With reference to an organization of your choice, examine the impact of innovation on operations management strategy.

Marks should be allocated using the SL Paper 2 assessment criteria on pages 4 to 5 with further guidance below.

N.B. examiners should include a breakdown of each mark awarded per criterion and a brief note explaining the mark awarded at the end of each candidate’s response.

The main aim of paper 2 (SL or HL) section C is to assess candidates’ understanding of the six major concepts (change, culture, ethics, globalization, innovation, strategy) within a business context. Candidates are to demonstrate their understanding through an organization of their choice. The expectation of the use of an organization is to allow assessment of the depth of candidates’ understanding through their ability to apply the concepts and their knowledge.

Assessment of candidates’ knowledge of the organization itself is not an aim of the assessment. If a candidate makes minor factual errors and these minor errors have no genuine bearing on whether the candidate understands the concepts, examiners should not penalize. For example, a minor error of historical fact (the year when a company was founded, for example, or the year in which a change was implemented) that has no genuine bearing on candidates’ understanding of the concepts does not warrant penalty.

It is expected that the candidate explains the chosen theoretical direction / content of their response.

Additional guidance in relation to the assessment criteria

For each criterion, the aim is to find the descriptor that conveys most accurately the level attained by the candidate, using the best-fit model. It is not necessary for every single aspect of a level descriptor to be
met for that mark to be awarded.

• The highest level descriptors do not imply faultless performance and should be achievable by a candidate.
• A candidate who attains a high level of achievement for one criterion will not necessarily reach high levels of achievement for the other criteria and vice versa.

If only one concept is addressed:
Criteria A, B, C and E: award up to a maximum [3].
Criterion D: full marks can be awarded.

Where the question asks for impacts of two concepts on content, examiners must allow for unbalanced treatment of the two concepts throughout a candidate’s response. One concept may be more significant than the other.

In section C, the question rubric explicitly states that “organizations featured in sections A and B and in the paper 1 case study may not be used as a basis” to candidate’s answers to questions 6, 7 and 8. When this happens please award marks as follows:

• Criterion A: award a maximum of [1]. The business management content cannot be relevant if the
  organization is fictitious.
• Criterion B: 0 marks – there is no connection to a “real-world organization”.
• Criterion C: award a maximum of [1]. The arguments cannot be relevant if the organization is fictitious.
• Criterion D: mark as normal.
• Criterion E: award up to a maximum of [1]. The individual and/or group perspective(s) cannot be relevant if the organization is fictitious.

Criterion B

• For [2]: “…connection is not developed” should be treated the same as superficial.

Criterion C

• Questions 6 to 8 require consideration of the impact of one concept on a second concept – therefore accept 2 + 2 arguments for a balanced response.
• Justification is through logic or data.
• For [2] there is no balance as there are no counter arguments at all, or the arguments are all one-sided then this would be unjustified.
• For [3] there is some balanced arguments – some of which are justified.

Criterion D

• Introductions need to be concise and related to the question.
• The candidate’s response does not to have explicit headings for each structural element.
• A body is the area in which the substance of arguments occur. It is usually located between the introduction and the conclusion.
• Fit-for-purpose paragraph means that ideas are presented in a clear academic way. For example, one idea per paragraph.

Criterion E

• One example of an “individual” could be an individual consumer or an individual manager. However this could not be considered with a “group” of consumers or a management team.
• For [4], a balanced response: need to look at the perspectives of both individual and group(s). The chosen individual, group needs to be applicable and relevant to the question with specific explanation.
• Candidates need to go beyond stating the stakeholder.
• Candidates need not explicitly say “stakeholder”.

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