your legal and ethical analysis should,
Analyze breach of contract and remedies
Analyze negligent torts
Analyze product liability
Analyze the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Analyze deceptive advertising
Incorporate a discussion and application of one or more of the ethical theories from Chapter 4 of the course textbook Business Law: The Ethical, Global, and
E-Commerce Environment.
The Timmco Case Study Final Paper
Must be eight to ten double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the UAGC
Writing Center’s APA Style resource.
Must include a separate title page with the following:
Title of paper
Student’s name
Course name and number
Instructor’s name
Date submitted
For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013.
Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice resource for additional guidance.
Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of
your paper.
For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions as well as Writing a Thesis Statement, refer to the UAGC Writing Center resources.
Your legal analysis should follow the IRAC method introduced in Week 1.
Must use at least seven credible sources in addition to the course text.

Annotated Outline

Create a 2-5 page annotated outline that includes the sections to be analyzed, ethical decision making aspects of the topic, main points of the recommendation, and credible evidence you plan to use for supporting the analysis and recommendations.

Introduction

While everyone has their own process for writing, creating an outline is often an important early step in the process in all types of writing, even for the most seasoned writers. By creating an outline, you draft a plan that organizes your thoughts, helps you see gaps in your thought process, and enables you to decide where in your paper you will address particular issues.

An annotated outline is a document that organizes the main sections to be included in your paper. The annotations are based on thinking through your approach to the paper and developing enough detail that anyone who reads the outline can follow your thought process.

The purpose of this assessment is as follows:

  • To build an annotated outline that shows the key sections of your analysis, the ethical considerations, and the leadership and collaboration aspects that you intend to include in your capstone project. With this outline, faculty can understand the organization and purpose of your paper; upon approval, you may move forward to writing the capstone project (Assessment 4).
  • To help you manage your work because you will need to start researching now (if you have not already) in order to create your annotated outline.
  • To demonstrate that you know how to cite in APA format by including some quotations or paraphrases from researched sources. The sources you include in the outline may or may not be used in your actual paper.
  • To demonstrate your ability to create a well-organized document, suitable for academic or business, that meets established criteria.

Assessment Description

For this assessment, create an annotated outline that provides a framework of your capstone project. Begin by reviewing the MBA Capstone Project Description [PDF]. Your annotated outline must state the name of your chosen organization and must include the following items:

  • Identify the main sections to be developed in the paper and tie them to the project objectives.
    • In your key sections, you should use at least four main headings; these sections make up the body of your outline.
    • Each heading must have at least two sub-points to develop the detail required.
    • Include a description of each major point.
  • Identify where each supporting reference will be integrated.
    • Include at least one reference to support each major point of the paper.
    • Incorporate relevant quotes or paraphrases from a source that you might use for support, with an APA in-text citation.
  • Identify main points that address ethical aspects associated with your chosen business.
    • Ethical considerations/aspects should also be one of the headings of your outline.
    • Use the program outcomes to help determine the areas of ethics that you might want to cover.
    • Include at least one reference to elaborate on how you intend to cover ethics in your project.
  • Identify main points that address leadership and collaboration aspects associated with your chosen business.
    • Leadership and collaboration considerations/aspects should also be one of the headings of your outline.
    • Review the program outcomes to determine the areas of leadership and collaboration that you should consider.
    • Include at least one reference to elaborate on how you intend to cover leadership and collaboration in your project.
  • Identify main points of your recommendations. Your recommendations should also be one of the headings of your outline.
    • Identify credible evidence to support an analysis.
    • For the evidence you provide, include key points to clarify why it matters and how it will inform the analysis.

Your annotated outline should have these sections:

  • An executive summary.
  • An introduction.
  • The body of your outline should be comprised of at least four main headings with additional subheadings and points. (Never use the word “Body” as a heading or subheading.)
  • A conclusion.
  • References. Use APA style and formatting for all the sources you use in the annotated outline.

Submission Requirements

  • Style: This outline should be written in academic format; refer to the corresponding MBA Academic and Professional Document Guidelines. It should be double spaced, use subheadings, and be well organized and well written.
  • Communication: Ensure written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message and quality.
  • APA guidelines: Format your paper according to current APA style and formatting.
  • Resources: Use at least four resources from credible resources.
  • Length: Your outline should be 2–5 pages.
  • Font and font size: Use 12 point, Times New Roman.

ePortfolio

You should consider adding this to your personal ePortfolio. Being able to demonstrate the logic used to construct a proposal is a valuable skill set. Additionally, your finished capstone project should be added to your ePortfolio, and by having the annotated outline you can show how you arrived at the final deliverable.

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

  • Competency 1: Apply foundational knowledge and an understanding of business systems, processes, and technology within and across core disciplines.
    • Identify the main sections to be developed in the paper and tie them to the project objectives.
  • Competency 2: Integrate information across disciplines and from differing perspectives.
    • Identify where each supporting reference will be integrated.
  • Competency 3: Think critically and analytically to provide evidence-based solutions to business challenges and opportunities.
    • Identify main points of recommendations.
  • Competency 5: Lead and collaborate in virtual, global, and culturally diverse environments.
    • Identify main points that address leadership and collaboration aspects associated with the chosen business.
  • Competency 6: Integrate principles of ethics and integrity into business decisions.
    • Identify main points that address ethical aspects associated with the chosen business.
  • Competency 7: Communicate clearly and effectively in a business environment.
    • Cite sources and references in proper APA format.