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CLOSING CASES
CLOSING CASE STUDY ONE (p. 27)
THE SOCIAL MEDIA MEGAPHONE: TRANSPARENT LIFE INTENSIFIED
This is a good opening case study for the class, as your students will be very familiar with
examples of when people have used social media and made a fool of themselves.
QUESTIONS
1. What do you think of Stacy Snyder’s story? Should she be denied a degree for publicly
endorsing drinking to her underage students? To what extent do you believe that
potential employers should explore social networking sites to validate the “goodness’ of
potential employees? Is there anything on your Facebook page that might turn off
potential employers? If so, are you going to take any action?
2. The webcasting of funerals is an interesting example of the flatness of the world. Is this an
invasion of privacy or do next–of-kin have the right to make such a decision? What other
significant events in a person’s life might be suitable for webcasting? Identify at least
three such events and then do some research to determine if webcasting of those events
is already taking place.
DISCUSSION
3. Osama Bin Laden represents a dark image for most Americans. His participation in the
planning of the September 11th attacks will forever mark him in a bad way. Should people,
like Rashard Mendenhall, who make positive or perhaps even neutral comments about
terrorists like Bin Laden be fired from endorsement contracts? Can making such
comments be considered grounds for termination of employment? Dismissal from your
school as a student?
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4. Very few people would question the service and commitment of military personnel to our
country. The two sergeants who created the YouTube video openly criticized Delta
Airlines for its charging of baggage fees to military personnel. Is this open form of criticism
of businesses and their practices acceptable? Will it help businesses be more accountable
to customers?
5. The use of Facebook (or any other social networking site) can truly make a person’s life
transparent, available for the whole world to see. Should there be legislation regulating
the openness of your life on the Internet? Can we expect society to regulate this without
any laws?
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CLOSING CASE STUDY TWO (p. 29)
GOOGLE AND APPLE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, MAYBE
In this second case study, your students will address how organizations are using technology to
track the location of people. In some instances, people don’t even know they are being
tracked.
QUESTIONS
1. Location-based tracking is common to all smartphones, for good reason or bad. The
popular location-based service company Foursquare has an app so you can check in at
various locations to receive discounts, become Mayor, and see who else might be there.
DealLeak, which aggregates deals from the likes of Groupon and Living Social, needs your
location in order to offer local discounts on products and services to you. How many
location-based service apps do you have on your smartphone? How often do you use
them and why?
2. Apple and Google defended their processes by stating that their privacy policies very
clearly stated what information would be gathered, how that information would be used,
and how and with whom that information might be shared. When was the last time you
read the privacy policy of any technology tool, such as a Web browser or app? Do you
think very many people actually read these? Do the disclaimers in these privacy policies
give the offering organization the right to do anything with your information?
3. What about location–based tracking in car systems like GM’s OnStar? Those systems know
the car’s location to give you driving directions and perhaps identify local restaurants or
other venues. Are you comfortable with this? When was the last time you bought a paper
map? How much do you rely on your car’s GPS system?
4. What about smartphone tracking for parents who want to know where their children are
and where they’ve been? Minors under the age of 18 have very few privacy rights,
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Chapter 01 – The Information Age in Which You Live: Changing the Face of Business
SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS (p. 31)
1. What is the relationship between management information systems (MIS) and information
technology (IT)?
2. What is the relationship between data, information, business intelligence (BI), and
knowledge?
3. How does the granularity of information change as it moves from lower to upper
organizational levels?
4. What is the difference between a technology-literate knowledge worker and an
information-literate knowledge worker?
5. How do ethics differ from laws?
6. What are the three financial elements of break-even analysis?
7. What role does the Five Forces Model play?
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8. Why are competitive advantages never permanent?
9. What are the three generic strategies according to Michael Porter?
10. How are Porter’s three generic strategies and the RGT framework similar?
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ASSIGNMENTS & EXERCISES (p. 31)
1. USING PORTER TO EVALUATE THE MOVIE RENTAL INDUSTRY One hotly contested and
highly competitive industry is the movie rental business. You can rent videos from local
video rental stores, you can order pay-per-view from the comfort of your own home, and
you can rent videos from the Web at such sites as NetFlix. Using Porter’s Five Forces Model,
evaluate the relative attractiveness of entering the movie rental business. Is buyer power
low or high? Is supplier power low or high? Which substitute products and services are
perceived as threats? Can new entrants easily enter the market? What are the barriers to
entry? What is the level of rivalry among existing competitors? What is your overall view of
the movie rental industry? Is it a good or bad industry to enter?
DISCUSSION
• This is a good project for your students because they can easily and quickly relate to the
2. REVIEWING THE 100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR Each year Fortune magazine
devotes an issue to the top 100 best companies to work for. Find the most recent of
Fortune that does this. First, develop a numerical summary that describes the 100
companies in terms of their relative industries. Which industries are the most dominant?
Pick one of the more dominant industries (preferably one in which you would like to work)
and choose a specific highlighted company. Prepare a short class presentation on why that
company is among the 100 best to work for.
DISCUSSION
3. BREAK-EVEN ANALYSIS Perform a break-even analysis for the following scenario. Assume
you sell widgets. You have total fixed costs of $12,000. Your manufacturing and shipping of
widgets costs $7 per widget. You sell each widget for $22. What is your break-even point?
How many widgets do you have to sell to realize a net profit of $15,000?
DISCUSSION
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4. BUSINESS STRATEGY FOR ENTERING THE CELL PHONE SERVICE INDUSTRY Assume that you
run a start-up and have decided to enter the cell phone service industry. Which of the three
generic strategies would you choose as your primary business strategy – overall cost
leadership, differentiation, or focus? Explain your choice by elaborating on the product and
services features you would offer to lure customers from the competition.
DISCUSSION
5. RESEARCHING YOUR CAREER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY To position yourself in
the best possible way to succeed in the business world, you need to start researching your
career right now. Here, we would like you to focus on the IT skills your career requires.
First, consider what career you want to have. Second, visit Monster.com
(www.monster.com) and search for jobs that relate to your career. Read through several of
the job postings and determine what IT skills you need to acquire.
DISCUSSION
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (p. 34)
1. The three key resources in management information systems (MIS) are information,
information technology, and people. Which of these three resources is the most
important? Why? The least important? Why?
2. We often say that hardware is the physical interface to a technology system while software
is the intellectual interface. How is your hardware your physical interface to your
computer? How is your software your intellectual interface to your computer? Do you see
technology progressing to the point that we may no longer distinguish between hardware
and software and thus no longer perceive differing physical and intellectual interfaces?
3. In a group of three to four students, consider eBay in the context of Porter’s Five Forces
Model. How does eBay reduce the threat of new entrants? If necessary, you may want to
explore eBay’s site (www.ebay.com) and determine the role of buyer and seller ratings, its
integration with PayPal, and how it helps buyers and sellers resolve disputes.
DISCUSSION
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4. In this chapter, we discussed the use of loyalty programs in the travel industry as a
mechanism for reducing buyer power. What is another industry that also uses loyalty
programs to reduce buyer power? How does that industry use loyalty programs to do so?
5. As an information-literate knowledge worker for a local distributor of imported foods and
spices, you’ve been asked to prepare a customer mailing list that will be sold to
international cuisine restaurants in your area. If you do so, will you be acting ethically?
Suppose you don’t consider the proposal ethical. What will you do if your boss threatens to
fire you if you don’t prepare the list? Do you believe you would have any legal recourse if
you didn’t prepare the list and were subsequently fired?
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INDUSTRY & GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE – Employment Information Has Gone Social (p. 10)
• Many of your students will be familiar with this
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE – Spending Money to Save Customers (p. 18)
• Often times, you have to spend money just to keep your customers from going to the
competition.
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE – Valentine’s Day Goes Virtual (p. 24)
• Almost every aspect of our lives is going virtual.
• Now, you don’t even have to buy real (physical) gifts or cards for Valentine’s Day.
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE – Innovate or Go Home (p. 25)
• All organizations must constantly be innovating in their industries.
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ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND EXERCISES
E-MAIL: ELECTRONIC MAIL OR EXPENSIVE MAIL?
Note: Use this in the section on ethics and your ethical responsibilities
Chapter 01 – The Information Age in Which You Live: Changing the Face of Business
IDENTIFYING HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
Note: Use this in the section on information technology as a key resource
Pick up a recent copy of your local newspaper or perhaps a computer magazine such as PC
Magazine or Wired and find an ad for a personal computer system. What is the price of the
complete system? What hardware devices does it include? What software does it include?
DEVELOPING STRATEGIES FOR PROTECTING YOURSELF FROM IDENTITY THEFT
Note: Use this anywhere in the chapter.
Identity theft is not something that happens to someone else. Almost 10 million people in the
United States reported themselves as victims of identity theft in 2002 – that’s about 1 in every
29 people (even less when you take children out of the equation).
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