THE TASKS:

[CWP1] You have been given a unique opportunity. The President of the United States, in response to persistent complaints about RISING GAS PRICES, has decided to seek analysis and advice from major corporations in the country. You have been selected by your CEO to represent your corporation in this effort. Your CEO knows that you have taken this course in SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF MANAGEMENT so he/she expects you to give a carefully argued presentation and analysis. The President does not want the presentations and analyses to be too long --- about 2500 words would be quite sufficient; he does not want a lengthy tome --- his time is very valuable and he does not have the time to read an excessively long treatise. If you CLICK HERE you will find an outline that you are to follow in writing your report. You know how bureaucracies are about giving and following directions.

You will be working as a team with representatives of other corporations around the country. Unfortunately, your other tasks and travels make it impossible for your teams to get together in a room for any length of time so you have to do most of your work over the Internet. Fortunately, QuickPlace offers you the ideal tool to develop team presentations. You will notice that this project combines the features of a threaded discussion and the task of writing. The threaded discussion that leads up to the actual writing should contain at least 5 contributions from each member of the team. These contributions should have substantive content. There may be, in addition, some contributions about how you are going to go about writing the report. The merits of the report will be judged on the team discussion and the reflection of that discussion in the final report.

[CWP2] Your report to the President was so successful that your CEO would like to have a report, produced internally, on a very troubling matter that has preoccupied the media, namely, the COLLAPSE OF BEAR STEARNS. Everyone seems to be apprehensive about the stability of the financial markets because of the Bear Stearns situation and the problems in the housing market --- particularly Countrywide (and how about that special VIP treatment that Senator Dodd received from Countrywide?). So review the information that is already available and as it continually unfolds in the next couple of weeks. Your report should follow the standard outline for ethical analysis --- CLICK HERE.

You will be working as a team with representatives of other departments in your company --- you are a global institution. Unfortunately, your other tasks and travels make it impossible for your teams to get together in a room for any length of time so you have to do most of your work over the Internet. Fortunately, QuickPlace offers you the ideal tool to develop team presentations. You will notice that this project combines the features of a threaded discussion and the task of writing. The threaded discussion that leads up to the actual writing should contain at least 5 contributions from each member of the team. These contributions should have substantive content. There may be, in addition, some contributions about how you are going to go about writing the report. The merits of the report will be judged on the team discussion and the reflection of that discussion in the final report.

Since the issues in this matter are so current you will have to use news magazines and newspapers for your research. I suggest Time and Newsweek and also The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. You probably all get The Wall Street Journal so you can go to WSJ.com as an easy resource. You can also take advantage of the Dow Jones Interactive website, <http://www.sba.udayton.edu/it/dji.asp>, which the School of Business Administration makes available to you. The link to the Dow Jones Interactive website is accessed form the SBA link identified above, but you will probably have to use a computer at the university to access this site.  Much good and accurate information is available from these sources. The library at this site is a particularly valuable treasure trove of references.

[CWP1] is due on the President's desk by midnight on Monday, June 23 with the last day for making contributions to the Threaded Discussion, which precedes the writing of the report, being June 16.

[CWP2] is due on the CEO's desk by midnight on Tuesday, July 29 with the last day for making contributions to the Threaded Discussion, which precedes the writing of the report, being July 22.

DIRECTIONS: 1. Go to http://quickplace.udayton.edu/QuickPlace/mba652_ulrich/Main.nsf 2. Click on your "Team and number." [Team members are identified at the bottom of this page.] 3. Click on your "Team and number --- Discussion." 4. Click on "new." 5. Select "Page" and click "next." 6. Enter a brief title in # 1 and type your comment(s) in #2 and then click "publish". 7. Point to and click on the comment, response, or revision which you wish to address. 8. Click on "new" if you wish to make a new comment; click on "respond" to respond to what another member in the group has said; click on "revision" if you are making changes in a text that has already been started. You will always be creating a new page or editing an existing page.

TEAM 1: RISING GAS PRICES Eber, Hart, Monnin, Prenger, Spicer, Stevens (Phillip), Wudke   (Due 6/23)	TEAM 2: RISING GAS PRICES Bailey, Hein, Hemmert, Kaufman, Kittle, Matthews, McCabe  (Due 6/23)	TEAM 3: RISING GAS PRICES Erwin, Loghavi, Niess, Smith, Spellman, Stevens (Sara) (Due 6/23)
TEAM 4: BEAR STEARNS' COLLAPSE Hein, Matthews, McCabe, Monnin, Spellman, Steverns (Sara), Wudke   (Due 7/29)	TEAM 5: BEAR STEARNS' COLLAPSE Erwin, Kaufman, Kittle, Loghavi, Prenger, Spicer, Stevens (Phillip) (Due 7/29)	TEAM 6:   BEAR STEARNS' COLLAPSE   Bailey, Eber, Hart, Hemmert, Niess, Smith    (Due 7/29)