1. Identify and discuss the three building blocks of organizational structure.
2. What is the relationship between a company's corporate-level strategy and its business model?
3. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of being a first mover in a high-tech industry. What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a follower? In your opinion, which strategy is preferable, and why?
4. Consider the case of a manufacturing firm that purchases subassemblies from a supplier, creates a finished product, and then sells that product to a wholesale distributor. What advantages might this firm gain from forward integration? From backward integration? What potential pitfalls of vertical integration might the firm face?
5. Give an example of an industry that has recently undergone a technological paradigm shift. What impact did the shift have on established companies and on new entrants to the industry?
6. Explain the principles of agency theory, including the issues it addresses. What are some effective ways to deal with agency problems, as implied or stated by agency theory?
7. List and describe each of the four basic global strategies.
8. Whirlpool, a leading U.S. maker of household appliances, has a wholly owned subsidiary that is responsible for research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and sales in over two dozen European countries, from Norway to Greece. What are some of the potential advantages that Whirlpool may gain from its use of a wholly owned subsidiary for global expansion? What are some of the potential disadvantages?
9. Describe the difference between Shareholders and Stakeholders perspectives when it comes to the corporation. Give three examples of a lapse in ethics which may have been avoided by an emphasis on the stakeholders.
10. What is organizational culture and why is it so important to the firm?