Student Number: (enter on the line below)
Student Name: (enter on the line below)
HC3031
TRENDS IN THE GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
FINAL ASSESSMENT
TRIMESTER 2, 2021
TIME ALLOWED: 24 hours
All answers must be submitted within this time frame. Late submissions are not accepted.
Assessment Weight: 50 total marks
Instructions:
• All questions must be answered by using the answer boxes provided in this paper.
• Completed answers must be submitted to Blackboard by the published due date and time.
Submission instructions are at the end of this paper.
Purpose:
This assessment consists of six (6) questions and is designed to assess your level of knowledge of the key topics covered in this unit
Students who cite a minimum of 3 peer-reviewed academic articles (in total) in the text to support their assertions, and list all references appropriately at the end of the report using Harvard referencing style may receive higher marks than those who do not cite relevant materials. References provided must follow ‘Reference Requirements’ detailed on page 6-7
Question 1 ( 7 marks)
Senior in house human resource executives disagree on what the formative experiences are which influence young people, define their behaviour and assist in development of thoughtful and ethical executives. One idea is that it is studying university courses. Another newer thought is that observation and an opportunity for young people to watch what good leaders do and copy that behaviour is more effective.
Think of how you have been taught to handle difficult leadership situations and discuss what influence has impacted you the most and helped you deal with difficult ethical management/leadership situations. Please draw from commercial, family, sporting or other personal experiences.
(Support your arguments with theories provided in the lectures and tutorials) Answer this question in 250 words.
ANSWER: ** Answer box will enlarge as you type
Question 2 (7 marks)
The CEO of a 200-year-old European bank with head office in Hong Kong had a meeting to determine the job specification for a new head of corporate governance.
The meeting included three executives:
1. The CEO who wanted an executive who would work effectively to minimize compliance risk, be harmonious and help to sustain profits.
2. The head of HR, who wanted an ethics/principles motivated person who would role model behavior for junior staff.
3. The head of operations, who wanted a strong ‘black letter’ policy and procedures manual with “DO”, and “DO NOT” stipulated.
Discuss the different views with respect to enforcement of corporate governance, indicate with which view you agree and discuss it.
(Support your arguments with theories provided in the lectures and tutorials) Answer this question in 250 words.
ANSWER:
Question 3 (11 marks)
International business executives often speak of corporate social responsibility, its application to their ‘home’ country and as well to international operations in host countries. The history of many of these host countries may have included civil wars. And, in these civil wars many field commanders committed horrible acts, but were efficient managers of resources and good strategists.
An international European company in establishing its operations in a host country focused on the management efficiency of their locally hired executives – to the exclusion of these executives past behaviour.
Evaluate the decision to choose corporate efficiency over morality from an economic, legal, ethical and discretionary perspective.
(Support your arguments with key lecture and tutorial references on CSR in contemporary organizations). Answer this question in 300 words.
ANSWER:
Question 4 (11 marks)
MNCs employ expatriate executives who work in dangerous countries. At times they are approached by host country criminal groups which ask for bribes. If they are not prepared to pay bribes to these criminal groups these executives may be in mortal danger.
MNCs presently ensure the safety of ex patriot executives while living in the host country. However, there is a trend in the human resource profession for MNCs to also protect executives once they return to their home country and are no longer employed by the MNC.
Another view is that expatriate executives are presently well compensated and receive already too many benefits.
Discuss these two views and describe which one you think is the most fair.
(Support your arguments with theories provided in the lectures and tutorials) Answer this question in 300 words.
ANSWER:
Question 5 (7 marks)
Manufacturing processes will soon be able to build a BMW automobile in China with no human intervention. In the 1990’s there was a cost of about 50 person hours per car. Now, it is zero. It can all be done by robots.
And the trend is for all manufacturing processes to move to a position where robots are responsible for all manufacturing.
The automobile industry is one of the largest employers of people in the world, and there is a question of employment for all of the people who lost their jobs to robots.
Some management ‘thinkers’ believe the answer is ‘creativity’.
Discuss how you can ensure your employability in the future and avoid the movement to minimize employees. Think of innovation, continuing education and skill development. Also, consider a theory we learned which discussed skill as a factor endowment.
(Support your arguments with theories provided in the lectures and tutorials) Answer this question in 250 words).
ANSWER:
Question 6 (7 marks)
Compare and contrast the different economic ideologies including: communism, socialism and capitalism. Define each ideology and think of different countries which have embraced each ideology.
What companies (if any) would be successful in each one of these countries? Discuss the characteristics of each company and consider whether they would subscribe to recent trends to adapt corporate social responsibility, gender equality and merit based promotion.
(Support your arguments with theories provided in the lectures and tutorials. Answer this question in 250 words).
ANSWER:
END OF FINAL ASSESSMENT
Submission instructions:
• Save submission with your STUDENT ID NUMBER and UNIT CODE e.g. EMV54897 HC3031
• Submission must be in MICROSOFT WORD FORMAT ONLY
• Upload your submission to the appropriate link on Blackboard
• Only one submission is accepted. Please ensure your submission is the correct document.
• All submissions are automatically passed through SafeAssign to assess academic integrity.
Reference requirements
Assessment Design – Adapted Harvard Referencing
Holmes will be implementing as a pilot program a revised Harvard approach to referencing. The following guidelines apply:
1. Reference sources in assignments are limited to sources which provide full text access to the source’s content for lecturers and markers.
2. The Reference list should be located on a separate page at the end of the essay and titled: References.
3. It should include the details of all the in-text citations, arranged alphabetically A-Z by author surname. In addition, it MUST include a hyperlink to the full text of the cited reference source.
For example;
Hawking, P. McCarthy, B. Stein A. (2004), Second Wave ERP Education, Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall, http://jise.org/Volume15/n3/JISEv15n3p327.pdf
4. All assignments will require additional in-text reference details which will consist of the surname of the author/authors or name of the authoring body, year of publication, page number of content, paragraph where the content can be found.
For example;
“The company decided to implement a enterprise wide data warehouse business intelligence strategies (Hawking et al, 2004, p3(4)).”
Non-Adherence to Referencing Guidelines
Where students do not follow the above guidelines:
1. Students who submit assignments which do not comply with the guidelines will encur a 10% penalty.
2. Students who comply with guidelines and the citations are “fake” will be reported for academic misconduct.