COMMON ASSESMENT: CASE ANALYSIS
Submission 21st February 2001

Present an in-depth comparative analysis of two firms operating in two different countries. In the case analysis compare and contrast the differences in political, ethical, economic and legal differences and their impact on management decision making.

Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to identify the key political, ethical and economic differences between Apple, based in the USA and Shell, based in Holland, and then compare the differences based on management the individual decision making processes in the subject countries. The ethical conditions will also be discussed, with regard to laws on corporate social responsibility of the companies, as well as the environmental laws of the countries and the impact on the companies.
Shell Holland
Royal Dutch Shell plc, also known as shell, is a global group of energy and Petrochemicals Company with more than 100,000 employees in almost 90 countries. Shell is a worldwide oil and gas company, which is headquartered in the Netherlands and with its registered office in the United Kingdom. It is the largest energy company and the second-largest company in the world measured by revenues, It is management controlled and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, that includes exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, power generation and trading. It also has major renewable energy activities, hydrogen, solar and wind power.
The Royal Dutch Shell Group “RDSG” is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies, the subject company plays a key role in helping meet the world’s growing demand for energy in economically, environmentally and socially responsible ways.

The subject company gives focus on the delivery and growth and expanding in early 2008, Shell said that in the investing in new heartlands for the company, it has been refreshing its portfolio for a world of higher commodity prices, increased competition, and higher costs. According to Shell’s website, the company has worldwide proved of reserves of 11.9 billion barrels of oil equivalent per year. The company’s oil giant’s crude are produced in Nigeria, Oman, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The company also produces refined products, transports natural gas, trades gas and electricity, develops renewable energy resources, it operates 46,000 gas stations across the world, which is considered as the world’s largest fuel retail network.

The company did not just put matters on the hand of time, but it also makes it a point that it plans ahead the future to provide a more comprehensive conduct for the business to grow. The company will not suffer incase any inevitable circumstance will happen because the company has made some contingency plans in order to enable the company to progress and counter any downfall.
(http://ivythesis.typepad.com)

Apple Inc. USA

Apple Inc, formerly know as Apple Computer, Inc is an American multinational company that has been creating consumer electronics, computer software and commercial servers for more that 35 years on April 1 1976, apple’s main and core product lines are the I pod the I phone and mainly the apple computers, founded by steve jobs and steve wozniak. Today, with more than 200,000 employees, Apple is the largest technology firm in the world, with annual revenue of over $60 billion in 2010, Apple overtook Microsoft to become the largest technology by market capitalization. Sanford, Glen (2006). "Apple History"

Political issues in Shell Holland:

The political factor plays a high impact to the company because the state to which one of the branches of it is situated will be the determination as to whether the company will be able to survive the features of the politics within. It has to comply to the rules and regulations as a foundation of the decision making process, that it must also correspond to the laws of such country. There are many political issues that should be taken into account in such a big corporation like shell which are the wars and conflicts that can possibly occur, the country’s government policies and laws that shell have to conform, terrorism and governmental leadership and most importantly the political trends that have to be followed, any action of the government of any country or state will be considered as to have a high impact to the company. http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2008/09/analysis-of-t-1.html#ixzz1EYNi1CO0

Political issues in apple USA:
The success of the corporation depends on sound and consistent public policies that encourage a healthy business environment, the subject company it subject to legislation and regulation that significantly affects how the corporation conducts its business affair and creates more value for the shareholders. The legal landscape includes without limitation laws relating to intellectual property, which is in some way different than Shell Holland, one of the main strategies in the Apple is participating in the political process and that affects the management decision and can enhance the corporation’s interests, the strategy that is being used is to engage the political process with views to the long term interests of Apple, unlike Shell think in the short term in many of their interests because they are in more demand in a way, and on the other hand, Apple take time to be creative in their inventions.
In addition to supporting political candidates, Apple engages with government officials at all times on issues that reflect the company and its operations, Apple belongs to various trade organizations unlike shell, but they are similar that they are operating on multinational standards. http://www.slideshare.net/finance11/apple-political-contributions-expenditure-policy Economic issues in shell Holland:

The second factor is the economy; the economy of a country will determine the stability of the success of the company. http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2008/09/analysis-of-t-1.html#ixzz1EYNi1CO0 The economy will be the factor that will matter as to whether the company will be able to attract investors or stockholders which are both very economically important, in addition, the security of the economy will also determine as to whether the economy will be able to attract consumers. Many important economic issues include home economy trends, general taxation issues, market and trade cycles, job growth and unemployment and how that has a large impact on the trade and monetary issues, as well as the cash flow of the company. The economic factor also has an overall high impact in the conduct of the business of the subject company because the stability of the economy of a state will determine how the consumers will be able to consume energy products. http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2008/09/analysis-of-t-1.html#ixzz1EYO0BHab

As the technology must and will progress, the law must not in any way delay its development however; the development must be related to the protection of the environment, which is extremely important. Hence, Shell will be able to succeed if the whole company will act in cooperation of the state to where it is situated.

The factor that has least impact to the company is the social factor. This is considered as to have the low impact because the use of energy products by the consumers is not determined on any influence coming from the society but from the way, it needs the energy products. This means making sure that shell’s facilities are properly designed, operated safely and properly inspected and maintained. It is also capable of involving an effective oil spill emergency response. The following is also mentioned in Shell’s website” We plan, prepare and practice our emergency response to incidents to mitigate the consequences to people and the environment.

Economic issues in Apple Inc USA:
Although apple had a huge comeback and everyone thought it was in the stage of booming, which most are right, it suffered from economic issues in early 2010 according to the US economy that stated an article saying “ apple shares drop in Unofficial trading , Apple's shares slumped by 11% to $148, which affected them quiet badly, but such a multinational corporation has to step back on its feet and that what they did later on in 2010, Apple sold 717,000 of its touch-screen iPhones during the three months to June. But the company said margins were likely to weaken because of a series of factors including a "back to school" promotion and an unspecified product launch, which is being kept strictly under wraps. The technology company opened 16 new Apple stores during the period and this week opened its first outlet in Beijing, which is quiet a comeback after the 11% downfall.
Also, consumers are suing apple over I phone problems which is also an economical issue for Apple due to the having over 2000 complaints about the poor call reception on the device in many places, Apple also got sued for allegations of fraud by concealment, negligence and intentional misrepresentation

Shell Holland environment issues:
Burning fuels can cause local air pollution. We work to reduce the emissions of local pollutants from our operations and help our customers to reduce their emissions by offering cleaner transport fuels and lubricants and cleaner fuels and technologies for electricity generation.” http://www.shell.com/home/content/environment_society/environment/air/ The energy sector, is becoming increasingly concerned about water use as water becomes scarcer globally. New and advanced technologies are helping Shell to reduce the amount of water they need for their operations. The subject company’s environmental focus is reducing their impact on the environment to improve their products that why they use less material and they ship with smaller packaging and no toxic chemicals are involved, and to be as energy efficient and recyclable as possible. With every new product, shell continues its progress toward minimizing our environmental impact. http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2008/09/analysis-of-t-1.html#ixzz1EYNLYUIB Apple Environment issues:
Latest in an increasing list of consumer electronics and computer companies starting to address the environmental impacts of their products. Computer manufacturers such as Dell, H.P have been taking back old computers for recycling for several years. Sony began collecting old televisions for voluntary recycling in the United States starting in September 2007. Many manufacturers gave recycling and making them more green- friendly product lines.
Jobs cited the fact that the new Macbook Air is covered in a fully recyclable aluminum case and stated that aluminum is one of the most recyclable materials on the market.
Jobs also told audience members that the Macbook Air will include the company's first mercury- and arsenic-free some being plastic, which is one of the substances commonly found in consumer electronics that people say pose hazards to the environment and to peoples health http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2008/01/green_apple 01.16.08

Ethical Issues In Management in Apple and Shell: From small business all around the world to the largest corporation in the world in 2 extremely different countries, both need to evaluate their employees on a day-to-day basis. The process of the performance evaluation is intended as an assessment of quality and quantity of work produced by an individual. Evaluation reviews are given regularly whether annually, quarterly, or by any measure management decides. There are two perspectives by which the evaluation can be viewed. First by the employer who is analyzing the first stages of the production level, the quality of work produced by the workers, dependability, flexibility, adaptability, decision-making and problem solving methods. Secondly is the outlook of the employees believe is and who view this as a critique of themselves in character and integrity and will use the information provided to increase their levels of production on a regular basis or better themselves in certain areas to reduce limited performance.

Legal and ethical issues are also very important to keep in mind while including management in the evaluation assessment. The dynamics of evaluating and staff is hard, sometimes managers are in a corner and need multitask and it can be quiet a challenge and some of the challenges will be that evaluating employees honestly and accurately and being very specific, Also, Producing information to their supervisors that the unit or team under their supervision is excelling at what they do (Longnecker & Ludwig, 2004). These two points can come into conflict frequently. Aside from the teams, perspective managers will often shy away from truthful statements for a variety of other reasons: avoiding confrontation, damaging work or personal relationships, and fracturing future employment opportunities for the employee (Longnecker & Ludwig, 2004). The manager may have stellar intentions but ethically the decisions can be questionable. Enabling bad behavior or poor performance to avoid the former consequences is a short-term fix to an ongoing problem and the situation can produce unintended.
Conclusion:

To conclude, in this case analysis I have analyzed and compared the similarities and differences between Apple Inc USA and Shell Holland, the context features the economic, ethical, environmental issues that are affecting the company in the country itself identify the key political, ethical and economic differences between Apple, based in the USA and Shell, based in Holland, and compared the differences based on management decision making in the subject countries. The ethical conditions were also discussed, with regard to laws on corporate social responsibility of the companies, as well as the environmental laws of the countries and the impact on the companies.

REFRENCES

Decision + making (2008) shell Holland impact on decision making, Retrieved Feb 19,2011 http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=shell+holland+impact+on+decision+making&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart Apple(2011). Green Apple. Retrieved Feb 20,2011 http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2008/01/green_apple ▪ Apple & Raskin, Jef (1992). Macintosh H uman Interface Guidelines.

▪ Apple. "Press release Library". Retrieved 20th Feb2011.

▪ Hertzfeld, Andy. "folklore.org: Macintosh stories". Retrieved 20th Feb 2011.

Shell(2011) environment society. Retrieved on 21st Feb 2011
http://www.shell.com/home/content/environment_society/environment/air/