ECON545 Week 1 Case Study Latest 2019 January

Week 1 Case Study: Choices, Trade-Off, and Economic Systems

Overview

Every time we choose to do something (consume it or produce it), we give up doing or gaining something else that could give us a certain level of benefit or satisfaction. Choices exist because of our limited (scarce) resources. Even if you were the richest person in the United States, you still cannot do more than one thing at a time. For example, you cannot watch a movie and sleep at the same time, and you cannot fish and bike at the same time.

When we make choices, we usually weigh several factors against each other to narrow down our options. These factors could be tangible, such as money, gifts, work, distance, personal ability, and so forth, and they could also be intangible (or immaterial), such as feelings, comfort, sleep, love, and so forth. We always go through a rational (or purposeful) thinking process when we make choices, although not all choices are rational!

Assignment Description

We are going to examine how an entity made a decision and the impact of that decision.

Select a company, a supplier, a producer, a not-for-profit organization, a government agency, a community, or a social movement of your choice to analyze the process, costs, benefits, and the outcome of a major choice that the organization has made. A decision could be to expand production, relocate, eliminate a product or service line, hire more people, layoff workers, shutdown operation, change their marketing approach, target a new market, or change the structure of the organization.

To start the selection process of your organization, select an organization or a company and then perform a quick online search for a major change in that company that impacted its labor force, market share, revenue, and costs. Or you could select the organization you work for or belong to and do similar search about them.

Your research needs to be structured with consistent and clear thoughts. It also needs to be supported by facts and data. Your results need to be based on solid facts. Your conclusion and opinion need to be thorough and based on your findings and understanding of the concepts: Trade-Off and Economic Systems.

Writing Style and Page Number Requirements

Font Type: Times New Roman or Arial

Font Size: 12

Spacing: Double

Number of Pages: Four to six pages, including a separate Title page and a separate References page

Structure and Requirements

•             Title Page

o             Title of the paper

o             Name of the author

o             E-mail address of the author

o             Class name

o             Professor's name

o             Date

•             Introduction

Identify your organization, its scope of business or service, its size, its mission statement, its business or service strategy, its revenue, and the trend of its growth and decline in recent years. Then talk about the nature of the decision that organization has to make and the reason behind this choice.

•             Data

Obtain data from at least three credible sources (not Wikipedia) to provide facts about the organization (its size, revenue, capacity, etc.).

Use table, graphs, and figures (if available) to support your argument.

•             Analysis

Fully explain the organization's purpose and the process of making the decision. Basically, what made them make this choice? Then fully explain the consequences and outcome of this decision (cost, benefits, risks, losses, and gains). Make sure to use facts, numbers, figures, tables, and/or graphs to show the impact of this choice on the organization (revenue, size, costs, market share, etc.)

•             Conclusion

Provide your own final thoughts, opinion, and understanding of the outcome. Do you believe the choice that the organization made had economic justification where the benefits outweighed the costs? Explain your answer here. Also, state what else could have this organization done to improve the outcome of their choice. Also, provide an alternative (better) choice they could have made instead of the one they actually made.

•             Reference List

Use at least three professional sources to support your argument. The references need to be in APA format. To learn more about APA format, click on the link below.

APA Resource