...and Grocery Stores industry in Australia is under fierce competition, and the industry revenue is expected to grow at an annualized 2.2% in the next few years, to reach $98.1 billion (IBIS 2016). A growing number of discounters have infiltrated the industry, such as ALDI, which has forced two dominated companies, Woolworths and Coles, to lower prices and increase the number of private-label products (IBIS 2016). Malaysia hypermarket retail chain Giant is also eyeing the Australian market. Given the business context in Australia, political, economic and technological are the most relevant macro environmental factors that Giant should consider. Political factor The export tariff is an important issue in trading as Australia was Malaysia’s 10th largest export destination, accounting for 3.6 percent of Malaysia’s exports (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2012). The Malaysia-Australia Free Trade Agreement (MAFTA), was signed in May 2012 and came into force on 1 January 2013, provided a high level of market access liberalization for goods into the Australian market (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2012). The implement of MAFTA is likely to lower the cost of Malaysian products, enhance the relationship between trading partners and create investment opportunities and jobs in Australia market. Furthermore, according to the report of the Economist Intelligence Unit, Australia achieved one of the highest rankings in the world regarding political stability and strong...
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... Instability in the MiddleEast, Oil supply uncertainty) Of all the political risks covered, the Iraq/Middle East threat has the greatest likelihood of triggering the other major threats. Thus, the worsening of the Iraq/Middle East situation poses the gravest threat to the growth and stability of the world economy. If the situation in Iraq further deteriorates, the threat of sectarian violence spreading in the region increases and instability results. By this threat alone, this is a serious risk. However, the chain of events it could trigger is more significant. *Increasing incentives to join terrorism The conflict in Iraq and the Middle East, where civilian lives were lost and impoverished makes it easier for terrorist groups to attract new recruits. Destruction of lives and property, as well as the resulting chaos could popularize anti-US/Western sentiment. Also, joining terrorist groups could also be an escape from the difficulty of surviving in the ongoing chaos. The threat of this new wave of terrorist activities could result in a more unsecure world, where asymmetric warfare could break out in different regions. *Worsening oil supply uncertainty As the Middle East region accounts for more than half of the world’s oil reserves, with Saudi Arabia alone accounting for 25%, the effect of an unstable Middle East directly leads to a more uncertain oil supply for the world. Over the recent years, the number of attacks on oil-producing infrastructure has increased...
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...“Critically evaluate how international and geo-political risk to business might impact upon a person’s overall lifestyle”. Introduction My lifestyle keeps me busy but I enjoy the ability to catch up with friends and relax at a café or the beach. I am able to do the things I enjoy through working two jobs, on a regular roster. I enjoy cultural activities with friends in Sydney and regularly getting to the beach for a swim. Australia is a beautiful country which allows me to enjoy the sun and beach on a regular basis. A combination of flexibility and structure allows me to financially support myself while studying full-time; work is enjoyable and adds to my social and physical well-being. The flexibility in university and work allows me to catch up with friends regularly, while maintaining my financial independence. The political environment enhances my wellbeing by provide an avenue to defer my university fees until I graduate and get a job. Risk is considered the probability of a specific loss of worth, against the prospect of gaining value through the intentional interaction with uncertainty (Slovic, 2000). Risk is associated with a given action and/or inaction, of a foreseen/unforeseen nature that can result in a loss or gain in regards to financial wealth or physical health. Slovic (2000) expresses that all human interactions carry some risk, but the degree of risk depends on the situation and the perception of its severity. ...
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...look at oil prices in terms of inflation, we realize that this is one of the strongest components why the economy is collapsing and now we are on tipping end of a dangerous bout of deflation. The problem of deflation is that it renders any and all debts dangerous and a country as indebted as the United States of America, simply cannot risk that outcome of it. The economy is affected by many factors that determine if it is strong enough or simply too weak. These factors have to do with buyers consuming goods and services and how often they do this. Do the goods and services that are consumed by people create wealth, jobs, and a better overall economy for a country? In this paper I will discuss how the oil practices affect the economy and to what extent. Throughout history we have seen evidence of some economies that have evolved faster and stronger than others. Policies that the government places on industry, technology and the environment can all affect the prosperity of an economy. Of the factors that affect economic growth the industry of oil and gas is one that holds a dominant spot in the world's and America's economy today. When evaluating the economic growth factor of economy and specifically oil and gas one must consider some factors such as: the relationship that it have with the whole economy, the way it affect economic growth, what it a cause or effect of economic growth, along with a few others. In respect to how economy is affected by oil and gas all...
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...entering the Russian oil market was to try to take advantage of being the first mover. As a new smaller firm within a large oligopolistic structure of the oil industry Phibro’s move was risky but potentially necessary to in order to move itself to a better position within the market. By moving into Russia first through a joint venture with VNG Phibro hoped to gain access to a significant source of scarce input crude petroleum One of the main reason moving into new market is that a company has a specific expertise to share to allow it to gain a competitive advantage. While Phibro certainly had a capital to contribute to any venture its expertise in the oil industry was limited and it has been in operation only for less than ten years before it took on the White Night Project. This lack of expertise showed itself in the mistakes it made while entering the Russian market. First the company had trusted the Russian estimates of the available oil rather doing its own research. This was a costly mistake when it turned out that the estimates of available crude oil was too generous. Second the company entered into a contract that left it dependant of on its foreign partner. Phibro promised to provide capital to find the needed technology and services, while VNG would provide the feels and the infrastructure. This left Phibro with little control over how to work was implemented in Russia. It also left Phibro with a partner that was required to continue to selling oil to its traditional customers...
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...The current economic climate has had a direct impact on the Irish airline industry. People have less disposable income and as a result Dublin airport has witnessed a decline in passenger numbers since 2008. Figures released by the DAA show a significant decline in passengers from 23.5 million in 2008 to 20.5 million in 2009; a decrease of 13% and it s expected that numbers will fall even further in 2010 to 19 million passengers. Ireland is one of the few European countries to impose a 10 travel tax on tourist travelling to Ireland. This along with the 40% increase in airport charges (which is being used to pay for Terminal 2) is considered to be one of the main reasons in the decline of seat capacity which dropped by 140,000 in April 2010 alone and the fall in Irish air traffic by 13% so far this year. Growth has returned to countries which have ditched this travel tax and reduced its airport charges. According to Canadian energy economist Jeff Rubin the maximum an airline company can pay for a barrel is $80 dollars, any higher and the company cannot make a profit, $80 dollars is the breakeven point. Oil prices have been steadily rising since January 2009 and economists have predicted that this year the price of oil will rise to $80 per barrel which could prove detrimental to the profitability of the airline industry. In April 2010 the eruption of an Icelandic volcano caused Irish air traffic to come to a halt. The closure of Irish airspace caused a sharp decline in trips to...
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...International Business Environment Name: University: Course Title: Instructor: Date: Executive Summary International business environment changes in the last couple of years have had a significant impact on the sectors of the world economy more so the airline sector, with this in mind the term paper focused on the impact of changes in the international business environment on the airline industry. International business environment is viewed as the most contexts for international business and comprehending how forces in this environment impact the business operations is the difference between business failure and success. To this end, the research established various changes in the business environment that have taken place in political, economic, financial and socio-cultural circles. Political changes especially the Arab spring have had far reaching impact on the airline sector with fall in passenger numbers to these destination as well as the rise in fuel prices negatively impacting the growth of the industry, political instability in other areas as well as laws regulating the airline sector have been on the rise as countries seek to protect local airlines, the economic crisis slowed down the growth of the sector but with the recovery process on track, the airline industry is expected to grow into the foreseeable future, issues such a new taxes for example carbon tax in Europe, the unstable foreign exchange market and inflationary pressures...
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...Instruction on the Group Project Principles of Management Each project group is expected to collectively write a case report that focuses on an ethical issue faced by a real-life organization, a specific industry, or a business profession. Following is a suggested outline for the case written by your group: I) Background Information (e.g., corporate history) II) The Central Ethical Dilemma(s) III) Alternative Ways to Deal With the Ethical Dilemma(s) IV) Possible Consequences and Implications of Alternative Solutions V) Ethical Theories That Are Applicable to This Case VI) Key Questions for Case Study When writing this case report, you are encouraged to gather as much relevant information as possible from various online and offline data sources. However, all the information used in your case analysis must be properly cited in the main body of your report, including the author name(s) and publishing date/year, if available, and the detailed citations must be included in the References section. Your case report will be graded on the following criteria: 1) Proper application of ethical theories 2) Quality of writing (readability, originality, grammatical correctness, etc.) 3) Breadth of information utilized (at least 20 different articles or books need be cited and actually used in writing this case) 4) Demonstrated critical thinking skills 5) Robust logical reasoning 6) Comprehensive data analysis (i.e. taking into...
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...corruption and high living standards makes it one of the best countries in the planet. Over the past ten years, Qatar has offered the world with economic success story, which amazed many people. A country with very harsh climatic conditions, small size of approximately 11,600 square kilometers in size, and population of around 1.9 million has been able to achieve very big things. There is an argument that Qatar will actually remain a leader in the gulf region in the future because of various reasons including: o Extensive development in infrastructure o Increase in gas depository’s discoveries o Technological advancement in gas production o Strong alliance with external powers o Surrounding by unstable countries o The country has reoriented its positions to remain a sovereign political player o The country great support for its dominant religion (Islamic) keeps it moving o Its short term political threats profile remains amongst the most established in the region. “Qatar extensive developments in infrastructures leading to increase in national income thus increase in country’s economic development”. The Qatar development in infrastructures offers a vigorous business environment to the companies (Ellis et al., 114). For instance, the development in road networks eases transportation process for industries to deliver their products. For example, the ongoing project pipeline construction in Mena region will facilitate...
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...countries is no different from Western investment. China’s ODI is uncorrelated with a measure of property rights and rule of law, whereas Western investment favors the better governance environments. As a result, Chinese investment in strong and weak governance environments is about the same, but its share of foreign investment is higher in the weak governance states. The micro data that we use is MOFCOM’s database on all Chinese firms investing in Africa between 1998 and 2012. We use key words in project descriptions to code the investments into 25 sectors. This database captures the small and medium private firms investing in Africa. Contrary to common perceptions, there are few projects in natural resource sectors. Most projects are in services, with a significant number in manufacturing as well. In our country-sector-level regressions based on firms’ transaction-level data, we find that Chinese ODI is profit-driven, just like investors from other countries. In particular, our regressions show that Chinese ODI is relatively more concentrated in skillintensive sectors in skill-abundant countries, but in capital-intensive sectors in capital-scarce countries. These patterns are mostly observed in politically unstable countries, suggesting stronger incentives to seek profits in tougher environments. Finally,...
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...fall of Nazi Germany, the United States devised the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economies of war-devastated countries. As a world power, the United States believed it was their duty to prevent another world war. The Soviet Union agreed with the sentiment, but not with the approach the western nations took. To prevent the rise of authoritarian governments, the United States promoted democracies, constitutional rule, and capitalism. The Soviet Union, an authoritarian government, advanced their communist ideas to counter the Truman Doctrine. The result of the opposing ideologies was a strained relationship between the two influencers of the modern world, and the initiation of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was focused on spreading their political ideology for one reason: Protection (Service 2). While most of the world considers the establishment of communist regimes as Soviet expansion, the Soviet Union created a buffer zone. In essence, the surrounding nations would provide more time for the Soviet Union to prepare while opposing troops invaded these “satellite states.” During this time, the United States decided that in order to prevent nations from falling to communism, nations would have to be stable politically and economically. Therefore, the United States launched numerous...
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...Relationship Between China And Africa Assignment Submitted For the International Management Module at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Business School Prepared By Ayankoya Kayode A Foli, Edem Mpongoshe, Lukhanyiso Hurrisunker, Sanisha Maqina, Chumani Introduction This assignment examines the strategic relationship between China and Africa. The first section provides statistics that reveal the extent of trade between China and Africa since 2000. The specific statistics center around the amount of natural resources exported to China and compares that to the amount of imports from China. After gaining insight into the extent of business between the two, one can begin to understand why Africa is so important to China. This importance is discussed in more detail against the backdrop of the historical background of these two regions. The following section explains the strategy that China has adapted to trade with Africa and introduces the concept of the “Chinese Model”. This model highlights the driving forces behind China’s strategic decisions and introduces some controversial arguments around some of the methods that China has adopted. An important part of this discussion is the comparison of China’s strategy with that of the West (i.e. regions like the United States of America (USA/US) and the European Union (EU). Some interesting statistics reveal that Africa is attracting significant amounts of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and...
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...The External Environment 4 The Environmental Domain Task Environment • General Environment • International Context Environmental Uncertainty Simple-Complex Dimension • Stable-Unstable Dimension • Framework Adapting to Environmental Uncertainty Positions and Departments • Buffering and Boundary Spanning • Differentiation and Integration • Organic Versus Mechanistic Management Processes • Planning and Forecasting Resource Dependence Controlling Environmental Resources Establishing Interorganizational Linkages • Controlling the Environmental Domain • Organization-Environment Integrative Framework Chapter Four The External Environment 53 M any companies are surprised by changes in the external environment. Perhaps the greatest tumult for today’s organizations has been created by the rapid expansion of e-commerce. For example, Amazon.com was ringing up on-line book sales for more than a year before managers at Barnes & Noble even began thinking about a Web site. Barnes & Noble was highly successful with its book superstore concept, but its early efforts in e-commerce were marked by costly mistakes and missed opportunities. Even though the company burned through $100 million in an effort to “crush Amazon,” Barnesandnoble.com was still selling only 15 percent of books bought online compared to Amazon’s 75 percent.1 Firms in every industry, from auto manufacturing to telecommlunications, face similar uncertainty. Many factors in the external environment cause turbulence...
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...importance of functioning effectively as part of society. 3 st 2 Starbuck (2003) identifies three grand areas of social conflict in which organisations are participating: - The conflict between corporations and nations, - the conflict between top managers and other stakeholders, and - the conflict between the short run and the long run. Mitigating them should be one of the main purposes of organisation theorists. Therefore it is imminent to identify the different dimensions of organisations and to describe the current and future external factors, which could affect an organisation. 4 One popular approach for scanning the environment of an organisation is P(political) E(economic) S(social) T(technology) L(legal) E(ecological) analysis; an environmental scanning tool – similar but more detailed than Porter’s 5 forces 5 to identify political, 6 economic, social, legal and ecological factors that have an impact on an...
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...The economic and social consequences of trade agreements have become a major area of research in recent years. Much of this has to do with regional economic integration, where countries in a geographic region, reduce and remove tariff and non-tariff barriers to the free flow of goods, services and production between each other (Hill, 2005). On the 1 January, 1994, such a trade agreement came into affect between America, Mexico and Canada. This was known as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This removed all barriers to the trade of goods and services within the member countries, the protection of intellectual property rights, application of national environmental standards and the establishment of two commissions with power to impose fines and remove trade privileges when such standards are ignored involving the environment, health and safety, wages and child labour (Hill, 2005). There is a belief that agreements designed to promote free trade within regions will benefit trade for all the countries involved, and also the rest of the world (Abbott and Moran, 2002). While regional economic integration, or foreign direct investment, is seen as a good thing, some observers worry that it could lead to a world in which regional trade blocs compete against each other. We are seeing the formation of many trading blocs continuing today as the need for it has become essential for countries and their firms to compete in the global market place (Seid, 2002). Although...
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