1. In 2012, the Obama Administration put forth the Consumer’s Privacy Bill of Rights as a roadmap for future legislation.  Compare and contrast this plan with existing legislation.  In a thoroughly research response, respond to the validity of its implementation in society today.

2. Research has been done on the theory and correlation of emotional intelligence (EI) related to organizational success and long-term sustainability of a manager/leader in his or her career. Many leadership/management experts argue that successful manager/leaders demonstrate a sophistication of EI that differs vastly from those managers/leaders who eventually fall and fail their organizations. Some of the key factors of EI include self-awareness, impulse control, persistence, confidence, self-motivation, empathy, social deftness, trustworthiness, adaptability, and a talent for collaboration. Effective managers/leaders are very successful at articulating their missions and visions for their organizations and know how to bring everyone on board to accomplish them. Compare and contrast the “transformational” manager/leader with the “transactional” manager/leader. Who do you think can better take the pulse of a group, understand its unspoken currents of thought and concerns, and communicate with people in terms they can understand and embrace?

3. There is a debate in marketing on the question of whether or not marketing creates or satisfies consumer’s needs. Marketing has often been defined in terms of satisfying customer’s wants and needs and some critics maintain that marketing goes beyond that and creates needs and wants that did not exist before. According to these critics, marketers encourage consumers to spend more money than they should on goods and services they really do not need. Consider the broad shifts in marketing. Are there any themes that emerge in these shifts? Can they be related to the major societal forces? Which force has contributed to which shift.

4. The world economy is becoming more global in scale. Consider the major drivers of globalization and how they seem to be thrusting major nation-states toward a more tightly integrated global economy. If the current trends continue, China may be the world’s largest economy by 2020. Discuss the possible implication of such as development for (a) the world trading system, (b) the world monetary system, (c) the business strategy of today’s US-based global corporations and their European counterparts, and (d) global commodity prices.