新加坡论文代写:案例分析

本文是一篇关于International Business案例分析的文章，主要分析苹果公司。写手通过一篇纽约时报的文章作为基础讨论三个问题，试图从1997年起对苹果发展进行总体介绍，挖掘全球化对经营的影响，描述国际贸易和直接关键发展外来投资。这篇文章还将回答以下假设：作为道德投资基金的经理，苹果预计将采取什么样的CSR措施。

Discussions of Three Questions- A Case Study of Apple

Introduction

In 1976, three young people including Steve Jobs established Apple. After several decades of development, Apple has become an multinational enterprise which sells its products and services all over the world. During the process of globalization, Apple has suffered a lot. Though it only took 4 years to go public, Apple soon went through the recession in 1980s-1990s when Jobs resigned from the company. Till 1997, the issue that Apple purchased a company named NEXT, owned by Jobs, brought him back to the board and made him as an interim CEO (Steinwart, Ziegler, 2014). Since then, Apple returned to profitability and entered into a new chapter. This essay is going to discuss three questions on the basis of an article in NYT, try to give a general introduction about the development of Apple since 1997, dig out the impact of globalization on the operation, describe the key developments in international trade and direct foreign investment. The essay will also give an answer to the assumption that as a manager of an ethical investment fund, what CSR measures would be expected from Apple.

Discussions of three questions

Question 1

-  Development of Apple since 1997

1997 is a very important year for both Jobs and Apple. In this year, Apple purchased the company owned by Jobs and began the journey of getting back to peak. After the return of Jobs, Apple quickly released an online store that connected to a build-to-order manufacturing strategy. During the next ten years, Apple created numerous digital products and opened its first retail store in 2001. It is not surprised that Apple has grown up so quickly, cause it continued to develop new operating systems and introduce new digital items to meet the demands of consumers. Not only in the aspect of computer, Apple also put some attempts on other products, like the ipod- a portable digital audio player, iphone- a high technological product combined the function of ipod and phone, ipad- a product positioned between computer and smart phone (Jay, 2012). It is easy to conclude that innovation is the motivation to push Apple forward. With the expansion of business, Apple has dominated a large share of global market. For seeking low-paid labors and high-profit returns, Apple established manufacturers and retailers all around the world. During its process of globalization, Apple also has been influenced by globalization on its operations.

Question 2

-  Key developments in international trade and direct foreign investment

Two key developments can be illustrated by the case in NYT that jobs and money are redistributed around the world (Freeland, 2011).

Though Apple offered many job opportunities to non-American workers, these jobs were low-paid with low-skilled requirement. Apple kept more professional and skilled employees in US, but took the other areas especially developing countries as the locations of factories. Since Apple handled the core technology, its market power was strong enough to influence jobs distribution.

Direct foreign investment also concentrated to the United States, because Apple’s shareholders has got a lot of becefits. For example, ipod produced in developing countries had a low financial value added, most of the value made by ipod had gone into Apple’s pocket. One feature of capital is to chase becefit, since Apple got so higher becefit with so lower cost that direct foreign investment absolutely focused on America. Besides that, the statement came from Freeland (2011) supported this conclusion: the President of US Trust acclaimed that recession was over in America cause he had lots of millionaire and billionaire clients.

Question 3

-  Ethical issues highlighted in the case

Apple is possible to aggravate the inequality of global labor market. Apple has employed many workers around the world but most professional employees concentrated in the US. The distribution of low-skilled jobs to the developing countries led to a consequent inequality of payment. Since the products made in developing countries have low value added, most of the becefit are reaped by Apple’s shareholders. Apple ignored the employees’ becefit specially workers in developing areas.

-  CSR measures expected from Apple

CSR is defined as the contribution to the development of sustainable economy with the effort on environmental protection, care about employees, social legal issues, harmony of local communities (Jamali, Mirshak, 2007). In this essay, there are two CSR measures expected from Apple. Since the major business of Apple is about digital products, the possibility environmental pollution is my first concern. I expect Apple can use advanced technology to decrease the harm from disposing products and develop energy-saving products. The second one is about the right of employees. I hope Apple to improve its policy on developing countries, raise the payment of non-American workers, work on employees’ skill training. As a famous multinational company, Apple should take the responsibility to eliminate discrimination at labor market.

Conclusion

Globalization is linked to inequality, some people acclaim that globalization is beneficial to eliminate inequality, while others take the opposite opinion (Mills, 2009). Based on the case of an article referring to Apple, this essay finds that the globalization of Apple has aggravated the inequality of employment at labor market, and made investment go into America. This inequality has taken many critiques to Apple and generated the ethics issues. Since Apple has done a lot on environmental protection, it will be included into the ethics fund’s investment. If Apple could improve its employment practices, there will be a better prospect in future.

References:

Apple.com (n.d.) ‘Environmental Responsibility.’(on line) available at: http://www

.apple.com/environment/. (accessed: 13 March 2015).

Ethicalinvestors.co.uk (n.d.) ‘What is Ethical Investment?’ (on line) available at: http://www.ethicalinvestors.co.uk/ethical_investors.php?p=what_is_ethical_investment. (accessed: 13 March 2015).

Freeland, C., (2011) ‘How the iPod Explains Globalization’. New York Times, 30 June.

Gianmarco, I., P., Ottaviano, (2011) ‘New’ new economic geography: firm heterogeneity and agglomeration economies.’ Journal of Economic Geography, 11(2), 231-240.

Jay, E., (2012) ‘Leading Apple with Steve Jobs: Management Lessons from A Controversial Genius’. John Wiley& Sons, New York.