Business Commons^™

A Strategic Audit Of Seaworld, Thomas Wolfe

Honors Theses

A strategic audit of SeaWorld

A Strategic Audit Of Seaworld, Rachel Jendro

Honors Theses

This project is a strategic audit for SeaWorld Entertainment. The purpose of this report is to analyze the firm through multiple different perspectives and analyze the competitive advantage the business is pursuing. The project considers internal and external environments, strategic leadership, organizational structure, and resources to determine if and what type of competitive advantage the firm holds. Furthermore, it considers current events and strategic decisions, and how those relate to the overall strategy. A strategic audit is crucial to understanding the innerworkings of a firm. The factors that were analyzed are interconnected and performing a strategic audit can allow for …

Strategic Audit Of Amazon.Com, Inc, Sarah E. Kenny

Honors Theses

Amazon has recently grown as a company, surpassing many other online retailing websites. However this success is threatened by Amazon's reputation as an evil company. Amazon faces numerous lawsuits for unlawful termination and inhumane warehouse conditions. This current generation of consumers dislikes supporting companies that they view as evil, meaning that if a company entered the market that had better business practices, consumers would quickly leave Amazon. The audit suggests that Amazon combats these views by improving warehouse conditions, increasing minimum wage at their workplaces, and increasing benefits for workers. This audit also suggests that Amazon improves one of their …

Google Ads: A Strategic Audit, Jessee Zhang

Honors Theses

Google began as an internet search product, allowing users to find relevant sites based on a search query. Over the past several decades, Google has become an extremely large and profitable business though online digital advertisements. While Google has a diverse product mix, the overwhelming majority of its revenue is generated through ads. This strategic audit first looks at the current external environment, looking at the political, economic, social, and technological changes and opportunities relevant to the industry. Then, it looks at the current competitive environment and shows the profitability of the business because of the large barrier to entry. …

A Strategic Audit Of Boston Beer, Jake Lindvall

Honors Theses

The Boston Beer Company ("Boston Beer") is an American brewery founded in 1984 whose mission is "to seek long-term profitable growth by offering the highest quality product to the U.S. beer drinker." Headquartered in Boston, the company is well-known for its flagship brand bearing the name of founding father Samuel Adams. This and other Boston Beer products have become popular across the United States in the past few decades; the Brewers Association ranks Boston Beer as the sixth largest brewery nationally. However, when subsetting to breweries defined as "craft," Boston Beer ranks even higher as the second largest brewery nationally. …

Intuit, Inc.'S Small Business And Self Employed Unit: A Strategic Analysis, Cat Nyberg

Honors Theses

Intuit, Inc. is a business and personal finance software company founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx. It is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has offices around the United States and internationally. Intuit’s primary mission is to ‘power prosperity’, whether for small business owners, individuals, or accounting professionals.

Intuit has three major business units: Small Business and Self Employed, Consumer, and Strategic Partner. Each business unit offers one or more flagship software platforms, optimized for specific customer needs in business accounting, professional tax preparation, and individual tax filing. Intuit’s major software flagships are QuickBooks (business accounting and …

Effective Manufacturers' Strategies For Service Innovations, Zebulon Fox

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the United States, more than 50% of managers offering services in the manufacturing industry report failed service initiatives. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that manufacturing managers used to sustain their business for longer than 5 years. The population consisted of 3 manufacturing organization managers offering business services to support petroleum and coal companies who have sustained their business operations in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States for longer than 5 years. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and organization documents were analyzed through the perspective of the strategic service innovation theory conceptual …

Nvidia Corporation: A Strategic Audit, Daric Teske

Honors Theses

NVIDIA is company that has been involved with the production of computer hardware known as a graphics processor units (GPUs) since the turn of the century. Over the past decade, NVIDIA has begun to explore other applications of its proprietary technology, including the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and accelerated computing. Looking from a business perspective, this strategic audit analyzes the history of the company and its current state, as well as industry outlooks to provide a strategic recommendation. Annual reports, market reports, and press releases were all utilized to provide the best perspective of the industry possible. Though NVIDIA …

A Strategic Audit Of Tesla, Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Honors Theses

This strategic audit will examine the problems Tesla is currently facing, do a Porter’s Five Forces analysis of the company, review environmental factors affecting Tesla, state Tesla’s current strategy, evaluate their distinguishing resources and competitive advantages, and end with a strategic recommendation along with implementation requirements.

One of Tesla’s vehicles crashed in March 2018 while on autopilot, which caused their stock to drop significantly. They’re also experiencing issues with the production of the new Model 3. The current political situation and growing demand for the parts Tesla needs are environmental factors that are having a negative effect. On the other …

A Strategic Audit Of Tesla.Pdf, Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Abigail Hoelzlhammer

A Strategic Audit Of Tesla.Pdf, Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Asset Assessment For Women: A Case Study Of Imasayi Village In Ogun State, Nigeria & Ngo Development: A Strategic Plan, Olamide Adeyinka

Student Works

This paper presents the findings of an asset assessment performed with women in a village southwest of Nigeria, Imasayi Ogun state. This paper not only describes the process and results of a qualitative study, but also presents the implementation plan for an NGO that will work with the women of Imasayi to implement community-wide development projects. The research upon which this paper is based used the framework of seven capital domains, which are then used in turn to structure findings, recommendations and NGO planning and analysis. For the purpose of this paper, the marketplace is identified as significant for Imasayi’s …

Asset Assessment For Women: A Case Study Of Imasayi Village In Ogun State, Nigeria & Ngo Development: A Strategic Plan, Olamide Adeyinka

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This paper presents the findings of an asset assessment performed with women in a village southwest of Nigeria, Imasayi Ogun state. This paper not only describes the process and results of a qualitative study, but also presents the implementation plan for an NGO that will work with the women of Imasayi to implement community-wide development projects. The research upon which this paper is based used the framework of seven capital domains, which are then used in turn to structure findings, recommendations and NGO planning and analysis. For the purpose of this paper, the marketplace is identified as significant for Imasayi’s …

The Role Of Strategic Leadership In Banking Profitability, Joseph Ochien'g Witts

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A study on corporate leadership failure in America by Vugt and Ronay has shown that the failure rate of business leadership in meeting profitability targets is as high as 60%. Most organizations fail to attain profitability targets due to limited experience and exposure to strategic leadership. The aim of this single case study design was to explore the role of strategic leadership in banking profitability. Twelve purposively selected senior bankers and members of the board of directors with over 10 years of experience in banking and profitability and 3 years in the top management team participated in the study in …

Do Middle Managers Contribute To Their Organisation's Strategy?, Tony Kealy

Conference Papers

This paper presents an empirical study on the contribution made by middle managers to the development of strategy in an organisation. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews with four managers in randomly-chosen companies. Two of the participant managers held senior management positions while the other two held middle manager positions. The data was analysed using a qualitative approach. Previous studies in this field were found to be wide and varied. An early study by Mintzberg (1978) found that strategy mainly forms from emergent influences at middle and lower levels of the organisation, as well as from deliberate influences emanating …

Improved Decision Making To Underpin The Achievement Of Strategic Goals At The University Of Wollongong, Craig Napier

Craig Napier

The Higher Education sector is an increasingly competitive environment. As such, it is prudent for institutions to seek advantages across all areas that will lead to improved research outcomes, commercial partnerships and student learning experience. The Performance Indicators Unit commenced in 1999 and has evolved to cover seven key perspectives of integration of Information Management across the University, working to avoid the operational silos that can occur within Universities. This session will explore: Utilising network relationship analysis to develop an understanding of the University of Wollongong's collaborations and facilitate improvement The importance of visualisation to translate data into meaningful information …

Global Csr And Photographic Credibility: Exploring How International Companies Portray Efforts Through Photographs In Csr Reports, Janel Lynn Norton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We are living in the age of the visual. Imagery is an important element in constructing and deriving meaning through symbols, colors, and context. Images may hold persuasive power, be used as evidence, or simply provide a moment of beauty. Organizations rely on photographs to help them convey an image to their stakeholders within annual reports. Telling an organizations' story through photographs has become an intrinsic part of their efforts to convey sustainability. We live in the age of transparency, and organizations that construct an image that is not truthful will face consequences in today's socially connected and conscious world. …

Future Trends In Strategic Management, Chris D. Bellamy

Dr. Chris D. Bellamy

In today’s business environment the top down approach to management has fundamentally disappeared. Baby boomers, gen x and gen y managers bring different management styles and thinking to global organizations. This paper identifies eight current research articles (published within the past five years) that synthesize and apply four trends in strategic management that are crucial for the field in the future. The four trends are ranked 1-4, with 1 being most important. The ranking are justified.