Question: Bernese plc develops and manufactures drills for
Bernese plc develops and manufactures drills for businesses operating in the oil and gas industry. Although it is committed to maximising the wealth of its shareholders, the business has incurred heavy losses over recent years. A new chief executive has now been appointed to revive the flagging fortunes of the business. As part of the revival process, a review has been ordered of all projects involving new drills that were either still being developed or were already developed and about to be launched. Project XK150 began in Year 6 and has incurred costs of £4 million, to date, in developing and testing a new drill for use in offshore oil rigs. The project had experienced numerous problems and the drill has taken longer than expected to develop but it will be ready to market from December Year 7. The new drill is expected to generate sales over a four-year period, after which it will be replaced with an improved version. The manager of Project XK150 has produced the following calculations to aid the review process: 
The manager of Project XK150 is dismayed by the above results and believes that the new chief executive will call an immediate halt to the proposed launch when the results are presented to him. Before making the presentation, however, the project manager has asked you to check the figures that he has produced. When going through the figures, you find the following: (i) The materials and components are already held in inventories and were purchased specifically for producing the new drills. The materials and components are highly specialised and cannot be used for any other project. They have no ready market value and, if the new drills are not manufactured, the materials and components will have to be disposed of immediately at a cost to the business of £0.2 million. (ii) The overheads reflect a 'fair share' of the total overheads incurred by the business. However, the overheads that relate specifically to the project account for only 25 per cent of the amount shown in each period. (iii) The depreciation charge relates to existing plant and equipment which will be required for the manufacture of the new drills. This plant and equipment has a current carrying (net book) value of £8.0 million and a current resale value of £6.0 million. If the project goes ahead, the plant and equipment will be sold for £2.0 million at the end of the project's life. (iv) Working capital of £2.5 million will be required immediately and will be released at the end of the four-year period of the life of the new drills. (v) The development costs relate to the costs incurred during the period up to 30 November Year 7. It is the policy of the company to write off development costs in equal annual instalments over the period in which revenues are generated. (vi) Interest charges arise from a loan that was taken out to help finance the development and manufacture of the new drills. You can assume the calculations provided by the manager of Project XK150 contain no arithmetic errors. The business has a cost of capital of 10 per cent. Ignore taxation. Required: (a) Calculate the net present value of the new drill and briefly comment on the viability of the project. (b) Briefly explain the reasons for any adjustments that you have made to the figures provided by the manager of Project XK150 in order to calculate the net present value of the new drill.
> Consider your responses to the previous questions. Are cognitive, emotional, and physical abilities different in the degree to which jobs can be redesigned to accommodate people who lack relevant abilities? What are the implications of this difference, i
> Think of a job that requires very high levels of certain cognitive abilities. Can you think of a way to redesign that job so that people who lack those abilities could still perform the job effectively? Now respond to the same question with regard to emo
> What roles do learning, education, and other experiences play in determining a person’s abilities? For which type of ability—cognitive, emotional, or physical—do these factors play the largest role?
> If you owned your own business and had a problem with employee theft, would you use an integrity test? Why or why not?
> Consider the personality dimensions included in the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and the RIASEC model. If you had to “slot” those dimensions into the Big Five, would you be able to do so? Which dimensions don’t seem to fit?
> Research on genetic influences on personality suggests that more than half of the variation in personality is due to nurture—to life experiences. What life experiences could make someone more conscientious? More agreeable? More neurotic? More extraverted
> Create a list of the most successful companies that you can think of. What do these companies have that others don’t? Are the things that those companies possess rare and inimitable (see Figure 1-2)? What makes those things difficult to
> Assume that you applied for a job and were asked to take a personality test, like the one offered by Kronos. How would you react? Would you view the organization with which you were applying in a more or less favorable light? Why?
> Given your background, which of the decision-making biases listed in the chapter do you most struggle with? What could you do to overcome those biases to make more accurate decisions?
> Do you consider yourself to be a “rational” decision maker? For what types of decisions are you determined to be the most rational? What types of decisions are likely to cause you to behave irrationally?
> What does the term “expert” mean to you? What exactly do experts do that novices don’t?
> Companies rely on employees with substantial amounts of tacit knowledge. Why do companies struggle when these employees leave the organization unexpectedly? What can companies do to help ensure that they retain tacit knowledge?
> In your current or past workplaces, what types of tacit knowledge did experienced workers possess? What did this knowledge allow them to do?
> Which component of ethical decision making do you believe best explains student cheating: moral awareness, moral judgment, or moral intent? Why do you feel that way?
> Putting yourself in the shoes of a manager, which of the four justice dimensions (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, informational) would you find most difficult to maximize? Which would be the easiest to maximize?
> Consider the three dimensions of trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and integrity). Which of those dimensions would be most important when deciding whether to trust your boss? What about when deciding whether to trust a friend? If your two answers di
> Which would be more damaging in organizational life—being too trusting or not being trusting enough? Why do you feel that way?
> Describe a job in which citizenship behaviors would be especially critical to an organization’s functioning, and one in which citizenship behaviors would be less critical. What is it about a job that makes citizenship more important?
> Think about a job that you’ve held in which you felt very low levels of psychological empowerment. What could the organization have done to increase empowerment levels?
> How do you tend to respond when you experience over reward and under reward inequity? Why do you respond that way rather than with some other combination in Figure 6-6? Figure 6-6: Three Possible Outcomes of Equity Theory Comparisons
> Consider the five strategies for fostering goal commitment (rewards, publicity, support, participation, and resources). Which of those strategies do you think is most effective? Can you picture any of them having potential drawbacks?
> Assume that you were working on a group project and that one of your teammates was nervous about speaking in front of the class during the presentation. Drawing on Figure 6-3, what exactly could you do to make your classmate feel more confident? Figure 6
> Which of the outcomes in Table 6-2 are most appealing to you? Are you more attracted to extrinsic outcomes or intrinsic outcomes? Do you think that your preferences will change asyou get older? Table 6-2: Extrinsic and Intrinsic Outcomes
> If you managed people in an organization in which there were lots of hindrance stressors, what actions would you take to help ensure that your employees coped with the stressors using a problem-focused (as opposed to emotion-focused) strategy?
> How would you assess your ability to handle stress? Given the information provided in this chapter, what could you do to improve your effectiveness in this area?
> If you had several job offers after graduating, to what degree would the level of challenge stressors in the different jobs influence your choice of which job to take? Why?
> Describe your dream job and then provide a list of the types of stressors that you would expect to be present. How much of your salary, if any at all, would you give up to eliminate the most important hindrance stressors? Why?
> Prior to reading this chapter, how did you define stress? Did your definition of stress reflect stressors, the stress process, strains, or some combination?
> Think again about the worst coworker you’ve ever had—the one who did some of the things listed in Table 1-1. Think about what that coworker’s boss did (or didn’t do) to try to improv
> Consider the list of positive and negative emotions in Table 4-2. Which of these emotions are most frequently experienced at work? What causes them? Table 4-2: Different Kinds of Emotions
> We sometimes describe colleagues or friends as “moody.” What do you think it means to be “moody” from the perspective of Figure 4-6? Figure 4-6: Different Kinds of Mood
> Consider the five core job characteristics (variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback). Do you think that any one of those characteristics is more important than the other four? Is it possible to have too much of some job characteristics?
> What steps can organizations take to improve promotion satisfaction, supervision satisfaction, and coworker satisfaction?
> Which of the values in Table 4-1 do you think are the most important to employees in general? Are there times when the values in the last three categories (altruism, status, and environment) become more important than the values in the first five categor
> Studies suggest that decades of downsizing have lowered organizational commitment levels. Can you think of a way that an organization can conduct layoffs without harming the commitment of the survivors? How?
> Can you think of reasons the increased diversity of the workforce might actually increase organizational commitment? Why? Which of the three types of commitment might explain that sort of result?
> Can organizations use a combination of monitoring and punishment procedures to reduce psychological and physical withdrawal? How might such programs work from a practical perspective? Do you think they would be effective?
> Describe other ways that organizations can improve affective, continuance, and normative commitment, other than the strategies suggested in this chapter. How expensive are those strategies?
> Which type of organizational commitment (affective, continuance, or normative) do you think is most important to the majority of employees? Which do you think is most important to you?
> Assuming you possessed the right technical skills for the job, would a position at IKEA be appealing to you? What would be the most important positives associated with the position, in your view? What would be the most important negatives?
> The directors of Helena Beauty Products Ltd have been presented with the following abridged financial statements: Required: Using six ratios, comment on the profitability (three ratios) and efficiency (three ratios) of the business as revealed by the st
> Accona plc operates a successful chain of furniture retail stores. For the year that has just ended, the business reported after-tax profits of £250 million. It has 200 million £0.50 shares in issue and has a P/E ratio of 7.8 times. Some years ago, in an
> Advocates of the shareholder value approach argue that, by delivering consistent and sustainable improvements in shareholder value, a business will benefit several stakeholder groups. The performance of a business such as the Stagecoach Group plc, which
> Larunda plc operates a shipyard in the UK and has recently completed the building of a passenger ferry for a French business. The ferry has successfully completed its sea trials and final payment of €20 million is due to Larunda plc in three months’ time
> Mithras plc is a UK business that is due to receive €200,000 from a German customer in three months’ time. A money market hedge will be used to manage currency risk and the following borrowing rates are available: Country ………. Borrowing rate per year Ger
> A French business is due to pay $3 million in six months’ time to a US supplier. In order to hedge against currency risk, the French business decides to sell euro futures immediately at €1 = $1.1306 and to close its position by buying euro futures in six
> Planters plc manufactures agricultural implements, components for which are acquired from a number of sources, including some overseas ones. The implements are marketed in the UK and, increasingly, overseas. The directors are aware that the business is e
> Ndovu plc is considering investing in a new project and, in the past, it would have used a cost of capital of 10 per cent as the discount rate to assess new projects. This rate had been calculated by a team of consultants about seven years ago. However,
> Bellona Ltd is a small business that produces a single product – a thermostat that is used in a range of kitchen appliances. Information relating to the thermostat is as follows: All sales are made to kitchen goods manufacturers on cre
> Threads Limited manufactures nuts and bolts, which are sold to industrial users. The abbreviated financial statements for 2018 and 2019 are as follows: Dividends were paid on ordinary shares of £70,000 and £72,000 for 2018 and
> Bradbury Ltd is a family-owned clothes manufacturer. For a number of years, the chair and managing director was David Bradbury. During his period of office, sales revenue had grown steadily at a rate of 2 to 3 per cent each year. David Bradbury retired o
> Thermia Ltd is a family-owned business that produces packaged foods for supermarkets. The family has recently lost interest in the business and has indicated a willingness to sell.­The senior managers of the business have decided to make an of
> Which control systems did Goldman Sachs’ primarily rely on (see Section 9.3). How did the systems support the growth strategy and in what respects did they fail with regard to the Malaysian business and more generally?
> Can you identify other technology platform companies and their ecosystem partners?
> How can ARM attract and manage so many ecosystem partners?
> Are there any unmet needs in your community, at college or elsewhere that could be turned into a business opportunity?
> Given its strategic challenges, do you agree that for Tesla a flatter organization was the right way to go?
> What do you learn from the experience of Goldberg and Ting which could be useful to launching a new enterprise?
> How would you form a venture team if you set up your own start-up?
> Based on the experiences of HP, Apple and Facebook what elements of skills and expertise do you think a new venture requires?
> How has Rovio evolved through the stages of entrepreneurial growth? At what stage of the entrepreneurial life cycle (see Section 8.2) is Rovio currently? Do you agree that the company is ready for its next phase of growth?
> How has Rovio changed its business model over time? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a freemium business model?
> Rovio has shifted its products between games, activity parks, movies, licensing etc., how has it handled different steps in the entrepreneurial process?
> What contributed to Rovio identifying its business opportunity?
> Were there alternative strategies open to TomTom post 2008?
> Explain the ways in which relatedness informed TomTom’s post 2008 strategy.
> How has Tesco’s corporate strategy changed over time?
> In the terms of Section 9.2, what kind of structure did Tesla have?
> Using the Ansoff matrix, plot Tesco’s growth over time. What do you notice about the pattern of expansion?
> With the creation of EssilorLuxottica, what would you recommend for GrandVision’s future strategy?
> How do you think that GrandVision adds or destroys value for its portfolio?
> How does GrandVision compete in its market?
> With reference to Ansoff ’s matrix, show how Luxottica and GrandVision have evolved over time. What can you conclude from each?
> Despite its success, why was Chipotle spun-off?
> What parenting advantages did McDonald’s perceive it might bring to Chipotle?
> Rank the elements of Passey’s strategy for Volvo in order of importance. Could any have been dispensed with?
> Using webcam chats is one approach to lower costs in financial advisory services as indicated above. What other ways could there be to lower costs to support a low-cost strategy in this area?
> What type of competitive strategy, low-cost, differentiation, focus or hybrid would you suggest as a way of competing with Vanguard?
> In terms of Figure 9.6, what type of change is being undertaken in 2018? What kind of leadership style would you suggest is most relevant for this change?
> How would you explain IKEA’s business model in terms of value creation, configuration and capture?
> Explain how IKEA tries to ensure that their ‘hybrid’ strategy remains sustainable and does not become ‘stuck-in-the-middle’.
> Identify how IKEA have achieved differentiation from their competitors.
> Identify where (in their value system) and how IKEA have achieved cost leadership.
> If you were the head of a traditional taxi company: how could you change your business model to compete with Uber?
> In terms of Figure 6.4, what are Uber’s value creation, value configuration and value capture components?
> How sustainable is Volvo’s luxury bus strategy?
> In which respects does the Jamie Oliver Group exemplify issues relevant to entrepreneurial businesses (see Section 5.2.3)?
> Adapt the corporate governance chain described in Figure 5.4 to Oxfam GB. What were the weaknesses in this chain?
> Identify Oxfam GB’s various stakeholders along the lines of Figure 5.1 and assess their engagement in terms of the power/attention matrix in Figure 5.2.
> How adequate is the 2018 reorganization to Ten cent’s various challenges at that point? What else might be necessary?
> Referring to Section 5.3.1, analyse Uber’s culture under Travis Kalanick in terms of values, beliefs, behaviors and taken-for-granted assumptions (the ‘paradigm’). How much has this culture changed and how consistent is it across Uber as a whole?
> If you were a large shareholder in Uber contemplating buying more stock in the Initial Public Offering of 2019, how satisfied would you be with Uber’s governance and what changes would you seek, in particular with regard to the company’s governance chain
> In what respects did the University of Bath’s culture under Breakwell appear to diverge from that outlined in the 2016–21 strategic plan and what could be done to reduce this apparent divergence?
> Identify key elements in the university’s traditional organisational culture either in terms of Schein’s four layers (Figure 5.5) or the cultural web (Figure 5.6).
> Explain the relevance of the principal–agent model (Section 5.3) to Oliver’s trust in CEO Paul Hunt.
> What does the SWOT analysis tell us about the competitive position of Pharmcare within the industry as a whole?
> What is the importance of the Samwers brothers? What would happen if they left or sold the company?
> Based on your initial analysis and answers to Question 1, carry out a VRIO analysis for Rocket Internet. What do you conclude? To what extent does Rocket Internet have resources and capabilities with sustained competitive advantage?
> Based on the data from the case (and any other sources available) use the frameworks from the chapter and analyze the resources and capabilities of Rocket Internet: a. What are its resources and capabilities? b. What are its threshold, distinctive and dy
> Identify the benefits and dangers (other than those identified in the text) of a SWOT analysis such as that in the illustration.
