The exam questions relate only to the case: “East Coast Lifestyle: Expanding a Regional Apparel Brand.” You will now find this case in your coursepack at Ivey Publishing (ie, where the rest of our cases are). You will need to log in to your Ivey Publishing account, and it will (now) be visible as the last case in your coursepack. The exam questions are open-ended by design. This is the nature of management problems, and the exam is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your ability to analyze complex situations where data is incomplete, disorganized, and sometimes contradictory, as well to demonstrate as your ability to make comprehensive recommendations to solve a complex managerial problem. The exam is ‘open book,’ meaning you may consult your notes, course materials (eg, PowerPoints slides from Canvas), and the textbook to prepare your answers. You may not use external sources of information to aid your analysis of the case. For example, you should not look at the company’s website, or read a Mintel report on the industry. Use only the facts presented in the case. If you feel you need more information to make a decision, please make an assumption (ie, estimate what you think that data might be), clearly state that assumption, and move forward with your analysis. Obviously this creates an artificial scenario; in ‘real life,’ you would need to look at multiple external sources of information. However, for this particular exercise (the final exam), we need to maintain an equal playing-field for all students, and this means that everyone should use the same data set (ie, the case).
2. Independent Work The document you submit as your exam must constitute ONLY your work. You may not work with other people (eg, current or past students in the course). You may not seek other students’ analyses (eg, Google search the case to aid your analysis). You must take care that your work is not accessed by other students; allowing your work to be copied or read by others is considered academic dishonesty. Please refer to the syllabus for more detail on what constitutes academic dishonesty, and the process and penalties that will ensue if dishonest behaviour occurs. Your Word document must be uploaded to Canvas via Turnitin. Any exam documents containing textual similarities to other exams or sources will be investigated.
3. Submission It is your responsibility to ensure the file you submit is not corrupt. Corrupted files will not be considered successfully submitted, and will not be graded. Students who (re)submit an uncorrupted version of their exam after the deadline will be subject to the penalty for late submissions. Turnitin is not well designed to manage Excel tables that are embedded in Word documents. If you choose to submit some work in Excel, please email the Excel file directly to me (and only upload your Word file to Canvas). email@email.email Exams submitted past the due date/time will be penalized 5 percentage points for every hour or portion thereof that the submission is late. Deadline extensions will only be granted under extenuating circumstances. Common illness (e.g., cold, flu), vacation plans, or other academic due dates do not constitute extenuating circumstances.
4. Formatting Ensure that your exam document clearly identifies your student number but not your name. Do not include an executive summary or table of contents. You will not be graded on spelling or grammar. I expect that you will submit an exam that I can understand, but I will not penalize an exam that has weak writing unless it is incomprehensible. Bullet points and tables are perfectly acceptable ways to summarize data and support good writing. You do not need to cite the case, your notes, course materials, or the textbook in your answers. You will not be accessing other data sources, so there will be no need to include citations or references in your exam. 5. Grading There is no ‘correct answer’ to this case. Your grade will be a function of: Your ability to apply our marketing framework to this case Your ability to draw implications from your analysis The strength and logic behind your recommendations
