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Mn3119 Final Exam Paper

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15 views

Mn3119 Final Exam Paper

Uploaded by

Sabir Ali
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

MN3119

Summer 2020 online assessment guidance

MN3119 Strategy

The assessment will be an open-book take-home online assessment within a 24-


hour window. The requirements for this assessment remain the same as the
originally planned closed-book exam, with an expected time/effort of 3 hours.

Candidates should answer EIGHT of the following TWELVE questions: all FOUR from
Section A (12.5 marks each) and any FOUR from Section B (12.5 marks each).
Candidates are strongly advised to divide their time accordingly.

The maximum length for the answer to each question should be 300 words.

You should complete this paper using pen and paper. Please use BLACK ink only.

Handwritten work then needs to be scanned, converted to PDF and then uploaded to
the VLE as ONE individual file including the coversheet. Each scanned sheet should
have your candidate number written clearly at the top. Please do not write
your name anywhere on any sheet.

The paper will be available at 12:00 midday (BST) on Tuesday 28 July 2020.

You have until 12:00 midday (BST) on Wednesday 29 July 2020 to upload your file
into the VLE submission portal. However, you are advised not to leave your
submission to the last minute. We will deduct 5 marks if your submission is up to one
hour late, 10 marks if your submission is more than one hour late but less than two
hours late (etc.).

You may use any calculator for any appropriate calculations, but you may not use
any computer software to obtain solutions. Credit will only be given if all workings
are shown.

If you think there is any information missing or any error in any question, then you
should indicate this but proceed to answer the question stating any assumptions you
have made.

The assessment has been designed with a duration of 24 hours to provide a more
flexible window in which to complete the assessment and to appropriately test the
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course learning outcomes. As an open-book assessment, the expected amount of
effort required to complete all questions and upload your answers during this window
is no more than 3 hours. Organise your time well and avoid working all night.

You are assured that there will be no benefit in you going beyond the expected 3
hours of effort. Your assessment has been carefully designed to help you show what
you have learned in the hours allocated.

This is an open-book assessment and as such you may have access to additional
materials including but not limited to subject guides and any recommended reading.
But the work you submit is expected to be 100% your own. Therefore, unless
instructed otherwise, you must not collaborate or confer with anyone during the
assessment. The University of London will carry out checks to ensure the academic
integrity of your work. Many students that break the University of London’s
assessment regulations did not intend to cheat but did not properly understand the
University of London’s regulations on referencing and plagiarism. The University of
London considers all forms of plagiarism, whether deliberate or otherwise, a very
serious matter and can apply severe penalties that might impact on your award. The
University of London 2019-20 Procedure for the Consideration of Allegations of
Assessment offences is available online at:
https://london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/governance/assessment-offence-procedure-
year-2019-2020.pdf

The University of London’s Rules for Taking Online Timed Assessments have been
included in an update to the University of London General Regulations and are
available at:
https://london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/regulations/progregs-general-2019-2020.pdf

© University of London 2020

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SECTION A Answer all FOUR questions in this section

1. Nash Equilibria play a central role when analysing simultaneous as well as


sequential games. Define the concept of a Nash Equilibrium and name and
explain two possible limitations of this concept for predicting the strategic
decisions of firms.

2. You work for a venture capital firm and you are evaluating three proposals (A,
B, C) for funding. All three firms are start-ups in the Artificial Intelligence (AI)
sector. Among many other things, all proposals include an estimate of the
cross-price elasticity (CPE) of the firm’s own product to the main product of a
large software firm X. These are the three CPE estimates:
Firm A: 0.15
Firm B: 0.9
Firm C: -0.7
It is well-known that for legal reasons, Firm X’s production cost will go up by
20% and that this will lead to higher prices for its product.
Assuming that the funding proposals are equally attractive otherwise, which
firm would you invest in? Explain your thinking.

3. You are a product manager for a firm selling sunbeds and you know that
competition in sunbeds is mainly on price. Your friend works for a company
selling parasols (large sun umbrellas) and knows that competition in the
parasol market is also in prices. Are the prices for sunbeds and parasols
strategic complements or strategic substitutes? Explain your answer.

4. What is the internal architecture of a firm and explain how it can contribute to
a firm’s competitive advantage?

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SECTION B Answer any FOUR questions in this section

5. Firms get better at retaining employees over time, i.e. there are learning
economies in staff retention. Explain clearly two channels of how this can lead
to increased firm efficiency in the long run.

6. True or False? “The increased diffusion of information and communication


technologies (ICT) in firms has made a decentralised organisational structure
more efficient. As such, firms pursuing a cost leadership strategy should
decentralise.” Briefly justify your answer.

7. How will investment externalities influence a firm’s choice to vertically


integrate or disintegrate? Explain your answer.

8. Explain how asset specificity can lead to transaction costs.

9. Is equity ownership more useful and important for capability-building alliances


than for results-driven alliances?

10. Market commonality among rivals may affect the likelihood of initiating and
responding to competitive actions. Explain how and give one example of two
firms with high market commonality and their competitive behaviour.

11. It is said that incremental innovations are more likely to come from
incumbents, while drastic innovations are more likely to come from entrants to
an industry. Explain why.

12. What are the two forces at play in the population ecology approach to
diffusion? Which one is more important in the later stages of the diffusion
process? Is this approach the right way to think about the spread of a viral
infection?

END OF PAPER

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