This week’s case is Sunrise Medical’s Wheelchair Products, which is in the HBSP case packet. The case permits the application of ideas of industry analysis and competitive positioning to the US wheelchair industry in the mid-1990s. This case examines a more traditional looking industry that is also involved with the health care sector to show how health care issues influence the industry analysis in the context of an industry related to health care. The discussion questions for the case are listed below.

1. Is the U.S. wheelchair industry an attractive or unattractive industry in 1993?  What are the structural conditions affecting attractiveness?  Have these been changing?
2. Does the Quickie division have a competitive advantage?
3. Should Chandler allow Guardian to introduce a lightweight standard wheelchair?  How will Invacare react?
4. How will industry structure be affected if Sunrise introduces the lightweight standard wheelchair?

Part 1: Consider the following scenarios and answer with explaination and graphs.

a.) Consider the long-run labor market for married female workers. In the 1950s, many employers had a policy of not hiring married women (and of even firing female employees when they married). How would the end of such policies affect the normal real wage and employment of married women working outside the home?

b.) The rate of growth of potential output per person appears to have slowed down noticeably (from roughly 2% per year in the 1990s and early 2000s to less than 1% per year in recent years). Use the aggregate production function to discuss the role that changes in the normal employment-to-population ratio could have played in this slowdown. What are other possible sources of this change?

Techniques to correct vision by cutting microscopic flaps in a cornea to alter its shape were developed by Jose Barraquer inBogotá, Colombia in the 1950s but this technique was not widely used until the 1990s. Why? Select one: a. Lasik surgical techniques were patented and there were legal difficulties preventing their use for forty years. b. The surgery required the use of diamond knives to make the necessary incisions and were far too precious to use until improvements in the manufacture of artificial diamonds made them inexpensive tools. c. The technique would need to wait for advances in the use of medical ultraviolet lasers to perform with light a surgery that was too challenging for routine work with a physical scalpel. d. Communication and sharing of medical techniques and knowledge was very rudimentary in the decades before the Internet afforded ease of information transfer and dissemination

Discuss what you think is the most important HPWS (high performance work system) element. Be sure to explain your rationale.

The theory of high performance work systems (HPWS) with four foundation principles are outlined below.

Older Management – Labor Theories and Practices                          HPWS Principles

Incentive/cost reduction productivity (1930s onward)      

Quality and Total Quality theories (1960s onward)                            Performance-Reward

Empowerment/Engagement Theories (1960s onward)

Motivation/Satisfaction Theories (1930s onward)                                     Egalitarianism

Efficient Operations Workflow theories (1970s onward)                       

Employee Teams/Autonomous Work (1970s onward)                           Shared Information

Information/Problem Solving Theories (1980s onward)

Socio-Psychological Theories of Work (1950s onward)                     Knowledge Development

Human Capital/Strategic Resource Theories (1990s onward)

Question 1:

(a) What do we mean when we say money is neutral?

(b) Bill Clinton believed in working with the Fed to use Monetary Policy to help the economy grow while he was President in the early 1990s. That is, he believed that money had real effects (on output and the interest rate). Show that Bill Clinton was right, and money is non-neutral in the short run. (Guide: Draw the IS-LM graph only).

(c) Ronald Reagan believed that Monetary Policy should not be used to impact the economy, because a change in Monetary Policy only leads to a change in the price level. Show that Ronald Reagan was right ,and money is neutral in the medium run. (Guide: Draw the AS-AD graph only)

(d) How can both of these men be right even though they disagree about the neutrality of money?

What is meant by coordinated school health program?

Write a diversity statement for nursing school enrollment

need a sample leadership development programme for a school.

Research one of the following global health issues and write a 1-2 page essay (250-500 words) regarding the current state and future recommendations for dealing with the issue:

Child Marriages: Child marriages are defined as the union between one or two individuals under the age of 18. One in five girls are married before the age of 18, and child marriages prevent children from becoming educated, can lead to severe health consequences and increased risk of violence. Legislation and programs were established in order to educate and employ children in these situations as child marriages do not have enough awareness on individual involvement or emphasis on the common causes for these marriages.