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The article should
be drawn from the press from sometime in the past 18 months.
Article should be drawn from widely
read sources. This includes but is not limited to local,
national, or global newspapers (e.g., New York
Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times),
widely read magazines (e.g., Fortune,
BusinessWeek, Forbes, Wired, New Yorker), or comprehensive
blogs or electronic media (e.g., Vox,
Business Insider, Axios). The companies in your articles
must be publicly traded US Based companies. The paper should be approximately 6
pages.
(Times New Roman 12, typed and double-spaced). It should
focus on and be structured by case-
specific questions/prompt.
The current topic case involves taking an article from the
business press, like WSJ or the Financial
Times, or other news sources that outline strategic
decisions made by companies.
Please do the
following for the Current Topics Case:
• Please select one article that
prominently features an organizational decision related to strategy.
• Write approximately 6 pages (Times
New Roman, 12 Font Double spaced) in
which you answer the questions provided below. You should
draw upon course concepts to
provide a rigorous analysis based on well-supported arg

uments:
o What does this organization do and
what is its business strategy (e.g., low cost,
differentiator)? Provide a brief summary.
o What was the strategic decision?
Provide a short description or summary and a
citation for the article.
o Provide a combined SWOT/PESTLE
analysis (3-4 paragraphs with a table) to help
provide macro-environmental context and explain the
opportunity that the company
may be taking advantage of and/or the threat they may be trying to
mitigate.
o Using Porter’s Five Forces, describe
how competitive this particular industry is and
your reasoning for coming to that conclusion. (NB:That will
mean specifying the industry.)
o Why
do you think the organization made this decision?
o Was
this a good or bad strategic decision and why? Take a clear stance and argue
for it.
§ For these final two points, you will want to
use material and theory from the class to support your claims regarding the
company’s strategic decision.
§ You should connect it to the SWOT/PESTLE and
Competitive Analysis
§ But in addition, you must draw on at least one
(1) additional framework from class. It must be something different than
SWOT/PESTLE or Porter’s Five Forces (e.g., VRIO, the Stoplight, Vertical
Scope etc)