Consider two cigarette companies, pm inc. and brown inc. if neither company advertises, the two companies split the market and earn $50 million each. if they both advertise, they again split the market, but profits are lower by $10 million since each company must bear the cost of advertising. yet if one company advertises while the other does not, the one that advertises attracts customers from the other. in this case, the company that advertises earns $60 million while the company that does not advertise earns only $30 million. refer to scenario 17-4. pm inc.'s dominant strategy is to a. refrain from advertising regardless of whether brown inc. advertises. b. advertise only if brown inc. advertises. c. advertise only if brown inc. does not advertise. d. advertise regardless of whether brown inc. advertises.

David burdick is the ceo of acme bubblegum, a successful public company. as one of the cofounders of the company, burdick has enjoyed speaking and writing about the success of acme bubblegum for several years. typically, he speaks at conferences or directly to the press, but recently, he has been blogging about his firm anonymously. specifically, he defended a recent advertising campaign that was unpopular among consumers and pointedly attacked one of acme bubblegum’s competitors. burdick deeply enjoys his anonymous blogging and believes that none of his readers actually know that he works for acme bubblegum.should burdick be allowed to praise his company’s performance anonymously online? should he be allowed to attack his competitors without disclosing his relationship with the company? how would you feel if the ceo of a company at which you shopped was secretly writing criticisms of his or her competition? how would you feel if you knew a writer for your favorite blog was actually closely involved in a company that the blog discussed? 1. define the ethical issue? 2. who are the primary stakeholders? 3. what are the possible alternatives? 4. how could you evaluate the ethical implications of the alternative actions (use appropriate decision rules)? 5. what action would you recommend and why?