Arbitration and a Snowball’s Chance

As you likely knew before you read this chapter, arbitration is an alternative form of dispute resolution. In theory and in practice it often is intended to save time and money and achieve better outcomes than going to court. If you haven’t actually been involved in arbitration, you might be surprised to know you have likely agreed to it many times without knowing it. Most cell phone, cable, Internet, online shopping, and credit card agreements now contain arbitration clauses. In the fine print of their service agreements are buried the words, “The company may elect to resolve any claim by individual arbitration.” This means the company reserves the right to settle any dispute you raise as an individual, or as a group via class-action, using arbitration. You essentially forfeit your constitutional rights to sue, and agree to be bound by the decision of a third party, often hired by the company against which you have a complaint.

A 2015 investigation by The New York Times revealed that such clauses are increasingly inserted in consumer and employment contracts as a way to work around the courts, limiting consumers’ recourse both as individuals and collectively in class-action suits. Proponents of the bans say arbitration clauses work just as intended: They save time and money by protecting companies from frivolous lawsuits, while at the same time providing a less costly, faster, and less resource-intensive route to potential satisfaction for customers.

Opponents also have much to say. They often refer to such clauses as “get out of jail free cards” for large corporations. Moreover, many critics claim that rules of arbitration favor companies, which have skill and experience in arbitrating as well as financial resources that the vast majority of consumers lack. The deck seems stacked in the big companies’ favor.

The purpose of class-action suits is to allow individuals with relatively small claims to band together and achieve some sort of recourse against an offending company. But courts have thrown out numerous class-action claims because of arbitration clauses, including a complaint against a travel-booking website for conspiring to fix hotel prices, another against Goldman Sachs claiming sex discrimination, and still another against Taco Bell for discriminating against African-American employees. William Young, a federal judge in Boston, said of arbitration clauses, “Ominously, business has a good chance of opting out of the legal system altogether and misbehaving without reproach.”

There is no official tracking system for arbitration that tallies the number of cases, success rates, or amount of money awarded. But the Times’ investigation revealed that between 2010 and 2014 a total of 1,179 class-action suits were filed against companies. Eighty percent were pushed to arbitration by judges. In a single year, 2014, judges ruled against 134 of 162 class-action filings, moving them to arbitration or causing the plaintiffs to drop the cases altogether. The story of individual consumer plaintiffs is even more telling. Between 2010 and 2014, Verizon faced only 65 consumer arbitrations, despite having 125 million subscribers. Time Warner Cable had only seven from among its 15 million customers. It thus seems that while arbitration is a contractual possibility, relatively few individual consumers utilize it, and groups of consumers have no choice but to do so.

What Should Be Done?

• Allow companies to include arbitration clauses in consumer agreements and contracts as they choose. Explain your reasoning.
• Modify the clauses to better protect consumers. Explain your recommended modifications.
• Do away with arbitration clauses. Justify.
• Create and explain other alternatives.

Important information and instructions:

Read the ethical dilemma. Analyze and summarize the case. Choose one of the opinions listed after the case (or invent other options) that best describes your opinions associated with the case. Explain why you chose that opinion and provide research that may help support that opinion.

Research the topic in preparation for completing this assignment. You may also use the text as a reference. Be sure to use APA for citing sources.

Submission of all cases must be in APA format with at least 2 reference

The purpose of this Assignment is for you to gain an understanding of health promotion, screening, diagnosis, and management of common women’s health acute and chronic illnesses and to compare and contrast common versus nontraditional treatment modalities.

Directions

• Select acute and one chronic women’s health issue (e.g., urinary tract infection and osteoporosis).
• Describe and outline the issue, prevalence, and significance.
• Describe health promotion and screening for each issue.
• Outline diagnostic tests or laboratories needed for each issue. Elaborate on what you would expect or anticipate in the diagnostic testing with each illness you choose.
• List and describe common treatment or management modalities for each issue.
• Discuss patient education and follow up that is needed for each issue.
• Identify health screening and promotion needs for women across the lifespan specific to the chronic illness.
• For each selected issue, compare and contrast traditional versus nontraditional treatment options.
• Examine how you would collaborate with other members of the health care team for best practice

Assignment Requirements

Before finalizing your work, you should:

• be sure to read the Assignment description carefully (as displayed above);
• consult the Grading Rubric (under the Course Resources) to make sure you have included everything necessary; and
• utilize spelling and grammar check to minimize errors.

Your writing Assignment should:

• follow the conventions of Standard English (correct grammar, punctuation, etc.);
• be well ordered, logical, and unified, as well as original and insightful;
• display superior content, organization, style, and mechanics; and
• use APA 6th Edition format.
• be 5-10 pages in length.

Contrarian Investing

Complete Concept Question 9 from Chapter 8: What does it mean to be a contrarian investor? How would a contrarian investor use technical analysis? Post your answers to the discussion board.  Remember to complete all parts of the question and support your answers with examples from the text and other resources.  Respond to at least two of your classmates’ postings outside of your own thread.

Indicate how your SSM company strategy integrates key elements of the Formulation and Implementation model (Exhibit 8.1, page 237)

Our SSM company formulated and integrated a well thought out, and dynamic strategy that involved investing in major innovations and expansion plans early, utilizing just in time inventory strategies, and maintaining capital and low debts. Our decisions to make large financial investments early were intentional to boost our market lead in two of the leading vehicle segments. The objective was to utilized innovation, dealership expansion, training plans to boost quality, financial investment strategies, just in time inventory, and direct and corporate advertising. Our differentiators included offering attributes that were top picks from market research conducted in the field such as quality, safety, and size in the family vehicle market. Our economic logic was to maintain low levels of inventory so we wouldn’t have to scrap material every major or minor upgrade, invest early to gain market share with leading innovations, and manage a healthy level of debts to cash.

As a team we have worked together to gather information about the markets we compete in, such as consumer segment opportunities, competitor activities, market growth opportunities, and consumer reports. As a team we unanimously make decisions that are in the best interest of our SSM company using data and resources available.” Structural variables offer an implementation toolkit for identifying key levers that affect the formulation-implementation process and ensuring formulation- implementation-performance cycle.” (Crittenden & Crittenden, 2008, p. 304). According to Crittenden and Crittenden (2008) there are four structural levers of implementation: actions, programs, systems, and policies. Each item assists a firm in having the proper formula in place to carry out a strategy. In our SSM company we had our strategy roadmap in place that helped dictate our actions each week. Crittenden and Crittenden (2008) also provide four additional managerial skills to assist in skill related implementation levers: interacting, allocating, monitoring, and organizing. Our SSM company effectively interacted and monitored market shifts using market research conducted weekly. We also stay organized by charting out past and future moves each week. This allowed us to stick to our strategy, as well as have flexibility as competitor activities changed.

What causes the Knowing-Doing Gap?

Carpenter and Sanders (2008) define the knowing-doing gap as, “The difference between what firms know and what they do.” (p. 238). A firm should ensure that the company’s strategy aligns with stakeholders, including lower- level managers who are carrying out and executing the strategy. When this information is not shared with the key members involved, a knowing-doing gap can occur. There are three causes provided by Carpenter and Sanders (2008) for when the knowing-doing gap can occur, (1) external and internal obstacles, (2) culture, (3) mismatches.

Obstacles can occur within a firm from both internal and external elements. It becomes critical for a firm to assess the external environment that a company engages with in order to best prepare for obstacles that may arise. In addition, internal obstacles can hinders a firm’s ability to implement a sound strategy. Internal obstacles can be avoided by assessing existing resources, implementation levers, and management-action plans (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008).

The second cause of the knowing-doing gap is culture. Culture influences how a team perceives, values, and reacts to various elements within a firm. It can be challenging for an organization to change its culture if ideas and values don’t mesh well. “Recent studies have found evidence confirming the theory that firms with strong shared values are better at implementing strategies and achieving higher levels of performance than firms with weaker values.” (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008, p. 239). Culture therefore becomes a critical component for a firm to maintain. Establishing a healthy and impactful culture within the organization can help bridge the knowing-doing gap.

The third cause is mismatches, which occur when strategy and implementation levers between strategic-leadership don’t align (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008). It can be challenging when running a business, defining market opportunities and business strategies to achieve goals to maintain proper alignment with strategic leadership. I have witnessed this first hand in my firm as we’ve tried to switch to the SAP software program. The switch from one software interface to another was a financial decision to help our firm align with the other Nordson entities. The project has taken over two-years and still hasn’t been fully implemented. Many managers helping implement the change have struggled to fully grasp the complexity of the project, and how it impacts each department and the processes each group currently carries out. “Executives who are responsible for formulating strategy are often prone to making overly optimistic projections and downplaying the obstacles to execution.” (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008, p. 240). This SAP transition was a strategy formulated by stakeholders, and is now tasked to lower-level managers to carry out. There have been mismatches on how to properly carryout the project, which has extended the deadline dates as leaders continue to define the best execution strategy.

Carpenter, M.A. & Sanders, Wm., G. (2008). Strategic management: A dynamic perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Crittenden, V. L., & Crittenden, W. F. (2008). Building a capable organization: The eight levers of strategy implementation. Business Horizons,51(4), 301-309. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2008.02.003