Choose one item from the following list that you understand well enough to evalu

ID: 326843 • Letter: C

Question

Choose one item from the following list that you understand well enough to evaluate. Develop several criteria of evaluation that you could defend to distinguish excellence from meritocracy in the US area. Then choose an item you don’t know much about and explain the research you might perform to discover reasonable criteria of evaluation for it. Smart phones, NFL quarterbacks, fashion designers, Navajo rugs, UN secretary generals, contemporary painters, hip-hop bands, organic vegetables, athletic shoes, historic U.S. battlegrounds, breeds of dogs, former British prime ministers.

Explanation / Answer

Choose one item from the following list that you understand well enough to evaluate.

First we need to understand what meritocracy and excellence are after which we can choose any topic from the list and evaluate it using these.

What is meritocracy?

Meritocracy is Governance by elites who deserve to wield power because they possess merit (defined as 'intelligence plus effort') instead of by those who merely possess wealth or belong to privileged classes.

Such a system, in theory, forms the basis of an 'equal opportunity' society. But, in practice, unrestricted meritocracy may result in a society without rules and concentrate power in only a few hands. The term was coined by the UK sociologist Michael Young in 1958 book, 'The Rise of Meritocracy.'

Hence we can infer that meritocracy is governance by elites who possess intelligence along with efforts (hard work).

Now we thing of what is governance by excellence?

Excellence means that you're indispensable. At least right now, in this moment, there's no one else I would choose but you. You, the excellent one, are so surprising, so delightful, so over-the-top.

The Governance Excellence model identifies 3 inputs that boards and senior management should strive to align to maximise performance and generate sustainable results for all stakeholders.

These inputs are Value, Capability and Support and represent the following areas of the business and organization:

So in order to understand the scenario with the case subjects we choose from the list the Smart phones for understanding the market share and customer preference for smartphones and is it due to excellence or meritocracy.

First we prepare the list of popular smartphones that are sold in US:

We can find the data that the top five smartphones brands sold in US in Q3 of 2017 as stated here under:

Rank

Brand

Units shipment (millions)

Market Share (%)

Samsung

82.8

Apple

46.7

12.4

Huawei

39.1

10.4

Oppo

30.0

Xiaomi

7.4

Here it can be inferred from the point of view of meritocracy as:

Meritocracy of Samsung as a brand in US market:

Meritocracy of Apple as a Brand:

Meritocracy of Huawei as a brand in US:

Meritocracy of Xiaomi as a brand in the US market:

Hence the meritocracy of these market players in the smartphone market in the US justify their market share they hold.

On the other hand when we analyze the same data with excellence as our perspective we find:

Excellence of Samsung as a brand:

Excellence of Apple:

Whereas excellence of rest three brands can be assessed jointly as:

Hip-hop bands is an area that I don’t know much about and would like to do an extensive market research to understand the effects of excellence and meritocracy as effective in their market success.

List: Smart phones, NFL quarterbacks, fashion designers, Navajo rugs, UN secretary generals, contemporary painters, hip-hop bands, organic vegetables, athletic shoes, historic U.S. battlegrounds, breeds of dogs, former British prime ministers