Use the Internet to find three examples of corporate mission statements.
> How does a psychological contract differ from a business contract?
> Do you believe that companies have a social responsibility to pay higher wages? Why or why not?
> Use equity theory, expectancy theory, or two-factor theory to explain Aetna’s decision.
> How Maslow’s hierarchy of could needs help explain the relationship between pay and productivity?
> Explain Aetna’s decision in light of the classical theory of motivation.
> What factors motivate you personally?
> Do you think that higher pay caused higher productivity and lower turnover for Aetna? What leads you to this conclusion?
> What would you do?
> What are the laws of demand and supply?
> What do you think most managers would do in this situation?
> What are the ethical issues in this case?
> Interview your employer or an administrator at your college. Ask the manager what they believe motivates their employees. Identify one or more theories of motivation that seem consistent with this manager’s approach.
> What does emotional intelligence and emotional quotient demonstrate about an employee?
> Map out the processes involved in preparing, researching, drafting and finalizing your next major assignment for this course. Work backwards from the deadline and show all the predecessor relationships involved in the process.
> If you were a member of a quality improvement team at your college, what would be five specific high-impact recommendations that you would support? Of those five, which two would be the most important, and briefly explain what strategies you might employ
> Develop a list of internal customers and internal suppliers for a business that you use frequently (or where you work), such as a cafeteria, a dormitory or hotel, or a movie theater. Identify areas for potential quality improvement in these internal cust
> What type of business strategy does Disney use to attract customers to its theme parks? What does the company do to implement its strategy? What are the key operational characteristics?
> Apply the five major categories of operations planning to your college or to a local business.
> What are the five areas that comprise materials management?
> Give an example of a monopoly. Under what business circumstances would monopolies be preferable to the presence of competition?
> Production adds value by providing utility in terms of which three utility factors?
> How important is quality in your day-to-day life? What measures or processes are in place around you to maximize the quality of your work, and how effective are they?
> The Sri Lankan factories draw a correlation between employee motivation and the quality of their tea-processing stages. What motivates and demotivate’s you, and how do you think this affects the overall quality of your work?
> Sri Lankan tea factories have sought to improve quality through the management of the supply chain and by making improvements to the living conditions of on-site workers. When observed through the lens of Hertzberg’s Two-Factor Theory (motivators–hygiene
> Visit the website of two coffee manufacturers or producers. Determine how the firms ensure the quality of their product through the production process. How robust is the process, and how does it compare to the measures put in place by the Sri Lankan tea
> For Sri Lankan tea makers, the quality of the tea is primarily dependent upon management of the supply chain. How can technology be used to manage the supply chain, and what technology do you recommend?
> Using the same airline, identify common customer complaints and the causes for the quality issues. Make at least five suggestions as to how you would improve the customer experience without increasing overall costs.
> Identify a local or regional airline and suggest the major factors that need to be considered in terms of their operations planning. What needs to be addressed?
> To what extent do you agree with the notion that airlines are a high-contact system? What are the implications of this for airlines?
> In most developed nations, what is the most significant sector in terms of employment and national income?
> Identify and describe the features of a domestic environment. Why is it important to a business organization?
> Many reviews of airlines are not objective. Reviews are often tainted by previous experience, popular myths, and issues that are actually beyond the control of the airline. In using these potentially biased reviews, it is important to ascertain which iss
> Ryan air, as an airline that provides a service, has to focus on intangible value. How might an airline achieve this goal?
> What would you say on the phone at this time to this customer?
> From an ethical standpoint, what is an appropriate response to the customer’s question? What steps should you take in responding to it? Explain.
> What are the underlying ethical issues in this situation?
> Why should Takata have put TQM at the center of their production and operations?
> Takata had an 85-year history of successful innovation and manufacture. Are all businesses one mistake way from catastrophe?
> Compared to Takata, how might the car manufacturers view the problem, and what would their approach to arriving at a solution be?
> If you were a customer, what would you hope that the company would do? Would your answer be different if you were an investor or stockholder?
> Interview the manager of a local service business, such as a restaurant or hair salon. Identify the major decisions involved in planning that business’s service operations.
> What does the balance of trade tell you about a country’s ability to produce goods and services that can be consumed by the domestic market?
> Identify businesses or industries in your country that demonstrate the characteristics of perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. To what extent does the government get involved in regulating aspects of the economy and ens
> Figure 3-27 shows a WBS with 11 tasks. Note that each task has an ID, a description, duration, and a reference to predecessor tasks, if any, which must be completed before the task can begin. Also note that dependent tasks can have one predecessor task o
> Think of all the tasks that you perform when you purchase a car. Include any research, decisions, or financial issues that relate to the purchase. Create a WBS that shows all the tasks, their estimated duration, and any predecessor tasks.
> Think of a problem you have experienced at school or at work and draw a sample fishbone diagram with at least two levels.
> Visit the website for an IT magazine and find an article that discusses business cases. Summarize the article and what you learned from it.
> A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information. Identify a tool that supports the creation of mind maps and explain how they can be a valuable part of strategic planning.
> Prepare a SWOT analysis of your school or your employer.
> Describe the business profile of a home improvement store like Home Depot or Lowe’s and how it is used.
> Explain how ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft are disrupting traditional taxicab business models.
> What are the five main components of an information system?
> What decisions might management reach at the end of the systems analysis phase, and what would be the next step in each case?
> What is information technology, and why is it important to society?
> What are the roles and responsibilities of a systems analyst in a modern business?
> Summarize the seven main functions of the IT department.
> Name the tools that enable the systems analyst to develop, manage, and maintain large-scale information systems.
> Compare three system development methods.
> What types of information do the four organizational levels common to many businesses need?
> What are the seven types of information systems used in business?
> Many large organizations have had their database system hacked and customer data stolen. How should the security for the database be different than security for the rest of the system? Does it make a difference for web-based data designs? If so, how?
> In the auto shop examples in Section 9.1.2, what are some problems that might arise in Mario’s system? Why won’t Danica run into the same problems? Provide specific examples in your answer.
> Are there ethical issues to consider when planning a database? For example, should sensitive personal data (such as medical information) be stored in the same DBMS that manages employee salary and benefits data? Why or why not?
> What are the six security levels? Provide examples of threat categories, attacker profiles, and types of attacks.
> We use lots of codes in our personal and business lives. How many can you name?
> Suggest three typical business situations where referential integrity avoids data problems. Students might respond with examples similar to the following.
> If you are managing a large project, would you prefer Gantt charts or PERT/CPM charts to represent project status? Explain why.
> When using a project triangle to illustrate conflicting priorities, Microsoft suggests that if the problem is in the fixed leg, work on the other two legs. For example, if the project must not exceed the budget and it is starting to run over, adjust the
> Rapid advancements in areas such as machine learning and predictive analytics in data science are affecting the daily operations of many IT departments. What should a systems analyst do to stay current?
> Should the IT director report to the company president, or somewhere else? Does it matter?
> Under what circumstances should a systems analyst recommend an agile methodology over structured development or object-oriented analysis?
> When team members are geographically dispersed, communication becomes more challenging. Explain how groupware can increase user productivity in this context.
> Some experts believe that the growth in e-commerce will cause states and local governments to lose tax revenue, unless Internet transactions are subject to sales tax. What is one argument that supports this view, and one that opposes it?
> Risk analysis is typically a two-step process: qualitative risk analysis and quantitative risk analysis. As a systems analyst, for which sorts of project management decisions would you use the results from qualitative risk analysis? From the quantitative
> Suppose you tried to explain the concept of weighted evaluation models to a manager, and she responded by asking, “So, how do you set the weight factors? Is it just a subjective guess?” How would you reply?
> Some project management applications can be quite expensive. As a manager, how would you justify the purchase of this software?
> Consider a scenario where a task is dependent on another task being started but not necessarily completed. For example, a project may depend on a task being started and one-fourth completed before the group could start their portion of the project. Do yo
> Some people rely heavily on social networking, IM, and texting to communicate with friends and business colleagues. Others find these methods distracting. Do you use social networking, IM, or texting? Why or why not?
> How might Boolean logic and Venn diagrams be useful in everyday life?
> Some companies pay to obtain a higher ranking when search results are displayed. Is this good, is it bad, or does it not matter to you as a user? Explain your position.
> How can you be sure that the information you find using an Internet search is trustworthy?
> The Internet has affected many aspects of our society. What are the most important benefits of the Internet, and what problems has it created?
> The time value of money can be an important factor when analyzing a project’s NPV. Is the time value of money just as important in periods of low inflation as it is in periods of high inflation? Explain your answer.
> In this Toolkit, you learned how to use payback analysis, ROI, and NPV to assess IT projects. Could these tools be used in your personal life? Give an example of how you might use each one to help you make a financial decision.
> Discuss some of the pros and cons of payback analysis.
> Select a financial SaaS application, and describe its main features.
> Discuss some of the pros and cons of the four chargeback methods.
> Why is it difficult to assign a dollar figure to an intangible cost? Can it ever be done? Explain your answer and provide an example.
> Some analysts believe that if the trend toward more powerful CASE tools continues, many tedious development tasks might be performed automatically. Is there a limit to the capabilities of future CASE software? Could describing a business operation and sp
> Discuss how ALM CASE tools have evolved from IDEs.
> Visit the websites for Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse. If you could choose only one of these development environments, which one would you select, and why?
> How could you use a reverse engineering tool in a typical systems project?
> If you were a programmer, would you prefer to work with procedural or non-procedural languages? Explain your reasons.
> To be a successful communicator, which skill do you think is more important: written communication or oral presentation? Explain why.
> Many articles stress the importance of body language. Think of examples where you noticed a person’s body language. Did it relate to something they were trying to communicate—or something they were trying not to communicate?
> Based on your own experience, what tends to make a PowerPoint presentation stronger or weaker? Provide specific examples.
> The final task in the preliminary investigation is to summarize the results and recommendations in a report and/or in a presentation. Which form of communication, written or oral, do you think is the most effective for conveying your findings to manageme
> Which do you think is more effective in business reports, active or passive voice? Explain why with examples.
> Describe the culture at a business where you have been employed.
> Many people don’t back up their data until it’s too late. Once they go through a catastrophic loss of all their work, they tend to change their habits. What are some of the better ways to perform personal backups, such as cloud-based services?
