Cases in the Environment of Business

The Ivey Casebook Series is a co-publishing partnership between SAGE Publications and the Richard Ivery School of Business at The University of Western Ontario. Cases in the Environment of Business offers an outstanding collection of relevant, classroom-tested cases. In discussing the cases, students participate in managerial decisions in an international context. Most cases deal with a variety of environmental forces, but generally a single set of forces plays a predominant role. In view of this, the cases are divided in accordance with the following themes: - Industry structure: responses to strategies of customers, suppliers and competitors, dependence of profitability on unique value-added attributes, and the shift of certain activities to low-wage countries; - Macroeconomic variables: income levels and growth rates, foreign exchange rates, inflation rates, interest rates, and unemployment rates; - Political variables: regulations, financial incentives, taxation, foreign investment restrictions, and international trade and investment agreements; - Societal variables: labour and environmental practices, ethics, corporate social responsibility, Boards of Directors, and demographics; - Technological variables: technological infrastructure and the pace and direction of technological changes, including in particular the Internet and e-business.