A comprehensive evaluation of the group of businesses a company has diversified into involves: a. evaluating the attractiveness of industries the company has diversified into and the competitive strength of each of its business units. b. evaluating the strategic fits and resource fits among the various sister businesses. c. ranking the performance prospects of the businesses from best to worst and determining what the corporate parent's priorities should be in allocating resources to its various businesses. d. using the results of the prior analytical steps as a basis for crafting new strategic moves to improve the company's overall performance.

The total value of your portfolio is $10,000: $3,000 of it is invested in stock a and the remainder invested in stock b. stock a has a beta of 0.8; stock b has a beta of 1.2. the risk premium on the market portfolio is 8%; the risk-free rate is 2%. additional information on stocks a and b is provided below. return in each state state probability of state stock a stock b excellent 15% 15% 5% normal 50% 9% 7% poor 35% -15% 10% what are each stock’s expected return and the standard deviation? what are the expected return and the standard deviation of your portfolio? what is the beta of your portfolio? using capm, what is the expected return on the portfolio? given your answer above, would you buy, sell, or hold the portfolio?

David burdick is the ceo of acme bubblegum, a successful public company. as one of the cofounders of the company, burdick has enjoyed speaking and writing about the success of acme bubblegum for several years. typically, he speaks at conferences or directly to the press, but recently, he has been blogging about his firm anonymously. specifically, he defended a recent advertising campaign that was unpopular among consumers and pointedly attacked one of acme bubblegum’s competitors. burdick deeply enjoys his anonymous blogging and believes that none of his readers actually know that he works for acme bubblegum.should burdick be allowed to praise his company’s performance anonymously online? should he be allowed to attack his competitors without disclosing his relationship with the company? how would you feel if the ceo of a company at which you shopped was secretly writing criticisms of his or her competition? how would you feel if you knew a writer for your favorite blog was actually closely involved in a company that the blog discussed? 1. define the ethical issue? 2. who are the primary stakeholders? 3. what are the possible alternatives? 4. how could you evaluate the ethical implications of the alternative actions (use appropriate decision rules)? 5. what action would you recommend and why?

Which of the following is a characteristic that can be used to guide the design of service systems? a. services cannot be inventoried. b. services are all similar. c. quality work means quality service. d. services businesses are inherently entrepreneurial. e. even service businesses have internal services.