The currency turmoil in Asia in 1997 was unexpected, but Avon Products was prepared to deal with it. An examination of what Avon did before the crisis and how it responded afterward illustrates many of the principles of managing operating exposures. It also provides insights into the role of financial officers as key members of strategic management teams.

Avon has a long history of international operations. As a general rule, Avon tries to hedge its currencies risk by buying almost all its raw materials and making nearly all its products in the markets in which they are sold. For example, Avon Asia-Pacific has factories that make cosmetics in its largest markets – China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan – and contracts out production in six other Asian countries. It further hedged its currency risk by financing its local operations with local currency loans. Altogether, the 10 Asian countries in which Avon operated accounted for USD751 million of its USD4.8 billion in revenue in 1996.

When the crisis began in Thailand in July 1997, Avon’s executives did not anticipate that Thailand’s problems would spread but as a precaution decided to further reduce currency risk by having the Asian units remit earnings weekly instead of monthly. By late August 1997, however, the currency markets got nervous after the remarks of former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad, who complained that Asia’s economic crisis was provoked by an international cabal of Jewish financiers intent on derailing the region’s growth. The head of Avon’s Asia-Pacific region, Jose Ferriera, Jr., also considered possibility that other Asian countries would have to allow their currencies to depreciate to maintain their export competitiveness. In response, Avon decided to sell about USD50 million worth of five Asian currencies forward against the dollar for periods of up to 15 months.

Having done what it could financially, Avon turned to its operating strategy. Anticipating tough times ahead, Avon Asia-Pacific decided to redirect its marketing budget to hire more salespeople in Asia to bring in more customers rather than offering incentives to the existing sales force to get its current, cash-strapped customers to spend more money. Ferriera also urged his country managers to step up their purchase of local materials whenever possible and not allow local vendors to pass on all their cost increases. At the same time, Avon began planning to compete more aggressively against disadvantaged competitors who have to import their products and raw materials. Finally, Avon began to analyze the incremental profits it could realize by using its Asian factories to supply more of the non-cosmetic products sold in the United States. Avon Asia-Pacific was helped by a team of Latin America executives who traveled to Asia to share their experiences of how they had managed to cope in similar circumstances of currency turmoil in their countries. For example, during the Mexican crisis of 1994 and 1995, prices were raised slowly on price-sensitive brands aimed at low- and middle-income customers. Avon Mexico raise prices on premium brands much faster, since those brands were less price sensitive and competed with imports whose prices had doubled with the peso devaluation.

In all of these deliberations and decisions, Avon Treasurer Dennis Ling was a full and active participant. For example, he helped the head of Avon’s jewelry business renegotiate the terms of its contract with a Korean company that supplies jewelry for sale in the United States. The result was a substantial price discount based on the won’s steep decline against the dollar. According to Ling, “Part of my job is to help our managers of operations understand and take advantage of the impact of currencies on their business.”

Required:

Why Avon Asia-Pacific decided to redirect its marketing budget to hire more salespeople in Asia rather than offering incentives to the existing sales force, and urged his country managers to purchase local materials instead of pass to local vendors?

Problem Write a movie management system using object-oriented design principles. The program will read from the supplied data file into a single array list. The data file (movies.txt) contains information about the movies. Each movie record has the following attributes: - Duration (in minutes) - Title - Year of release Each record in the movies.txt file is formatted as follows: - Duration,Title,Year - e.g.: 91,Gravity,2013 Specifically, you have to create an interactive menu driven application that gives the user the following options: 1. Add a new movie and save. o The user will be prompted to enter the duration in minutes, title of the new movie, and the year the movie was released. Before the movie is added, the inputs provided by the user should be validated:  The duration and year of the movie should not be zero and the title of the movie should not be empty. o When you add a new movie, the program should update the data file by saving the new movie at the end of the movie list. 2. Generate list of movies released in a year. o The user will input a year and the program will display a list of all the movies released in that year along with the duration (in minutes) of all the movies. o The list of movies does not have to be sorted. 3. Generate list of random movies. o The user will input the number of movies and the program will display a list containing the amount of random movies along with the duration (in minutes) of all the movies. o There is no minimum or maximum duration for the movies in the list. o You can use Collections.shuffle in the java.utils package to randomize the movie list. 4. Exit the program. - Save the list of movies back into the data file “movies.txt” using the above format (Duration,Title,Year). Notes: To follow the object-oriented principles, your project should contain ONLY the following classes and methods in their respective package. Package Class Methods sait.mms.application AppDriver main sait.mms.managers MovieManagementSystem displayMenu, addMovie,generateMovieInYear, generateRandomMovie, loadMovie sait.mms.problemdomain Movie Accessor methods, toString You cannot use parallel and/or nested arrays in this assignment (you can use ArrayList). Sample runs: An example of an added and saved a new movie (where input is shown in bold underline): Movie Management system 1 Add New Movie and Save 2 Generate List of Movies Released in a Year 3 Generate List of Random Movies 4 Exit Enter an option: 1 Enter duration: 100 Enter movie title: We are Gold Enter year: 2019 Saving movies... Added movie to the data file. An example of a generated list of movies released in a year (where input is shown in bold underline): Movie Management system 1 Add New Movie and Save 2 Generate List of Movies Released in a Year 3 Generate List of Random Movies 4 Exit Enter an option: 2 Enter in year: 1996 Movie List Duration Year Title 103 1996 DragonHeart 93 1996 Trainspotting 145 1996 Independence Day Total duration: 341 minutes An example of invalid option (where input is shown in bold underline): Movie Management system 1 Add New Movie and Save 2 Generate List of Movies Released in a Year 3 Generate List of Random Movies 4 Exit Enter an option: 5 Invalid option! An example of a generated list of random movies (where input is shown in bold underline): Movie Management system 1 Add New Movie and Save 2 Generate List of Movies Released in a Year 3 Generate List of Random Movies 4 Exit Enter an option: 3 Enter number of movies: 5 Movie List Duration Year Title 129 2016 Now You See Me 2 139 1999 Fight Club 136 2014 Captain America: The Winter Soldier 81 1995 Toy Story 103 2017 Life Total duration: 588 minutes

HAIER’s foray into International Markets :

In the late 1990s, the Haier group (Haier) was the leader in the Chinese consumer appliances market (with a 39.7%, 50% and 37.1% market share in refrigerators, air-conditioners and washing machines respectively in December 1998). But deflation in the Chinese economy slowed sales.

ut deflation in the Chinese economy slowed sales growth from 50% in 1998 to around 30% in 1999. Haier decided to look for new markets. Since the US had a large demand for consumer appliances, Haier entered the US market in 1999. Analysts were doubtful about Haier's acceptability to American consumers, as there was a general perception in the US that Chinese goods were of low quality. Haier, however, was confident that with its product differentiation strategy it would be able to create a positive image for its products among the American public. In the early 2000s, the consumer appliances market in the US started hotting up as Haier entered the market. By 2009, Haier products were sold in 9 of the 10 top retail chains in the US.

With Wal-Mart agreeing to stock Haier products, many analysts believed that Haier would be able to shake up the US consumer appliances market. In 2009, Haier had a 6% market share in the US refrigerator market; it stated that it was aiming for a 15% market share by 2015.

The history of Haier dates back to 1984 when Ruimin Zhang (Zhang), a bureaucrat with the local government was asked to take charge of Qingdao General Refrigerator Factory, a state-owned enterprise that is manufacturing refrigerators for sale in China. When Zhang took over the management, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, with no funds to pay the salaries of its employees or to invest in new product development. When Zhang took charge of the company, he realized that the company did not look after the quality of its products; nor did it bother about customer satisfaction. In 1985, Zhang started importing technology from a German firm and began manufacturing technically sophisticated refrigerators.

Zhang emphasized the elements of customer satisfaction and quality control in the company. In 1985, when a customer complained about the poor performance of his refrigerator, Zhang conducted a quality check and found that out of 400 refrigerators inspected, 76 were defective.

He had all the defective refrigerators destroyed with a sledge-hammer. According to Zhang, this made the workers realize that quality is of only two types - acceptable and unacceptable. In 1989, the company changed its name to Qindao Refrigerator Co. Ltd., and it was restructured with funds raised from banks and government agencies. In 1991, the company once again changed its name to Qindao Haier Group Co. and in the same year it merged with Qingdao Air-conditioner Plant and Qingdao Freezer General Plant. In 1992, the company set up Qingdao Freezing Equipment Co. In the same year, it merged with another previously state-owned enterprise Qingdao Condenser Factory, which manufactured refrigerator condensers.

In the same year it became the first company in China to get ISO 9001 certification, and the company's name was changed to the Haier Group. In 1993, Haier went in for an IPO of RMB 50 million and got listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE).

During the mid-1990s, Haier began to grow through mergers and acquisitions. In 1995, it merged with Red Star Electric Appliance Company (and five of its subsidiaries). This company manufactured washing machines. It also acquired Wuhan Elec-appliance Co., which manufactured freezers and air conditioners. Between 1995 and 1997, Haier acquired seven companies and started exporting its goods to foreign markets.

By 1997, Haier was the number one consumer appliances brand in China and the market leader in all its product segments, which included refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens and freezers and its revenues were reported at $1.15 billion (10 billion Yuan)...

Haier's Competitors in the US Market

USA was the world's largest and most competitive market for consumer appliances. The consumer appliances market can be segmented on the basis of products into kitchen appliances and home comfort products. Included in kitchen appliances are products such as dishwashers, disposers, compactors, food preservation appliances, refrigerators, freezers etc.

In the home comfort segment are included products such as room air-conditioners and dehumidifiers. The home appliances market in the US was dominated by American companies, namely GE Appliances (a subsidiary of General Electricals), Whirlpool and Maytag. The only strong foreign player in this market was Sweden's Electrolux. GE Appliances, Whirlpool, Maytag and Electrolux together accounted for around 98% of the 9 million standard refrigerators sales in the US every year. In the 1990s, many Asian players such as LG Electronics and Samsung entered the US market in a big way. The big four companies in the US market concentrated on the high- end market comprising full-size refrigerators and washing machines, since the margins in this segment were high...

Strategies in the US Market

Haier decided to compete with the US brands on the quality plank rather than on price. However, analysts felt that it would be very difficult for the company to win over American consumers who associated Chinese goods with low quality. To strengthen its presence in the US market, Haier adopted a localization strategy.

It opened a design center in the Los Angeles and employed US designers for designing its products for the US market. Haier also opened a marketing center in New York. The company focused on enhancing consumer awareness about the company and its products. Commenting on Haier's strategy, Zhang said, "We want consumers to feel that Haier is the one company that comes closest to satisfying their needs." For instance, none of the consumer appliances companies in the US offered a compact refrigerator to satisfy demand from college students who could not afford normal size refrigerators...

Going High-End

Most analysts felt that Haier would feel the real competition only when it entered the high-end market. In the compact refrigerator segment, Haier did not face much competition from established players in the US, who did not focus on the low margin segment.

However, the major US players were keeping track of Haier's activities. Commenting on the competition from Haier, GE Appliances Chief Executive, Jim Campbell said, "I take it very seriously. They may be producing only 200,000 refrigerators per year now, but that's going to get bigger."

On the negative side, some analysts felt that Haier lacked the brand image to make a dent in the high-end segment. They pointed out that in general US consumers were brand-conscious, and this was especially true in the case of high-end products. The lack of a positive brand image in this consumer segment would probably make it difficult for Haier to succeed in the high-end markets. Analysts felt that Haier had an additional weakness in its distribution and service centers...

Future Prospects

Despite a few reservations, analysts too were, by and large, upbeat about the company because of its strong performance in breaking into the American market in a short time.

Said Nicholas Heymann of Prudential Securities, "Over five years, it could become a force." With quality products and lower prices, it was felt that Haier would be able to garner a sizeable market share in the US. Haier's experience in the geographically vast and diversified Chinese market would serve it well in catering to the US market.

However, a major worry for Haier is how to fund its expansion plans. Increasing competition in the domestic markets is bringing Haier's finances under pressure.

Questions 1:

What in your opinion is the significance of an organization entering into International Markets for business? Is it advantageous or disadvantageous?

Questions 2:

Is it possible for an organization like Haier to sustain its competition in brand conscious and quality conscious markets such as US and other countries?

Questions 3:

What are the countries that you would suggest Haier should concentrate upon? Why?

Questions 4:

What should be the marketing strategies that Haier should employ in Emerging Markets, Maturing Markets and Declining Markets ? Explain the reasons behind it.

Oxidation-Reduction Titration

***Sulfuric acid used was 6 M

***All Lab notes are at the bottom, procedure included for clarity... PLEASE HELP WITH THE SHORT ANSWER:)

PROCEDURES:

Experiment 1: Prepare the Materials

Take four 100.00 mL volumetric flasks from the Containers shelf and place them on the workbench.

In one flask, prepare a standard solution of potassium dichromate (K₂Cr₂O₇):

Take potassium dichromate from the Materials shelf and add 4.00 g to the volumetric flask.

Take water from the Materials shelf and add 30.00 mL into the volumetric flask to dissolve the dichromate compound.

Complete the solution by filling the volumetric flask to the 100.00 mL mark with water from the Materials shelf by checking the "Fill To Mark" box.

Double-click on the volumetric flask to open a properties window. Then, rename the volumetric flask as "Standard Potassium Dichromate Solution".

In two of the empty flasks, prepare a standard solution of iron (II) ammonium sulfate hexahydrate (Fe(NH₄)₂(SO₄)₂ × 6H₂O):

Take iron(II) ammonium sulfate hexahydrate from the Materials shelf and add 4.00 g to each empty volumetric flask.

Take water from the Materials shelf and add 30.00 mL to each volumetric flask to dissolve the compound and release the water of hydration.

Complete both solutions by filling the volumetric flask to the 100.00 mL mark with water from the Materials shelf by checking the "Fill To Mark" box.

Rename the volumetric flasks as "Standard Iron(II) Solution". Both flasks will have the same name.

Take the Grey Moose vodka from the Materials shelf and add 2.00 mL to the last empty flask. Fill with water from the Materials shelf by checking the "Fill To Mark" box. The vodka has now been diluted to 1/50th, or 2%, of its original ethanol concentration.

Rename the volumetric flask containing the vodka as "2% Vodka Solution".

Experiment 2: Titrate the Vodka Sample

Part 1: Oxidize the Ethanol in Vodka

Take a 150.00 mL Erlenmeyer flask from the Containers shelf and place it on the workbench.

Add 5.00 mL of 2% vodka solution from the volumetric flask to the Erlenmeyer flask.

Take water from the Materials shelf and add 35.00 mL to the Erlenmeyer flask. Note that this further dilutes the vodka sample by a factor of eight. The ethanol concentration is now 1/8th of 2%, or 0.25% of the original ethanol concentration of the bottled vodka.

Acidify the vodka solution in the Erlenmeyer flask. Take the sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) solution from the Materials shelf and add 5.00 mL to the Erlenmeyer flask.

Add 5.00 mL of the standard potassium dichromate solution from the volumetric flask to the Erlenmeyer flask. This is enough to reduce all of the ethanol in the vodka and leave an excess of dichromate ions. Note that the solution has turned bright green. This is the color of the reduced Cr³⁺ ions. Record these observations in your Lab Notes. Remember to press Save Notes each time you add more notes.

Part 2: Coarse Titration

Take a burette from the Containers shelf and place it on the workbench. Fill the burette with 50 mL of the standard iron(II) solution. Record the initial burette reading for the amount of volume dispensed in your Lab Notes. Before dispensing any liquid, the amount dispensed should read 0 mL.

Take the redox indicator, sodium diphenylamine sulfonate, from the Materials shelf and add 0.50 g to the Erlenmeyer flask. In the presence of the excess dichromate ions, the solution turns a deep purple.

Place the Erlenmeyer flask on the lower half of the burette to connect to flask and burette.

Perform a coarse titration by adding large increments of the standard iron(II) solution from the burette. To do this, press and hold the black knob at the bottom of the burette until the solution turns suddenly from intense, dark purple to green. Each time you add the standard iron(II) solution, check the volume dispensed from the burette by hovering over the burette and reading the gray tool tip. You will need to know this value.

As the iron(II) is added, the dichromate ions (Cr₂O₇^2–) are reduced to Cr³⁺ ions. At the end point of the titration, there are no dichromate ions left. The redox indicator becomes colorless, and the dark purple color suddenly disappears, leaving the solution bright green again. Recall that bright green is the color of the Cr³⁺ ions.

Record both the last burette volume that the solution was dark purple and the burette volume at which the solution first appeared green again in your Lab Notes. This gives the range in which the titration will end. Remember to press Save Notes.

Discard just the Erlenmeyer flask in the recycling bin underneath the workbench.

Part 3: Fine Titration

Set up the titration as before:

Add 5.00 mL of diluted vodka, 35.00 mL water, 5.00 mL of sulfuric acid, 5.00 mL of the standard potassium dichromate solution, and 0.50 g sodium diphenylamine sulfonate to an Erlenmeyer flask.

Connect the Erlenmeyer flask to the lower half of the burette.

Note the current volume of standard iron(II) solution in the burette. Add to it from the volumetric flask on the workbench so that the volume is 50.00 mL again. Record the initial burette reading for the amount dispensed in your Lab Notes.

Click and hold the black knob of the burette to quickly add enough standard iron(II) solution to just get into the range of the coarse titration (the first number you recorded), but still have the solution in the flask appear dark purple. This is near, but not yet at, the titration's end point.

Add standard iron(II) solution in small increments, down to one drop at a time, until the addition of just one more drop causes the solution in the flask to turn green. Record the final burette reading for the amount of volume dispensed in your Lab Notes.

Place the Erlenmeyer flask in the recycling bin beneath the workbench.

Repeat the fine titration once more, and record the results in your Lab Notes. If the results from the two fine titrations do not closely agree, perform a third fine titration to determine which of the first two was done incorrectly.   

SHORT ANSWER

Oxidation-Reduction Titration

Experiment 1: Prepare the Materials

Data Analysis

Calculate the concentration of the dichromate ion in the first volumetric flask.

Calculate the concentration of the iron (II) ion in the second volumetric flask.

Experiment 2: Titrate the Vodka Sample

Lab Results

Record the following lab data in the table below. If you had to repeat one of the titrations, disregard the value that was different.

Data Analysis

Record and calculate the quantities in the table below using the data from your dichromate titrations. Use an average value for the volume of iron (II) solution used in the titration. If one of your values is very different, and you had to perform the titration three times, disregard the value that was very different when computing the average.

  The amount of alcohol in a drink is typically reported as percent alcohol by volume. Volume percent or volume/volume percent (% v/v) most often is used when preparing solutions of liquids. Volume percent is defined as:
% v/v = V_solute/V_solution  × 100
Find the percent alcohol (ethanol) by volume for the vodka used in the lab by following the steps outlined in the table below.

Conclusions

The Grey Moose vodka tested in this lab reports a percent alcohol by volume of 40.0% on its label. How does your value compare to the reported one? If the values are different, give one possible experimental error that might have contributed to the difference.  

Potassium permanganate is another strong oxidizing substance similar to potassium dichromate. An acidic solution of purple permanganate ions can get reduced to colorless Mn²ions in the presence of ethanol. Write down the redox reaction between permanganate and ethanol, and balance it using the half-reaction method.

Besides vodka, there are other colorless alcohol-containing beverages that can be titrated following the procedure in your lab. Given the average values for the percent alcohol by volume listed in the table below, which beverage do you expect to use the least amount of iron (II) standard solution during the titration? Assume all lab procedures stay the same.

LAB NOTES:

Solution turned bright green upon adding the standard potassium dichromate.

Initial burette reading: 50 mL

(Solution turned deep purple after adding sodium diphenylamine sulfonate)

Coarse Titration:

First dispense

Volume: 46.93 mL

Volume dispensed: 3.07 mL

Second dispense

Volume: 44.07 mL

Volume dispensed: 5.93 mL

Third dispense

Volume: 40.91 mL

Volume dispensed: 9.09 mL

Fourth dispense

Volume: 37.74 mL

Volume dispensed: 12.26 mL

Fifth dispense- END POINT REACHED

Volume: 34.76 mL

Volume dispensed: 15.24 mL

Fine Titration 1

End point volume: 35.85 mL

Volume dispensed: 14.15 mL

Fine Titration 2:

End point volume: 35.86 mL

Volume dispensed: 14.14 mL

The threat of litigation is making companies skittish about axing problem workers.

Would you have dared fire Hemant K. Mody? In February, the longtime engineer had returned to work at a GE facility in Plainville, Connecticut, after a two-month medical leave. He was a very unhappy man. For much of the prior year, he and his superiors had been sparring over his performance and promotion prospects. According to court documents, Mody’s bosses claimed he spoke disparagingly of his co-workers, refused an assignment as being beneath him, and was abruptly taking days off and coming to work late. But Mody was also 49, Indian born, and even after returning from leave, he continued to suffer a major disability: chronic kidney failure that required him to receive daily dialysis.

The run-ins resumed with his managers, whom he had accused flat out of discriminating against him because of his race and age. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in human resources to recognize that the situation was a ticking time bomb. But Mody’s bosses were fed up. They fired him in April. The bomb exploded in July 2006. Following a six-day trial, a federal court jury in Bridgeport, Connecticut, found GE’s termination of Modyto be improper and awarded him $11.1 million, including $10 million in punitive damages. But the award wasn’t for discrimination. The

judge found those claims so weak that Mody wasn’t allowed to present them. Instead, jurors concluded that Mody had been fired in retaliation for complaining about bias. GE sued to have the award overturned but was only able to get the award reduced by $5 million in 2007. Unfortunately, Mody never saw any of the 2006 jury award; he died in April 2007 of a heart attack.

If this can happen to GE, a company famed for its rigorous performance reviews, with an HR operation that is studied worldwide, it can happen anywhere. The result: Many companies today are gripped by a fear of firing.
Terrified of lawsuits, they let unproductive employees linger, lay off coveted workers while retaining less valuable ones, and pay severance to nonperformers and even crooks in exchange for promises that they won’t sue. The fear of firing is particularly acute in the HR and legal departments. They don’t directly suffer when an underperformer lingers in the corporate hierarchy, but they may endure unpleasant indirect consequences if that person files a lawsuit.

When Mody signed GE’s job application in 1998, the form said his employment was “at will” and “the Company may terminate my employment at any time for any reason.” Well, not exactly. The notion that American workers are employed “at will”—meaning, as one lawyer put it, you can be fired if your manager doesn’t like the color of your socks—took root in the laissez-faire atmosphere of the late 19th century and, as an official matter, is still the law of the land in every state, save Montana. For most American workers now, their status as at-will employees has been transformed by a succession of laws growing out of the civil rights movement in the 1960s that bar employers from making decisions based on such things as race, religion, sex, age, and national origin. This is hardly controversial. Even the legal system’s harshest critics find little fault with rules aimed at ensuring that personnel decisions are based on merit. Most freely acknowledge that it is much easier to fire people in the United States than it is in, say, most of Western Europe. Mass layoffs, in fact, are a recurring event on the American corporate scene. Yet even in these situations, RIFs, or “reductions in force,” are carefully vetted by attorneys to assess the impact on employees who are in a legally protected category. These days the majority of American workers fall into one or more such groups. Mody, for example, belonged to three because of who he was (age, race, and national origin) and two more because of things he had done (complained of discrimination and taken medical leave). That doesn’t mean such people are immune from firing. But it does mean a company will have to show a legitimate, nondiscriminatory business reason for the termination, should the matter ever land in court.

1. Why are many companies afraid of terminating unproductive employees?

2. Why do supervisors bear much of the blame when HR says someone can’t be shown the door?

3. Can managers really fire employees “at will”?

4. GE was successful in getting the amount of the award reduced, but was the size of the award really its first concern?

5. Relate your personal experience, and apply what you learned. Indicate how you would have handled the situation if you were the primary subject in the case study, the subordinate in the case study, a supervisor or an outsider witnessing the situation.

5.   Describe the idea of organizations as political agents and political arenas.

Book - Organizations as Political Arenas and Political Agents Ch11

Here is Ch11 -

please help me to find the answer

Sam Walton started his merchant career in 1945 as proprietor of the second-best variety store in a small rural Arkansas town. From that humble beginning, he built the world’s largest retail chain. With more than 2 million “associates,” Walmart became the world’s largest employer and, for both better and worse, one of the most powerful companies on the globe. More than 90 percent of American households shop at Walmart stores every year, expecting the company to keep its promise of “always low prices” (Fishman, 2006). Walmart’s subtle and pervasive impact is illustrated in a little-known story about deodorant packaging. Deodorant containers used to come packed in cardboard boxes until Walmart decided in the early 1990s that the boxes were wasteful and costly—about a nickel apiece for something consumers would just toss. When Walmart told suppliers to kill the cardboard, the boxes disappeared across the industry. Good for Walmart had to be good enough for everyone. The story is but one of countless examples of the “Walmart effect”—an 217 Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, Sixth Edition. Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal. 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by Jossey-Bass. WEBC11 umbrella term for multiple ways Walmart influences consumers, vendors, employees, communities, and the environment (Fishman, 2006).

Yet, for all its power and success, Walmart has struggled in recent years to cope with an assortment of critics and image problems. The company has been accused of abusing workers, discriminating against women, busting unions, destroying small businesses, damaging the environment, and bribing government officials in Mexico and elsewhere. Circled by enemies, it has mounted major public relations campaigns in defense of its image.

Like all organizations, Walmart is both an arena for internal conflict and a political agent or player operating on a field crammed with other organizations pursuing their own interests. As arenas, organizations house an ongoing interplay of players and agendas. As agents, organizations are powerful tools for achieving the purposes of whoever calls the shots. Walmart’s enormous size and power have made its political maneuvers widely visible; almost everyone has feelings about Walmart, one way or another. The company’s historic penchant for secrecy and its secluded location in Bentonville, Arkansas, have sometimes shielded its internal politics from the spotlight, but tales of political skullduggery still emerge, including a titillating story about a superstar marketing executive who was fired amid rumors of an office romance and conflict with her conservative bosses. The same year also spawned the strange tale of a Walmart techie who claimed he’d been secretly recording the deliberations of the board of directors. Walmart has historically resisted any efforts to unionize its workers, but in the fall of 2012, the company had its first experience with strikes by workers in multiple cities. Ambivalent shoppers told reporters that they sympathized with the workers but still shopped at Walmart because they could not afford to pass up the low prices.

This chapter explores organizations as both arenas and political agents. Viewing organizations as political arenas is a way to reframe many organizational processes. Organization design, for example, can be viewed not as a rational expression of an organization’s goals but as a political embodiment of contending claims. In our discussion of organizations as arenas, we examine the political dimensions of organizational change, contrasting directives from the top with pressures from below. As political agents, organizations operate in complex ecosystems—interdependent networks of organizations engaged in related activities and occupying particular niches. We illustrate several forms that ecosystems can take—business, public policy, business-government, and society. Finally, we look at the dark side of the power wielded by big organizations. We explore the concern that corporate giants represent a growing risk to the world because they are too powerful for anyone to control

ORGANIZATIONS AS ARENAS -

From a political view, “happily ever after” exists only in fairy tales. Today’s winners may quickly become tomorrow’s losers or vice versa. Change and stability are paradoxical: Organizations constantly change and yet never change. As in competitive sports, players come and go, but the game goes on. In the annals of organizational politics, few have illustrated these precepts as well as Ross Johnson, who once made the cover of Time magazine as an emblem of corporate greed and insensitivity. In Barbarians at the Gate, Bryan Burrough and John Helyar (1990) explain how.

Please read the case below and answer the following question:    In court, Vinson’s allegations were countered by Taylor’s version of the facts. Will there always be a “your word against mine” problem in sexual harassment cases? What could Vinson have done to strengthen her case?

Consenting to Sexual Harassment

THE CASE OF VINSON V. TAYLOR, HEARd BEFOREthe federal district court for the District of Columbia, Mechelle Vinson alleged that Sidney Taylor, her supervisor at Capital City Federal Savings and Loan, had sexually harassed her.73But the facts of the case were contested.In court Vinson testified that about a year after she began working at the bank, Taylor asked her to have sexual relations with him. She claimed that Taylor said she “owed” him because he had obtained the job for her. Although she turned down Taylor at first, she eventually became involved with him. She and Taylor engaged in sexual relations, she said, both during and after business hours, in the remaining three years she worked at the bank. The encounters included intercourse in a bank vault and in a storage area. Taylor was Vinson’s supervisor, the court reasoned that notice to him was not notice to the bank.Vinson appealed the case, and the Court of Appeals held that the district court had erred in three ways. First, the district court had overlooked the fact that there are two possible kinds of sexual harassment. Writing for the majority, Chief Judge Spottswood Robinson distinguished cases in which the victim’s continued employment or promotion is conditioned on giving in to sexual demands and those cases in which the victim must tolerate a “substantially discriminatory work environment.” The lower court had failed to consider whether Vinson’s case involved harassment of the second kind.Second, the higher court also overruled the district court’s finding that because Vinson voluntarily engaged in a sexual relationship with Taylor, she was not a victim of sexual in the bank basement. Vinson also testified that Taylor often actually “assaulted or raped” her. She contended that she was forced to submit to Taylor or jeopardize her employment.Taylor, for his part, denied the allegations. He testified that he had never had sex with Vinson. On the contrary, he alleged that Vinson had made advances toward him and that he had declined them. He contended that Vinson had brought the charges against him to “get even” because of a work-related dispute.In its ruling on the case, the court held that if Vinson and Taylor had engaged in a sexual relationship, that relationship was voluntary on the part of Vinson and was not employment related. The court also held that Capital City Federal Savings and Loan did not have “notice” of the alleged harassment and was therefore not liable. Assuming the truth of Vinson’s version of the case, do you think her employer, Capital City Federal Savings and Loan, should be held liable for sexual harassment it was not aware of? Should the employer have been aware of it? Does the fact that Taylor was a supervi-sor make a difference? In general, when should an employer be liable for harassment?4.What steps do you think Vinson should have taken when Taylor first pressed her for sex? Should she be blamed for having given in to him? Assuming that there was sexual harassment despite her acquies-cence, does her going along with Taylor make her partly responsible or mitigate Taylor’s wrongdoing?5.In court, Vinson’s allegations were countered by Taylor’s version of the facts. Will there always be a “your word against mine” problem in sexual harassment cases? What could Vinson have done to strengthen her case?harassment. Voluntariness on Vinson’s part had “no bearing,” the judge wrote, on “whether Taylor made Vinson’s toleration of sexual harassment a condition of her employment.” Third, the Court of Appeals held that any discriminatory activity by a supervisor is attributable to the employer, regardless of whether the employer had specific notice.In his dissent to the decision by the Court of Appeals, Judge Robert Bork rejected the majority’s claim that “vol-untariness” did not automatically rule out harassment. He argued that this position would have the result of depriving the accused person of any defense, because he could no longer establish that the supposed victim was really “a willing participant.” Judge Bork contended further that an employer should not be held vicariously liable for a super-visor’s acts that it didn’t know about.Eventually the case arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the majority verdict of the Court of Appeals, stating that:[T]he fact that sex-related conduct was “voluntary,” in the sense that the complainant was not forced to participate against her will, is not a defense to a sexual harassment suit brought under Title VII. The gravamen of any sexual harassment claim is that the alleged sexual advances were “unwelcome.”. . . The correct inquiry is whether respondent by her con-duct indicated that the alleged sexual advances were unwelcome, not whether her actual participation in sexual intercourse was voluntary.The Court, however, rejected the Court of Appeals’s posi-tion that employers are strictly liable for the acts of their supervisors, regardless of the particular circumstances.

QUESTION 1

CAN THE GHANAIAN FINANCIAL SERVICE SECTOR WITHSTAND THE IMPACT OF COVID- 19?

COVID-19 and its impact

The impact of COVID-19 individuals, communities, and organizations is rapidly evolving from a mild and temporary hit to the worst-case scenario, a global financial crisis. While other industries such as the Travel, Transportation, Hospitality, Insurance, Retail, and Telco are severely impacted, it is the resiliency and continuity of the financial services markets that will support Governments and businesses during and post crisis; ensuring liquidity is available. All eyes will be turned to the financial services industry to see if they can respond in a manner that reduces the global economic impact of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic could be the most serious challenge to financial institutions in nearly a century. As the economic fallout spreads, retail banks find themselves juggling some big priorities that require concrete steps to reposition now while also recalibrating for the future. They are working to keep their distribution channels open, despite social distancing advice and supervisory and compliance functions that were never designed for remote work. They’re trying to manage revenue and customer expectations, despite near-zero interest rates and growing pressure on consumers. And, they need to keep an eye on strategy and brand issues that will define their future, as market forces and customer behaviors potentially change coming out of this crisis.

COVID-19 and the Marketing Environment

While definitions differ, there is consensus that the Marketing Environment is the combination of external and internal factors and forces which affect the company’s ability to establish a relationship and serve its customers. The Marketing Environment includes factors that surround the business and influence its marketing operations. Kotler (2019) posits that these forces remain outside the control of the firm and can upset marketing management ability to build and maintain successful relationships with target customers. Some of these factors are controllable while some are uncontrollable and require business operations to change accordingly. Firms must be well aware of the marketing environment in which they are operating to overcome the negative impacts the environmental factors are imposing on their marketing activities.

Against this background, PwC (2020) conjectures that the COVID-19 pandemic could be the most serious challenge to financial institutions in nearly a century. As the economic fallout spreads, retail banks find themselves juggling some big priorities that require concrete steps to reposition now while also recalibrating for the future. It implies that agile banks will survive by taking concrete steps right now; to support the communities and customers they serve while balancing medium to long term positioning; those that do not adjust may risk not surviving at all. Ghanaian financial institutions are not insulated from this reality.

REQUIRED

Drawing on this background and your knowledge of Marketing of Financial Services:

1. Provide a critical analysis of FIVE (5) Macro Marketing Environmental forces affecting the financial service sector today. The macro-environment refers to all forces that are part of the larger society and affect the micro-environment. They include the demographic environment, political environment, cultural environment, natural environment, technological environment and the economic environment. The purpose of analyzing the macro marketing environment is to understand the environment better and to adapt to the social environment and change through the marketing effort of the financial institutions to achieve the goal of the financial institutions marketing

2. With a critical analysis of the micro environmental forces which are forces close to the company that affects its ability to serve its customers; all those factors that are closely associated with the operations of the business and influences its functioning including suppliers, customers, marketing intermediaries, competitors and publics; discuss the effects of COVID-19 on Five (5) micro environmental forces within the financial service sector in Ghana today .

QUESTION 2

Financial services certainly have their hands full in the light of the novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19). Banks must also manage direct impact of COVID-19, put plans in place to protect its employees and customers from its spread. As the two months old newly appointed head of marketing for KANS Ghana Bank ( a local bank) critically discuss Five (5) out of the seven extended marketing mix strategies the bank can undertake in order to achieve medium to long term positioning and gain competitive advantage amidst COVID-19 pandemic. .

Read article “Coronavirus vaccine trials: Chinese volunteers recount their experiences” Then explain, in detail, how you would design the experiment to test the vaccine and then how you would analyze the data after the experiment. If you simply repeat the information from the article, you’ll get no 3 credit (I’ve read the article). So you must offer useful information beyond (not mentioned in) the article. Use table or graph if necessary. There is no unique correct answer so your grade depends the quality of your answer. Limit your answer to one page.

108 people aged 18-60 from Wuhan have been injected with a potential vaccine developed by a Chinese pharmaceutical firm and the military. One says that by taking part she can ‘rise above the simple interests of a normal person for once’

There may have been diarrhoea, high temperatures and a fair bit of apprehension, but 108 people from Wuhan can proudly say that this week they became the first in the country to be injected with a possible vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

The trials got under way in the central China city on Thursday, just three days after CanSino Biologics – the pharmaceutical company that developed the product in cooperation with the Chinese military – was given the green light by Beijing.

According to information published on China’s clinical trial registry, the volunteers – aged from 18 to 60 and in good health – were divided into three groups of 36 and then given either a low, medium or high dose of the vaccine at a facility owned by the city’s armed police force.

In a report by Science Daily, Wang Junzhi, a fellow at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that after receiving their injections, the participants would spend 14 days in quarantine under close medical observation.

In a rare move, some of the volunteers took to social media to recount their experiences to the public.

“I was a bit fearlessly naive when I signed up,” said a young woman with the nickname Xiao Mi, who was in the low dosage group.

“It only took a day from me being notified to getting the injection,” she said on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.

Xiao said she read up about the possible side-effects, like allergic reactions, online and was scared after receiving her shot. But that was “probably the worst thing”, she said.

“Two people from our batch saw their body temperatures rise to 38 degrees … and some had diarrhoea,” she said, adding that all of the side-effects passed quite quickly.

What was more important, Xiao said, was that although she was apprehensive, by taking part in the trials she felt she was doing her bit for society.

“I feel I can bear the consequences,” she said. “I want to rise above the simple interests of a normal person for once. We should be thanking all those who have stood in front of normal people.”

Xiao also confirmed earlier reports that the first person to receive a shot of the possible vaccine was Chen Wei, a major general and military scientist
who is also heading up the trial.

Another of the volunteers was Li Ming, whose wife, Wang Feng, recently recovered from a relatively mild case of Covid-19 – the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“From the onset of symptoms until now, I have experienced a lot of difficulties in getting a diagnosis and treatment,” Wang was quoted as saying in the Science Daily report.

“My husband has accompanied me through this, and he fully understands how difficult it is for a patient.”

Wang Junzhi said that the development programmes appeared to be going well and that most of the research teams should be able to complete their preclinical studies by next month and proceed to clinical trials soon after.

However, Roy Hall, a virology professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, said that even if vaccine trials were fast-tracked, it would still be some time before a vaccine was ready to go into mass production.

“It may be available within six to nine months of starting clinical trials, he said. “So that would mean a vaccine becomes available within a year of discovering the pathogen. That would be a remarkable achievement.”