Please write 1-2 page answer to the discussion questions at the end of Chapter 1 mini-case “Competition in the airline industry” and submit your answer as attachment to Blackboard. Please also post on the discussion forum #1 to discuss your answer with the class. In your answer, try to draw the distinction between I/O model and Resource-based model to explain firm performance in the airline industry. Please pay attention to the following when you prepare the answer: The purpose of this assignment is to do a reality check on I/O model, one of the two models we will use in strategic analysis, as in Ch2 and 3 to be covered in Week2. The two models are the theoretical foundation of strategic analysis and they are complementary to each other, as you see in Chapter 1 and the corresponding lecture note #2. The key question in Assignment #1 is to identify the resources an airline company may have that other competitors cannot easily duplicate/imitate. The takeaway from this assignment is: not all the assumptions of I/O model (there are four) apply to the airline industry. So we need to combine I/O model (more in Ch2 and Assignment #2 on US automobile industry) and resource-based model (more in Ch3 and Assignment #3 Zara) to predict a firm’s competitive advantage.