Analyze a competitive situation or industry practice in a 4 to 6 page, APA formatted written paper. You should choose a topic early on in this course. All papers must be strategy papers, meaning they must be about firms. However, there is a great deal of flexibility in the choice of topic.   First, choose an industry, based on interest in the industry. Examples of industries range from advertising to zoos, and include digital watches, private jets, diapers, over-the-counter cold and flu formulas, photographic film, automobiles, airlines, football, romance novels, dating services, banana production, or pre-stressed concrete, computer printers, pagers, business schools, used cars sold over the web, movie theaters.    Having chosen the industry, you will need a question or issue on which to focus. Such questions could be broad (What strategies are most likely to sustain profitability?) or narrow (Should firm X build a new plant? Where?). Good questions encourage you to think strategically, and thus should include the likely responses of rival firms to any hypothetical actions. Plan to include your question in the topic proposal.  A different approach is to choose a story about the behavior of a firm from a newspaper or other source, and research this story.

Analyze a competitive situation or industry practice in a 4 to 6 page, APA formatted written paper. You should choose a topic early on in this course. All papers must be strategy papers, meaning they must be about firms. However, there is a great deal of flexibility in the choice of topic.

First, choose an industry, based on interest in the industry. Examples of industries range from advertising to zoos, and include digital watches, private jets, diapers, over-the-counter cold and flu formulas, photographic film, automobiles, airlines, football, romance novels, dating services, banana production, or pre-stressed concrete, computer printers, pagers, business schools, used cars sold over the web, movie theaters. 

Having chosen the industry, you will need a question or issue on which to focus. Such questions could be broad (What strategies are most likely to sustain profitability?) or narrow (Should firm X build a new plant? Where?). Good questions encourage you to think strategically, and thus should include the likely responses of rival firms to any hypothetical actions. Plan to include your question in the topic proposal.  A different approach is to choose a story about the behavior of a firm from a newspaper or other source, and research this story.