Individual Research Report (50%)

The purpose of this assignment is to develop your capability to understand supply chain sustainability concepts, methods, and frameworks. On this assignment, you will write a research report of about 4000 words based on review of relevant literature on one of the following topics:

•ISO14001 standards and supply chain sustainability – establish a relationship between standards and supply chain sustainability and critically analyse.

You are required to conduct a thorough literature search (mainly academic journals) in order to prepare the research report. It is expected that you will follow the following guidelines while preparing your report:

1. Introduction
•Introduce your topic of research.
•Discuss aims and objectives of the research.
•Highlight the plan of the report.

2. Literature search
•Conduct a thorough search on the topic of research. For this you are required to search journals (mainly academic). Develop a database of the articles in the chosen topic area.
Your objective is to provide up-to-date information on the chosen topic in a systematic manner. It is expected that you will address the following areas:
•Summary of the literature – basic summary of the chosen articles
•Group materials under few meaningful themes and critically analyse and discuss
•Identify the practical and theoretical implications of your findings
•Build your arguments based on the evidence from published cases and empirical studies.

3. Conclusions and suggestions for future research
•Conclusion based on your findings
•Future direction.

4. References
•Provide a list of references and refer these appropriately in the report
•Include a content page and an executive summary of the report (between 1/3 and ½
a page)

Process
•Choose a topic.
•Locate relevant sources (databases, academic journals). You are expected to refer to
refereed (peer reviewed) academic papers.
•Identify relevant literature (20-24 relevant journal articles).
•Submit copies of five articles from where you may have gathered most of your ideas while preparing your report.
•Analyse and synthesise the literature to produce an analytical report.
•Give figures and tables where necessary.
•Appendices can be added if additional material is considered essential.
NOTE: You are NOT writing an open easy on the chosen topic. You are writing a
research report based on the chosen articles only.