Think about a place where you have worked, or where someone you know works. Think both from an employee’s perspective and a leader’s perspective.

Now that you are knowledgeable about the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory of leadership, what are the implications for you, or the person you know, as an employee of the organization? How is this new knowledge changing the way you see things? What are you looking for? What are you thinking about?

What are the implications for you, or the person you know, as a leader in the organization? What do you do with your newly acquired LMX knowledge?

What are the benefits of being in the “in group” for an employee? What are the benefits for the organization that is characterized by high-quality leader-member exchanges?

Embed course material concepts, principles, and theories (including supporting citations) along with at least one current, scholarly, peer-reviewed journal article. You may find that your discussion of leadership characteristics is easily supported with such current scholarly research, while the information about how your chosen leader exhibits those leadership characteristics is supported by popular research.

Keep in mind that current scholarly references can be found in the Saudi Digital Library by conducting an advanced search specific to scholarly references. Current research means published in the last five years.

You are required to reply to at least two peer responses to this week’s discussion question and/or your instructor’s response to your posting. Your replies need to be substantial and constructive in nature. They should add to and evaluate/analyze the content of the post answer. Normal course dialogue doesn’t fulfill these two peer replies but is expected throughout the course. Answering all course questions is also required.

Assignment Content

1. 
   

   Purpose of Assignment

   All products/services go through a lifecycle of NPI (new product introduction), growth, maturity, and decline. These various stages affect the marketing strategy and promotional efforts for a particular product or service. In Week 3, you will incorporate a product strategy that addresses at least 3 areas of the product lifecycle. The primary objective of this assignment is to allow you to demonstrate an understanding of the factors that can affect the launch of a product or service.

   Assignment Steps

   Create a minimum 700-word product strategy in Microsoft® Word. Complete the following:

   • Select a product strategy for CISCO
   • Address at least three areas of the product lifecycle (NPI, growth, maturity, and decline).
   • Create at least two different types of media methods for the product or service. One method must be print and the other must be non-print, both of which highlight your product or service. In your assignment, include 2-3 sentences about each media method (i.e., one paragraph of what you would do, but not how to do it). For example, (this cannot be used in this assignment), a non-print media method would be a Facebook campaign that provides users with a reward for each review (positive or negative) about the use/appearance/price/etc. of the product or service.
   • Determine how you will measure the marketing activities (i.e., what metrics will be used to determine success or failure).
   • Address three elements of the following Product and Promotion List:
   • Integrated marketing communication
   • Advertising strategy/objectives
   • Push and pull
   • Media strategy
   • Advertising execution
   • Direct marketing
   • Public relations/strategies
   • Positioning

   The plan will be a continuation of the global or multi-regional company you chose in Week 1. This will be incorporated into your overall marketing plan for Week 6.
   Note: Charts/graphs/tables do not count toward the word count.
   

I. Search Yahoo Finance, http://www.bloomberg.com or any other credible source to retrieve the most recent income statement and balance sheet for a major leveraged corporation.

II. Provide these statements in proper format.

III. Also, retrieve the data on the company’s stock annual rate of return for the past 10 years.

IV. In addition, retrieve annual rate of return of a major financial index. Present this data as well.

V. Using the data on company’s stock rate of return and the index’s rate of return estimate beta of the corporation. Make sure to adjust this value to obtain leveraged beta. Compare this value with the value stated by the source. Retrieve the risk-free rate of return as the annual interest rate of US treasuries. Based on these values estimate the expected annual rate of return of the corporation’s security. Using the financial statements mentioned above estimate the annual rate of interest paid by the corporation (cost of debt). Also, find the tax rate and capitalization ratio (proportions among equity and debt). Using these values that you have found estimate the annual weighted cost of capital (WACC) of the corporation.

VI.Suppose that the corporation is offered an investment which has the following cash flows.

In million doll.

Year	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Cash flow	-$10	$1,5	$1,5	$1,5	$1,5	$1,5	$1,5	$1,5	$1,5	$1,5	$1,5

Based on WACC, Is this investment viable?

For each part above state the problem before answering the questions, provide clear justifications, explain your work in detail, and cite all references used for development of the content.

Provide your explanations and definitions in detail and be precise. Comment on your findings. Provide references for content when necessary. Provide your work in detail and explain in your own words. Support your statements with peer-reviewed in-text citation(s) and reference(s).

1:

This week you have learned about managing teams and methods of communication. To demonstrate how teams and effective communication are applied in the workplace, this week’s discussion forum will involve researching an article using one of the following sources:

• USA Today (www.usatoday.com)
• Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com)
• New Your Times (www.nytimes.com)
• Forbes (www.forbes.com)
• Bloomberg Business Week (www.bloomberg.com)
• Inc. Magazine (www.inc.com)
• Economist (www.economist.com)
• Entrepreneur (www.entrepreneur.com)
• Harvard Business Review- (www.hbr.org)

Your task is to choose a current article (published in last 60 days) from one of the above-listed sources that relate to how managers develop teams and/or communicate as part of their responsibilities.

• What type of communication is most effective when managing/leading teams? If communication is all that important, why is it that managers still struggle with it?
• What key points in the article support your statements?

2:

For the Week 5 discussion, we are going to practice conveying information. Explore the Storycorps link provided below. Most clips are less than 4 minutes. Watch a few of them, and select one story that interests you.

For your initial post of 75-150 words, write a detailed paragraph sharing the story. Explain who they are, what their story or experience was about, and why it held significance for you. Include details! Don’t forget to include the link to your specific story chosen.

https://www.youtube.com/user/storycorps/videos

3:

Endoscopies are very common procedures. Describe endoscopies and their importance to medical treatment. A surgical endoscopy often reimburses more than a diagnostic endoscopy, but not twice as much. Why do you think that is? Also, give an example of a diagnostic and surgical endoscopy.

When you respond to your fellow students’ posts, do you agree or disagree with their posts, and why or why not?

The following memo is from an exasperated manager to her staff. Obviously, this manager does not have the time to clean up her writing or another set of eyes to review her written material before mailing it.

From:	Albertina Sindaha, Operations Manager
To:	All Employees
Subject:	Cleanup!
Message

You were all supposed to clean up your work areas last Friday, but that didn’t happen. A few people cleaned their desks, but no one pitched in to clean the common areas.

So we’re going to try again. As you know, we don’t have a big enough custodial budget anymore. Everyone must clean up himself. This Friday I want to see action in the copy machine area, things like emptying waste baskets, and you should organize paper and toner supplies. The lunch room is a disaster area. You must do something about the counters, the refrigerator, the sinks, and the coffee machine. And any food left in the refrigerator on Friday afternoon should be thrown out because it stinks by Monday. Finally, the office supply shelves should be straightened.

If you can’t do a better job this Friday, I will have to make a cleaning schedule. Which I don’t want to do. But you may force me to.

-Albertina Sindaha

Using the South University Online Library, research on the basics of interoffice memos. Based on your readings and understanding, create a 2- to 4-page Microsoft Word document that includes:

• An assessment of the effectiveness of the memo with respect to its tone.
• An analysis on the potential barriers to the successful communication of its intended message.
• A revised memo with improved structure using polite and firm tone consistently.

Submission Details:

• Cite any sources you use in APA format.