Discuss the importance of selecting the appropriate business organization form at the inception of a business. Why is the form of business organization of vital importance to a business successfully moving forward?

Each year businesses, individuals, and governments face the impact of droughts, fires, hurricanes, tornados, and floods; all disrupting lives and the economy. This is a good time to talk about the environment. In the US, issues of the environment and global warming arguably take a backseat to the economy and current political rhetoric and civil strife.  For several years former presidential candidate Al Gore tried to raise awareness about global warming and the roles of business, government, and industry and is currently in the news with his An Inconvenient Truth, Sequel. Even though 2016 and 2017 were reported to be the warmest years on record, whether he or others will have an impact in the US or abroad is yet to be fully seen. Environmental stewardship is not without consequences (good or bad) and failure has legal, ethical, societal, financial considerations.

As other issues fade, the environment may resurface as a prime-time news issue. How it will rank with the current presidential agenda, the economy (jobs, military funding, and federal budget), the continuing healthcare issues, conflicts in the Mideast, and other pressing topics facing the US federal government will be interesting. Certainly the private business sector faces pressure from both internal and external stakeholders when the banners of environmental protection and social responsibility are hoisted. The question of corporate moral responsibility for the environment can easily fade from the media spotlight until a public figure promotes the message or an environmental crisis erupts and CNN or 60 Minutes or some other news agency appears at the corporate headquarters demanding answers with cameras running.

Beyond the legislated and governmental mandates (EPA, UN Environment Programme, or the Stockholm Declaration, among others), how far should corporate responsibility for the environment extend? For example, do trees, lakes, oceans, and animals have rights? Why, or why not? Could there be such a thing as a “one-level-removed-stakeholder” that would include "non-human" stakeholders? What is the likely outcome if environmental issues continue to succumb to political rhetoric and business profit/loss statements? So what if the dozen or so residents of a South Pacific atoll are displaced due to rising sea levels or a butterfly in the Amazon rainforest goes extent due to deforestation?

Discussion Questions:

Outcomes/Consequences:

What is the impact or consequences of considering environmental implications in business decisions?

Who/what are the stakeholders and what are the interests of each?

What are the consequences for each stakeholder?

What are the possible outcomes when addressing environmental issues in business decisions?

Maria: Oh, this is so exciting – at my performance review today I’m going to ask for more responsibility. I’m a little nervous, but I’m sure Tom just loves my work! I would love to learn about the inventory process and grow with the company. I never was trained on the cash register, but I’m starting to figure it out. I’m loving the flexibility of the environment here, there’s no official start time for my shift. It feels like ‘sink or swim’ learning on the job, but I don’t mind! I’m focused on customer service like it said in my job description and am getting to know our regular shoppers.

Tom: I’m just not sure things are working out as I had hoped with Maria. She can’t seem to get to work on time—she was late three days last week and two days the week before. And what about the mistakes she makes ringing up a sale? It’s not just the prices that are wrong but the quantities and the item codes, too—now our inventory is messed up and accounting is on my back. And besides all that, she spends more time chatting with customers than she does folding and keeping the store organized. I just don’t think she’s taking this seriously.

Whats gone wrong here? What should Tom do now?

Make a positioning statement for a company doing business in each of the following segments. Identify the specific positioning strategy that you are using (use a different strategy for each category).

Airline

Recreation Center/Gym

Coffee

Vacation Destinations

Chocolate

what is an example of a situation in which a pilot study was not used and could have perhaps improved the outcome of an effort to innovate?

Jeremy Moon, the founder of Icebreaker, is committed to having his company embrace "ethical business practices". Identify some of those ethical business practices. Are you surprised that they produce their products in China?

Use EXCEL to format this and solve using solve and explain. Biggest problem is once have variables (which i have half done) is setting up in Excel.

A farmer in the Midwst haas 1,000 acres of land on which she intends to plant corn, wheat, and soybeans. Each acre of corn costs $100 for preparation, requires 7 worker-days of labor, and yields a profit of $30. An acre of wheat costs $120 to prepare, requires 10 worker-days, and yields $40 profit. An acre of soybeans costs $70 to prepare, requires 8 worker-days, and yields $20 profit. The farmer has taken out a loan of $80,000 for crop preparations and ahs contracted with a union for 6,000 worker-days o labor. A midwesters granary has agreed to purchase 200 acres of corn, 500 acres of wheat, and 300 acres of soybeans. The farmer has established the following goals, in order of their importance:

(1) Maintain good relations with the union, the labor contract must be honored; that is, the full 6,000 worker-days of labor contracted for must be used.

(2) Preparation costs should not exceed teh loan amount so that additional loans will not have to be secured.

(3) The farmer desires a profit of a least $105,000 to remain in good financial condition.

(4) Contracting for excess labor should be avoided.

(5) The farmer would like to use as much of the available acreage as possible.

(6) The farmer would like to meet the sales agreement with the granary. However, the goal should be weighted according to the profit returned by each crop.

Solve:

a) Formulate a goal programming model to determine the number of acres of each crop the famer shoud plat to satisfy the goals in the best possible way.

b) Solve this model using the computer (Excel and Solver)

What are the three types of Internal Collaboration? Are they effective? Quote examples.

Discuss the different types of Management Reserves and how EMV could aide in determing "how much" should go into a reserve, by reviewing PMBOK Guide, assigned readings. Decision trees can aide all in reviewing probable risks relating to project costs and monetary expenditures. See

1. Recognizing the difference between cooperation and collaboration, explain where the team actually collaborated to produce the course project.

2. How did your experience with this Social Contract during virtual teamwork in this course impact what you’ll do the next time you work in a team?

3. How did your experience with icebreaker exercise during virtual teamwork in this course impact what you’ll do the next time you work in a team?

Give an example of how technology could enhance a business process (for Amazon Company)?

Discuss YOUR understanding of equal employment opportunity.

Think about a healthcare organization/clinic. Create a discipline and termination procedure and then analyze what is missing and how you would modify the procedure to make it more effective.

Describe a situation that requires an adaptive solution. How would a leader in that situation approach problem solving using Adaptive Leadership principles?

1.Use your own words to write a speech story with title based on the following talk.
2.Prepare questions for the speaker in a Q&A session.

Eric Thompson, Athletic Director of University of Cadwell in UK for the past 30 years, has previously announced his retirement, effective at the end of next month. He gave a farewell speech at 2:30pm today at the annual meeting of members of Athletics Club at the Grand Hall.

Script of the speech
As I look around this room, I see many familiar faces: good people, generous people who’ve been friends and supporters for as long as I’ve been here. Now, all of you know I’m retiring at the end of next month. I’m 65, and it’s time. What you don’t know is that I’ve decided to devote the time I have left to increasing public awareness of a serious problem for our athletes and athletic programs. What I’m going to say isn’t going to be popular, but it’s something I feel I have to say, something eating my heart out. The fact is, it’s no longer fun to play college football. It has become a fatiguing grind. It’s a full-time job, a year-around job, and that’s true of every college football program across the country.

The insanity has to stop. Coaches demand more, colleges demand more. Alumni demand more, so college football has turned into a 12-month-a-year-job that never ends. We’ve got fall games and winter workouts. There’s spring practice, and there’re summer conditioning drills. So our players work and work and work during the season.

You’ve got wonderful young players literally working themselves to death, dying so you can have a winning season. Eleven college football players died in the past 12 months, and it’s a tragedy we have to stop.

Heatstroke is a part of the problem, especially during those damned summer drills. Heatstroke can cause your body temperature to soar to 42 degrees Celsius, cause a heart attack, and induce a coma. We tell our players on a hot day he should drink around 600 milliliters of fluid and then continue to drink every 15 minutes whether he’s thirsty or not. If you’re a coach, whether in high school or college, and your kids aren’t getting water every 15 or 20 minutes, you shouldn’t be coaching.

Actually, heat stroke is one of the easier problems we deal with. Some of our players have pre- existing conditions we don’t know about. We had a freshman die after a series of early-morning drills. He was just 19, 6 feet 2, and 180 pounds, with no history of heart problems. That non- detection is no surprise. Many cardiologists say arrhythmia can be difficult to find. Some people are born with these defects but often show no outward signs of the problem. About 100 to 150 young athletes die each year from the condition.