The Ivey Casebook Series is a co-publishing partnership between SAGE Publications and the Richard Ivery School of Business at The University of Western Ontario.Cases in the Environment of Business offers an outstanding collection of relevant, classroom-tested cases. In discussing the cases, students participate in managerial decisions in an international context. Most cases deal with a variety of environmental forces, but generally a single set of forces plays a predominant role. In view of this, the cases are divided in accordance with the following themes:
- Industry structure: responses to strategies of customers, suppliers and competitors, dependence of profitability on unique value-added attributes, and the shift of certain activities to low-wage countries;
- Macroeconomic variables: income levels and growth rates, foreign exchange rates, inflation rates, interest rates, and unemployment rates;
- Political variables: regulations, financial incentives, taxation, foreign investment restrictions, and international trade and investment agreements;
- Societal variables: labour and environmental practices, ethics, corporate social responsibility, Boards of Directors, and demographics;
- Technological variables: technological infrastructure and the pace and direction of technological changes, including in particular the Internet and e-business.