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Unit Synopsis
Researching strategically relevant business problems is an important part of professional practice and being a successful manager and leader. This is a capstone unit that draws upon your area of specialisation and your wider knowledge of business environments both globally and locally. The unit focuses on developing your ability to undertake independent research that focuses on and contributes to strategic decision making and sustainability in organisations. The unit will improve your skills in synthesising information and developing solutions to improve the long-term effectiveness and sustainability of organisations. You will use research skills to analyse a management problem in your chosen business discipline, identifying strategic challenges, and developing recommendations aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These recommendations will be based on systematic and rigorous analysis of relevant academic literature, professional business information, and publicly available secondary data.
Details
| Level | Postgraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 9 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
This is a capstone unit for students completing a coursework based masters. Hence students must have completed 10 master level units (60 credit points) of study prior to enrolment. Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2026
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task |
Part Weighting
(% of assessment) |
Assessment Security Level | Gen AI Guidance Levels |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Assessment 1 ( 20% of unit • 1 part ) | |||
|
Part 1
– Learning logs / diaries / Journal / log books
|
100% of 20% | Medium | AI-Assisted (Guided Collaboration) |
| 2. Assessment 2 ( 30% of unit • 1 part ) | |||
|
Part 1
– Research Proposal
|
100% of 30% | Low | AI-Assisted (Guided Collaboration) |
| 3. Assessment 3 ( 50% of unit • 1 part ) | |||
|
Part 1
– Research Assignment
|
100% of 50% | Low | AI-Assisted (Guided Collaboration) |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Unit coordinator reflection
Continue to monitor T3 enrolments
Determine if there is a way to boost engagement in the distance mode offering of the unit to prevent students disengaging and impacting their ability to complete a high quality research project.
Student engagement was supported through regular workshops, Moodle announcements, assessment guidance, CQU Success activities, online resources and recordings. An industry guest lecturer was also invited to provide practical insights and strengthen engagement with the unit.
Source: Unit coordinator reflection
As new measures of impact start to become available, begin the process of incorporating alternatives to the SDGs
Continue monitoring media releases regarding the future beyond the SDGs, particularly from the UN in relation to future goals they may set.
The SDGs continued to be incorporated as the key sustainability framework in the unit, while relevant developments and emerging approaches to measuring sustainability impact continued to be monitored for possible future integration.
Source: Student Unit Evaluation, in-class student feedback, and Unit Coordinator reflection.
Students reported positive perceptions of the unit, with T1 2026 evaluation results ranging from 82.61% to 86.96% across all measures. Feedback was particularly positive regarding clear unit requirements, useful feedback, knowledge and skills, and relevance to the degree. While the overall results were positive, there remains an opportunity to further strengthen student engagement with learning materials and assessment-related learning through interactive and applied learning activities.
Continue providing clear assessment guidance, applied learning activities and contemporary organisational examples to support students in completing the research-focused assessment tasks. Interactive learning tools such as Padlet will continue to be used to encourage student participation, collaborative discussion, sharing of ideas and application of unit concepts. Practical workshops, relevant case examples, online learning resources and industry engagement will also continue to be incorporated to strengthen students’ connection between sustainability concepts, research and real organisational practice.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Develop an advanced and integrated understanding of strategic issues, and sustainability challenges in organisations
- Apply the skills and knowledge gained from other subjects to identify a complex strategic issue relevant to organisations in the context of your profession
- Apply research skills to plan and execute an independent investigation into a complex strategic organisational problem
- Critically review, analyse and interpret current relevant literature, professional business information and publicly available secondary data
- Communicate, in a professional manner, information in an organisational context by providing recommendations that address strategic challenges and sustainability goals.
N/A
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
|
1.
Assessment 1
Part 1 -
Learning logs / diaries / Journal / log books
|
• | • | • | ||
|
2.
Assessment 2
Part 1 -
Research Proposal
|
• | • | • | ||
|
3.
Assessment 3
Part 1 -
Research Assignment
|
• | • | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | • | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Communication | • | • | • | • | • |
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | • | • | • | • | • |
| 4 - Research | • | • | • | • | • |
| 5 - Self-management | • | • | • | • | • |
| 6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility | • | • | • | • | • |
| 7 - Leadership | • | • | • | • | • |
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | |