QUESTION 1: BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS
1500 maximum word limit total for all: parts (worth-25 points)
CASE:
This is your fictional business consulting client (he is a real person but he is fictional as your client on this Knowledge Integration Project). His name is Lee Hinman. He won third place in an Veterans Florida Entrepreneurship Program competition.
DO NOT research anything beyond the assigned article. You are required to think through the possibilities based solely on the provided content in this KI Project and not research the actual competition winner or anything else from real life. Real life business leaders or business advisors give advice to people without "knowing all of the facts." You will make assumptions which you will clearly state and then you will give your best advice in a persuasive manner.
Support each item with principles and theories from the readings:
1A) What several factors must business professionals (including your client) consider when choosing what form of entity is best?
1B) What are the advantages and disadvantages of each form?
1C) Which one form would you choose for your client and why (in terms of the most probable constraints and objectives)? Which form would be your "second-best" recommendation and why? You must address at least two specific constraints and objectives that you are applying and how they impact your business selection (e.g., how many people he wants to 'own' the business, how much risk or liability he wants, if he has any friends or family that he wants to "own" some of the business, any citizenship considerations of any potential "owners", whether he wants anyone to inherit the business, etc.).
Enough about your client, let's focus on you!
1 D) Access the DMBA 610 required reading for Week 10, U.S. Small Business Administration, Starting and Managing "Partnership". This source provides information on how to legally start and structurally manage one type of business organization, a partnership.
- The average startup breakup rate can be 20-30% higher than marriage divorce rates." (Boitnott, 2017)
"[B]usinesses with more than one owner can be worse than marriage." (Anderson, n.d.)
- "Partners are not only liable for their own actions, but also for the business debts and decisions made by other partners. In addition, the personal assets of all partners can be used to satisfy the partnership's debt." ("Partnership I The U.S. Small Business Administration I SBA.gov," n.d.)
Who would you select to form a general partnership with from your current real-life friends, family and acquaintances (with all of the risk entailed)? Why would you select this person (or group of people)?
Lastly why is it important to gain a basic understanding of the available choices of business forms at the outset?
Question II: DUTIES OF CORPORATE OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS
CASE:
You read the article, "How to Hire Fake Friends and Family"
2A) What are the duties and obligations of a corporate officer in general and did CEO Ishii Yuichi conform to those duties and obligations in terms of the service his company is selling to consumers?
2B) For the governing bodies /directors of a corporation, what are their obligations? To whom are they loyal? Is a director an agent of any entity?
Have the members of the governing bodies of Harvard Corporation carried out their obligations appropriately regarding the rescinded admissions? Why or why not? Under the business judgment rule are the governing body members immune from legal action for their decisions? Why or why not?
2C) What do you think of the leadership and management skills of Harvard Corporation leadership (president and governing bodies)? Are they serving the nonprofit well (as per best practices and business theory), or not? As the corporation is the wealthiest University in the world, how will the actions of the leadership team impact that immense wealth?
Support your response with an explanation of the decision -making process that you would personally apply if you were an officer or board of director of this non-profit corporation. How would your decision-making process differ from that of a for profit officer and/ or director?
2D) What do you think of the company discussed in question 2A, Family Romance? Do you think that the CEO, Ishii Yuichi, is a genius (e.g., maximizing value to shareholders) or has he done anything wrong?
2E) You determine that you are proud to be earning your MBAI You want to be able to persuade the general public that businesses (and their leaders) are a positive socially responsible part of modern society. So, using Badaracco's "right v. right" framework from his Defining Moments video (2002) address this statement, "One man's whistle-blower is another man's snitch."
2F) Robot Police are Here. Really?
Question III: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS
CASE:
While you are contemplating your future as a UMUC MBA graduate and international business mogul, you realize that global business is very important! You will therefore need to better understand international business. It is a small world after all!
Answer the following:
3A) What is globalization? You worry about what Facebook should do to protect themselves from risks in the event of a dispute in regards to an international business venture(s). You read, "more than 50 countries have passed laws over the last five years to gain greater control over how their people use the web()" (Paul Mozur, Mark Scott and Mike Isaac, 2017) Wow! 50 countries with laws in the last five years, how will any company (or in this case, Facebook) keep up! What do you advise in the context of globalization? (100 word limit)
3B) What are location advantages? You are concerned that Facebook business assets could be the subject of expropriation or losses due to any future civil unrest. What advice do you give Facebook to address this possibility while maintaining any location advantages? (190 word limit)
3C) Which country or region do you select as the number one priority for Facebook to invest time and resources in and why? Vietnam, China, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, Malaysia, South Africa, Kenya, Chad, Uganda, the USA or another option?
You read, "Last summer, emails winged back and forth between members of Facebook's global policy team. They were finalizing plans, more than two years in the making, for WhatsApp, the messaging app Facebook had bought in 2014, to start sharing data on its one billion users with its new parent company.
German privacy officials ordered WhatsApp to stop passing data on its 36 million local users to Facebook, claiming people did not have enough say over how it would be used. The British privacy watchdog soon followed. By late October [2016], all 28 of Europe's national data-protection authorities jointly called on Facebook to stop the practice."(Paul Mozur, Mark Scott and Mike Isaac, 2017) Gee, two years of plans ruined!
What is a multidomestic view? How does it relate to what specific types of provisions you recommend should be written into the Facebook business contracts to limit any legal disputes that might arise between their US based company and any local vendors, banks and clients around the world?
3D) How would these provisions favor the interests of Facebook?
3E) If you include the provisions you recommend in part (C) in the contracts, does that mean Facebook will never have to go to court in another country or become familiar with any foreign laws in connection with their business deals?
3F) What could happen if the provisions you specified in part (C) were not part of the contract? You read, "Uganda also took legal action in Irish courts to force the social network to name an anonymous blogger who had been critical of the government. Those efforts failed." (Paul Mozur, Mark Scott and Mike Isaac, 2017) How can Facebook prevent lawsuits filed by one country (e.g., Uganda) in another country (e.g., Ireland) for a US company?
3G) What does Facebook do to protect their interests regarding infrastructure purchases (e.g., to avoid the risk of paying upfront for a business item in another country or region and the purchased items never being delivered to their local offices)? What about ensuring that the items delivered items are properly installed in their international location?
QUESTION IV - CRITICAL THINKING REVIEW
Answer the following:
CASE:
Read the article "In Italian Schools, Reading, Writing and Recognizing Fake News" (Horowitz, 2017)
4A) Identify your "fake news" & the Purpose, Goal, or End in View?
4B) Question at Issue or Problem to be Solved?
4C) (Information) The Empirical Dimension of Reasoning?
4D) The Conceptual Dimension of Reasoning?
4E) Identify at least three reasoning fallacies in the "fake news" by type and explain why they are reasoning fallacies in this context.