...Four Market Structures Shavon Harrison ECON222 Kunsoo Choi What are the four market structures and their characteristics? According to McConnell and Brue (2004) describe four market structures that companies align themselves with during the course of their corporate lives.: “Pure Competition, Pure Monopoly, Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly. Companies may move from market structure to market structure over the course of growth and time. This movement between structures may be the result of product changes, introduction of competition or consumer interests. McConnell and Brue (2004) also states that, pure competition is "a very large number of firms producing a standardized product". This is the case with the corn industry. One example of a pure competition corporation is "Farmers Cooperative Association" (FCA). A Farmers' Cooperative Association is a group of farmers, at their convenience, who come together to form a co-op in order to: improve bargaining power; reduce costs; obtain market access or broaden market opportunities and improve product or service quality (Nebraska Department of Agriculture, n.d.) that would normally not be achieved as an individual farmer. In doing so each farmer pays a fee to the Cooperation. The Cooperation itself is normally a non-profit organization in that the profit is attained back to the members supplying the product. Pricing is determined by the Board of Trade and is typically nonnegotiable. Cooperatives can hold corn at the request...
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...The economy is impacted everyday with the means of manufacturing and marketing merchandises or services. In order to produce and sell goods or services firms need to be contained within a market structure. There are different market structures in the economy such as competitive markets, monopolies and oligopolies. Each different market structure has a different way to determine the price of a product in order to maximize its profit. Market structures also need to indicate the degree in which they will produce their output of products to reach the highest level of profitability. Maximizing profits in different market structures possibly could raise different barriers as each structure plays a different role in the economy. The competitive market or in other words can be known as a perfectly competitive market can have numerous buyers and numerous sellers in the market and goods are accessible to consumers by a large number of sellers which are generally the same. In this type of market different firms can enter or exit the market freely because there is either an easy level of demand required by consumers or because an entrepreneur simply wants to enter into the selling of a product produced within the market. This means that the arrangements of any one supplier or purchaser in the market have an insignificant impact on the market price of the product of that, which is current. Consumers in the competitive market are said to be price takers because they must accept the current...
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...In competitive markets there are many buyers and sellers in the market and the goods that are offered mostly the same. Because there are many buyers and sellers that offer the same good there competitive markets have no real impact on market prices. Buyers and sellers can increase their selling price, but consumers will go somewhere else to get the good cheaper. This happens when there are many companies that sell the same product. Maximizing profits would have to come internally, selling more product is the only way to increase profit because the market price is constant. One barrier that competitive markets face is that they have to take the market price as it is given. There are so many others that sell the same type of good the price is more constant and one company cannot make the market price increase. The economy needs competitive markets so that most people can afford goods. If all goods were made by monopolies there would be less competitive pricing and consumers would buy less. The output is determined by market conditions not by what a competitive market would like to sell for. Competitive markets are small, numerous and there are similar items that can be bought. A monopoly is when a company is the sole seller of the good and there are no close substitutes for that good. This happens because other companies cannot enter the market and compete with other organizations. To be a monopoly the good is owned by a single company and that company has exclusive rights given...
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...UNDERSTANDING DRUG ADDICTION Chartorieah Shinez Sanders COM/156 03/26/2012 Nicholas Delzotto Understanding Drug Addiction All over the world, people are losing their loved ones to a mind altering disease called drug addiction. If something isn’t done; the disease will continue to grow, destroy happy homes and take more young lives. Drug addiction is a severe illness that people should be taught to avoid the continuing overwhelming of the nation. First you should learn what the disease is, who is affected, what causes the disease and how we can help those that are suffering from this disease. Drug addiction has been described as a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use (What is Drug Addiction?, Section para.3). Yes, it is true that individuals have the option to refuse these mind altering substances that cause addiction and other health risks but there are several risk factors that could influence the individuals decision such as, a person’s biology but that problem drinking and problem drug use are not caused exclusively by biologic traits says Christopher Freed (2010). While biology is not completely the cause of drug addiction, some people were born into a family that has a history of drug addiction and if you combine that with peer pressure or, the feeling of wanting to fit in; your outcome will be another individual who uses or is addicted to drugs. This is one of the biggest influences on many teenagers and young...
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...wanted to reorganize their organization structure to help them improve efficiency, respond to environmental changes and increase communication between apartments. Environment: Aquarius is a traditional organization and has a hierarchy system that makes the company inflexible to change. They need to change this in order to keep their organization alive from other advertising firms (competitors) and current customers changing advertisement firms. Size: Aquarius is a middle-sized firm that offers two services to their clients. They currently have an organization structure that was a hierarchy structure which included upper management, managers and other operational staff. Culture: Aquarius wanted to improve on their communication of their departments so they can sustain and increase their excellence of attracting and maintaining their clients. Technology: Aquarius had many different communication methods and tools to deal with their clients. They contacted clients through email, telephone and made formal meetings with their clients. They also had the technology and software to create ads for televisions, newspapers, the radio, the internet and billboards 2. I think Aquarius should move towards more of a horizontal structure rather than a vertical or traditional (hierarchy) structure. I think they need to integrate their Accounts, Operations and Marketing teams to have more horizontal communication between each other. The horizontal structure will allow more of decentralized decision...
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...Corporation, though profitable was lousily managed. It lacked structure and would sooner or later lose control of its laxed work force and eventually lose profits. The problems facing Apex lay in several areas. (1) Customer serviced needed much improvement; customers found Apex to be slow in responding or not responding at all. (2) The hours that key employees kept were not in tune with customer needs. (3) Apex functioned as a reactionary company rather than a potential leader in the cellular carrier industry. Some alternative actions Apex Corporation needed were restructuring of its organizational structure, in an attempt to achieve maximum proficiency, the CEO implemented a circular structure to create a non hierarchal organization so information could flow freely between the organization and its environment. However employees could not relate to the circular structure. The circular structure confused current and new employees because it lacked clarity as to who made decisions; employees didn’t know how they were being evaluated. It did not improved customer service or the view employees had of the customer. The Horizontal structure was nonresponsive with regards to employees and it was inadequate. What was needed was the ability to control all departments of the company. Innovative structures would not work. Apex needed to return to traditional business management of the Hierarchical Functional Structure. Hierarchy protects subordinates by clearly outlining chains...
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...possible. Activities, for example such as task allocation, coordination, and supervision directed toward the attainment of organizational aims are the elements of organizational structure. In conjunction with structure is organizational design, the plan. According to Hearst Communications, Inc. (2013), “When a company's leaders develop plans for how their company should function or would perform better, they undertake the business of organizational design. Good design takes inventory of all the tasks, functions and goals of a business, and then develops groupings and orderings of job positions; departments and individuals to best and most efficiently achieve those ends. Usually, designs are expressed through an organizational chart, which helps players throughout an organization understand functions and power relationships” As a business’s environment changes it is vital to identify, reassess, and possibly change one’s organizational structure and design. Knowing how to respond to the environment aids the company as economic, legal, political, and social circumstances change. Virgin America Airlines is expanding into China, and management realizes recommended changes in strategy may affect its current organizational structure and design. This discourse summarizes its existing organizational structure and describes the existing organizational design with specific discussion of how work is divided among people and departments as well as how Virgin America Airlines uses its resources...
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...product, but at a low cost, whilst concentrating on building differentiation on the basis of its marketing, range, logistics and store operations” (Johnson, Scholes & Whittington, 2005, p.249). Power structures The leadership beliefs in an inverted organisational pyramid, where the customer is at the top followed by staff, with top management at the bottom (Sancovich, 2002). The customer is put on top as they have the real power of what Ikea can and should sell. No one in Ikea flies first class is another aspect of the power culture within Ikea (Sancovich, 2002). This is part of the core beliefs of the leadership, as everyone in the organisation should be treated the same regarding of position. In general, Ikea uses an egalitarian leadership style, hence emphasise of getting rid of status and conventions. Even though Ingvar Kamprad is retired, he is still involved in the organisation he founded in 1943 (Allen, 2005). Hence, it is difficult to change the culture in the organisation as he is still pulling the strings. As all the employees is taught and trained the IKEA way, the desire and need for a cultural change is another unanswered question. How is power distributed in the organisation? What are the core beliefs of the leadership? How strongly held are these beliefs (idealists or pragmatists)? What are the main blockages to change? Organisational structures Even though Ikea is a large company with multiple divisions spread around the world, the organisation...
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...Questions 1. Taking into account information above, what type of organizational structure does the company belong? Why? Please explain. Mechanistic vs Organic Grand Candy is an Organic company as there are few rules. There is also an informal communication. 2. What type of organizational design will better suit to this firm? a) Simple b) functional c) divisional d) team structure The organization use team structure design both in stores and factory. A team consists of professionals with various skills. According to company's CEO (chief executive officer Hovhannes Aidinyan) if one member of a team should be fired all team members should give an agreement. 3. What type of departmentalization does the company use in the factory? a) functional b) customer c)process d)product In the contrary of stores and cafes the factory creates teams using a product departmentalization. It is necessary as and most suitable way of departmentalization as company produces more than 400 products. Questions 1. Taking into account information above,what type of organizational structure does the company belong? Why? Please explain. Mechanistic vs Organic MTS uses mechanistic organizational structure. First of all it is very big for being organic. Which is characteristic for mechanistic organizations, it has many rules, formulized communication channels in order to manage behavior and performance of huge amount of employees. According to changes given above,...
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...ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE Introduction: in this assignment I am going to explain two organisational structures which is Tesco and Harlow College, I will describe the functional areas, span control and the layers in the business. Organisation structure: is the structure that determines how the roles, power and responsibilities are assigned, controlled and how information flows between the different levels of management Importance of organisational structures * Organisational structure is important for decision making * Is most used for communication eg. Marketing employees will discuss any issues with their director then the director will forward it to the vice manger or any upper management * It helps in evaluating employee performance. * The structure helps the business to achieve its goals because various department leaders are in charge to help in meeting any project deadlines. * It enables companies to prevent any conflict. TESCO Span of control: is the number of staff members that can be managed efficiently, basically every staff member can have control over a certain amount of people. Span control helps Tesco a lot even the growth of the company. There two types of span control theses are: 1. Narrow span of control 2. Wide span of control Narrow span of control means a single manager or supervisor oversees few members. Narrow span of control is more expensive as compared to wide span of control as there is more number of managers and therefore...
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...Theoritical Framework Communication Channels * The medium selected by the sender through which the message travels to the receiver Types of Channels * Formal Channels * Are established by the organization and transmit messages that are related to the professional activities of members * Informal Channels * Used to transmit personal or social messages in the organization. These informal channels are spontaneous and emerge as a response to individual choices Direct of Communication Downward Communication is the communication that flows from one level of a group or organization to a lower level. Group leaders and managers use it to assign goals, provide job instructions, explain policies and procedures, point out problems that need attention, and feedback about performance. When engaging in downward communication, managers must explain the reason why a decision was made. Upward Communication flows to a higher level in the group or organization. It’s used to provide feedback to higher-ups, inform them of progress toward goals, and relay current problems. Upward communication keeps managers aware of employees feel about their jobs, co-worker, and the organization in general. Managers also rely on upward communication for ideas on how conditions can be improved. Lateral Communication Communication take place among members of the same work group, members of work groups at the same level, managers at the same level, or any other horizontally equivalent...
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...The proposed taxonomy will be as follows: - Before application - Graduate Coursework Programmes Available - Master of Mass Communication - About the Programme - Admission Requirements - Programme Structure - Curriculum - Course fees - Contact Us - Master of Science in Knowledge Management - About the Programme - Admission Requirements - Programme Structure - Curriculum - Course fees - Contact Us - Master of Science in Information Systems - About the Programme - Admission Requirements - Programme Structure - Curriculum - Course fees - Contact Us - Master of Science in Information Studies - About the Programme - Admission Requirements - Programme Structure - Curriculum - Course fees - Contact Us - Application Period - Fees, Financial Assistance, and Scholarships - Additional Information for International Students - On-Campus and Off-Campus Accommodation - Cost of Living - During application - Apply online - Send supporting documents - Pay application fee - Check application status - After application - Accept offer - Apply for accommodation - Register for courses The taxonomy is designed with the end-user in mind. The intended users of the taxonomy are prospective students to the graduate coursework programmes in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. The purpose of the taxonomy is to provide these prospective students with all the necessary information needed to help them decide whether and which programme to apply for and to aid them in the application and...
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...goals(soft) "To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind." Strategy (hard) Apple’s fundamental business model has not changed since it first began business in the late 1980’s. The main focus of the Apple strategy is in constant innovation. Apple is engaged in horizontal integration, vertical integration, strategies outsourcing and diversification. Structure(hard) The company's management employs a functional structure as the company is organised along functional lines. This structure groups people on the basis of their common expertise-experience and resources. This structure gives managers greater control of organisational activities and enables the company to avoid becoming too tall by creating several different hierarchies. By decentralising authority and responsibility as well as through a relatively flat hierarchical structure, Apple encourages its lower-level managers and employees to take the initiative and foster the company's strengths such as Apple's innovation, engineering excellence and marketing skills. Systems(hard) In order to avoid coordination problems between people, functions and divisions Apple has to use integration mechanisms and control systems. Actually, integration mechanisms aim at increasing intra-functional coordination and communication. As Apple's culture can be described as relatively open and casual, direct contact constitutes and appropriate integration mechanisms. In fact...
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...Introduction The business environment is the internal and external factors that affect how the company functions including employees, customers, management, supply and demand and business regulations. I will be explaining two different businesses (Tesco’s and Chloe’s corner shop) that what their purposes are, what kind ownership are they and what is the type of their business. Then I will be going to describe the different stakeholders who influence the purpose of Tesco and Costcutter. This article will cover the purpose, ownership, organisational structure and strategic planning of both Tesco’s and Chloe’s corner shop. Tesco’s Tesco started in 1919 when Jack Cohlen started selling surplus grocery from a stall in east London. Mr Cohen who is the founder of Tesco made a profit of £1 from a sale of £4 on his first day. And today Tesco is the UKs biggest supermarket company by employing about 89000 people internationally and still expanding. Tesco is an international company they got their branches in over 14 countries which includes china, japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico and many more. They got over 2500 stores internationally all around the world. Tesco is a public limited company or PLC that’s national (spread all over the parts of UK) and is also in every local borough in London. Tesco’s belong to the tertiary sector because it does not make products as such but it mainly provides a valuable service that consumers and other business are prepared to pay for and/ or use...
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...Organizational Structure Paper Courtney Fryer MGT 230 January 6, 2015 Ms. B. Alston Organizational Structure Paper Fast food chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King, and Chick-fil-a, all have an interest in making growing profits and enlarging their companies’ name. Although each company has their own unique and different set of requirements for functioning, the organizational structure has given these companies chance and opportunity to expand to outside parties. Using this paper, I will show the different ways in which these companies use the organizational structures. Every structured organization is run differently. When you compare and contrast more than one company it can show how they may be similar in their structured organization but also show how they differ. The human resources and finance part of the different franchises might favor but the organizational design might be total opposite between the franchises. Chick-fil-a is known for their one of kind chicken sandwiches. The company was started back in the 1960s when its founder, Truett Cathy, invented the original chicken sandwich. The company’s first in-store restaurant was located in the Greenbrier Mall in Atlanta, Georgia in 1967. Since then the Chick-fil-a franchise has grown enormously with over 500 restaurants over the United States and still continuing to grow. Chick-fil prides themselves in handpicking their employees and giving their employees opportunities that...
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