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Recently in the economist there was article talking about how Blockbuster had too file for chapter 11 in the states. Their problem appears to be that they are losing market share to Netflix when it comes to people wanting to find obscure movies, and Redbox for mass market titles. I think that this shows the advantage that a company has when it focuses on one area or approach. Like with Ryan air which we studied in class one These other movie renters are able to beat Blockbuster because they focus on one business model. If Blockbuster tries to expand it’s catalog, this rises the price of business and makes it hard to compete with Redbox, while if they try to be more minimalist in their catalog and prices, they are hit by Netflix’s superior catalog. To make it worse either way they go, they can’t compete with the convenience of either ordering over the net and having it delivered, or picking it up when grocery shopping. By trying to get all of the consumers in the rental market, Blockbuster ends up getting none of them.

Recently there has been a shake up in the world of IT management when the CEO of HP Mark Hurd left under a cloud of potentially falsified expense reports and sexual harassment suits. Then weeks later Mark Hurd was given a job on the board of Oracle a competitor of HP. Although whether or not he gets the job is up to the California court system the question I want to ask is whether what Mr. Hurd did is ethical for a manager. The ethical dilemma in this case is that in his potential new role on the board of Oracle he might disclose trade secrets gleaned at HP. I think in this case what he did is ethical for two reasons. First is the way he left HP. He did not chose to leave the company and when someone is pushed out, expecting them to not try to find work is unreasonable. This move was not opportunistic on his part. In a wider sense however it seems unreasonable to put to many restrictions on executives changing jobs. Although in a case like this the executive in question might have to refrain from voting on certain issues, in an era of lessened job security, and a more fluid labour market they should be able to work.

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