This question requires you to pick a tech giant and to produce an opinion article for a newspaper explaining why you think it should not be broken up.

SCO103PRT01Jul2020PT.pdf

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SCO103 New Empires: The Reach and Frontiers

of the Tech Sector

Progress Report July 2020

SCO103 Progress Report

SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES (SUSS) Page 2 of 5

PROGRESS REPORT (PRT01) This assignment is worth 40% of the final mark for SCO103 New Empires: The Reach and Frontiers of the Tech Sector. The cut-off date for this assignment is:

T-Group Deadline

T01 3 October, 2355hrs T02 3 October, 2355hrs T03 3 October, 2355hrs T04 3 October, 2355hrs T05 3 October, 2355hrs T06 24 October, 2355hrs T07 24 October, 2355hrs T08 24 October, 2355hrs T09 24 October, 2355hrs

Note to Students: 1. PRT01 is due on the Saturday after your third class (at 2355hrs). Submit your progress report under the correct assignment link – PRT01. 2. You are strongly encouraged to submit the assignment before the specified deadline. After a grace period, you will lose ten marks for each 24-hr block via the automatic grade-book system. Please refer to the Student Handbook (section 5.2, sub-section 1.8.3) for more details. 3. Please include the following in header section or front page of all your assignments: Course code, full name, SUSS PI No., and submission date. 4. The University has strict guidelines concerning plagiarism, defined in the Student Handbook as the submission of the “work of another person as original work”, and the paraphrasing or directly quoting “material from a source without appropriate or adequate acknowledgement.” (Handbook section 5.2, sub-section 1.4). The University will enforce severe sanctions for established cases of plagiarism (as listed in section 5.2, sub-section 1.5 of Student Handbook). 5. As such, you must include endnotes and a bibliography. If you have any doubts, please consult your instructor.

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Question 1 Question 1 deals with the theme of tech monopolies. As shown in Study Unit 1, governments have been debating the question of whether or the tech giants should be broken up in order to limit their monopoly power. This question requires you to pick a tech giant and to produce an opinion article for a newspaper explaining why you think it should not be broken up. A good opinion article shows a good grasp of the key issue on hand and is able to present a succinct, accurate, and convincing argument. An example can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/20/video-games-addictive-disorder- diagnosis Writing Guidelines and Further Instructions for Question 1: Your article should not be longer than 800 words. Please use endnotes for this assignment. Pick only one of the following nice tech giants for your opinion article: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, Xiaomi or Tencent. This list, as you can see, only contains US and Chinese tech giants. This will give you an opportunity to showcase your awareness of diversity across global cultures and markets. In your opinion article, you should address the following issues: (a) Examine the amount of competition faced by your tech giant in order to define the

limits of its dominance. If you can show that it faces substantial domestic and/or global competition, you may be able to weaken the case for breaking it up. (25 marks)

(b) Illustrate some of the ambitious innovation initiatives that your tech giant is currently

pursuing. If you can show that your tech giant is still innovating aggressively, you may be able to weaken the case for breaking it up. (25 marks)

and its ability to pursue bold and aggressive innovation schemes. (25 marks)

25 marks will be awarded for research and writing. This includes (and not limited to) clarity and coherence, organisation of essay, and proper use of relevant and accurate sources.

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SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES (SUSS) Page 4 of 5

The following rubric will be used to assess this assignment.

19-25 Marks 15-18 Marks 10-14 Marks 0-9 Marks (a) Examine the amount of competition faced by your tech giant in order to define the limits of its dominance. [Note: Task (a) tests the student’s ability to gain important insights and to make informed decisions about his/her tech giant’s market dominance through analysing data relationships, patterns, and trends in the tech industry. The stronger students will be able to demonstrate this ability – known as ‘sense making’ – in their approach to this task.]

The student demonstrates convincingly that his/her tech giant faces substantial domestic and/or international competition in the tech sector. The student’s argument is clear, logical, and supported by a good/excellent range of relevant and accurate evidence. Also, please see the note in the task column.

The student’s response is good but less convincing in demonstrating that his/her tech giant faces substantial domestic and/or international competition in the tech sector. This could be due to one or more of the following factors: The student’s argument may lack depth and/or coherence in some areas; or used an insufficient amount of relevant or a decent range of evidence; or used sources that may contain some inaccurate, irrelevant, or extraneous material.

The student’s response ranges from fair to barely addressing the task directly (or addressing the task indirectly). Overall, the student’s argument is superficial and/or presented superficially. It relies on only one or two particular types of sources, and/or used sources that may contain inaccurate, irrelevant, or extraneous material. There is minimal effort to engage the topic at hand.

The student’s response fails to address the task directly, and/or is too short, and/or contains a large amount of inaccurate, irrelevant, or extraneous material, demonstrating a lack of engagement with the course.

(b) Illustrate some of the ambitious innovation initiatives that your tech giant is currently pursuing. [Note: Task (b) is not as simple as it looks. The global innovation setting is incredibly complex. At any one time, a major tech company could be involved in large number of innovation initiatives. The stronger students will not randomly select a few of these schemes to fulfil the requirements of this task. Instead, since the goal that has been set for the student is to explain why his/her tech giant should not be broken up, the stronger students will decide, by using a structured process and multiple sources of available information, to highlight innovation schemes that could lead to the creation of new markets and greater choice for consumers.]

The student demonstrates convincingly that his/her tech giant is still innovating aggressively. The student’s argument is clear, logical, and supported by a good/excellent range of relevant and accurate evidence. Also, please see the note in the task column.

The student’s response is good but less convincing in demonstrating that his/her tech giant is still innovating aggressively. This could be due to one or more of the following factors: The student’s argument may lack depth and/or coherence in some areas; or used an insufficient amount of relevant or a decent range of evidence; or used sources that may contain some inaccurate, irrelevant, or extraneous material.

(c) Develop arguments to show why breaking up your tech giant would limit its efficiency and its ability to pursue bold and

The student demonstrates convincingly that breaking up his/her tech giant would limit its efficiency and its ability to pursue bold and

The student’s response is good but less convincing in demonstrating that breaking up his/her tech giant would limit its efficiency and its ability to pursue bold and aggressive innovation schemes.

The student’s response ranges from fair to barely addressing the task directly (or addressing the task indirectly).

The student’s response fails to address the task directly, and/or is too short, and/or contains a large amount of inaccurate, irrelevant, or extraneous material,

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aggressive innovation schemes. [Note: Task (c) requires students to reflect on a hypothetical scenario. It is, after all, not easy to predict the consequences of the breaking up of a large tech company. This task is therefore not only a test of the student’s analytical abilities, but also his/her communication skills. The stronger students will be able to persuade sceptical readers to agree with him/her through the effective articulation and discussion of his/her ideas on the issue at hand.]

aggressive innovation schemes. The student’s argument is clear, logical, and supported by a good/excellent range of relevant and accurate evidence. Also, please see the note in the task column.

This could be due to one or more of the following factors: The student’s argument may lack depth and/or coherence in some areas; or used an insufficient amount of relevant or a decent range of evidence; or used sources that may contain some inaccurate, irrelevant, or extraneous material.

Overall, the student’s argument is superficial and/or presented superficially. It relies on only one or two particular types of sources, and/or used sources that may contain inaccurate, irrelevant, or extraneous material. There is minimal effort to engage the topic at hand.

demonstrating a lack of engagement with the course.

19-25 Marks 15-18 Marks 10-14 Marks 0-8 Marks (d) Language / Writing: 25 marks will be awarded for research and writing. This includes (and not limited to) clarity and coherence, organisation of essay, and proper use of relevant and accurate sources.

Good to excellent effort in organising a seamless and coherent article. The writing is overall clear and fluent. It is either free of writing errors or contains a very small number of minor writing errors, and kept within assignment’s parameters. Relevant information from sources are properly cited and paraphrased.

Fair to good effort in organising a clear and coherent article. The writing is mostly clear and fluent, largely kept within assignment parameters, but contains a number of minor writing errors. Relevant information from sources are for the most part properly cited and paraphrased.

Submission is more a sum of separate parts rather than a coherent article. Writing contains several to a large number of writing errors, requiring the reader some effort to understand it. May not have exceeded or ignored assignment parameters Information used may be irrelevant, inaccurate, and/or improperly or not cited. There is also minimal effort in paraphrasing information from sources (resulting in chunking).

Submission fails to meet basic requirements. There is little to no effort to write a coherent article, resulting in an unintelligible essay, or response is too short and/or largely comprises of irrelevant information.

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