Consider an arbitrary two-player game with action spaces  and payoff functions that are twice continuously differentiable and concave in own action. Say that the game is locally solvable by iterated strict dominance at a* if there is a rectangle N containing a* such that when players are restricted to choosing actions in N, the successive elimination of strictly dominated strategies vields the unique point a*. Relate the conditions for local solvability by iterated strict dominance of the simultaneous-move process to those for local stability of the alternating-move Cournot adjustment process. (The answer is in Gabay and Moulin 1980)

Assignments
Discussions: Individual Activity
See this Session’s Discussions for assignment details.
Topic 1. Globalization Issues and Challenges.
Based on the videos, required readings, and research, discuss the following questions:
Present three major viewpoints on the future of international business and globalization. The viewpoints are reflected in the “debate” (posted in eR) between an activist/critic, a business executive, and a government trade official. The simulation requires you to take the position of either the CEO/business executive or the social critic. Assess the major viewpoints and arguments critically: What are the issues? What are the value conflicts and assumptions behind the stated positions? Does globalization improve the lives of people in developed and developing nations?
Go to http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Issues/Driving-growth/Globalization—Looking-beyond-theobvious. Use the Globalization Index Charting Tool to compare/contrast the two countries you chose on the 5 key categories. Discuss briefly: How globalized are we? What is being measured and why is accuracy important?
There may be potentially negative consequences for foreign companies conducting crossborder business. Given the new limitations from host governments or politics facing foreign investors, what accommodations to reduce risk should these companies consider in entering an emerging market?
Topic 2. What international challenges impact a specific industry of your choice?
Discuss two of the factors that may impact a specific industry of your choice.
To select an industry: A good place to start is:
http://globaledge.msu.edu/global-insights and click on “Insights by industry.” Select an industry, read the information on the industry.
Research further the industry you selected by using the UMUC Library’s Standard & Poor’s
(S&P) NetAdvantage database, available from

Dq 1 Develop a hypothesis for a problem at a local business (forexample: high employee turnover). Determine if your hypothesis hasadequacy for its purpose, is testable and better than its rivals.Then, use the Checklist for Developing a Strong Hypothesis (Chapter3, Exhibit 3-4) as it relates to your hypothesis. Discuss yourresults Dq2 Based on the analysis of the last six months’ sales,your boss notices that sales of beef products are declining in yourchain’s restaurants. As beef entrĂŠe sales decline, so do profits.Fearing beef sales have declined due to several newspaper storiesreporting E.coli contamination discovered at area grocery stores,he suggests a survey of area restaurants to see if the situation ispervasive. • What do you think of this research suggestion? • How,if at all, could you improve on your boss’s formulation of theresearch question?

E-Business Systems

Assessment Item-1: E-Portfolio

Assessment Objectives:

This assessment items relates to course learning outcomes:

1. Articulate the recent developments in e-business industry and its likely future directions.
2. Compare and explain various types of e-business infrastructure technologies, business models, and payment and security systems in a corporate setting.
3. Formulate and critically evaluate the impact of e-business strategies on organisational processes and outcomes.
4. Demonstrate the technical research skills to assess existing and emerging e-business technologies to transform organisations for competitive advantages.
5. Develop the ability to work independently and contribute as a member of team employing appropriate interpersonal, professional and technical communication skills.
6. Interpret the legal, ethical, social and cultural issues that affect the use, design, and implementation of e-business systems.

Assessment Task:

This is an individual assessment. In other words, the e-portfolio is to be maintained by every student individually.

The e-portfolio assignment aims to enhance your weekly learning as per the weekly topic and maximise your engagement with the course resources (please see weekly topics under Schedule in this course profile).

As a learning tool, e-portfolio will enable you to accumulate evidence of your learning during the term. In this assignment, you are required to research at least three references (two academic and one general; and published within the last 3 years) that are relevant to the topics covered in each week from teaching Week-3 to Week-8. You will briefly describe and relate the academic sources to the topics covered in that week. You will enrich your weekly e-portfolio with relevant illustrations, video clips, and other multimedia applications as well. As a total you need to produce 6 e-portfolio documents, and each e-portfolio carries 5 marks. The length of each weekly e-portfolio should be approximately 500 words.

In this assignment you will use Mahara as a learning tool for your e-portfolio.

Assessment Item-2: Presentation

Assessment Objectives:

This assessment items relates to course learning outcomes:

1. Articulate the recent developments in e-business industry and its likely future directions.
2. Compare and explain various types of e-business infrastructure technologies, business models, and payment and security systems in a corporate setting.
3. Formulate and critically evaluate the impact of e-business strategies on organisational processes and outcomes.
4. Demonstrate the technical research skills to assess existing and emerging e-business technologies to transform organisations for competitive advantages.
5. Develop the ability to work independently and contribute as a member of team employing appropriate interpersonal, professional and technical communication skills.
6. Interpret the legal, ethical, social and cultural issues that affect the use, design, and implementation of e-business systems.

Assessment Task:

This is a group based assignment for on campus students.

E-Business is the main driver for any business today. E-Business related tools, technologies, and applications have been rapidly changing over the last ten years. To be competitive in the market, e-business system users need to follow up the innovations and new industry developments in a timely manner. So, the aim of this assignment is to improve your industry based practical research skills as well as team based working and learning.

In this assignment, as future ICT professionals, you are required to research e-business systems related to new developments in the industry and prepare a presentation as a group of up to 4 members during the class time. You need to form your group in Week-1 and provide the group details to your local lecturer for confirmation. You also need to inform your lecturer about your proposed topic for your group presentation in Week-4.

For presentation topic, you should research industry magazines (online and offline) and Websites focused on innovations and developments in e-business systems. Your presentation should cover the content from an industry and practical point of view rather than theory.

Assessment Item-3: E-Business Prototype Website

Solution and Report

Assessment Objectives:

This assessment items relates to course learning outcomes:

1. Articulate the recent developments in e-business industry and its likely future directions.
2. Compare and explain various types of e-business infrastructure technologies, business models, and payment and security systems in a corporate setting.
3. Formulate and critically evaluate the impact of e-business strategies on organisational processes and outcomes.
4. Demonstrate the technical research skills to assess existing and emerging e-business technologies to transform organisations for competitive advantages.
5. Develop the ability to work independently and contribute as a member of team employing appropriate interpersonal, professional and technical communication skills.
6. Interpret the legal, ethical, social and cultural issues that affect the use, design, and implementation of e-business systems.
7. Build e-business prototype solutions using open source technologies.

Assessment Task:

This is your major assignment and can be done in a group of up to 4 members. The aim of this major assignment is to give you the opportunity to practice and demonstrate the knowledge that you have gained in this course as well as your skills and experience by developing a prototype Website solution for an SME. Hence, this assessment gives you the best opportunity for you to learn by doing and working in a team environment. Today it is a fact that e-business Websites are an integral part of any business operation for competitive as well as survival reasons. We have high expectations of you and therefore as a future ICT professional you need to be able to show your intellectual capability by providing a prototype Website solution for an SME of your choice in any industry type. This is critical, so you can use cutting edge and state-of-the-art technologies available on the Internet such as open sources to carry out your required work.

Part-1: E-Business Website Prototype Solution ; 500 words)

You as a group need to develop an e-business prototype Website solution using any open source platform such as Joomla CMS for an SME (small to mid-size business) in any industry of your choice. Alternatively, you can use any cloud-based Web development platform such as Wix, Shopify etc. to develop the e-business prototype Website. You will be required to design, configure and populate your proposed e-business Website using the open source CMS or cloud-based Web development platform. Each group needs to create one prototype Website solution.

In this part of the assessment, you are required to configure your Website and design homepage for your proposed e-business. You are required to configure extensions like catalogue, shopping cart, contact us, customer registration and any other extension appropriate for your business model.

Besides developing the proposed e-business prototype Website, you need to complete the following tasks.

– Briefly describe your group project reflections (some of the challenges encountered) in designing your e-business Website (250 words).
– List and explain the resources you had researched or used for designing your ebusiness Website as a group (250 words).

You are encouraged to use critical thinking, innovative ideas, and your imagination to produce your e-business prototype Website solution.

Part-2: E-Business Report (3000 words)

As a group you need to choose and propose e-business of your choice, approved by your local lecturer (or course coordinator for distance students). So please discuss your proposal with your lecturer in advance.

This group assignment relates to your understanding of the technological infrastructure and functional requirements of a small to mid-size e-business and to allow you to demonstrate your ability to research, analyse, synthesise and evaluate, and specify the requirements of a proposed e-commerce Website in a report. You are required to use at least 12 sources including 6 academic to write a high quality report.

It is expected that you will demonstrate your learning, integration and incorporation of the knowledge that you have acquired during this course to produce a high quality e-business report.