1. California Health Ltd. delivers organic beetroot juice to Fresh Modern Restaurant each day. Demand varies uniformly between 900ml and 1,000ml per day. Fresh Modern Restaurant pays $0.30/ml of the organic beetroot juice and sells the organic beetroot juice for $0.80/ml. Unsold organic beetroot juice has no salvage value and cannot be carried over. Find the optimal stocking level and its stockout risk for that quantity.   

HarLeY-DaViDSOn Founded in 1903 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Harley-Davidson has twice narrowly escaped bankruptcy but is today one of the most recognized motor vehicle brands in the world. In dire financial straits in the 1980s, Harley licensed its name to such ill-advised ventures as cigarettes and wine coolers. Although consumers loved the brand, sales were depressed by product-quality problems, so Harley began its return to greatness by improving manufacturing processes. It also developed a strong brand community in the form of an inclusive owners’ club, called the Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.), which sponsors bike rallies, charity rides, and other motorcycle events and now numbers more than 1 million members in some 1,400 chapters. H.O.G. benefits include a magazine called Hog Tales, a touring handbook, emergency road service, a specially designed insurance program, theft reward service, discount hotel rates, and a Fly & Ride program enabling members to rent Harleys on vacation. The company also maintains an extensive Web site devoted to H.O.G. with information about club chapters and events and a special members-only section. Harley is active with social media too and boasts more than 3.3 million Facebook fans. One fan inspired a digital video and Twitter campaign dubbed E Pluribus Unum—“Out of Many, One”—where Harley riders from all walks of life show their diversity and their pride in their bikes. Companies large and small can build brand communities. When New York’s Signature Theatre Company built a new 70,000-square-foot facility for its shows, it made sure there was a central hub where casts, crew, playwrights, and audiences for all productions could mingle and interact.65 Online, marketers can tap into social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs or create their own online community. Members can recommend products, share reviews, create lists of recommendations and favorites, or socialize together online. Online forums can be especially helpful in a business-to-business setting for professional development and feedback opportunities. The Kodak Grow Your Biz blog is a place for members to learn and share insights about how Kodak products, services, and technologies can improve important company or industry business performance.66 The Pitney Bowes User Forum is a place for members to discuss issues related to Pitney Bowes equipment and to mailing and marketing in general. Members often answer each other’s business questions, though Pitney Bowes customer service representatives are available for any particularly difficult support questions.67 maximizing the benefits of branD Communities A strong brand community results in a more loyal, committed customer base. One study showed that a multichannel retailer of books, CDs, and DVDs enjoyed long-term incremental revenue of 19 percent from customers—what the authors called “social dollars”— after customers joined an online brand community. The more “connected” a member of the community was, the greater the likelihood he or she would spend more.68 A brand community can be a constant source of inspiration and feedback for product improvements or innovations. The activities and advocacy of members of a brand community can also substitute to some degree for activities the firm would otherwise have to engage in, creating greater marketing effectiveness and efficiency as a result.69To better understand how brand communities work, one comprehensive study examined communities around brands as diverse as StriVectin cosmeceutical, BMW Mini auto, Jones soda, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers rock and roll band, and Garmin GPS devices. Using multiple research methods such as “netnographic” research with online forums, participant and naturalistic observation of community activities, and in-depth interviews with community members, the researchers found 12 value creation practices taking place. They divided them into four categories—social networking, community engagement, impression management, and brand use—summarized in Table 5.5. Building a positive, productive brand community requires careful thought and implementation.70 One set of researchers offers these recommendations for making online brand communities more effective:71

1. Enhance the timeliness of information exchanged. Set appointed times for topic discussion; give rewards for timely, helpful responses; increase access points to the community

. 2. Enhance the relevance of information posted. Keep the focus on topic; divide the forum into categories; encourage users to preselect interests.

3. Extend the conversation. Make it easier for users to express themselves; don’t set limits on length of responses; allow user evaluation of the relevance of posts.

4. Increase the frequency of information exchanged. Launch contests; use familiar social networking tools; create special opportunities for visitors; acknowledge helpful members.

Transparency in leaders is popular in business today. Some argue that a business needs to have transparent leaders because, given the state of social media, nothing can remain secret anyway.

1. What are the upsides of transparency?
2. What are potential downsides of transparency?
3. Are there limits to how transparent a leader should be?

Looking ahead, do you believe that job flexibility options—from flextime, to telecommuting, to job sharing—will continue to grow at American businesses? Explain your answer.

why does the cost per tests in a lab go down when the number of tests go up?

Do you think organizational culture has an impact on management? If so, why is working culture important.

After tallying the receipts for their first year of operation, the owners of the Taco Barn are encouraged. Sales of their artisnal tacos, made from such exotic ingredients as ground beef, cheese, and beans, have been strong and seem to give hope to the coming year. Taco sales by month are shown in the table.



Armed only with his fingers, the owner decides that the safest forecasting approach is a linear trend line. Generate a forecast for the year using this technique and then calculate forecast errors using MSE. What is the mean squared error for this forecasting approach?

1217

1033

1148

1282

The process of offshoring (outsourcing an organizational function overseas) is being applied to clinical drug trials with the same speed and enthusiasm as the transplanting by major U.S. corporations of their customer service call centers to countries such as Ireland, India, and increasingly farther east locations. In a report released in June 2010 by Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, 80 percent of the drugs approved for sale in 2008 had trials in foreign countries, and 78 percent of all subjects who participated in clinical trials were enrolled at foreign sites. Ten medicines approved in 2008 received no domestic testing.

For U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies, the rush is driven by both attractive options and practical realities:

• Pursuing the same cost advantages as other U.S. corporations, drug companies are now discovering that trials in such regions as Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa can produce the same quality of data at a lower cost and often in a shorter time frame.

• After safety concerns over drugs like the anti-inflammatory Vioxx, which was withdrawn from sale in 2004, regulators such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are now requiring even more data as a prerequisite for the approval of a new drug. That equates to more trials enrolling more people for longer periods of time—sometimes many thousands of patients over 12 months or longer.

• Patients in North America are increasingly unwilling to participate in phase 1 experimental trials, preferring instead to participate in phase 2 or 3 trials where the effectiveness of the drug has already been established and the trials are focused on identifying appropriate dosage levels or potential side effects.

• In contrast, these new overseas trial sites offer “large pools of patients who are ‘treatment naive’ because the relatively low standard of health care compared with Western countries means they have not had access to the latest and most expensive medicines.”

• In North American trials, each doctor may only be able to offer a handful of patients who are willing and able to participate, whereas in populous nations such as India and China, a single doctor may see dozens of patients a day who would be willing trial participants, allowing faster recruitment from a smaller number of sites.

However, pharmaceutical companies don’t have everything their own way. Developing countries or not, restrictions are in place either to directly prevent trials or, at the very least, to ensure the professional and ethical management of those trials:

• Many developing countries have laws against “first in person” trials to prevent the treatment of their citizens as guinea pigs in highly experimental drug trials.

• Russia and China have both limited the export of blood and patient tissue samples in recent years, partly out of concern over illegal trafficking in human organs.

• The FDA recently set up an office in China to increase inspections of the rapidly growing number of clinical trials.

• The World Medical Association’s 2004 Helsinki declaration called for stringent ethical practices in drug trials, but these remain voluntary practices.

In addition, the rush to take advantage of these cost savings and practical benefits has produced some problems ranging from questionable data to patient deaths:

• In 2003, several patients with AIDS died after an experimental drug trial in Ditan Hospital in Beijing. Viral Genetics, a California biotechnology company, was criticized for failing to explain adequately to participants that they were taking part in a drug trial rather than receiving a proven medicine.

• Further criticism was levied at Viral Genetics for an issue that has become a greater concern for clinical drug trials in general—specifically the use of a sugar pill or placebo as a comparative measure of the efficacy of the drug. In the Ditan trial, questions were raised as to why an antiretroviral treatment—the most effective treatment for AIDS in the West—wasn’t used as a comparative treatment.

• Page 205 The lack of education and lower standards of care in these developing countries also raise questions about patient eligibility for participation in these trials. While they may qualify by diagnosis, do they really understand the concept of informed consent, and, more importantly still, do they realize that once the trial has ended, it may be months or years before they have access to the drug for a prolonged treatment regimen for their condition?

In the end, it is likely that basic economics will win out. Increasingly stringent standards in North America, driven, some would argue, by the litigious nature of our society, will only serve to increase the attractiveness of overseas trials. Without a suitable regulatory framework to oversee these trials and ensure that patients are treated in an ethical manner, the feared picture of uneducated citizens from developing countries being used as guinea pigs in experimental trials that citizens from developed nations are unwilling to participate in will become a reality.

QUESTIONS

1. Identify three factors that are driving pharmaceutical companies to host clinical drug trials overseas.

2. What regulations are in place to oversee the professional and ethical management of these trials?

3. If patients lack the language skills or education to understand the significance of informed consent or the use of a placebo, is it ethical to allow them to participate in the drug trial? Why or why not?

4. What proposals would you offer to make the offshoring of clinical drug trials a more ethical process for all the stakeholders involved?

Survey how laws, HRM Systems and Culture impact managerial practices for international businesses

1. Discuss the differences between the use of ACLs versus the use of firewalls for network security. In what situations would the use of ACLs be an advantage over using a hardware firewall?

2. Discuss the differences between an IDS and an IPS. Discuss examples of organizations who might want to implement an IPS over an IDS.

Please assist with these questions:

- Which health problem is very high among African Americans that is one of the main causes of heart disease among this population?

- What is berbere?

- The preferred texture in West African foods/cuisine is what?

- Which 2 types of cuisine exist in France?

onsider the “Dahl v. Angle: Who Owns Frozen Embryos?" court case and the commerce of reproductive technology to discuss and defend your positionC

Identify any three major ethical issues in the case and justify.

For Chernobyl accident

1. Victoria Wilson, a resident of Illinois, wishes to bring an invasion of privacy lawsuit against XYZ Co. because XYZ used a photograph of her, without her consent, in an advertisement for one of the company’s products. Wilson will seek money damages of $150,000 from XYZ, whose principal offices are located in New Jersey. A New Jersey newspaper was the only print media outlet in which the advertisement was published. However, XYZ also placed the advertisement on the firm’s website. This website may be viewed by anyone with Internet access, regardless of the viewer’s geographic location. Where, in a geographic sense, may Wilson properly file and pursue her lawsuit against XYZ? Must Wilson pursue her case in a state court, or does she have the option of litigating in federal court? Assuming that Wilson files her case in state court, what strategic option may XYZ exercise if it acts promptly?