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Companies
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What is Companies?

Companies sit at the center of business education because they serve as the primary unit of analysis for understanding how markets, management, and economies function. Courses in business administration, organizational behavior, international business, and human resources all use the firm as a starting point for examining broader questions about competition, labor, strategy, and social responsibility. What makes companies academically interesting is their dual role as economic actors and social institutions — they generate products and profit while also shaping employment, culture, and public policy in significant ways.

Student papers on this topic approach companies from a wide range of angles. Some take a case-study format, examining specific organizations and markets, such as direct foreign investment decisions or the entry of Ford and General Motors into the Russian market. Others focus on functional areas like global human resources management, training and development practices, and quality management's effect on domestic and global competition. Policy-oriented papers address issues such as job outsourcing and its effects on the U.S. labor market, while ethics-focused essays examine corporate social responsibility and global sociocultural obligations. Leadership analysis also appears, looking at what makes executives effective in complex organizational settings.

A strong essay on companies should establish a focused thesis tied to a specific business function, market condition, or organizational challenge rather than attempting to describe a company in general terms. Evidence drawn from industry data, financial performance, or documented management practices carries the most weight. The most common pitfall is treating a company as a background subject rather than a lens — the firm should be used to illuminate a larger argument about markets, organizations, or strategy.

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Essay Doctorate
Word-of-mouth marketing effectiveness on social networking platforms
¶ … Trusov, Bucklin, and Pauwels (2009) examines the growing trend of marketing via social networking platforms. Social networking is increasing the efficiency and productivity of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing…
Essay Doctorate
Coca-Cola's integration initiative: legal implications and recommendations
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a framework of internationally accepted guidelines and principles for companies and organizations to report on corporate responsibility and sustainability performance. This year, in 2011, The Coca-Cola Company has set out to report against the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that measure economic, environmental and social performance. We have done so within the scope of our Company's wholly owned operations. Where we have reported information on behalf of the Coca-Cola system (The Coca-Cola Company and our bottling partners), we have flagged this information within the body of the text.
Paper Doctorate
General Electric's outsourcing decision: Philippines versus Ukraine
In this paper, we are going to be comparing the Ukraine with the Philippines for the construction of alternative energy plant (owned by GE). To achieve these objectives there will be a focus on: the business environment and actual firms that are located in the country. Once this takes place, is when we will show how the region has more to offer this kind of facility.
Paper Masters
Globalization: challenges, opportunities, and corporate strategy
Globalization Introduction – Definitions of Globalization Globalization has a number of different meanings depending on who is explaining and what the context is. An article in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business explains that globalization "…typically refers to the process by with different economies and societies become more closely integrated" (Irani, et al, 2011, p. 1345). The concept of globalization is not new because companies and societies have been relocating and investing in foreign enterprises for more than a hundred years. But with the advent over the past twenty years of digital technologies (Internet, cell phones, the instant flow of capital – example, millions of dollars can be sent electronically from a bank in Asia to a bank in Montreal – and free or very cheap telephone service) the world is more interdependent than ever before in history. And the spread of businesses into many cultures and countries has happened with unprecedented speed. The concept of globalized businesses, and the ability of companies to conduct business internationally using marketing strategies that are adjusted according to the culture that is being approached, is what most people are referring to when they use the term globalization. A very typical scenario for globalization is when a multinational corporation manufacturers products "…in many countries and sells to consumers around the world," and through this process "…money, technology and raw materials move ever more swiftly across national borders" (Irani, 1346). In addition to the products and financial considerations crossing borders, Irani notes that "ideas and cultures circulate more freely" and as a result of that, "…laws, economies, and social movements are forming at the international level" Irani continues.
Research Paper Doctorate
Liquidity and solvency analysis of Arctic and Polaris
The current ratios and quick test will be used in evaluating the liquidity and the short-term solvability of the two companies. A company that is in short-term financial difficulties may have difficulties in the long…
Research Paper Doctorate
Comparing merit pay, incentive pay, and profit sharing plans
¶ … Value of Merit-Based Plans, Incentive-Based Plans, and Profit Sharing Plans
Research Paper Doctorate
Vega Industries: market leadership strategy for navigation light innovation
From its humble beginnings in the Porirua Harbor, Vega Industries has come to be the world's most reputed navigation lights manufacturer. The state-of-the-art provider of optical and technological lighthouse and beacon…
Research Paper Doctorate
The Japanese distribution system: structure, relationships, and trade practices
The Japanese Distribution System has been under a lot of scrutiny and assessment and analyses by foreigners, and these analyses have attempted to find out the reason behind the absolute 'no go' principle that they find…
Paper Undergraduate
The glass ceiling and female chief marketing officers
This study attempts to answer a couple of key questions about the issue of the glass ceiling, where the marketing function is concerned. The first question is about the typical profile of a female Chief Marketing Officer. The educational and work experiences of past and present female CMOs is weighed against the education and work experiences of male CMOs either in the same company or from a competitor.
Paper Undergraduate
Johnson & Johnson's constraint-based planning and supply chain management
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is the world's leading producer of healthcare, pharmaceutical and medical devices with annual revenues for their latest fiscal year of $61.5B and Net Income of $13.3B, operating in 57 nations and selling into over 175 countries (Johnson & Johnson Investor Relations, 2012). While the company operates across a very broad value chain, it has successfully integrated many of the core supplier management, procurement, strategic capacity planning and constraint-based planning into a centralized strategy (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). Integrating these elements together has given Johnson & Johnson greater agility and accuracy in managing aberrations in quality and supplier performance, stabilizing both end-product quality and manufacturing performance at the same time (Slobodow, Abdullah, Babuschak, 2008). From the most basic aspects of job design to the development of its strategic sourcing and strategic capacity planning, Johnson & Johnson concentrates on creating a platform to ensure their Total Quality Management (TQM) and House of Quality ongoing efforts stay synchronized corporate-wide (Johnson, 1993). This makes constraint-based planning and manufacturing execution systems (MES) more effective, while also minimizing the level of demand and process/product variability, leading to accelerated new product development cycles and more profitable medical products (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). What Johnson & Johnson has been able to do is unify their entire value chain to deal with these aspects of constraint-based planning. As the company is very metrics- and quantitatively-driven, production managers and company executives know the relative level of success or failure for each of these areas relatively quickly based on the use of real-time analytics and dashboards that include Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). This mindset around measuring and quantifying performance is predicated on the company's approach to delivering business value by ensuring the entire value chain is transparent from a strategic capacity planning and risk management perspective (Williams, 2004). Johnson & Johnson has learned over decades of work on their constraint-based planning systems that creating a high level of supply chain, sourcing, route assurance, non-conformance and traceability visibility throughout their value chain can save millions of dollar a year and thousands of cumulative hours (Atherton, Kleiner, 1998). The next section discusses how the company uses capacity and constraint-based planning to better manager their value chain.