Reference no: EM131049827

Module 1 - Identifying Issues

Objectives

The aim of this assignment is to understand the complexity of issues faced by CEO's of major corporations. At any one point in time such an individual might face dozens of issues which need to be prioritized.

Instructor Comments

Predicting competitor behaviour is of interest to most companies. Future plans are of course among the most tightly guarded of secrets held by executive teams. Corporate outsiders are rarely privy to this type of information except in cases where it is accidently shared or intentionally stolen. Understanding the future can be valuable. Imagine if an investment analyst knew in advance of BHP Billiton's interest in acquiring Rio Tinto. Knowing the future is an unrealistic expectation of analysts. However, understanding the issues currently facing a corporation and its executive team is not an unreasonable demand.

On a regular basis a CEO will have dozens of issues on his or her plate. The challenge for an analyst is not necessarily identifying all of the issues. The challenge is to identify the major issues and then estimate which of these issues are of the most pressing concern for the CEO. If this can be accomplished then predicting the future becomes a little easier. Sources of the issues include but are not limited to the company website, the regulator website and the industry association website. Deciding which of the issues matter most is an inexact science. One means choosing and ranking issues is to borrow from a school of thought termed Institutional Theory. One theorist from this school, Mark Suchman suggests three rules of thumb. Issues are important if they financially impact an organization, if they are viewed as legitimate and if they need to be addressed in an urgent manner. A ranking scheme based on these three points can help narrow the list of key issues to a few.

Assignment

This assignment seeks to help you understand the answer to a broader concern and that is, "What issues do CEO's face and how might they prioritize decision making?" You should base your responses to the following questions on your analysis of the company that you have chosen for this course.

Please answer the following questions:

• Use online sources to identify fifteen issues facing your company's CEO.
• Group the issues into three categories: issues of interest to all industry participants, issues of interest to regulators, and issues facing companies seeking to enter foreign markets.
• Rank the issues using three measures: the legitimacy of the issue to the company, the urgency with which the issues will need to be addressed by the company, and the impact of each issue on the company.
• Please create a table to summarize this information and be sure to associate each issue with a specific online information source url.
• In one half page, please summarize what you think is the connection between the key insights of the Rogers and Tierney, (2004) reading and this assignment.

Hint: Your online information sources for the first of these categories are the web sites of industry associations. The second group of sources refers to government regulator web sites. The third set refers to websites that address country specific socio-cultural, health oriented, technological, economic, environmental, and political legal issues. Online sources of information for this include Earth Trends (https://earthtrends.wri.org/), the Population Reference Bureau (www.prb.org), and the U.S. State Department Country Back Ground Notes (https://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/). For the purpose of this third set, pick a country that your company wishes to enter into and undertake the analysis from that point of view.

One obvious site to look for issues facing a company is the industry overviews found on the High Beam Business (https://business.highbeam.com/industry-reports)or Plunkett Research (https://www.plunkettresearch.com/) websites.
Other important places to identify common issues are industry association Web sites as well as the news releases found on a company's web site.

Please limit your response to this assignment to three and one half single spaced, typed pages. Cite your sources in the text and reference them at the end of your assignment. End your write-up with one paragraph that summarizes what you think is the importance of this assignment.

Module 2 - Managing People: Cross Cultural Management

Objectives

The aim of this assignment is to suggest the role played by management scholars in developing new ideas useful to individuals interested in cross cultural management. Specifically this assignment addresses the ideas and frameworks of Geert Hofstede.

Instructor Comments

Executives manage employees of different nationalities and cultures. They often do business in different countries or with representatives who live in different countries and cultures. Geert Hofstede is a researcher who developed a set of national culture dimensions. Hofstede's original ideas regarding differences in national culture resulted from a large scale research project that captured insight from surveys completed by over 100,000 employees of IBM working in their offices in 64 countries in the 1970's. He then followed up this research with more data collection from managers in 19 countries, students and airline pilots in 23 countries, and consumers and government managers in 14 countries.
From this enormous set of data, Hofstede and his research team identified five independent dimensions of national culture differences. These dimensions include:

• The distribution of roles between genders in a society;
• The tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity in a society;
• The extent to which a society has a long or short term orientation;
• The extent to which the less powerful members of society accept that power is distributed unequally; and,
• The degree to which individuals in a society are integrated into groups.

A worthwhile reading for this assignment is Hofstede's consequences: The impact of his work on consulting and business practices by John Bing. It is referenced in the Syllabus where the readings are noted for this course.

Assignment

This assignment seeks to help you understand the answer to a broader concern and that is, "How are some national cultures similar?" You should base your responses to the following questions on your analysis of the ideas of Geert Hofstede.

In order to complete this assignment, you will need to access the country profiles based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions using the following website: https://www.geert-hofstede.com.
Please complete the following exercises:

• Identify five countries that are similar in terms of Power Distance. Summarize in your own words why they are similar.
• Identify five countries that are similar in terms of Individualism. Summarize in your own words why they are similar.
• Identify five countries that are similar in terms of Masculinity/Femininity. Summarize in your own words why they are similar.
• Identify five countries that are similar in terms of Uncertainty Avoidance. Summarize in your own words why they are similar.
• Identify five countries that are similar in terms of Temporal Orientation. Summarize in your own words why they are similar.

• In one half page, please summarize what you think is the connection between the key insights of the Bing (2004) reading and thisassignment.

Hint: The country profiles described in terms of Hofstede's cultural dimensions (https://www.geert-hofstede.com) may be of great value when completing this assignment.

Please limit your response to this assignment to three and one half single spaced, typed pages. Cite your sources in the text and reference them at the end of your assignment. End your write-up with one paragraph that summarizes what you think is the importance of this assignment.

Module 3 - Assessing CEO Performance

Objectives

The aim of this assignment is make use of online information to assess the financial performance of corporate CEOs.

Instructor Comments

How much is a CEO worth? How is he or she performing relative to his or her peers in competing organizations? Be it in boom times or in recession, answers to these questions are of great interest to shareholders, stakeholders and observers alike. However, the answers are not always simple. Should compensation be tied to financial performance? If so, does financial performance mean profits, or revenues, or share price, or some other indicator? Or should performance be judged relative to competitors or the market in general? If it should not be tied to performance then what should be the level of compensation. Should it be a negotiated amount or an absolute figure or an industry average?

This assignment directs your thoughts to these queries. At its conclusion, you should have an improved understanding of just how difficult it is to get the formula right.

Assignment

This assignment seeks to help you understand the answer to a broader concern and that is, "How senior managers perform relative to the market and to their peers in competing organizations"? In order to do so, please identify sources of financial information about your company, its industry and its competitors. You should base your responses to the following questions on your analysis of the company that you have chosen for this course along with its direct competitors.

Please answer the following questions:

• Identify the three most direct competitors of this firm and its industry.
• For this firm and its competitors, identify the CEO and provide a three sentence bio for each. How long has each of these individuals been in the CEO position.
• Indicate how much each individual was paid in each of the last three years. Include salary, bonuses, and stock options.
• Document the share price performance of this firm and its three major competitors for the last three years. Also make note of any relevant industry measures. Comment on its performance relative to the industry and its competitors.
• Document the financial performance of this firm and its three major competitors for the last three years. Choose three relevant measures. Comment on its performance relative to the industry and its competitors.
• Have any events occurred in the macro or competitive environment that have had a major impact on all of the competitors in this industry? If so, what is it or are they?
• Given what you know about the CEO, his or her compensation, the macro and competitive environments, the share price and financial performance of the company and its competitors, is the CEO doing a good job when assessed according to these measures?
• In one half page, please summarize what you think is the connection between the key insights of the Simons, Mintzberg & Basu (2002) reading and this assignment.

Hint: Information regarding CEO compensation is often found in the SEC Def 14a or 10K filings of a company (https://www.sec.gov). An even easier method is to glance at the company's profile on Reuters (https://www.reuters.com). It explicitly ties executive performance and bios to company performance. Financial performance, share price performance, bios, and competitor information can also be found on the company profiles available through Biz.Yahoo! (https://biz.yahoo.com).

Please limit your response to this assignment to three and one half single spaced, typed pages. Please cite your sources in the text and please reference them at the end of your assignment. We are interested in your own thoughts. Please do not simply copy and paste information to answer the questions. Please end your write-up with one paragraph that summarizes what you think is the importance of this assignment.

Module 4 - Identifying Blind spots in Competitive Analysis

Objectives

The aim of this assignment is explore blind spots in a company's competitive environment.

Instructor Comments

This assignment is about building awareness among students and analysts about potential blind spots in the competitive environments of corporations. In the reading for this assignment, Zahra and Chaples (1993) identify six blind spots. These include misjudging industry boundaries, poor identification of competitors, overemphasis on competitors visible competence, overemphasis on where, not how, companies compete, faulty assumptions about the competition and paralysis by analysis. The aim of the assignment question is to focus attention on aspects of these blind spots. The assignment task regarding corporate culture refers to the blind spot regarding visible competence. The assignment task dealing with operational performance indicators deals with paralysis by analysis. The assignment task that explores examples of not meeting observer expectations addresses faulty assumptions. The link between the other three assignment tasks and the blind spots are self-evident.

Assignment

This assignment seeks to help you understand the answer to a broader concern and that is, "How might corporate analysts improve their understanding of their competitive environment?" You should base your responses to the following questions on your analysis of the company that you have chosen for this course.

Please answer the following questions:

• Define the industry and the boundaries of the industry within which your company competes.
• Identify the major competitors of your firm and use two different sources of information to do so? Identify any differences between the two information sources.
• Choose one of the competitors of your firm. Examine recent news stories about its performance. Offer examples of how it did not meet the expectations of observers and insight as to why this did not occur.
• Provide insight regarding the corporate culture of this firm.
• Define how, not where your company competes.
• Identify the key operational performance indicators for firms competing in this industry.
• In one half page, summarize what you think is the connection between the key insights of the Zahra & Chaples (1993) reading and this assignment.

Hint: Operational performance indicators may be found in the Industry Handbook found on the Investopedia website (www.investopedia.com). You will need to go into each industry profile to find them. Industry competitors can be identified using sources such as Biz.yahoo (https://biz.yahoo.com), Reuters (www.reuters.com), and the 10K Corporate Annual Report forms filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov). To address the assignment task dealing with industries, you will need to do some research and come up with a definition of an industry boundary. In regards to corporate cultures, consider keyword searches using Google and other search engines or news aggregators. Look for news stories or magazine articles that discuss its culture. Do also look for online job advertisements posted by the company and do examine the human resource section of the company's web site. They often provide insight into the company's definition of its culture. As for how the company competes, take a look at it's SEC 10K Annual Report www.sec.gov (do not print this off as it can often be hundreds of pages). It often discusses its business model or how it makes money.

Please limit your response to this assignment to three and one half single spaced, typed pages. Please cite your sources in the text and please reference them at the end of your assignment. Please complete write-up with one paragraph that summarizes what you think is the importance of this assignment.

Module 5 - Assessing the Future - Scenario Analysis

Objectives

The aim of this assignment is make use of online information to help predict future issues facing a company.

Instructor Comments

No corporation is an island unto itself. Even companies such as Wal-Mart, IBM, or Toyota face stiff competition. A challenge that companies such as these face is one of not becoming complacent or over confident in their business dealings. Their competitive environments are complex. These companies are continually challenged by issues related to technology, government regulation, society, politics, the economy, the natural environment and human health. To say that they cannot predict all future outcomes would be an understatement. Indeed one important effect of globalization and the Internet has been a dramatic increase in amount of information facing businesses as well as the overall intensity of competition.

Despite their inability to predict the future, managers do need to reduce the uncertainty that they face in order to plan and conduct business affairs in a profitable and efficient manner. One tool that is available to help managers reduce uncertainty is a scenario analysis. Developed within the Shell Oil company to address uncertainties related to the 1973 oil crisis, scenario analysis and scenario planning are now among the most widely used planning processes in the corporate sector and are commonly taught in Business schools around the world. Analysts practicing competitive intelligence can use Scenario Analysis to think through environmental challenges in the same manner as the executives in the companies that they are studying.

Assignment

This assignment seeks to help you understand the answer to a broader concern and that is, "How might managers perform a simple scenario analysis for their company? You should base your responses to the following questions on your analysis of the company that you have chosen for this course.

Please answer the following questions:

• Identify 6 to 8 trends facing the industry within which your company operates.
• Identify 4 to 6 uncertainties facing your company.
• For each of these uncertainties, offer a measurement scale (high, low; hot cold; light heavy).
• From these uncertainties, pick the two with the highest potential impact on your company. Please justify your choices.
• From these two uncertainties create three scenarios of the future 24 months from now.
• Scenarios should be labeled, best case, worst case and moderate case.
• Please suggest which scenario is most likely and why.
• In one half page, please summarize what you think is the connection between the key insights of the Shoemaker (1995) reading and this assignment.

Hint: Aside from company press releases, industry association and regulator web sites, trends and issues can often be found within the industry profiles found on theHigh Beam Business (https://business.highbeam.com/industry-reports)or Plunkett Research (https://www.plunkettresearch.com/) websites. You may also want to consider using a Google keyword search.
Please limit your response to this assignment to three and one half single spaced, typed pages. Cite your sources in the text and reference them at the end of your assignment. Please end your write-up with one paragraph that summarizes what you think is the importance of this assignment.