Policy Report Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Policy Report - Research Paper Example The agreement was initiated in the year 1994 comprising of complex principles as well as lengthy documents. Altogether, the principles have been documented in eight sections, 22 chapters and nearly 2000 pages. It generally sets rules for international trade as well as investment between Canada, the United States as well as Mexico (USDA, 2004). The major issues associated with NAFTA can be identified with reference to various occasions. For instance, since the agreement has been signed, a substantial deficit became gradually apparent between the three nations leading towards dislocation of resources. Furthermore, the manufacturing sector also had to witness a decline that endorsed numerous US jobs. Besides, it was observed that most of the US companies re-established their manufacturing units to Mexico at the cost of many US jobs. To mitigate such consequential effects, countries attempted to impose threat related to the re-establishment of businesses to squeeze concessions in wages and thus attain greater benefits (Office of United States Trade Representative, 2012). There are numerous parties who have been involved in resolving the issues at NAFTA including the Mexican economy, multinational companies based on any of the three countries (i.e. Mexico, Canada and United States) and US Federal Government acting as a combined decision maker bloc of Canada and the United States of America. These three parties play a vital role in assisting United States at minimising the trade deficit which was initially observed in the international trade affairs between the allied nations. The other parties involved in this process include the US companies who must have the capability to compete on the world stage, socially conscious as well as responsible organisations that are sponsoring training programs (Office of United States Trade

Strategic management. read article then answer questions Essay

Strategic management. read article then answer questions - Essay Example This confounding hinders the fact that resource-based concept is only one of the various strategic logics within heterogeneous firms that leads to intra-industry performance differences. The influence of environments on company performance has been a key theme in strategy and has become a function of the fit between organizational structure and the environmental setting (Porter, 1996). Extrapolating this argument to inter-organizational level, researchers argue that the influence of network position on firm performance is controlled by the environmental context. Essential to the argument is that changes in the environment influence the nature of skills and capabilities needed for competitive advantage. Since network positions are crucial to firms in an attempt to acquire appropriate skills and capabilities, firms are compelled to strategically design their networks to acquire skills and capabilities in a changed environment. Nevertheless, any mismatch between needs of the environment and the firm’s position could have serious performance implications (Bingham and Eisenhardt, 2008). Position strategy has various advantages like constructing an impressive empire surrounding an attractive market that offers long-term competitive advantage. In addition, competitive advantage relies on valuable strategic position within an industry and linking the various resources to defend the position, since strategic positioning drives huge profitability (Peteraf, 1993). Often companies defend their position by combining resources that their competitors find difficult to imitate; therefore, position strategy links resources to successfully defend an organization from challengers. Nevertheless, like any strategy, the position strategy has its vulnerability factor which is change since when industries change relocating a business empire locked in a strategic position is tough. The weaknesses of this strategy include dismantling synergies in case of change that management wo rked hard to put in place and exposing the organization to risks in transition to a fresh strategy. Thus, change forces managers to dismantle their resources in position strategy and reassembling them in fresh strategic positions, which consumes time and potentially lethal because performance may stall until all pieces are reassembled (Siggelkow, 2001). Currently firms are leveraging on social media tools in an attempt to attract consumers to engage in their interactive online social environment (Shadkam and O'Hara, 2013). In environments of moderate change, leverage strategies outperform position strategies because change is incremental and conventional which ensures that managers rotate strategically important resources in the industry. Although position strategy bases on the empire analogy, leverage strategy resembles chess in that competitive advantage results from having valuable pieces and ensuring smart moves with the pieces. Organizations pursuing leveraging strategy attain competitive advantage through their strategically essential resources within the existing as well as new industries at a rate consistent with market change. For instance, Pepsi owns various strategically important resources; however, the company has leveraged the resources to