Individual Assignment

Discussion Question

Chapter 8 (1&3)

1. When Walmart decided to incorporate grocery stores into some locations and created "supercenters," was this a business-level strategy of differentiation or a corporate strategy of diversification? Why? Explain your answer.

3. Franchising is widely used in the casual dining and fast food industry, yet Starbucks is quite successful with a large number of company-owned stores. In 2014 Starbucks had over 7,000 company- owned stores in the United States. How do you explain this difference? Is Starbucks bucking the trend of other food-service stores, or is something else going on?

Chapter 9 (1&4)

1. The chapter identifies three governing mechanisms for strategic alliances: non-equity, equity, and joint venture. List the benefits and downsides for each of these mechanisms.

4. An alliance's purpose can affect which governance structure is optimal. Compare a pharmaceutical R&D alliance with a prescription-drug marketing agreement, and recommend a governing mechanism for each. Provide reasons for your selections.

Chapter 10 (2&4)

2. Professor Pankaj Ghemawat delivered a TED?talk titled "Actually, theWorld Isn't Flat." Do ?you agree with his assessment that the world is?at most semi-globalized, and that we need to be careful not to fall victim to "globalony"?

4. "Licensing patented technology to a foreign competitor is likely to reduce or eliminate the firm's competitive advantage." True or false? Write a paragraph discussing this statement.

Written assignments will be evaluated on content, analysis, clarity of expression, and your writing and grammar.

Success in a professional career is truly impacted by your ability to clearly and professionally communicate your ideas and relevant information, whether it is to employers, executives, investors, customers, suppliers, or employees. All assignments are to be the students' original work.
All written assignments will use the following format and are to be posted in Blackboard.
Must be a WORD document.

• Always include assignment or project title, name of students, and the date of submission.

• Always use headings and sub-headings when appropriate.

• Always include a title page.

• Always include a table of contents.

• Type your paper on a computer and print it out on standard, white 8.5 x 11-inch paper and bring to the class session in which the assignment is due.

• Single-space the text of your paper, and use Times New Roman. The font size should be 12 pt.

• Leave two spaces after periods or other punctuation marks.

• Set the margins of your document to 1 inch on all sides.

• Do not indent the first line of paragraphs.

• Create a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner, 1⁄2-  inch from the top and flush with the right margin.

• Always cite your resources in text and on a reference page at the end of your paper.

All written work, whether a paper, assignment, a summary, or a short-answer essay, should exhibit the following characteristics. Although each characteristic refers to "the paper," the student may substitute with "the summary," "the test answer," or the name of any other written assignment.

Main Idea

The paper is focused, meets the expectations set up by the writer, and makes these expectations clear to the reader. The paper shows a clear sense of purpose.

Support

The writer provides specific, concrete and appropriate information from memory, observation, reading, interviewing or other sources. The paper is well developed with examples, details, illustrations, anecdotes or the like.

Style

Sentences are varied and word choices are accurate. There is an absence of "clutter" or "padding". Phrasing is clear and direct. Tone is handled consistently; sentence length and word choices are appropriate to the audience and purpose of the piece.

Mechanics

Punctuation, grammar, spelling and aspects of format are handled correctly. The writer has prepared the paper carefully with attention to appearance and other details. Opening, closing and title are strong and contribute to the sense of purpose, focus and unity of the piece of writing. Elaborated discussion can be summarized by using bullet points, but bullet points should not be used to deliver your idea as a main method. Tables and figures always need titles and numbers.