You will be doing a team project, by imagining that your team is part of a (preferably Canadian or American)corporation owning certain competencies and seeking expansion. You are expected to analyse which location(s) is/are preferable for the corporation's expansion, what type of business activity the corporation can pursue at each of the location(s), and how the company should strategize to proceed with the expansion. The steps and hintsbelow will guide you through the teamproject, but you will need to search some information in order to support your strategic decisionsand get high marks.

1. Choose a corporation you want to work on. It is recommended that you choose a medium size corporation, because if it is too small, then you will have difficulty in finding publicly available information about it, and because if it is too large, then not only will have the corporation likely entered many different locations, but you will also have difficulty in digesting overloading amount of information about it. It is up to you to choose a domestic corporation or a multinational corporation, since you may assume that choosing a simpler domestic corporation may make your team project easier to do but choosing a multinational corporation with higher complexity may allow you to have more rigorous analysis.

2. Structure your team project in the following sections:

I. Corporation Overview

Describe briefly the corporation's industry as well as its products and services.

II. Analysis

Conduct a (mandatory) SWOT analysis for the corporation.

Optional (but worth more marks):

Conduct additional analysis using other relevant model(s).

III. Firm-Specific Assets

List out the strengths, capabilities, and advantages of the corporation implied from the above analyses.

IV. Country- or Location- Specific Assets

Through the implications of the weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the above analyses, define what the corporation should be seeking as some criteria and pre-requisites for formulating strategy. Please note that the set of things the corporation is seeking, such as market size, cheap labor, technological knowledge, etc. is the criteria of location choice, because not every location or country can provide this set of things. If there is a location in which a domestic company is able to provide the corporation some technological knowledge, other resources, and services, this is also considered location-specific.

V. Strategy

A. Intended Business Activity

Design a business activity (e.g. primary activity such as manufacturing or sales or supporting activity such as research and development, etc.) that can fill the void of the weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

B. Location Choice

Select a country or preferably a city as the location choice by following the criteria set under country- or location-specific assets. You need to provide information to back up your selection. Please be aware of your level of details - if you first have a list of potential location choices and then discuss not only why you select a particular choice but also why you do not select the other choices, then you will receive higher marks. The internationalization process or the corporation's previous location choices may also be considered here.

[Hint: Revisit the PowerPoints on the topic "Entry strategies and organizational structures".]

C. Entry Mode

Justify your choice of entry mode for the business activity in the chosen location. Please note that entry mode is a way for the corporation to eliminate some of the risk that arises from certain type of business activity or a particular location. In other cases, you may also need to balance between the use of a particular entry mode for a business activity and the risk of a particular location e.g. when you need to negotiate an entry mode in order to produce innovative products or services based on separate technological knowledge that a domestic partner and the corporation each have, while the institutions of the location are not strong enough to enforce contracts or protect intellectual property right.

[Hint: Revisit the PowerPoints on the topic "Entry strategies and organizational structures".]

VI. Structure

Discuss the incremental change in organizational structure when the business activity is added to the corporation. You can choose a structure suitable to the corporation among all the possible structures we have discussed in this course. If your company has already had an existing structure, you may either simply add the new business activity under the existing structure or make amendment to the existing structure when you believe the existing structure is not good enough.

[Hint: Revisit the PowerPoints on the topic "Entry strategies and organizational structures".]