I firmly believe that as Master's students you are expected to know how to undertake proper research (peerreviewed academic journal articles use EBSCO or similar) and should understand the value of this approach. These are not undergraduate or high school assignments! Google is not a valid research source at University (or in serious business) and neither are you able to... not research! That leaves peerreviewed articles and possibly texts. I would also expect to see both Porter and Barney. At university... your assessments are NEVER about an organisation. They are ALWAYS about theory. You use an organisation (or whatever is appropriate for the brief) to demonstrate you understand the theory. So your assessments should firstly explain the relevant generic theory (properly referenced) then show you understand using the organisation. You paper must reflect this emphasis. If you just focus on one organisation how do we know you could apply the theory to another organisation? So theory, theory, theory.... I hope this makes sense? PPPPllllease do not give me a bunch (hopefully any) googled/web type references in your paper. This is not primary school. Peer reviewed journal articles are critical because they are... peerreviewed! That does not mean that the peers necessarily agree with the conclusions/recommendations... but the methodology is sound and proper context is provided. The same cannot be said of a googled source, even if it has an author. Text books are ok. Just. Remember they have a financial consideration (publishers want to sell as many as possible) and are not peer reviewed as such. They should be used sparingly to support the basic issues and provide an overview of generic theories. An MBA from a reputable University is valuable to your career because it indicates you are working/operating/researching/thinking at an advanced level. Peerreviewed journals are for MBA students. google is for quick information, a starting point for research perhaps... or fun! Please note by "googled" I mean "unvetted web sources" possibly on google and in this regard I am not actually being critical of google or the www at all. On the contrary. Incredibly valuable. Especially as a means of storing and providing easy access (through ebsco host for example) to... peerreviewed journal articles! In my view an Executive Summary should never be more than one page and should summarise (for Executives) the entire report. It should therefore include a summary of the paper's objectives, methodology and findings and can literally be read instead of the report itself. The Executive then determines if s/he wants to read the whole report or not. Findings/recommendations can be listed in bullet point. It is not an introduction see the earlier post. As for presentation I believe the Executive Summary should come first, right after the Title Page and be page numbered (i)... so before the Table of Contents... although it should still be listed in the ToC as (i). The Introduction then comes after the ToC. Note that "Table of Contents" is not listed in the Table of Contents Dear All, A reminder of what an academic assignment Introduction is. Firstly... it is very important! It helps outline the structure (along with the Table of Contents) for the entire paper. It should be numbered 1.0 and: 1. clearly state the purpose of the paper, then 2. have an interesting sentence to get the attention of the reader, then 3. outline exactly how the paper proceeds (i.e. state the structure follow the Table of Contents) This is the "map" for the paper. The reader should know exactly what you are doing and how... and want to read on. If you intend to provide a brief introduction to your organisation (good idea), this intention should be noted as part of your outline in the Introduction (point 3 above) and then follow as 1.1 Company ABC. To be clear 1.0 Introduction is the introduction to the paper 1.1 Company ABC is the introduction to the organisation. Remember to stay in the third person no -"I".. I expect you to know and understand how to apply the core theories and will not pass you if I do not believe that is the case. .