Using Theodore Levitt’s central thesis of "The Globalization of markets", as a starting point, provide a discussion on the following

a. Identify and defend/reject/modify Levitt’s bold assertions on the nature of the global firm:

i. The world’s needs and desires have been irrevocably homogenized. This makes the multinational corporation obsolete and the global corporation absolute.

ii. Technology drives consumers relentlessly toward the same common goals – alleviation of life’s burdens and expansion of discretionary time and spending power.

iii. Cultural preferences follow one of two paths: They eventually lose relevance to economic decision making, or they diffuse to other groups and become the substance of global trends.

Upscale hotels in the united states recently cut their prices by 20 percent in an effort to bolster dwindling occupancy rates among business travelers. a survey performed by a major research organization indicated that businesses are wary of current economic conditions and are now resorting to electronic media, such as the internet and the telephone, to transact business. assume a company's budget permits it to spend $5,000 per month on either business travel or electronic media to transact business. graphically illustrate how a 20 percent decline in the price of business travel would impact this company's budget set if the price of business travel was initially $1,000 per trip and the price of electronic media was $500 per hour. suppose that, after the price of business travel drops, the company issues a report indicating that its marginal rate of substitution between electronic media and business travel is 1. is the company allocating resources efficiently? explain.

Who has summer school : ( because i do : (

Pennewell publishing inc. (pp) is a zero growth company. it currently has zero debt and its earnings before interest and taxes (ebit) are $80,000. pp's current cost of equity is 10%, and its tax rate is 40%. the firm has 10,000 shares of common stock outstanding selling at a price per share of $48.00. refer to the data for pennewell publishing inc. (pp). pp is considering changing its capital structure to one with 30% debt and 70% equity, based on market values. the debt would have an interest rate of 8%. the new funds would be used to repurchase stock. it is estimated that the increase in risk resulting from the added leverage would cause the required rate of return on equity to rise to 12%. if this plan were carried out, what would be pp's new value of operations? a. $484,359 b. $521,173 c. $584,653 d. $560,748 e. $487,805