Global Business and Economics

Look up recent information online about two different countries in different regions of the world (neither can be the United States). Try not to choose the same ones your classmates chose and find ones that are interesting to compare.

1) Which two countries in different regions of the world did you choose and why is it interesting to compare these two in particular?

2) What do some of the key economic indicators tell us about how the two nations you chose are doing (and state why you chose the particular indicators that you did)? (Note: There are many excellent places to look up this kind of information, such as the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), CIA World Factbook, BBC, and so on.)

3) The readings for this week discuss both monetary and fiscal policy. How do the two nations that you identified make use of these? How effective do these government's most recent economic policies seem to be?

4) What recommendations do you have for further improving the economic conditions of each of the countries?

Business Ethics and Stakeholders

Organizations can have many different stakeholders. On the simplest level some are internal and some are external. These can be further broken down into general categories such as organizational (e.g., managers, employees, board members, and so on), financial (e.g., owners, banks, venture capitalists, and other investors), product/market (suppliers and customers that are affected by the organization), communities that are impacted by it in terms of employment, infrastructure, or environmental concerns, government entities that rely on taxes derived from certain businesses and their employees, political or special interest groups, and other interested parties. Some decisions that representatives of an organization makes can affect many of these groups.

1) Provide at least one example (more are always welcome) of a very ethical action you have witnessed on the part of managers or employees in organizations you are familiar with (you do not need to name the individual or organization but just describe what leads you to believe some behavior they had was exceptionally ethical). If you can't think of examples from an organization (it could be a public or private, nonprofit, government, military, or other one), you can use examples from other organizations in the news but not from the course readings or ones that other students provide in their postings. In each case, describe who the stakeholders are for the organizations and how each could potentially be affected by the actions.

2) Provide at least one example (more are always welcome) of a very unethical action you have witnessed on the part of managers or employees in organizations you are familiar with (you do not need to name the individual or organization but just describe what leads you to believe some behavior they had was exceptionally unethical). If you can't think of examples from an organization (it could be a public or private, nonprofit, government, military, or other one), you can use examples from other organizations in the news but not from the course readings or ones that other students provide in their postings. In each case, describe who the stakeholders are for the organizations and how each could potentially be affected by the actions.

3) Do you recall more ethical or unethical actions that you have witnessed on the part of managers or employees in organizations that you are familiar with and why do you think this is? What should have been done by the organization in the case of the unethical action after it was taken?