Vocab- extremely fickle demand whereby a customer will only pay a certain price

Resources and capabilities, such as interpersonal relations among managers and a firm's culture, that may be costly to imitate because they are beyond the ability of firms to systematically manage and influence are referred to asanswers: socially complex.causally ambiguous.path dependent.the result of unique historical conditions.

You are an employee of an u.s. firm that produces personal computers in thailand and then exports them to the united states and other countries for sale. the personal computers were originally produced in thailand to take advantage of relatively low labor costs and a skilled workforce. other possible locations considered at that time were malaysia and hong kong. the u.s. government decides to impose punitive 100% ad valorem tariffs on imports of computers from thailand to punish the country for administrative trade barriers that restrict u.s. exports to thailand. how do you think your firm should respond? what does this tell you about the use of targeted trade barriers?

Robert black, regional manager for ford in texas and oklahoma, faced a dilemma. the ford f-150 pickup truck was the best-selling pickup ever, yet ford's headquarters in detroit had decided to introduce a completely redesigned f-150. how could mr. black sell both trucks at the same time? he still had "old" f-150s in stock. in his advertising, mr. black referred to the new f-150s as follows: "not a better f-150. just the only truck good enough to be the next f-150." this statement represents ford's of the new f-150.