Business - Lecture/seminar notes Flashcards
(From slides/readings)
Reasons for business expansion…
-> Week 6 Seminar <-
- push factors: domestic saturation and fierce domestic competition;
- pull factors: extending product life cycle, increasing sales and profits
Tamousiuniene & Duksaite (2009) - Their opinion
Push factors - Reasons AGAINST business expansion
Pull factors - Reasons FOR business expansion
Things to consider for business expansion…
-> Week 6 Seminar <-
- Disposable incomes
- Exchange rates
- Geographic proximity
- Skills, labour and cost of production
- Infrastructure
- Trade bloc location
- Government incentives
- Ease of doing business
- Natural resources and return on investment
Horizontal mergers and examples…
-> Week 6 Seminar <-
-
Examples of horizontal mergers…
2012: Facebook and Instagram
- both operated in the same industry (social network)
- Facebook sought to strengthen its position in the social sharing space
- acquisition of Instagram as an opportunity to grow its market share, reduce competition, and gain access to new audiences
2017: The Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox
- both companies produced and distributed films and television series
- each company owned 30% stake in Hulu (online streaming)
Issues faced by potential horizontal mergers…
-> Week 6 seminar <-
- Cultural integration difficulties
- Different management styles
- Inability to achieve synergies
- Might create a monopolistic market
Vertical Mergers (Integration)…
-> Week 6 seminar <-
- A verticalmerger is one in which a company on one level of a supply chain buys a company on another.
- An example is the merger of a firm to another whose inputs include the goods produced by the former.
- Examples involve -> (Nov 2015) Apple buys Star Wars motion-capture company Faceshift
What are the issues faced in a ‘vertical’ merger?
-> Week 6 seminar <-
- Cost of executing the merger
- Reduced flexibility
- Loss of focus
- Clash of cultures
Conglomerate…
-> Week 6 seminar <-
- A conglomerate is a corporation made up of different, independent businesses.
- In a conglomerate, one company owns a controlling stake of other smaller companies that conduct business separately.
- The parent company can cut back the risks from being in a single market by becoming a conglomerate.
Sometimes conglomerates can become too large to be efficient, at which time they have to divest some of their businesses.
Example of a conglomerate…
-> Week 6 seminar <-
- Berkshire Hathaway Inc
- One of the largest conglomerates in the world
- Formed through years of M&A’s
Industries: utilities, retail goods, transportation, insurance, financial services
Process of M&A…
-> Week 6 seminar <-
- Developing strategy
- Identifying targets
- Information exchange
- Valuation and synergies
- Offer and negotiation
- Due diligence
- Purchase agreement
- Deal closure and integration
A big example of a successful merger…
-> Week 6 seminar <-
- Disney & Pixar
Benefits for Disney: - Better animation and technical things in department
- Modernise Disney with computer animated characters
Risks: - Very expensive agreement at $7.4bn
- Could dilute Disney’s earnings.
Possible conflict of interest between Disney and Apple
Some reasons for mergers & acquisitions…
-> Week 6 seminar <-
- Market considerations
- Distribution economies
- Diversification
- Manufacturing advantages
Define ethics…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Can be defined as an individual’s personal beliefs about whether a decision, behaviour, or action is right or wrong
Define business ethics…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
The capacity to consider values in the business decision making process -> and how these values and decisions affect various stakeholders
(Examples involve reliability, trust, relations, behaviour,morality etc)
VW Primary Stakeholders…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- Customers
- Employees
- Dealers
- Shareholders
- The environment
(Other stakeholders include courts and governments)
VW emission scandal impact…
(2015)
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & *Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- VW lost $16.9bn
- According to the Guardian, sales dropped by 20% in the first 3 mnths
- According to Forbes, cost of scandal for VW could be up to $34.5bn
(VW addressed scandal late adn perhaps were reluctant to do this)
IKEA, Loreal and ethics…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- When IKEA relocated to KSA, they could not advertise with women, which conflicted with their ethics
- When Loreal wanted to relocate to China, they had to test products with animals, but Loreal were against this -> For testing cosmetics
(Due to KSA law!)
Benefits of business ethics…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & *Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- Improves brand reputation and competition
- Improves adherance to organisation culture
- Offers protection agaonst pre-empting or defending against lawsuits
MNCs purposes and responsibilities…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- Maximising shareholder value v Serving the broader ionterests of society
- The Economist (2005/2008): “The CSR movement [has] won the battle of ideas… Clearly the CSR has arrived.”
- The question now is not “Whether” but “How?” (or “How much?”)
(Smith, 2003)
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)…
(What it entails)
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- ‘The firm’s consideration of, and response to, issues beyond the narrow economic, technical, and legal requirements of the firm.’ (Davis, 1973)
- ‘Includes the economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic expectations placed on organisations by society at a given point in time.’ (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2009)
CSR: Key Elements…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- Businesses responsibilities may go beyond making profit and objectives of the like
- They have wider responsilbilities like solving societal issues e.g. climate change
For and against CSR views…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
For:
- ‘It’s the right thing to do.’
- Focus on responsibility, obligation, accountability.
- Growing ‘conscious consumer’ & LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) segments.
- Focus on cost reduction, risk management, opportunity, reputation.
Against:
- Business is an economic activity
- Managers do not have the know-how or the right to decide how to solve social and environmental issues.
Surveillance capitalism…
Week 8 seminar - MNCs, Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- ‘Surveillance Capitalism [commodification of personal data* for the purpose of making profits] is the manifestation of George Orwell’s prophesied ‘Memory Hole’ combined with the constant surveillance, storage and analysis of our thoughts and actions, with such minute precision, and artificial intelligence algorithmic analysis, that our future thoughts and actions can be predicted, and manipulated, for the concentration of power and wealth of the very few.’ (surveillancecapitalism.com)
How can CSR be summarised…
( Shafiq (2011) )
(Week 8 seminar)
- Obligation to society
- Stakeholders’ involvement
- Improving the quality of life
- Economic development
- Ethical business practice
- Law abiding
How do companies respond to social or environmental issues or demands?
(Week 8 seminar)
- Reactive – denial, pass responsibility to others.
- Defensive – doing the least required, superficial response, subterfuge.
- Accommodative – doing what is demanded.
- Proactive – going beyond expectations, anticipating future demand.
What factors drive CSR in today’s market?
Week 8 seminar
- Competitiveness: consumer demands, cost cutting, increased profits, differentiation.
- Legitimacy: reputation, survival, conformity
- Ethics: social and ecological responsibility