Summarize the research that was conducted and the specific findings that were uncovered. Discuss how the source compares with other sources in your paper and how useful is the source in attributing to your writing.

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Week Two Finance

OVERVIEW
In preparation for writing each of your Discussions, you should submit your Annotated Bibliography Assignment on the topic that is being covered for the week (Marketing, Accounting, Finance, Management, Economic Data Analysis, International Business).

INSTRUCTIONS
An annotated bibliography is a list of sources (books, journals, Web sites, periodicals, etc.) one has used for researching a topic (Annotated Bibliographies, 2020). For all sources used in your Discussion you should:
 Provide an APA formatted Citation (this should look like what you would include in a normal reference section.
 Summarize the source and discuss the research study that was conducted and what the findings were.
 Assess the source and discuss how useful it is and how it compares with other sources in your paper.
 Reflect on how the source will be useful to you in your discussion. How does it help to shape your argument and how are you using it to shape your writing?

Each annotation should look like:
Author (year). Title of article. Title of Journal, Vol no(issue). Pg to pg.

In your summary, you will begin with a discussion of the research question the study is attempting to answer. You will summarize the research that was conducted and the specific findings that were uncovered. You will then provide a summary of what this means for the topic.

Next, you will discuss how the source compares with other sources in your paper and how useful is the source in attributing to your writing.

Finally, you will discuss how the source is useful in your discussion. You will need to be specific on why it is important to use and exactly how you will use it in your writing to shape your arguments.

Identify significant aspects of implementing strategies. Identify the options or courses of action that should be considered, including details about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Identify actions currently taken or recommended to address the issue.

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Briefing Paper

Task:

Write a paper briefing to the CEO of the organisation you selected in Assignment 1 on how to diagnose resource capabilities through:

-VRIO analysis
-Benchmarking
-SWOT

-Analyse of the impact of stakeholders and governance as well as how history and culture affect international strategy.

Guidance:

-Word count: ±1 050 words (Excluding references and Appendices)
-Your paper should include a cover title page
-Use MS Word
-Font Size: 12pt
-Font: Arial
-Insert page numbers at the bottom of your pages

You must submit your Assignment via Turnitin. If you are unfamiliar with this tool please refer to the orientation module.

Briefing paper layout

Name: a note to identify who the briefing paper is intended for.

Date: the date of preparation of the briefing paper.

Subject: the topic or issue of the briefing paper.

Background: provides a summary of past and/or current events that provide a context for the topic or issue, including any policies or past practices.

Analysis

Identify significant aspects of implementing strategies.

Identify the options or courses of action that should be considered, including details about the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Identify actions currently taken or recommended to address the issue.

Cautionary Notes: Identify any sensitive aspects of the topic or issue that may affect a person or an organization in a negative way.

Contact: The name and contact information of the writer of the briefing paper

Bibliography/Reference list: This is a list giving the full details of all the sources to which you have referred within your text. The recommended style is the Harvard method.

Appendix: An appendix (plural=appendices) is detailed documentation of points you outline in your findings, for example, technical data, questionnaires, letters sent, tables, sketches, charts, leaflets etc. It is supplementary information which you consider to be too long or complicated or not quite relevant enough to include in your main body, but which still should be of interest to your reader. Each appendix should be referred to in your text. You should not include something as an appendix if it is not discussed in the main body

Describe Alan’s leadership style during the flood, and evaluate how appropriate it was for the leadership situation. Identify effective behaviors by Alan after the flood subsided. How should Alan behave toward his employees in the future?

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Case Study Week 2

Case Acme Manufacturing Company

Steve Arnold is a production manager at Acme Manufacturing Company in New Jersey. When he arrived at the plant on Tuesday morning at 8:45, he was already late for work. Steve had overslept that morning because the night before he had stayed up late to finish the monthly production report for his department. Entering the office Steve greeted his secretary, Ruth Sweeney, and asked whether anything urgent needed his immediate attention. Ruth reminded him of the staff meeting at 9:30 with Steve’s boss—Frank Jones, the vice president for production—and the other production managers. Steve thanked Ruth for reminding him (he had forgotten about the meeting) and continued on to his adjoining office to look for the email announcing the meeting. He vaguely remembered getting it a week earlier, but he did not read it carefully or look at the attached materials.

His phone rang, and it was Sue Bradley, the sales vice president, who was inquiring about the status of a rush order for one of the company’s important clients. Steve promised to look into the matter and get back to her later in the day with an answer. Steve had delegated the rush order last week to Lucy Adams, one of his production supervisors, and he had not thought about it since then. Stepping back into the outer office, Steve asked Ruth if she had seen Lucy today. Ruth reminded him that Lucy was at a training workshop in California and would be difficult to reach until the session ended late in the afternoon, because the workshop facilitators regard cell phone calls and text messages as an unnecessary distraction.

Going back into his office, Steve sent a text message to Lucy asking her to call him as soon as possible. Then, he resumed his search for the email about the meeting with his boss and the other production managers. He found it in his large collection of unprocessed emails, and it said the purpose of the meeting was to discuss a proposal for changing the quality-control procedures. By now it was 9:25, and there was no time to read the proposal. He hurried out to get to the meeting on time. During the meeting, the other production managers participated in the discussion and made helpful comments or suggestions. Steve was not prepared for the meeting and did not contribute much except to say that he did not anticipate any problems with the proposed changes.

The meeting ended at 10:30, and Steve returned to his office, where he found Paul Chen, one of his production supervisors, waiting for him. Paul wanted to discuss a problem caused in the production schedules by a major equipment breakdown. Steve called Glenda Brown, his assistant manager, and asked her to join them to help rearrange the production schedules for the next few days. Glenda came in shortly and the three of them worked on the production schedules. They finished around noon and went out for lunch.

Soon after returning from lunch, his boss (Frank Jones) stopped in to ask about the quality report for last week. Steve explained that he had given top priority to finishing the monthly production report and would do the quality report next. Frank was irritated, because he needed the quality data to finalize his proposal for new procedures, and he thought Steve understood this task was more urgent than the production report. He told Steve to get the quality data to him as soon as possible and left. Steve immediately called Glenda Brown and asked her to bring the quality data to his office. The task of reviewing the data and preparing a short summary was not difficult, but it took longer than he anticipated. It was 2:40 by the time Steve completed the report and attached it to an email to his boss.

Looking at his calendar, Steve noticed that he was already late for a 2:30 meeting of the plant safety committee. The committee meets weekly to review safety problems, and each department sends a representative. Steve rushed out to the meeting, which was held in another part of the plant. The meeting was dull this week, without any important issues or problems to discuss. The meeting ended at 3:30, and when Steve unmuted his cell phone he discovered that Lucy had tried to contact him before leaving to fly home from the conference. Steve walked back through his section of the plant and stopped to talk to his assistant manager Glenda. She wanted some advice on how to resolve a problem in the production assignments for the next day, and they discussed the problem for about a half-hour. When Steve returned to his office at 4:05, he was feeling tired and decided it was time to go home. As he drove out of the parking lot, Steve reflected that he was getting further behind in his work and wondered what he could do to get better control over his job.

Written by Gary Yukl

In 500 words, answer the questions from Part 1 & 2 of the case study.

For Part 1 answer the following questions:

1. What is the usual leadership situation in the auto repair shop (consider the nature of the task, subordinates, and environment)?
2. Describe Alan’s typical leadership style and evaluate whether it is appropriate for the leadership situation.

For Part 2 answer the following questions:

1. Describe Alan’s leadership style during the flood, and evaluate how appropriate it was for the leadership situation.

2. Identify effective behaviors by Alan after the flood subsided.

3. How should Alan behave toward his employees in the future?

Describe and compare the managerial behavior of Ben and Phil. To what extent does each manager display specific relations behaviors (supporting, developing, recognizing) and specific task behaviors (clarifying, planning, monitoring)?

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Case Study Week 1

Case Consolidated Products
Consolidated Products is a medium-sized manufacturer of consumer products with nonunionized production workers. Ben Samuels was a plant manager for Consolidated Products for 10 years, and he was well-liked by the employees. They were grateful for the fitness center he built for employees, and they enjoyed the social activities sponsored by the plant several times a year, including company picnics and holiday parties. He knew most of the workers by name, and he spent part of each day walking around the plant to visit with them and ask about their families or hobbies.

Ben believed that it was important to treat employees properly so they would have a sense of loyalty to the company. He tried to avoid any layoffs when production demand was slack, figuring that the company could not afford to lose skilled workers who are so difficult to replace. The workers knew that if they had a special problem, Ben would try to help them. For example, when someone was injured but wanted to continue working, Ben found another job in the plant that the person could do despite having a disability. Ben believed that if you treat people right, they will do a good job for you without close supervision or prodding. Ben applied the same principle to his supervisors, and he mostly left them alone to run their departments as they saw fit. He did not set objectives and standards for the plant, and he never asked the supervisors to develop plans for improving productivity and product quality.

Under Ben, the plant had the lowest turnover among the company’s five plants, but the second-worst record for costs and production levels. When the company was acquired by another firm, Ben was asked to take early retirement, and Phil Jones was brought in to replace him.

Phil had a growing reputation as a manager who could get things done, and he quickly began making changes. Costs were cut by trimming a number of activities such as the fitness center at the plant, company picnics and parties, and the human relations training programs for supervisors. Phil believed that training supervisors to be supportive was a waste of time. His motto was: “If employees don’t want to do the work, get rid of them and find somebody else who does.”

Supervisors were instructed to establish high-performance standards for their departments and insist that people achieve them. A computer monitoring system was introduced so that the output of each worker could be checked closely against the standards. Phil told his supervisors to give any worker who had substandard performance one warning, and then if performance did not improve within two weeks, to fire the person. Phil believed that workers don’t respect a supervisor who is weak and passive. When Phil observed a worker wasting time or making a mistake, he would reprimand the person right on the spot to set an example. Phil also checked closely on the performance of his supervisors. Demanding objectives were set for each department, and weekly meetings were held with each supervisor to review department performance. Finally, Phil insisted that supervisors check with him first before taking any significant actions that deviated from established plans and policies.

As another cost-cutting move, Phil reduced the frequency of equipment maintenance, which required machines to be idled when they could be productive. Because the machines had a good record of reliable operation, Phil believed that the current maintenance schedule was excessive and was cutting into production. Finally, when business was slow for one of the product lines, Phil laid off workers rather than finding something else for them to do.

By the end of Phil’s first year as plant manager, production costs were reduced by 20 percent and production output was up by 10 percent. However, three of his seven supervisors left to take other jobs, and turnover was also high among the machine operators. Some of the turnover was due to workers who were fired, but competent machine operators were also quitting, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to find any replacements for them. Finally, talk of unionizing was increasing among the workers.

Written by Gary Yukl

 

In 500 words, answer the following questions:

Describe and compare the managerial behavior of Ben and Phil. To what extent does each manager display specific relations behaviors (supporting, developing, recognizing) and specific task behaviors (clarifying, planning, monitoring)?

Compare Ben and Phil in terms of their influence on employee attitudes, short-term performance, and long-term plant performance, and explain the reasons for the differences.

If you were selected to be the manager of this plant, what would you do to achieve both high employee satisfaction and performance?

All written work must be submitted in the student’s own words with sources properly attributed using APA formatting. For your convenience, the correct in-text citation for your textbook is (Yukl & Gardner, 2019). The correct full-text reference for your textbook is

Yukl, G. & Gardner, W. (2019). Leadership in Organizations (9th ed.). Pearson. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780134895314/

What are the essential human resources management practices identified in the textbook? How do each of these areas contribute to the success of an organization?

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1)What are the essential human resources management practices identified in the textbook? How do each of these areas contribute to the success of an organization?

2)After reviewing the topic resources, explain why ethical behavior, social responsibility, and sustainability are important aspects of corporate governance. What are the four tenets of conscious capitalism and how can organizations operating by these tenets create positive change? Provide an example of an organization that you feel operates from a conscious capitalism perspective and justify your choice.

3)Identify the formal structure of an organization. Using an organization of your choice as an example, how are the organization’s structure and design a reflection of its environment, goals, and competencies?

4)Using an organization with which you are familiar, identify its corporate culture and the elements of its observable culture. What do you think would need change in order to facilitate innovation? What role would organizational development play in overcoming resistance to change?

Produce a critical appraisal of relevant literature synthesized into an appropriate conceptual framework. Demonstrate a firm grasp of differences between research philosophies and the justification of that selected.

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Research Methods

Learning Outcomes Assessed:

LO2: Produce a critical appraisal of relevant literature synthesized into an appropriate conceptual framework.

LO3: Demonstrate a firm grasp of differences between research philosophies and the justification of that selected.

LO4: Produce a critically informed research design with the appropriate combination of methods; sample sizes and selection criteria.

 

Develop a useful and effective CV and LinkedIn profile. Analyse their own strengths and development needs in relation to progressing into employment and be able to construct a development plan.

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Career action plan and self-reflection

LO 1 Develop a useful and effective CV and LinkedIn profile.
LO 4 Analyse their own strengths and development needs in relation to progressing into employment and be able to construct a development plan.

Task requirements
A) THE TASK – WHAT YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO DO
Following on from the research that you undertook in CW1 and making use of the feedback that you received on this report to assist you, you need to:

 Complete a personal analysis of what you have to offer this employer at the moment. This should include your current skills, knowledge and experiences, both academic and from other areas of your life. However, it needs also to identify if there are any areas for development. For example: Where could you do with adding more evidence? What additional skills & experiences do you need to add?

 Once you have answered the above, you are in a position to develop your Career Action Plan. This should show both the short-term and longer-term actions required to prepare you for an opportunity in the area you have researched. Your actions must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound)

 Finally, you also need to prepare a Curriculum Vitae (CV) and LinkedIn profile. You are asked to complete these exactly as your situation is now, as if you were applying for the position you identified. They can then be tailored and adapted for use in other methods of recruitment, for example on-line application forms.

B) THE REPORT – WHAT YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO SUBMIT
INTRODUCTION – Provide a paragraph outlining what your assignment will cover. From CW1, you will need to include a brief summary of the job opportunity that you identified and also the full list of the key skills and knowledge/expertise that you identified as being required. These will form the basis for your self-evaluation. (10 Marks available for this section)

 PERSONAL ANALYSIS – a general review of your current skills, knowledge and experience related to those identified in CW1. You need to provide evidence for this analysis, so you can include the feedback and information reviewed within the seminars as well as work experience, and volunteering. You can also include information from your e-portfolio, if the skills identified match those in the e-portfolio. The aim is to highlight current strengths, and also areas to focus your personal development around. Reflect on the following areas: What areas do you lack evidence in? Where do you need further examples / evidence in your applications? Where do you feel weak in your overall application? (30 marks available for this section)

 CAREER ACTION PLAN – Once you have identified the areas you need to focus on, you need to prepare a Career Action Plan which addresses both the personal development and specific career related activities you will undertake to take you forward. This plan should include the knowledge, skills and experiences you need to further develop. You should come up with clear actions to get you to where you want to be. You should show the resources you will use to move the area of development forward and the timescales you will complete these in. This should cover as a minimum the time remaining to your graduation. This plan can be presented in the form of a table (20 marks available for this section)

 CV – Preparation of a CV to apply for the graduate level position identified in your research for CW1, based on your current situation. Your CV should be included as an appendix and will thus not form part of the word count for the assignment. (20 marks available for this section)

 LinkedIn PROFILE – preparation of a LinkedIn profile based on your current situation. A snapshot of the profile should be included as an appendix, and include the following:- photo, headline and summary, education, skills (at least 4), groups (at least 2) and companies (at least 2.) (10 marks available for this section)

CONCLUSION – A brief reflection on how you feel having completed the overall assignment, and how you intend to use the Career Action Plan. (10 marks available for this section and to include assignment parameters

Has the data been accurately presented and analysed? Are appropriate theories applied? Attempt to interpret your findings.

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Artificial Intelligence on the future of work and businesses, for example teaching, and many more.

Has the data been accurately presented and analysed? Are appropriate theories applied? Attempt to interpret your findings.

What was needed for professionalization to succeed? What benefits did Aurum derive from John’s attempt to professionalize the firm? Do you agree with John’s focus on dealing with the challenges mainly through the professionalization of Aurum?

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Aurum Furniture

1. Conduct a SWOT analysis of Aurum Furniture, highlighting the implications it has on John’s decision.
2. Why did John decide to join Aurum Furniture?
3. What were the most important organizational differences between Aurum and the typical nonfamily professionalized firm?
4. Discuss the key personal, family, and business challenges that John encountered when he started to work at Aurum. Which of these challenges were related to the informal, non professionalized nature of Aurum and which were caused by family relationship dynamics inside the business?
5. What tactics did John use to overcome these challenges?
6. What was needed for professionalization to succeed? What benefits did Aurum derive from John’s attempt to professionalize the firm? Do you agree with John’s focus on dealing with the challenges mainly through the professionalization of Aurum?
7. At the close of the case what did John perceive as his primary career alternatives? What were the advantages and disadvantages of these alternatives?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of changing the company organization from a partnership to a corporation? What are the advantages and disadvantages of changing the company organization from a sole proprietorship to a corporation?

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Research Paper

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of changing the company organization from a partnership to a corporation?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of changing the company organization from a sole proprietorship to a corporation?
3. Provide a recommendation when a company should move away from a sole proprietorship to another form of business (Do not use the first person in your recommendation and provide sources)