Author: chris

Companies are often organized into departments by functions, such as operations, marketing, sales, corporate headquarters, etc. Typically, each one of these departments is then assigned specific responsibilities and referred to as either a cost center, a profit center, or an investment center.

To prepare for this Discussion, “Shared Practice: Cost, Profit, and Investment Centers,” review the Portz & Lere article in the Learning Resources for this week. Consider what you know from your professional background, the resources, research, and/or the regulatory environment in your home country.

Post by Day 3, the following:

• Analyze how cost center accounting practices in German companies differ from the practices in your current or previous organization or one with which you are familiar.
• Explain which country’s accounting practices you would prefer to use for your organization and why. Be sure to provide your rationale by using specific examples.
• Provide an example of a profit center taken from your professional experience, the resources, or research. Explain why this is a profit center, including the methods of performance evaluation, and explain how it contributes to the success of the organization.
• Provide an example of an investment center taken from your professional experience, the resources, or research. Explain why this is an investment center, including the methods of performance evaluation, and

 

For this assignment, choose two of the “Historical Documents” authors we have read so far this term. Choose authors you have found interesting, engaging, or problematic in how they articulate the nature of cultural, racial, or gender differences in America.

 

In a well-documented and well-structured essay, compare your chosen texts in terms of how they argue for or against the negotiation of difference in America—in other words, how they argue for or against accommodating, rejecting, or compromising with the wide variety of differences (cultural, racial, ethnic, class, and so on) in America. Specifically, in your essay you should respond to the following questions:

 

• How do the authors define what it means to be American?
• Compare between each of the authors what it means to be civilized or savage, superior or inferior?
• Assess how the texts argue for the inclusion or exclusion of certain groups. How do they justify inclusion?
• Differentiate how the authors define or create a sense of different social roles for different groups. Examine how they are defined—by race, by ethnicity, by nation of origin, by gender, or something different. Why do the authors insist on maintaining these differences? How do the authors suggest these differences should be maintained and enforced?
• Analyze how different voices in the readings challenge or reject these differences. Justify why they reject them. What are the benefits of inclusion and diversity?

 

Write a 4–5 page paper in Word format (not counting title and reference page). Include an APA formatted title page and reference page. Use the following file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M3_A2.doc.

 

By Saturday, January 23, 2016, deliver your assignment to the M3: Assignment 2 Dropbox.

 

All written assignments and responses should follow APA rules for attributing sources.

 

Assignment 2 Grading Criteria Maximum Points Demonstrates command of two author’s ideas of what it means to be American. 52 Explains how each author understands society in terms of the roles and responsibilities of specific individuals. 52 Analyzes differing points of view within the text that challenge or complicate these definitions. 52 Organization (12 points): Introduction, Thesis, Transitions and Conclusion Usage and Mechanics (12 points): Grammar, Spelling, and Sentence Structure APA Elements (16 points): Attribution, Paraphrasing, and Quotations Style (4 points): Audience, Word Choice 44 Total: 200

Leadership Strategies Presentation

Directions:

Taking on the role of a CEO, develop a PowerPoint presentation of approximately 15 slides that explains how you would adapt the Western leadership strategies of either Heifetz and Linsky or Drucker in your approach to managing an international organization on the brink of structural change and expansion.  One of your main goals will be to motivate and communicate a vision while connecting to the firm’s mission for all stakeholders, including your Board of Directors. A brief profile of the organization is as follows:

• The company is a manufacturing firm with annual earnings in excess of $350 million.
• It is headquartered in the United States, has two branches in the United Kingdom, and one expansion branch set to open in China.
• A new branch will provide more innovative technologies to infuse the firm’s declining market share while also presenting cultural management and organizational integration challenges.

Your presentation should contain the following components:

• Identification of your chosen leadership philosophy with justification of your choice.
• Using Porter’s Five Forces as a strategic guide, please explain how you will approach Foreign Direct Investment and Financial Risk Assessment.
• Complete a Financial Risk Assessment for acquiring the new technology company by identification and explanation of at least four risks which could impact your organization.
• Identification and explanation of the key internal structures (at least 3) that will be designed to enhance the culture within your organization
• Explanation of how projected global and market trends over the next 10-15 years will impact your company’s ability to maintain a competitive advantage.

Submit to the W3: Assignment 2 Dropbox by Tuesday, January 26, 2016.

Assignment 2 Grading Criteria	Maximum Points
Identify and justify a chosen leadership philosophy.	16
Explain an approach to foreign direct investment and foreign risk assessment using Porter’s Five Forces.	36
Complete a Financial Risk Assessment for acquiring the new technology company; explain at least 4 risks which could impact the company.	36
Identify and explain the key internal structures to enhance organizational culture.	32
Explain how projected global and market trends over the next 10-15 years will impact the company’s ability to maintain a competitive advantage.	36
Written Components: Organization, usage and mechanics, APA elements, style	44

Leadership Strategies Presentation

Directions:

Taking on the role of a CEO, develop a PowerPoint presentation of approximately 15 slides that explains how you would adapt the Western leadership strategies of either Heifetz and Linsky or Drucker in your approach to managing an international organization on the brink of structural change and expansion.  One of your main goals will be to motivate and communicate a vision while connecting to the firm’s mission for all stakeholders, including your Board of Directors. A brief profile of the organization is as follows:

• The company is a manufacturing firm with annual earnings in excess of $350 million.
• It is headquartered in the United States, has two branches in the United Kingdom, and one expansion branch set to open in China.
• A new branch will provide more innovative technologies to infuse the firm’s declining market share while also presenting cultural management and organizational integration challenges.

Your presentation should contain the following components:

• Identification of your chosen leadership philosophy with justification of your choice.
• Using Porter’s Five Forces as a strategic guide, please explain how you will approach Foreign Direct Investment and Financial Risk Assessment.
• Complete a Financial Risk Assessment for acquiring the new technology company by identification and explanation of at least four risks which could impact your organization.
• Identification and explanation of the key internal structures (at least 3) that will be designed to enhance the culture within your organization
• Explanation of how projected global and market trends over the next 10-15 years will impact your company’s ability to maintain a competitive advantage.

Submit to the W3: Assignment 2 Dropbox by Tuesday, January 26, 2016.

Assignment 2 Grading Criteria	Maximum Points
Identify and justify a chosen leadership philosophy.	16
Explain an approach to foreign direct investment and foreign risk assessment using Porter’s Five Forces.	36
Complete a Financial Risk Assessment for acquiring the new technology company; explain at least 4 risks which could impact the company.	36
Identify and explain the key internal structures to enhance organizational culture.	32
Explain how projected global and market trends over the next 10-15 years will impact the company’s ability to maintain a competitive advantage.	36
Written Components: Organization, usage and mechanics, APA elements, style	44

Use the Internet or Strayer Library to research instances of whistleblowing in publicly traded companies within the last 12 months.

 

Write a two  (2) page paper in which you:

 

1. Describe the key characteristics of a whistleblower, and briefly summarize one (1) researched instance of whistleblowing in one (1) publicly traded company within the last 12 months. Include the details of the issue that the whistleblower reported and the effect of the whistleblower’s actions on both the whistleblower himself and the company.
2. Decide whether or not the whistleblower was justified in reporting the company’s actions. Provide a rationale for your response.
3. Examine the extent to which the whistleblower would be protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Justify your response.
4. Use at least two (2) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia is not an acceptable reference and proprietary Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

 

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

 

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

 

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

 

• Determine the underlying causes for passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and determine protections afforded to whistleblowers.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in law, ethics, and corporate governance.
• Write clearly and concisely about law, ethics, and corporate governance using proper writing mechanics.

se the Internet or Strayer Library to research instances of whistleblowing in publicly traded companies within the last 12 months.

 

Write a two  (2) page paper in which you:

 

1. Describe the key characteristics of a whistleblower, and briefly summarize one (1) researched instance of whistleblowing in one (1) publicly traded company within the last 12 months. Include the details of the issue that the whistleblower reported and the effect of the whistleblower’s actions on both the whistleblower himself and the company.
2. Decide whether or not the whistleblower was justified in reporting the company’s actions. Provide a rationale for your response.
3. Examine the extent to which the whistleblower would be protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Justify your response.
4. Use at least two (2) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia is not an acceptable reference and proprietary Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

 

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

 

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

 

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

 

• Determine the underlying causes for passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and determine protections afforded to whistleblowers.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in law, ethics, and corporate governance.
• Write clearly and concisely about law, ethics, and corporate governance using proper writing mechanics.

se the Internet or Strayer Library to research instances of whistleblowing in publicly traded companies within the last 12 months.

 

Write a two  (2) page paper in which you:

 

1. Describe the key characteristics of a whistleblower, and briefly summarize one (1) researched instance of whistleblowing in one (1) publicly traded company within the last 12 months. Include the details of the issue that the whistleblower reported and the effect of the whistleblower’s actions on both the whistleblower himself and the company.
2. Decide whether or not the whistleblower was justified in reporting the company’s actions. Provide a rationale for your response.
3. Examine the extent to which the whistleblower would be protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Justify your response.
4. Use at least two (2) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia is not an acceptable reference and proprietary Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

 

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

 

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

 

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

 

• Determine the underlying causes for passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and determine protections afforded to whistleblowers.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in law, ethics, and corporate governance.
• Write clearly and concisely about law, ethics, and corporate governance using proper writing mechanics.

Imagine you are a Compensation Manager at a large service organization.   Roughly 700 of your employees are paid the MWR (Minimum Wage Rate), which is presently $7.25 per hour.  The CEO recently came to the CFO (your boss) in a highly excited state.  He was upset, because he had learned that local legislators were preparing to propose an increase to the local MWR to $7.75.  His frustration was obvious as he declared, “This will put us out of business!”

 

The CFO wants you to prepare a brief that will make the CEO feel better.  He wants  you to hit all of the following areas:

 

1.  Changes in cost to the organization brought about should the legislation pass.

2.  What legal issues arise if you opt to convert some minimum wage positions to positions that might not be subject to the FLSA?

3.  What other HR strategies might be used to minimize cost?

4.  Since the vast majority of your minimum wage workers are females, do you have any discrimination concerns?

5.  What might this do to your competitiveness in the region?

6.  Any additonal issues you might want to raise that will calm the CEO.

 

Your assignment is to submit that brief.

 

Expect to that approximately 2-3 pages written in APA format double spaced, 12-point font) to comlete this assignment.  Your work will be graded on completeness, clarity, originality, interest, APA format, grammar, and spelling and puctuation.

Transfer Pricing Decisions

As a manager, you may be tasked with making recommendations as to how your organization should structure its transfer pricing. This is especially true in cases when both variable or full cost transfer pricing is acceptable, and the choice is not obvious.

For this Assignment, take a moment to review your course text. Reflect on the scenario presented and consider how transfer pricing decisions might apply to organizational decision making.

Phipps manufactures circuit boards in Division A, a country with a 30% income tax rate, and transfers them to Division B, a country with a 40% income tax. An import duty of 15% of the transfer price is paid on all imported products. The import duty is not deductible in computing taxable income. The circuit boards’ full cost is $1,000 and variable cost is $700; they are sold by Division B for $1,200. The tax authorities in both countries allow firms to use either variable cost or full cost as the transfer price.

The Assignment:

• Part 1: Analyze the effect of both full-cost and variable-cost transfer pricing methods on Phipps’ cash flows using a spreadsheet program such as Excel.
• Part 2: Make your recommendation as to how the organization should proceed, being sure to justify your recommendation with examples form this week’s resources, and/or additional research. Complete this aspect of the Assignment by using a word processing program such as Word.

 

To submit your Assignment, do the following:

• Save Part 1 of your Assignment as a “.xls” file with the filename “WK4AssgnP1+last name+first initial.xls”. Sally Ride’s filename would be “WK4AssgnP1RideS.xls”.
• Save Part 2 of your Assignment as a ”.doc” file with the filename “WK4AssgnP2+last name+first initial.doc”. Sally Ride’s filename would be “WK4AssgnP2RideS.doc”.
• To upload Part 1 of your Assignment, click on Assignments on the course navigation menu, and then click the Assignment Part 1 – Week 4 link.
• To upload Part 2 of your Assignment, click on Assignments on the course navigation menu, and then click the Assignment Part 2 Turnitin – Week 4 link.

General Guidance on Application Length:

Your Application, due by Day 4, will typically be 4-6 paragraphs in length as a general expectation/estimate for each bullet point. Refer to the rubric for the Week 4 Application for grading elements and criteria. Your I

Choose a company that you have worked for or one that you currently work for to use for the analysis. If you have not worked for a company, choose one that you know some basics about. Write a needs analysis where you discuss current practices and HRIS requirements. The paper needs to be 3-4-pages (not counting the cover page and reference page) that include the following paper headings, which are denoted in all caps.

• INTRODUCTION: Explains the content that will be reviewed in the paper.
• BUSINESS ASSESSMENT: Describes the business (size, structure, etc.) and if there are unknowns, make assumptions based on typical companies from similar fields and of similar size.
• IDENTIFIED PROBLEMS: Consider the HR problems/challenges of the organizations. Make a list of HR functions that you believe could be more efficient based on your own experience. Make assumptions if needed. Choose one HR function for analysis.
• HRIS NEEDS ANALYSIS: Review the shortfalls and challenges of the chosen area. Refer to the course reading for additional information on conducting a needs analysis. Answer the following: How might an HRIS application assist the business? What elements should the HRIS contain in order to help the company be more efficient and productive?
• CONCLUSION: End the paper with a concise summary of your findings and recommendati