When Walmart decided to incorporate grocery stores into some locations and created "supercent-ers," was this a business-level strategy of differen-tiation or a corporate strategy of diversification? Why? Explain your answer.
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?
The chapter identifies three governing mecha-nisms for strategic alliances: non-equity, equity, and joint venture. List the benefits and downsides for each of these mechanisms.
An alliance's purpose can affect which gover-nance structure is optimal. Compare a pharma-ceutical R&D alliance with a prescription-drug marketing agreement, and recommend a govern-ing mechanism for each. Provide reasons for your selections.
Professor Pankaj Ghemawat delivered a TED talk titled "Actually, the World 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"?
"Licensing patented technology to a foreign com-petitor is likely to reduce or eliminate the firm's competitive advantage." True or false? Write a paragraph discussing this statement.
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, ½- 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.