...In the movie, The Firm, the main character, Mitch McDeer, is a young man of meager means who has persevered through Harvard Law School to graduate near the top of his class. Mitch entertains offers from major firms in New York and Chicago. When Memphis-based Bendini, Lambert, & Locke offer him a twenty percent higher salary and an enticing variety of perks and fringe benefits, he and his school teacher wife move to their dream home, furnished and equipped with a new Mercedes Benz convertible. The dream quickly fades when two colleagues of the firm are found dead in a supposed accident. Mitch becomes suspicious of the firm’s activities and is thrown into a tumultuous environment involving the FBI and organized crime and he is forced to risk everything for the future. Mitch McDeer, in the movie The Firm, is faced with an ethical dilemma and is forced to make a crucial decision which will effect his future and the lives of others. As a lawyer Mitch has taken an oath to “maintain the confidence and preserve inviolate the secrets of my client, and will accept no compensation in connection with my client’s business except with my client’s knowledge and approval” (Michigan Bar). This oath is the premise of not only the movie but of the life that Mitch has aspired to. Early on in the film Mitch is approached by the FBI to assist with their ongoing investigation of Bendini, Lambert and Locke. He is asked to do the following; steal files from the firm, testify against his colleagues...
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...Internationalisation of firms is another challenge of Human Resource Management in a global context. A typical definition of internationalisation, according to Galbraith (2000, in Poor, 2005) is that, it is a process through which a firm increases its international presence, while a local firm spreads its activities abroad (foreign markets) and starts new units abroad which increase its ability to yield added value. More and more Cyprus-based firms are operating their business in other countries. A company that seeks to act on a worldwide basis and not merely produce for the local market, is obliged to get through a number of stages of development. The company can enter into foreign markets even if it has low domestic sales and even if it didn’t get through the above mentioned procedure. This kind of companies try to organize their resources and sales in order to have competitive advantage through their activities which are extended abroad. These firms are not interested for the domestic market, since they consider that the whole world is one single market. Competitiveness requires that firms should be present on a market directly not just through their products, for instance, with their own firm or with joint ventures. However, this led to the increase of number of employees working at the foreign subsidiaries. Nowadays, the number of employees working at the subsidiaries abroad, is much bigger than the number of employees working for the company in the parent country. In...
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...Arvin English 110 22 Sep 2014 Meet the Firm As a junior but a “freshmen” here in the United States, I exposed myself to most of the activities happened in my school every day. Tried to get myself familiar with the US culture. I tried every method to join the club or other interests group in order to help me survive in the United States. Most of them turned out to be meaningless, since I am from a different culture that I can barely understand what they were laughing at. However, there is one activity that is so useful for me to learn how to survive in the US culture as a business student, that is the annual career fair “meet the firm”. The first time I heard about this activity is from my accounting teacher. She paused when she was giving us a class. “By the way, here’s a very important event that I want all of you to remember!” she said, with her finger pointing on her head and eyes turned rounded. “Meet the firm! Tomorrow at 5 pm! You would not want to miss this chance! And I want to see every one of you in the event.” She pointed everyone in the class firmly with her finger and shouted. I took her word and showed up at Trabant with my suit. Although I was a little bit earlier, there was already full of well-dressed people. They looked smart with a small suitcase or a nice file folder carried on their hands while I brought nothing with...
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...Internationalization and firm performance 1. Introduction The topics of internationalization and firm performance are introduced. Over the last decades the interest on the relationship and connection between internationalization and performance has grown rapidly. The aim of this paper is to focus on the strength and weaknesses of internationalization as a business strategy by stressing the positive and negative factors that influence the whole process. Moreover, internationalization well be discussed with regard on performance levels. Does firms expansion abroad has a direct positive or negative impact on performance? And, if yes, in what extend does performance, profit, market share as well as the position toward competition change? The first part of the paper deals with some of the important reasons such as resource, marker, efficiency, as well as strategic asset seeking, which directly influence companies to be multinationals. We live in the area of globalization, where “going global” and becoming international is a very common strategy used by firms in order to expand and spread their potentials abroad. Nevertheless, before some decades this topic was not as common as today and authors starting to study it by concentrating not only in the economical side, but as well as by dealing with cultural diversities, political barriers, local versus foreign customers, competition etc. The second part of the paper is focused in more details in the IP relationship. It is understandable...
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...market, family firms have been paid special attentions by scholars with a long time. However, it is scarce to find the related studies about the family impact on corporate performance especially during hard times despite its prevalence around the world. Now, many scholars have realized the importance about family firms due to their reciprocal impact (Sharma, 2004). Previous researches mainly concentrate on two topics including the strategic behavior and family influence of family firms. For example, it is easy to find that more centralized structure can be seen in family firms (Bartholomeusz and Tanewski, 2006). And as a factor that influences the performance of family firm, family business governance can be seen as one of the most important determinant of family firm success. It is more easily to test the performance of the firm during the hard time which provides an extreme environment to clearly show the differences between the performance of family firms and non-family firms. And the latest global financial crisis in 2008 provides such an ideal setting investigating such a topic due to its magnitude and global scale (Haoyong Zhou, 2012). In this paper, whether family firms performs better during hard time especially in a financial crisis will be critically discussed based on Haoyong Zhou’s recent work. He provided that to be specific, family firms do not perform better in the crisis while it is the companies with founder presence do outperform non-family firm due to different...
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...1.- What are some of the managerial characteristics of a Born Global firm? How are distinguishable from those of a traditional firm that seek to expand with a more traditional evolutionary process? The Born Global firm phenomenon refers to those special firms that adopt an international approach right from their birth The general characteristics of Born Global firms differentiate themselves from other multinationals in their growth stages. Born Global firms typically operate in a narrowly defined market niche, which makes it harder to grow in a small home market. A high degree of specialization requires internationalization if the firm wants to achieve substantial growth. Born Global firms often possess unique resources and capabilities such as entrepreneurial orientation of the founders, innovation behind products and technology, accumulated knowledge of the founders and managers from previous work experience, and networking capabilities. Managers with a previous background of international strong activity will give to the company a more sure address to its business expansion, for this reason a high level of entrepreneurial orientation supports the firm´s ability to recognize and create opportunities at an early stage. It can be argued that Born Global firms are typically found in niche business areas where products are unique, and require high amount of research and development like the high tech business area. It is very important to invest in products...
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...TERM PAPER EFFECT OF DIVERSIFICATION ON FIRM VALUE IRENE TIURMA SIAGIAN 1.0 INTRODUCTION Corporate diversification reveal both benefits and costs to a company. Company can benefit from diversification through the creation of internal capital markets (Williamson, 1970), higher debt capacity (Lewellen, 1971; Shleifer & Vishny, 1992) and economies of scope (Teece, 1980). Meanwhile, the costs of diversification stem mainly from agency problems. Managers may diversify to protect their human capital (Amihud & Lev, 1981), to increase their private benefits (Jensen, 1986; Morck et al., 1990), or to entrench themselves (Shleifer & Vishny, 1989). Within a diversified firm, managers may have easy access to capital through cross subsidization (Meyer et all., 1992), which may lead to over-investment (Jensen, 1986; Stulz, 1990; Berger & Ofek, 1995). Recent literature shows that corporate diversification strategies are associated with significant value loss and that increasing corporate focus is value-enhancing. Examples of these studies include Lang and Stulz (1994), liebeskind and Opler (1994), Berger and Ofek (1995, 1996), Comment and Jarrell (1995), John and Ofek (1995), Servaes (1996), and Denis et. Al. (1997). The evidence in thse studies suggests that the costs of diversification outweigh the benefits. Given the extensive evidence that diversification is associated with a reduction in firm value. Even firms in the developing countries inclusive Malaysia...
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...Evaluating Firm Strengths and Weaknesses What Does Internal Analysis Tell Us? Internal analysis provides a comparative look at a firm’s capabilities • what are the firm’s strengths? • what are the firm’s weaknesses? • how do these strengths & weaknesses compare to competitors? Why Does Internal Analysis Matter? Internal analysis helps a firm: • determine if its resources and capabilities are likely sources of competitive advantage • establish strategies that will exploit any sources of competitive advantage Traditional research on firm strengths and weaknesses • Theories of distinctive competence – General managers as distinctive competencies – Institutional leadership as a distinctive competence • Ricardian economics • Penrose’s theory of firm growth Research on the skills of general managers, institutional leaders, economic rents and firm growth have been brought together to develop a rigorous model to analyze a firm’s strengths and weaknesses: the resource-based view of the firm The Theory Behind Internal Analysis The Resource-Based View • developed to answer the question: Why do some firms achieve better economic performance than others? • used to help firms achieve competitive advantage and superior economic performance • assumes that a firm’s resources and capabilities are the primary drivers of competitive advantage and economic performance The Resource-Based View Resources and Capabilities Resources: • tangible and intangible assets of a firm » tangible:...
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...Theories of the Firm To understand firm heterogeneity within industries and its relations to competitive advantage, reviewing some of the most influential theories of the firm is important. Starting with Coase (1937), academic research in economics and management has nurtured a long tradition of trying to unveil the “essence of the firm.” Some scholars believe that discovering the true nature of the firm permits understanding real- world firms. Whether things or concepts have “essences” is questionable. From a practical standpoint, finding this essence is not essential, but having a practical definition of the firm may be needed. A good “theory of the firm” is one that helps managers identify and choose the best projects among all feasible ones. It must also provide a definition of “best.” A brief review of three theories of the firm follows. The first theory views the firm as a nexus of contracts. Most valuation and project selection frameworks implicitly assume this view. The second one views the firm as an efficient solution to the problem of economizing on transaction costs. Such a view is particularly useful for understanding acquisitions and divestitures, especially in those cases involving vertical integration or outsourcing decisions. The third theory views the firm as the locus of crucial resources. This view is particularly helpful for understanding corporate strategy and value creation. The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts Some argue that the firm is nothing...
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...Plan for Organizing the Law Firm of Boggs & Buggs There are many actions to be taken when organizing a law firm. First, I will detail all of the equipment needed to operate the law firm to provide adequate representation to all clients. Then, I will detail the procedures and policies that will be put in place to make the law office operate efficiently and effectively. Throughout the Plan, I will detail how the policies and equipment work together to aid the law firm in serving its clients. I. Equipment a. Computer Equipment, including Phones, Fax, and Printers In organizing the law office of Boggs & Buggs, I would first acquire state-of-the-art computers equipped with Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, Internet Explorer and other vital applications. I would make sure that the computers have enough permanent memory and temporary memory to run efficiently using various software packages. I would also acquire the fastest internet available for business because I would want to keep all business processes efficient. Therefore, the firm would not endure delays due to slow or mediocre internet connections. Furthermore, I would establish a multiple-line phone system. The phone system will be able to transfer calls within the law office and from the law office to the attorneys' cell phone and house phone. In addition, the phone system would allow for calls to be redirected to other phone numbers for certain instances when no person is available...
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...in a law firm such computers as Dell or HP (Notebooks, Laptops), and Apple IPads. Other kinds of hardware would to use Mobile Devices as Smartphone’s or Blackberry’s where you can get up to date information on your phone from your email or legal apps. Another peripheral device that would be helpful on the go would be the VuPoint Magic Wand Portable Scanner. The Magic Wand is a hand-held cordless scanner that runs on batteries. You can scan at high (600 dpi) or standard (300 dpi) resolution. According to VuPoint, you can get up to 180 scans from two AA batteries. It works with both Mac and Windows operating systems. Scans are saved onto a micro SD card, which can be as large as 32 GB. Scanned images can be transferred by USB or by inserting the micro SD card into your computer. This is used when scanning documents going to go to court or on the go. Some software to use for legal firm would to have “PC Law 10”, which is a management software created by LexisNexis. It is an software program that helps businesses complete time tracking, billing and accounting functionality with comprehensive case management capabilities. It is a way to reduce administrative costs, simplify operations, improve billing and accelerate cash flow all with the leading practice management solution for law firms. The other accounting software program I would use is Abacus from abacuslaw.com. Its where you track your Calendars, court rules, cases, conflict checking, contacts, time/billing, firm accounting...
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...the 1993 legal thriller “The Firm,” Tom Cruise plays a young attorney, Mitch McDeere, who has accepted an offer to join the prestigious Memphis law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke (“The Firm”). Initially, McDeere and “The Firm” appear to be a perfect fit. McDeere is the prototypical young associate. About to complete his Harvard Law degree, McDeere has the soft skills, attractive appearance, and a fetching personality to accompany his intellect. Accordingly, many law firms actively recruit him, seducing him with gifts and praise. The Firm, despite its location in Memphis, seems like a logical choice for McDeere. They pay handsomely, boast a talented legal team, and enjoy decadent facilities and amenities. McDeere is coddled zealously from the firm’s partners, and is given a scenic home and car. Unfortunately, McDeere learns the Firm has a corrupt underbelly that not only is at odds with his personal moral compass, but that could potentially subject him to jail time. As McDeere wrestles with how navigate himself through this decision, he is faced with many of Lawyer’s Model Rules for Professional Conduct. McDeere walks a fine line between seeking to hold Bendini, Lambert & Locke accountable for their misconduct and protecting the confidentiality of his clients. McDeere’s struggles climax when confronted by the FBI, he is forced to choose whether to cooperate with the authorities and risk losing his job and legal license, or to stay with the firm and potentially violate the Model...
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...Lael Ashley Capacity of the Firm to Plan and Manage Multinational Strategic Alliances BBA 484 Jones International University January 20, 2015 Module Assignment 6.1-Course Project Capacity of the Firm to Plan and Manage Multinational Strategic Alliances International Game Technologies (IGT), is the global leader in casino entertainment. IGT delivers top-performing titles to eGaming operators, government lotteries and land-based casinos. IGT’s specializes in a compelling player experience, anytime, anywhere, and on every channel. Since the day the millennium began, IGT has been globally enforced in interactive gaming with teams in the UK, USA, and China. IGT operates with strict compliance across the globe in regulated markets, such as the UK, British Columbia, and etc. (Econsultancy, 2014). In a recent article by the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM), (17 November, 2014), announces that their board of directors had approved the membership applications of eight new companies, which brings the trade group that is comprised of the world’s leading gaming suppliers to a total of 145 members. AGEM (17 November, 2014) indicates the following, “AGEM is a non-profit international trade association who represents manufacturers and suppliers of electronic gaming devices, systems, table games, online technology, key components and support products and services for the gaming industry.” One of the new named members is the Catapult Global, based in Elk Grove Village...
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...asserts that many factors in the external environment cause a lot of turbulence and uncertainty for organizations. According to him the environment often imposes major constraints on the choices managers make for their organizations. To add to the above, Gareth & Hill (2008) also observed that since performance is the major objective of an organization, it is generally accepted that the structure and decision making in an organization is influenced by environmental complexity and volatility. There are many variables in a firm’s external environment which strategic managers must be aware of. First and foremost, a firm’s external environment consists of variables and trends that do not directly touch on the short run activities of the firm but can, and often do influence its long-run decisions. These trends are found in the firm’s societal environment; also known as the macro-environment and they include economic, technological, political-legal and socio-cultural forces that influence decision making in organizations. Secondly, there are variables in a firm’s external environment which directly affect the organization and are in turn affected by it. These are found in the task environment; also known as the micro-environment. Daft (2008) views the task environment as the sectors with which an organization interacts directly and that have a direct impact on the organizations ability to achieve its goals. A corporation’s task environment can be seen as the industry within...
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...Asian Economic and Financial Review, 1(3),pp.147-150 2011 Impact of Ownership Concentration on the operating Performance of Pakistani Firms Author Waseem Anwar Center for Excellence in Research, Department of Management Sciences COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. Email: wasyhcc@yahoo.com This study investigates the Impact of Ownership Concentration on the operating performance of Pakistani firms. Sample of 50 non-financial firms is selected from KSE-100 index of Karachi Stock Exchange of Pakistan. Descriptive analysis shows that there is an immense level of ownership concentration in Pakistani firms. Regression analysis suggested that there is a significant positive correlation among ownership concentration and firm’s operating performance. Naila Tabassum Center for Excellence in Research, Department of Management Sciences COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. E-mail: naila058@yahoo.com Key Words: Ownership Concentration, Operating Performance Introduction In this research, we scrutinize the affect of ownership structure on company performance. The relationship between ownership structure and performance has always been the area under discussion in the literature of corporate finance. The discussion on this area was started with the thesis of Berle and Means (1932). They argued that defuse ownership is inversely correlated with performance of a company. Most of the earlier studies found a positive relation...
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