The Individual Essay is worth 30 marks and has a maximum word limit of 2000 words. The assessment criteria are located in the guidelines attached as a separate document in the ESSAY Folder on ilearn.
Students are expected to use at least 8 scholarly references in their analysis. Scholarly references generally include refereed journal articles and academic books/chapters. Students may use sections and/or subsections in their essay but not required to do so. This is purely a matter of personal choice. The objective is to produce a piece of individually written work that is organised in a logical and coherent manner, addresses the essay question in a focused way and uses scholarly reference to support and substantiate your argument.
Requirements for Essay Format are as follows: the essay must be submitted in 12 pt Times New Roman Font; with 1.5 line-spacing and 2.54cm margins.
The 2000 word limit for this essay includes tables, diagrams and appendices, but excludes the cover page and reference list. Detailed assessment criteria and marking rubric will be available in the ESSAY Folder on the ilearn site.
The essay is due on Wednesday 14 September (Week 7) at 4.30 pm. Essays are to be submitted to the Student Office by 4.30 pm on the 14 September. There will be a submission box available. The essay must be submitted first to Turnitin. Students must attach the Turnitin certificate to their essay before submitting the hard copy to the Student Office. Essays must also have a cover sheet. Any essay without a cover sheet containing the student’s name and student number will be deemed to have not been submitted.
Students must choose one of the following essay questions:
1. ‘There are really no sources of enduring competitive advantage in human resources or in HR practices. Managers who pursue sustainable advantage through HRM are engaged in a fruitless search.’ (anonymous) Discuss this contention, using the resource-based view of strategic human resource management as the theoretical basis of your analysis.
OR
2. ‘In this era of rapidly and constantly changing business environments, best practice approaches to HRM have little use. Human resource specialists should act on the basis that every policy choice in HRM is contingent on the specific strategy and competitive context of the firm’. (anonymous) Using the best practice and best fit approaches to strategic human resource management as the theoretical basis of your analysis, discuss this assertion.
