Strategy is a planned set of actions that managers employ to make best use of the firm’s resources and core competencies to gain competitive advantage. When developing strategies, managers start by examining the firm’s specific strengths and weaknesses. They then analyze the particular opportunities and challenges that confront the firm. Once they understand the firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, managers then decide:

• which customers to target
• what product lines to offer
• how best to deal with competitors
• how generally to configure and coordinate the firm’s activities around the world

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe strategy in international business.
2. Understand building the global firm.
3. Describe the integration-responsiveness framework.
4. Learn to identify strategies based on the integration-responsiveness framework.
5. Understand organizatioal structure in international business.
6. Understand foreign market entry strategies.

Q1. Watch the video using the link below

9.3 Test your knowledge (Question)

Differentiate the World Bank from the IMF (250 words)

Q2. Open the following link and listen to the video carefully

9.3 Test your knowledge(Question)

Write a short paragraph highlighting main points as explained in video regarding knowledge management strategy. (250 words)

Visit the website listed below and post answers to the following questions. The link will allow you to find out the world’s population when you were born. Be sure to have viewed the lecture video on population before doing this assignment as well.

• The World Population & Me

Answer the following questions:

1. How has population size changes since the year of 2001? Were you surprised at the current size of the human population or its change?
2. How many people do you believe the Earth can support without dire environmental damage? Explain.
3. Should developed countries help slow the population growth of developing countries? If so, what sorts of methods should be employed to do this?

Your posts should consist of about 300 words (not including the questions).

Importantly, I am looking for you to have studied the reading material first. There are several mistakes students make in this section. One is that many think population will grow forever. It will not. Population growth is coming down all over the world; in some places the population is shrinking.

Two, it is not just about how many people there are, it’s about how they live. One American consumes 300x as much energy as a sub-Saharan African. Lastly, it’s not just about education and contraceptives. Many families in poor countries have children because children can help the bottom line of the household. Once children become an expense (in cities, with mandatory schooling) then people choose to have fewer.

Lastly, when it comes to assisting the developing world, think beyond contraceptives. What are the factors that bring down birth rates, and how could wealthier countries help on that front?

CLO.1. Analyze the root and immediate causes contributing to health insecurity in a given region or nation.

– CL0.6. Plan supply, support, communication, and information management services for global health operations.

While analyzing case assess:

1. What resource environment this case is relevant to? How does it affect the disease impact on the population health? Why?
2. Evaluate local public health structures and activities that exist to address this issue?
3. Evaluate international efforts that are in place to address this matter?
4. Offer assessment of the One Health approach used to address the matter.
5. What are the positive lessons? What needs to be done to maximize them?
6. What are the negative lessons and deficiencies? Why?
7. What can be done to overcome them?

Your team will select a hotel, resort, restaurant, event or other elements of hospitality, tourism
and event system and have it approved. You will work as a team to develop a detailed
Marketing Plan using the attached outline as your guide, using research that you gather to assist
you in determining the elements of the plan. *Note -You are not researching an existing
marketing plan, but gathering data and information and using that research to develop and
execute your own conclusions and ideas.
Page 1: Title page
 Name of the company, group member names
 Course number, date
Page 2: Executive summary- 1-2 pages (10 points)
 Summarize your plan and include:
o Current environment that requires some retooling
o The situation facing your company that requires a change in strategy
o Proposal for your plan- big picture (Originality is important. That is, you cannot use
the company’s existing strategy.)
 For example: Targeting a new market, developing a new product, expanding to a
new area/location, altering the promotional strategy
o Briefly describe how that plan will be enacted (marketing mix)
o Explain your budgetary constraints (broadly how much money you plan to spend and
how much benefit you can get)
o Marketing plan objectives (i.e., increase room rate, increase awareness, increase food
bill, etc.),
o Measure of success (i.e. what kind of measures—should be related to your objectives)
Marketing Plan
Heading: Introduction- 2-3 pages (5 points)
 Identify your company, what business they are in, and what in their environment is
creating a need for a new plan, general background/relevant information
 Briefly overview your plan,
2
o Discuss the unique background and philosophy behind our company
o Then move more broadly to our S.W.O.T. analysis where we particularly focus on
our competition.
o Discuss the characteristics of the existing target market and your desired target
market
o Discuss your plan’s objectives
o Discuss budgetary constraints
o End with some guidelines for the future growth of the company.
Heading: Environmental Scanning- 3-4 pages (20 Points)
Include at least two references: one can be the company’s web-site
 Company background
o More detailed background information about the company that was not included
in the Introduction, such as
– When did the business begin?
– Who started the company?
– What is the size of the company then and now?
– What types of products/services are offered?
– What makes them unique?
– What is the company’s mission statement?
– How has the company evolved over time?
 Who are their major competitors?
 Then move on to the S.W.O.T. analysis. Include references here as well to back-up your
statements
o S.W.O.T
o Identify what in your S.W.O.T. analysis will motivate the logic for your proposed
plan (e.g., there is an opportunity for expanding or going after a new market, or
their major weakness is in employee retention so the focus of the plan is making
employees happier…)
3
Heading: Target Market (2 pages) (20 points)
 Describe your company’s current target market
o Identify whether your target market for the marketing plan is the same or not
 If not, who is the target market for your marketing plan?
o Describe who they are (demographic- age, race, income, social status, and
psychographic- lifestyle)
o Why do they buy the products/services offered?
Heading: Objectives (1-2 pages) (10 points)
 What are the short-term and long-term goals for your plan?
o Short term: 6 months – 1year
o Long term: 1-5 years
 How much are you able to invest to reach these objectives. Use Marketing plan budget
template and ROI template (if your plan is longer than 1 year.)
Heading: Marketing Strategy (3-4 pages) (20 points)
 Begin with an overview of the big picture strategy
o Discuss the strategy how it will affect each part of your marketing mix Changes in the
marketing mix (including the 4Ps):
– Product:
– Price:
– Promotion:
– Place:
Heading: Marketing Control (1.5-2 pages) (10 points)
o How will you know if your plan was successful?
o How are you planning on measuring your results?
o What will you do if you don’t see the expected results?
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o If you decide to continue, how much money can you spend more? (budgetary
constraints, try to be realistic given the size of your company)
o What is your long term plan?
Last Page: References (10 points)
o Include any references made in your plan here, in APA style (useful website:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/)
Additional Items:
o Attach your “Marketing plan budget and ROI” Excel workbook as an appendix
(optional)
o If you have a sample ad, a sample new product description, etc. etc. that you want to
include in your plan, add that as an appendix
You need to bring an outline including the following:
o Your company
o Group members
o The situation facing your company that requires a new approach
o Big picture of what that approach will be (your strategy)
o Type of information you have so far that you will use in your plan
In the outline, if you have any additional information or questions to me

After completing the readings for this unit, reflect on a social work practice you have observed in your work as a professional social worker. Describe a situation in which you observed a leader demonstrating transformational leadership characteristics. Then answer the following:

• What was the situation?
• What transformational leadership characteristics were demonstrated?
• How did those characteristics impact the situation?

Describe a situation in which you observed a social work leader applying concepts of either critical or conflict theory.

• What elements of either critical or conflict theory were they applying?
• What was the outcome?

calculate your family’s environmental footprint. Go toThe Nature Conservancy Carbon Footprint Calculatorand calculate your total carbon footprint. After you finish the quiz, please write a short summary that includes both your results and a reflection on your ecological footprint. Your summary should take the format below. An example of an “A” paper is provided for your reference. Your summary should also be typed and should be about one page single-spaced, (12pt font, New Times Roman) in length.

Part I. My Ecological Footprint (10 pts)

Save the pie chart or histogram chart after you complete all of the questions on the website. This must be embedded in your one-page summary document. Include this statement in your report. “The household I used for this project is in (city, state/country).”

Part II: Reflection (30 pts)

Think about the results of this quiz and write a one-paragraph reflection on your results.

• Were you surprised by your family’s footprint?
• What were some of the things that made your family’s footprint so high?
• What areas, in particular, does your family need to address?
• Finally, list the five most important changes that you and your family would be willing to do to decrease your ecological footprint.

Consider a directed graph with N nodes and M edges, where each edge is weighted. The task is to find the shortest path from node A to node B, but with the constraint that the path must not use more than K edges. What is the most efficient algorithm to solve this problem, and what is its time complexity?

Suppose you have a large dataset consisting of billions of records, where each record has several attributes. You want to cluster the records into groups such that records within the same group are similar to each other, but records in different groups are dissimilar. What is the best algorithm to use for this task, and how can you efficiently scale it to handle such a large dataset?

Students are to utilize the same local or state government from short papers #1 and #2 to research a public finance dilemma in their chosen local or state government. Students should prepare an 8-10 page public finance recommendation addressed to the head of that government (i.e., mayor, commission chair, or governor) with the following components:

• Executive Summary
• Background: Organizational Structure, Economic Conditions/Outlook, and Fiscal Policies, major revenue sources and major expenditures.
• Problem Statement: Identification of high cost/major expenditure
• Analysis of Expenditure:
  • What are expenditures? What programs are covered under this expenditure?
  • What is public good and choice? How does this expenditure reflect both?
  • How does political equilibrium affect public finance? What is the political equilibrium of your chosen expenditure?
  • What is cost-benefit analysis? What are the findings of a cost-benefit of your expenditure’s programs?
  • What are different revenue strategies? What taxation strategies are used to fund your expenditure’s programs
• Recommendations:
  • Is the current funding level appropriate for this public good?
  • What changes should be made to the revenue streams and expenditure level?
  • How will these changes impact the local or state government’s service to constituent

Cool Care, an SEC registrant and a hospital operator in the United States, acquired all of the outstanding common stock of Healthy Hearts, an unrelated third party that operates specialty hospitals focused exclusively on cardiology. After the acquisition, Healthy Hearts become a wholly owned subsidiary of Cool Care (the “Acquisition”).

Several years before the acquisition, in a public offering, Healthy Hearts raised capital to expand and upgrade its operating rooms by issuing $400 million aggregate principal amount of 7.00% senior notes due in 2020 (the “Notes”). In performing due diligence and assessing the terms of the Notes, Cool Care determined that it could obtain cheaper financing and instructed Healthy Hearts to make a tender offer for any and all its outstanding Notes (the “Tender Offer”). Accordingly, contemporaneously with the Acquisition, all the outstanding Notes were redeemed. Healthy Hearts did not have sufficient cash on hand before the Acquisition to redeem the Notes.

Additional Facts:

The Acquisition meets the definition of a business combination.

• The terms of the Notes did not require Healthy Hearts to redeem or offer to
repurchase the Notes upon a change in control (i.e., the decision to redeem the
Notes was voluntary).

• It was Cool Care’s decision to redeem the Notes.

• The fair value of the Notes as of the date of the Acquisition was equal to the
amount paid to redeem the tendered Notes. In addition, Healthy Hearts carried the
Notes at their par value (i.e., there is neither a premium nor a discount present
with the Notes).

Required:

In consideration of the information presented above, draft a memo answering the following questions. Reference the FASB Accounting Standards in answer.

1. Should Healthy Hearts include the extinguishment of debt (i.e., the Notes) in its pre-combination financial statements or should Cool Care include it in its post-combination financial statements? Depending on the answer, determine the gain or loss on the extinguishment of debt to be recognized. (Note that for this question, the pre-combination financial statements represent Healthy Hearts’ operations before the Acquisition and the post-combination financial statements represent Cool Care’s consolidated financial statements after the Acquisition.)

2. Are there differences between ASC 805 and IFRS 3 that should be considered in