a. Describe some of the stories, rites, rituals, and symbols that are representative of the organization's culture of your current or previous employer. Examine how you have responded to these cultural elements. Determine if the ways you responded to the cultural elements did or did not help you to adjust.
b. Determine five characteristics of innovation teams that are linked to their success. Rank these characteristics in order of importance (one being the most important, and five being the least important). Select one of the characteristics of innovation teams that you believe you relate to. Support your position.
c. Propose criteria that can be used to decide who gets laid off in organizations.
d. Determine the level of emphasis that organizations should place on ensuring that layoff decisions are ethical and legal. Propose ways for organizations to achieve the goal of ethical and legal layoffs.
e. Imagine you have been promoted to a brand manager for a frozen pizza. The promotion is a challenge being that sales for the pizza have gone backward three years in a row. Assess what you will need to know or what questions need to be answered before you can size up what is not working about the current strategy.
f. Pick a new product category that has been introduced in the past six months. (Be sure to pick a new product category such as the tablet, instead of a newer version of an existing product, such as the iPad 2). Develop a strategy to assess how to measure the new product's success or failure over a 12-month launch period.
g. Chose a company that you feel needs a tweak to its marketing strategy and recommend a change. Provide a rationale for your recommendation.
h. In 2011, Netflix made two major blunders that impacted the number of subscribers, revenue, and the stock price: the separation of the DVD business and the increase in subscription fees. From the first two e-Activities, assess the situation today. Determine what price Netflix paid to get where they are today.