Write a 500-word essay describing your strengths and weaknesses and how the use of goals and proper motivation can help you reach your dreams for success in school, career, and life   

Using leadership frameworks and models analyze and evaluate existing leadership issues and problems in a school senior management. (identify leadership issues at the different groups such as principals, prominent teachers, leading administrators)

As the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, Nokia, the Finnish company, is a “powerhouse in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, with market shares regularly topping 30 percent”. However, in the United States, Nokia phones have lost popularity over the last few years. In March 2002, Nokia led the American market with 35 percent market share. By June of 2009, its share was only 7 percent. What happened and more importantly, what is Nokia doing about it?

As mobile phone usage skyrocketed, Nokia was the most popular choice. It was the “cool” phone—the one that everyone, from business executive to high school student to stay-at-home-mom wanted. In 2005, Nokia had just launched the N series, an innovative new line with a Web browser, video, music, and pictures in a single phone. That device moved Nokia a generation ahead in the race to build the first real smart phone. The “forecast for Nokia was as sunny and clear as an endless Finnish summer day.” Then came Apple and its iPhone with its clever touch screen and sophisticated software and services. With rave reviews and a reputation for being cool, customers flocked to buy one. However, Nokia executives dismissed the iPhone, saying they were “unimpressed by its engineering.”

Now, three years after Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, Nokia still has no alternative. It did not anticipate changes in American consumer tastes, like flip phones or touch screens. Another major strategic blunder 246 PART THREE | PLANNING was that its models were based on a European communications standard called GSM when roughly half the United States market used the CDMA (code division multiple access) format. One former Nokia executive said, “Nokia, at the height of its success, decided not to adapt its phones for the U.S. market. That was a mistake and they’re still trying to recover from this.” An executive at a North American network operator said, “The attitude at Nokia was basically: Here is a phone. Do you want it? Nokia wouldn’t play by the rules here, and they have paid a price.” That arrogant attitude and the global economic slowdown have continued to hurt the company’s sales and earnings.

Meanwhile, Nokia set up liaison offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, and Parsippany, New Jersey, cities where the top American operators have big business units. And it has recently revamped its U.S. operations to collaborate more closely with those major operators. For example, AT&T has begun billing its customers who use Nokia services, keeping those customers from receiving a second bill from Nokia. Best Buy began carrying a Nokia netbook, which is a model for its new collaborative strategy. Nokia also forged a deal with Qualcomm, the largest maker of mobile phone chips for CDMA devices in the United States. It also struck a deal with Microsoft to design Windows Office Mobile software applications for phones that use Nokia’s Symbian operating system. Despite these efforts, however, some industry executives remain unimpressed. One analyst said, “They claim they get it and understand the U.S. market. But the execution still is not there.” Mark Louison, president of Nokia’s North American unit, who has a seat on Nokia’s global management board, said, “In the past, we had a one-size-fits-all mentality that worked well on a global basis but did not help us in this market. That has changed now.” The company recognized that its former strategy had not worked in North America and began trying to lay the groundwork for long-term success. Louison says, “Everything you see us doing is to build the broad set of capabilities to take us broader and deeper into the U.S. market.”

1. Where on the BCG Matrix would you place iPhone and Nokia brands? Where would you place any newly developed products of Iphone on BCG Matrix? Explain. (15)

2. What type of control—feedforward, concurrent, or feedback—do you think would be most important in this situation? Explain your choice (10)

3. What immediate corrective action have been used in this situation? How about basic corrective action? (10)

4. What strategies is Nokia using to revitalize its North American business? (10)

One of the most successful discount department stores in America is known as Wal-Mart stores and is named after its founder Sam Walton. Because of the phenomenal success of these stores, Sam Walton became one of the richest men in America. Also, because of his leadership, the stores have enjoyed continuous growth and expansion, so that by mid 1980s, the chain had over 700 stores and was increasing at the rate of an additional 100 stores per year. Its sales increased annually by over 35% and the profits have soared close to 40% per year every year since 1975.

Sam Walton, until he died in 1992, took personal interest in his employees. His managerial philosophy was to get the right people in the right places and then give them the freedom to be innovative to accomplish their tasks. He called his employees as associates and treated them as associates. As per company policy, all associates are eligible for profit sharing plans that motivate the employees further. The managers of the stores are required and encouraged to meet with their employees in a social setting to discuss their concerns as well as issues of organizational interest, and this makes the employees feel that their input is taken seriously by the management.

Sam Walton himself led a simple life. He did not exhibit any aura about himself, giving the employees a feeling that he was one of them. He and his executives regularly travelled in company owned planes to visit Wal-Mart stores situated at various sites across the country. He met with sales clerks, stock boys and sales managers to find out what items were popular. He knew most of them by their first names and addressed them so. He initiated "employee of the month" in all categories and created honour roles for more successful stores. This created inner competition requiring extra effort to improve sales and service. This policy gained high respect for him as a leader.

Case Questions:

a. How would you describe Sam Walton as an effective leader? What leadership theory is consistent with his leadership style?

b. How important it is for a leader to mix with the employees? How does this leadership style of "being one of the boys" affect the motivation of the employees?

Joe Watt, an ambitious 22 year-old, started an entertainment business called Grand Club after he graduated from Connecticut State University. Grand Club was initially a business failure because Joe ignored day-to-day operations and cost controls. One year later, Joe was heavily in debt. Despite his debt, Joe decided to open another location of Grand Club. He was confident that Grand Club would bring him financial success.

However, as his expenses increased, Joe could not meet his debts. He turned to insurance fraud to save his business. He would stage a break-in at a Grand Club location and then claim a loss. In addition, he reported fictitious equipment to secure loans; falsified work order contracts to secure loans, stole money orders for cash, and added zeros to customers’ bills who paid with credit cards. Joe was living the “good life,” with an expensive house and a new sports car.

Two years later, Joe decided to make Grand Club a public corporation. He falsified statements to greatly improve the reported financial position of Grand Club. In order to avoid the SEC’s scrutiny of his financial statements, he merged Grand Club with Purple House, an inactive New York computer firm, and acquired Purple House’s public owned shares in exchange for stock in the newly formed corporation. The firm became known as Purple House, and the Grand Club name was dropped. Joe personally received 79 percent of the shares. He was now worth $24 million on paper. Joe was continually raising money from new investors to pay off debts. A few months later, Purple House’s stock was selling for $21 a share and the company’s book value was $310 million. Joe was worth $190 million on paper. A short time later, he met Peter Jason, president of GH Firm, an advertising service. Jason agreed to raise $100 million, via junk bonds, for Purple House to buy out Sun Travel, a travel service.

Afterward, with television appearances, Joe became a “hot figure” and developed a reputation as an entrepreneurial genius. However, this reputation changed after an investigation report was published in a major newspaper. The report chronicled some of his early credit card frauds. Within two weeks, Purple House’s stock plummeted from $21 to $5.

After an investigation, Joe was charged with insurance, bank, stock, and mail fraud; money laundering and tax evasion; and Purple House’s shares were selling for just pennies. A company once worth hundreds of millions of dollars dropped in value to only $48,000.

Required:

From this case, identify:

1. The pressures, opportunities and rationalization that led Joe to commit his fraud(s).

2. The signs that could signal a possible fraud.

3. Controls or actions that could have detected Joe’s behavior.

Scenario

Mary Ann, a thirty-two-year-old woman, lives in Clinton, Connecticut with her son, Tony, who is eight-years-old, and her boyfriend Jack. Mary Ann also takes care of her mother, Elma, who is elderly and lives with them in their home. Because Jack has trouble holding a job and rarely is employed for more than a few weeks at a time, Mary Ann works as a waitress during the day and as a bartender at night. It is common for her to be gone to work from 5:00 am to midnight. When Mary Ann is home, Jack is generally a decent fellow. He helps around the house, runs the occasional errand and watches a lot of TV.

However, when Mary Ann is at work, Jack behaves quite differently. He drinks most of the time and sits in front of the TV watching baseball. He doesn't care much for Tony or Elma, and he refuses to cook them food so they eat what they can find around the house. As a result, both are very thin and slightly malnourished. When Jack drinks a little too much and his favorite baseball team loses, he gets very angry. Dealing with an eight-year-old boy is the last thing he wants to do, so he sometimes locks Tony in the hall closet to punish him for misbehaving. On a several occasions, Jack has hit Tony when he is angry and Tony regularly has bruises on his arms and legs from the rough way that Jack handles him. Mary Ann notices the bruises, but Jack always explains that Tony is a boy and boys play rough, so the bruises are just from sports or kidding around. On a few occasions, Jack has also hit Elma, but he explains these marks to Mary Ann by saying that Elma is just old and ran into a wall or tripped and fell. He also regularly steals money from Elma’s purse, but Elma can never remember how much money she had so she never tells Mary Ann.

            Tony’s teacher, Miss McKay, has her suspicions that Tony is being abused, but Tony denies that there are any problems at home because he is afraid that his mom will get into trouble. Although Miss McKay is concerned, she decides that Tony is a good kid and she will believe him that there are no problems at home. When Tony is sent to the school nurse because he seems to have gotten very thin, the nurse gives him a cookie and tells him to eat all his meals like a good boy, then sends him back to class with a smile.

            One day, Elma is walking Tony to school, when she trips on a curb and falls down. A neighbor hurries out to help her up, and he notices the bruises on both Elma and Tony. He also notices that they both seem thin and pale. The neighbor asks Elma if everything is okay and Elma tells him about Jack. The neighbor then calls the police and reports the situation.  

Questions  

1) a) Identify any abusive situations in this home.

b) What type of abuse did occur or is occurring?

c) Who is responsible for the abuse?

2) a) Identify who, if anyone, had a responsibility to report an abusive situation in this case.

b) Did the individual(s) you identified in “2 a” meet that responsibility?

c) What information needed to be reported?

d) To whom should this information have been reported?

Please answer the following:

1.     An acquirer’s standalone share price is $12 and its number of shares outstanding is 1,000,000. The target firm has 100,000 shares outstanding, and its standalone share price is $10. The present value of the after-tax synergy gains from merging the two firms is $500,000.

a.     If the acquirer offers to buy the target for $13 in cash, what is the acquisition premium for target shareholders?

b.     If the acquirer offers to buy the target for $13 in cash, what is the NPV of the deal for acquirer shareholders?

c.     If instead the offer price for the target firm is 1.2 shares of the acquirer for every share of the target, what should the acquirer’s post deal stock price be?

d.     Under the conditions in c. above, what is the NPV of the deal for acquirer shareholders?

e.     What is the exchange ratio in this deal that would leave the acquirer’s stock price unchanged from before to after the merger?

f.      Under the conditions in c. above, what would the acquirer’s stock price be if the synergy gains were only $300,000? Does the deal still create value for acquirer shareholders?

-For question #1c., what is the post-merger ownership distribution? In other words, what fraction of the newly merged firm is owned by the old acquirer shareholders and what fraction is owned by the old target shareholders?

Take the following code and modify the if(args >= 3) statement to work with a dynamic amount of inputs.

Example: ./cat file1 file2 file3 file4 filen-1 filen should output a text file that concatenates the files file1 to filen into one file

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
   char ch;

   if (argc ==1)
   {
       while((ch = fgetc(stdin)) != EOF) fputc(ch, stdout);
   }

   if (argc == 2)
   {
       File *fp = fopen(argv[1], "r");

       if (fp == NULL)
       {
           printf("File doesn't exist\n");
           return -1;
       {

       while ((ch = fgetc(fp)) != EOF) putchar(ch);
   }

   //ADD ARRAY OF ARGS
   if (argc >= 3)
   {
       // Open files to be merged

     // Open file to store the result

//change to accept filen+1 files if (fp1 == NULL || fp2 == NULL || fp3 == NULL)
       {
        puts("Could not open files");
       exit(0);
       }

//change to copy into filen+1

       // Copy contents of first file to filen+1.txt
       while ((ch = fgetc(fp1)) != EOF) fputc(ch, stdout);

       // Copy contents of second file to file3.txt
       while ((ch = fgetc(fp2)) != EOF) fputc(ch, stdout);

       fclose(fp1);
       fclose(fp2);
   {

   retrun 0;  
}

(TCO 5) You have been accepted into a prestigious private university in Illinois for your doctoral program. Congratulations! Since no one from this school has ever graduated in only 4 years, you anticipate that you will need to make 11 semi-annual tuition payments of $35,000 each with the first cash flow 6 months from today. If you choose to discount these cash flows at an annual rate of 8%, what is the present value cost of tuition to attend your university of choice? (TCO 5) You are about to purchase a new car from a dealer who has a new and unusual payment plan. You have the choice to pay $29,000 cash today or $32,000 in 4 years. If you have the opportunity to borrow the cash price value of the car at a rate of 3.0% and repay the loan in a lump sum in 4 years, which option should you take and why? (TCO 5) Which choice has a greater present value if we assume a required rate of return of 8%? (1) A lump-sum cash flow today of $248.69 (2) $100 cash flows occurring 1, 2, and 3 years from today (3) A single cash flow of $331 3 years from today

From page. 285 "Apply What You Have Learned" Jessica Castillo had always been interested in food and cooking. After culinary school and several extensive apprentice stints with some of the best chefs in New York and a spectacular year in London, Jessica felt that she ready to open her new restaurant. Creativity and customer focus were Jessica's strength, as was a firm conviction that she didn't want her dining room filled only with "rich people." She wanted to make the types of foods she served available to as wide an audience as possible. Jessica wanted to serve a diverse group of customers, but she also knew that she had to make a fair profit if she wanted to stay in business. Menu pricing had always puzzled Jessica. In her few years in the hospitality industry, Jessica had already seen several cases of restaurateurs who planned for a 25% or 30% food cost, priced their menus accordingly, yet failed to generate the profits needed to stay open. She was keenly aware that many fine dining establishments such as the one she wished to open frequently encountered the same fate. Considering the type of operation Jessica plans to open, identify two main factors that will have a significant impact on Jessica's menu pricing.