Research paper 1 - First assignment specification

The course objectives met by this assignment include:

Course specifications are available online from the USQ website
. Always check the website for the latest version.

Background

You are required to find two organisations: one large organisation with more than 5,000 employees and one small-to-medium organisation with between 50-1,000 employees.

The size of these organisations is important as their current and future requirements would be different. When you are selecting these organisations, consider their footprint, such as are they operating within one country only, are they branching out to another country or are planning to do so, or are they already operating on a global scale? Other points you need to consider at this point is the type of business (pharmaceutical versus distribution for example). You may find some information on their history that provides some clues. You could look at their mission, vision, values statements. An organisation may be small now (they might have just started) and has the potential to grow. Some organisations pride themselves to be a family business and their expansion would encompass minimal risks, while large conglomerate organisations may have more assets to take larger risks. Some organisations are owned by another organisation, and this may impact their current and future situation differently.

Please do not contact any organisation to obtain information. There are security reasons why this information is not availably publicly. What you need to do for your assignments it to use the technical aspect of this course to make your own assumptions and deductions from the information that is publicly available. Then translate this into a managerial view.

In addition, it would be more beneficial and workable to select two organisations that do not have the same product or type or operation. This will assist you in the requirements of the other assignments in this course.

Using the course material you are now required to make further assumptions and write an industry research paper that will describe the business communications and business systems relying on the network-related elements of these two organisations. While the textbook provides you with technical information of network operation, you need to take the higher level view of how the networks can provide and help the management of the organisations. You need to differentiate the use of the networks between these two organisations. A larger organisation would have more complexity due to the factors outlined in the first assignment specifications. A smaller organisation may not have the necessary infrastructure as one would expect.

You need to familiarise yourself further with these two organisations and create an understanding how they would conduct their business (email, network connectivity), local or global, small family business. Consider that different types of businesses even in the same sector might have different requirements. Determine if the organisation is owned by another (this information may be available on the internet) and how that might have an impact on the use and design of communications in the organisations. Some of your assumptions can be based on what you may already know about an organisation. As you do your research, online, journal articles, or books, use the information from your reading to build support and arguments using Harvard citing.

Once you have built up a picture of these organisations network usage and design, you will then have integrated the course material in your description while focusing on the specifics of each organisation. You are not required to contact anyone from these organisations.

Structure of industry research paper

Using the USQ library search facility to locate suitable journal papers will provide you with a good understanding on how a paper is written. The focus here is not so much that you write a journal article, but that you write a document that applies the structure given below, and address the issues outlined in this specification. We are particularly looking for you to apply the course material to your description of the network-related elements. You need to show your understanding of the material, while describing each organisations network. This will result in unique content.

Organise your research paper in the following way:

- Title (you are required to provide your paper's title)
- Your name and student number
- Abstract (about 100 words)
- Introduction
- Body context (you could divide into several sub-sections if required)
- Conclusion
- References.

The word-count limit for the introduction, body, and conclusion of this paper is set at about 3,000 words. It is part of the assessment that you meet this word count, as it will require you to address the specifications succinctly. Use five (5) or more resources for you Harvard in text citing and reference list. Please ensure that you apply the format correctly, and for your convenience, links to resources have been provided.