MGT/498 Strategic Management sample papers, week by week

Reviewed by Davina Cresswell, MBA · Strategic Management · University of Phoenix · Free custom samples in 24–48h

MGT/498 is the undergraduate strategy course, five weeks of external analysis, internal capability and a recommendation you have to defend. The samples show what a strategic analysis looks like when it commits to a position instead of describing one.

Send the exact assignment or rubric from your classroom and a custom sample written to it lands in 24 to 48 hours, the first one free. MGT/498 is Phoenix’s Strategic Management course. It centers on how firms read their industry, choose where to compete and turn that choice into a plan someone can execute. Searches like "mgt/498 week 4 assignment example", "MGT498 sample paper", and "MGT/498 week samples" land on this page.

What MGT/498 is really about

MGT/498 arrives late in the business program, and Phoenix gives it the same five weeks it gives everything else, which is the whole difficulty. A strategy course wants a firm studied in depth, and the calendar wants a deliverable every seven days, so the work stacks: one company chosen early, then examined from a new angle each week until the pieces have to become a single recommendation. Most sections keep one company running the whole way, sometimes assigned, sometimes chosen by the student or the learning team. Choosing one with public filings and real coverage matters more than choosing one you like, because every later week draws on what you can actually find.

Syllabi are not published, so treat the arc as typical rather than fixed. Early weeks usually establish the firm and its vision, mission and values, along with the outside forces acting on it. Middle weeks often bring the analytical frames, competitive forces, resources and capabilities, a SWOT that has to earn its rows. Later weeks commonly ask for strategy at the business and corporate level, then implementation: structure, resourcing, metrics, and what happens if the recommendation fails. Discussions run alongside all of it, usually asking you to apply the week's frame to a firm in the news. The shelf is arranged by Wk so you can find the one you are in.

What MGT/498’s assessments ask for

Strategy assignments in MGT/498 ask you to decide, and then to show the reasoning that made the decision unavoidable. That means evidence with a source attached, financial or market facts rather than adjectives, and frames used as instruments instead of headings. A five forces section is only working if it ends with which force is the binding constraint on this firm. A capability review is only working if it separates what the firm does well from what actually protects it from imitation. The last move is the one that carries the rubric: a specific recommendation, the resources it needs, the measure that will tell you in a year whether it worked.

Where students lose points in MGT/498

The paper that loses points here is usually the company profile in disguise. It has history, revenue, a leadership paragraph, a tidy SWOT with four boxes filled, and by the final page it recommends that the firm continue to innovate and monitor its competitors. Everything in it is accurate and nothing in it is a choice. Graders are looking for the sentence where you say this firm should do this instead of that, and accept the cost of not doing the other thing. A SWOT with no priority, forces with no verdict, alternatives listed but never rejected in writing: each one reads as research that stopped before the decision. Pick the position, then defend it.

MGT/498 grading scale at University of Phoenix: how the work is graded, from Phoenix Assignments
How University of Phoenix grades MGT/498, visualized by Phoenix Assignments.

The MGT/498 drawers

Wk 1

MGT/498 Wk 1 assignment example

Wk 1 often fixes the company and its vision, mission and values in writing. Full sample paper, annotated: Strategic Planning and Management Fundamentals.

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Wk 2

MGT/498 Wk 2 assignment example

Wk 2 typically works the external side, industry forces and conditions the firm cannot control. Full sample paper, annotated: Building a Competitive Advantage.

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Wk 3

MGT/498 Wk 3 assignment example

Wk 3 usually turns inward to resources, capabilities and a SWOT built from evidence. Full sample paper, annotated: Tactical Implementation and Metrics.

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Wk 4

MGT/498 Wk 4 assignment example

Wk 4 commonly asks for strategy selection at business and corporate level, with alternatives weighed. Full sample paper, annotated: Innovation, Sustainability, and the Global Market.

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Wk 5

MGT/498 Wk 5 assignment example

Wk 5 typically ends in implementation, metrics and the defended recommendation, often as a learning team paper. Full sample paper, annotated: Strategic Plan Implementation and Recommendation.

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Different?

Your classroom shows something else?

University of Phoenix revises courses; week counts and deliverables shift between terms. Send what your classroom shows and the desk matches it exactly.

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Using a MGT/498 sample the right way

Use a sample the way you would use a worked example in a finance text: to see the moves, not to borrow the answer. Watch where the evidence appears relative to the claim, how a frame gets compressed so it leaves room for the recommendation, and how much of the firm gets left out on purpose. Then run the same moves on your own company, because the facts are what make the argument yours. When your section assigns a firm or a format the shelf has no match for, send the instructions and rubric and we will write a first custom sample free, back in 24-48h.

How these samples are written

The discipline behind every paper here: instructions are the outline, worksheets get filled exactly, decks get outlined slide by slide, and the one-course-at-a-time rhythm means your one course gets the whole desk. Send your week's instructions with a request and the sample matches them, revisions included.

MGT/498 questions, answered

My SWOT is complete but the feedback says there is no strategy. Why?

A completed SWOT is inventory, not a position. The strategy appears when you rank the rows and say which strength you are betting on against which threat, and what the firm will stop doing to fund it. Add one paragraph that names the choice and its cost, and the same analysis starts reading as a recommendation.

How much company background belongs in a strategic analysis?

Less than most drafts carry. Background earns space only when a later claim depends on it, so a founding date that explains a legacy cost structure stays and a leadership biography usually goes. A reasonable test: delete a background paragraph and see whether any argument in the paper breaks. If nothing breaks, the recommendation just gained a page.

Do I have to recommend something risky to get a good grade?

No. Graders reward a defended choice, not a bold one, and choosing to protect a profitable core is a position if you show what you are declining and why. What loses points is the recommendation that avoids choosing at all, the one telling the firm to keep innovating while watching its competitors. Commit, then justify the commitment.