For this, please only give feedback on this discussion:

Discuss two ways a corporate board member might engage in inappropriate ethical behavior, and explain why each is a problem for the company and shareholders.

Corporate social responsibility is one of my favorite topics for discussion in business as it is a subject that is of great importance in my personal beliefs and values which greatly shape my shopping behavior.

There are many companies that are worth mentioning for their commitment to social responsibility but one of the first that comes to mind is The Body Shop. Established in 1976, English founder dame Anita Roddick began making cosmetic and body care products with a vision for developing a business with a heart and one that would be a force of positivity in the world. The Body Shop is now a recognized brand around the globe and is known for its efforts to enrich products, people and the planet. The Body Shop has been a pioneer over the years in developing products in the beauty industry and doing so while maintaining a firm stance against animal testing and other environmental initiatives (The Body Shop, 2018a).

The Body Shop boasts a long history of socially responsible initiatives and has several pages on their website dedicated to these efforts. I have listed only a few of these initiatives below but have included a link to their about us page for those who may want to learn more about their socially responsible practices https://www.thebodyshop.com/en-gb/about-us/our-commitment

Body Shop initiatives have demonstrated stellar social responsibility and have set the following goals to achieve by 2020 (The Body Shop, 2018b:

Doubled community trade program from 19 to 40 ingredients; the Body Shop states that this has ‘enriched’ the communities in which the ingredients are sourced.

The Body Shop guarantees that 100 percent of the natural ingredients used are not only traceable but sourced through sustainable methods. The Body Shop aims to protect 10,000 hectares of forest and various other habitats.

Reduce energy usage by 10 percent in addition to relying on well renewable or carbon balanced energy to power 100 percent of its stores.

Aims have been set to create and deliver 3 new sustainable packaging alternatives.

Aims to guarantee that 70 percent of its product packaging is free of fossil fuels.

Goals have been set and will continue annually to reduce their environmental footprint across each of its product lines.

Aspires to include 8 million people in its “Enrich Not Exploit” campaign to spread their mission.

The Body Shop has also announced its commitment to releasing annual reports to offer insight into its business practices and target progress with total transparency. The Body Shop benefits from these efforts largely in part due to a shift in consumer values and their desire to support companies that share their values and beliefs. From a CSR standpoint, these efforts aid in fostering customer relationships and attracting new customers. The Body Shop has gained competitive advantage having been a long-time pioneer in green practices, raising the bar for higher ethical standards and its strong desire to fill consumer needs without harming animals or the environment (The Body Shop, 2018b).

As a result, the Body Shop has attained brand and product differentiation as well as solidifying a large and very loyal consumer base through increased brand recognition and positive brand association. Additionally, the Body Shop’s efforts to reduce energy usage utilizing alternative methods leads to a reduction in operational costs (NI Business Info, 2018)

NI Business Info (2018) also notes that social responsibility also attracts highly desirable talent and can work to retain the talent the company already has as such efforts are known for increasing motivation and employee satisfaction; this is great for companies as costs are further reduced due to a decline in disruption and the costs associated with recruiting and training.

Some additional benefits that can be attained from socially responsible practices as noted by NI Business Info (2018) include:

Greater access to capital: Investors are more likely to invest in responsible and reputable companies

Greater opportunities for positive media attention.

Restrictions and regulations may be easier to navigate through strong relationships with governing agencies.

Opportunities for growth and innovation.

LA#2.2

Explain why Corporate Social Responsibility is important to each of the above stakeholders.

Concerns of social responsibility are not only relative to consumers, but are also shared by corporate stakeholders. By definition stakeholders are comprised of customers as well as employees, suppliers, board director members, government agencies, political groups etc. It is these groups of interested parties that make up the communities and markets in which companies aim to serve (Saylor Foundation, n.d.).

Primary stakeholders have a strong interest in the performance of the organization and its actions relative to how its business is conducted. Those in this category (e.g. employees, shareholders), are directly affected by the positive outcomes (successes) and in turn, are also subject to the company’s failures (The Saylor Foundation, n.d.).

Secondary stakeholders such as the media, labor unions, political and social groups not only have the power to positively and negatively affect companies but are also capable of influencing company actions. Stakeholders in this category serve as an example of how vested interest no matter how far removed from the internal and external workings of the company relate to primary stakeholders, communities (Saylor Foundation, n.d.) and in many instances society as a whole on a global scale. Thus, the scale of cause and effect can be quite large and all encompassing.

In short, virtually everyone in the world today has a stake or interest in the behaviors and actions that businesses carry out in the world today as we all are subject to the economic, social and environmental outcomes that play out.

Some financial information is extracted from financial statements of Global Co. as follows:

The credit controller of the company considers a new credit policy introduced in 2020 has effectively reduced the receivable days, which provides customers a 1% discount if they make full payment within 30 days. Further review of the policy indicates that the policy also reduced bad debts by £800,000 a year and the cost of financing receivables was covered by a short-term loan at the interest rate of 20% pa.

Required:
a) Is there any sign(s) of overtrading for Global? Explain with appropriate

ratio(s)/figure(s).

b) Calculate the appropriate equivalent annual percentage cost of a discount of 1 per cent, which reduces the time taken by credit customers to pay from 70 days to 50

days.

c) Assuming in 2020 customers either paid in 30 days to receive the discount or still paid in 70 days as they used to, what is the percentage of customers, by value, paid

in 30 days? Calculate the net benefit/cost of the policy.

Ramsey Corporation's capital structure consists of 50,000 shares of common stock with a par value of $4. At December 31, 2020, an analysis of the accounts and discussions with company officials revealed the following information: Sales revenue $1,250,000 Discontinued operations loss (Note: you must adjust for tax) 90,000 Selling expenses 128,000 Cash 60,000 Accounts receivable 90,000 Common stock 200,000 Cost of goods sold 700,000 Accumulated depreciation-machinery 180,000 Dividend revenue 18,000 Unearned service revenue 4,400 Interest payable 1,000 Land 370,000 Patents 100,000 Retained earnings, January 1, 2020 270,000 Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income, Jan. 1, 2020 20,000 Unrealized holding loss from AFS debt securities, net of tax 5,000 Interest expense 17,000 Administrative expenses 170,000 Dividends declared common shareholders 14,000 Dividends declared preferred shareholders (and paid) 10,000 Allowance for doubtful accounts 5,000 Notes payable (maturity 7/1/26) 200,000 Machinery 450,000 Supplies 40,000 Accounts payable 60,000 Tax Rate is 30%

(a) Prepare a multiple-step income statement in good form (b) Prepare a statement of comprehensive income (separate from income statement) in good form. Note round EPS figures to the nearest penny. (c) Prepare a statement of stockholders’ equity in good form

Under the acquisition method, when the fair value of net assets is higher than the consideration transferred, then the following entry is recorded?

A. Credit to goodwill

B. Debit to goodwill

C. Credit to gain on bargain purchase

D. Debit to gain on bargain purchase

E. Long term assets of acquired company are reduced

Since the reveal of the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal in February 2014, Facebook’s share price increased from $60 in February 2014 to around $200 per share in December 2019. During the period, various unfavorable and costly events happened: a few lengthy investigations (internal and external) have been carried out; Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. Congress in April 2018; Facebook and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) agreed to a $5 billion settlement over user privacy violations in July 2019; Facebook were fined by U.K., Spain, and Italy; Facebook revised its privacy policy; etc. However, the scandal did not seem to adversely affect Facebook’s share price over the 5-year period. How do you interpret this observation? What lessons have you learnt from this case about the goal(s) of a company (and its managers)?

Summary:

Mick is a project manager at Zarlink, a multinational manufacturer of semiconductors for a variety of high-technology military, medical and consumer applications. Mick is also a part-time MBA student at his local university. As part of his MBA, Mick has to complete a dissertation on a management topic of his choice. Since Mick had recently been selected to embed a new quality management system called TS 16949 into his manufacturing site at Swindon in the West of England it seemed sensible that he chose to study quality for his dissertation. Mick’s particular fascination was his firm belief that the route to high-quality process in organizations was not through introducing specific techniques but through ensuring that quality was embedded in everything done at Zarlink: part of the lifeblood of the organization. ‘Quality is even about more than people’s attitudes’ said Mick; ‘it’s about their beliefs. Quality must be a way of life and dominate the thoughts of everyone in the organization, irrespective of their job.’ Mick wanted to use his dissertation as a way not only of obtaining his MBA but also of learning how he could be more effective in introducing embedded quality at Swindon.

Mick started off his research by searching the quality literature. There was no shortage of this. But soon Mick realized that he was concerned with that branch of the quality literature that dealt with the ‘soft’ issues of organizational culture change. He became rather disenchanted with much of the literature because it was largely prescriptive. ‘I was dubious about a lot of what the gurus were saying,’ said Mick. ‘They seemed to be saying that if you get your employees to believe this and do that then everything will be fine. I was skeptical of this because I knew through my MBA studies that the success of certain techniques is usually contingent upon the individual circumstances of the organization.’ Nonetheless Mick became attracted to the idea that embedding certain core values in the organization was a good way of achieving quality goals. The problem was that he did not know which core values were appropriate for his site. Therefore his research question became: ‘What are the core values that need to be adopted in Zarlink, Swindon, if embedded quality is to become a success?’

More specifically, Mick’s research objectives were:

to identify general constructs that constitute ‘embedding quality’ within an organization;

to compare these beliefs with those espoused by a sample from the senior Zarlink Management team;

to establish the behaviors and attitudes of the current workforce towards the quality management system at the Zarlink foundry, Swindon;

to propose a framework of core values to facilitate the embedding of quality into Zarlink, Swindon.

Having used the literature to refine his research question and objectives Mick then turned his attention to collecting primary data within Zarlink. Initially he thought of using a positivist approach based on a questionnaire using qualitative data, but discussions with Philippa, his tutor, convinced him that there were other ways of collecting data. Mick began to think more deeply about his research strategy, and thought that the advantage of triangulating his data by using multi-method would convince not only his examiners that his data were valid but also the managers at Zarlink who he was hoping would give him the go-ahead to introduce his ideas.

Mick’s first research objective had been met by his coverage of the literature. This had been useful in concentrating his mind on embedded quality, but it only took him a limited way. The second and third objectives would lead to a much more meaningful management dissertation.

The second objective involved conducting interviews with key managers in order to ‘test’ the ideas that Mick had developed about core values as a result of the literature review. The managerial sample he chose comprised managers from other Zarlink sites in the world who had an excellent reputation for embedding quality. At the same time Mick thought it important to include those managers who were concerned with implementing quality at Swindon. Mick conducted six interviews across three sites: one in Canada and one in southern England in addition to the third in Swindon. In each site he interviewed the foundry director and the quality manager. These were the key managers concerned with quality. The non-Swindon managers were interviewed by telephone, and the Swindon managers were interviewed face to face by Mick. He hoped this phase of data collection would give him a very clear idea of Zarlink’s view of quality.

In order to meet the third objective he decided to collect data in two ways. The first was to conduct what he called a ‘gap analysis. The purpose of this was to establish the current behaviors concerned with quality – that is, what people actually did in their working lives. This would tell Mick what was being done well and what was being done badly, or not at all, and therefore identify what needed to be done to embed quality. In order to do this Mick designed an audit form based on a purpose-made audit that had been used before in similar organizations. This was administered in all departments of Zarlink, Swindon. Ten of Mick’s colleagues were responsible for carrying out the audit. This involved Mick in training them in its use in order to achieve reliability. Mick was opportunistic in the second way he collected data in respect of the third objective. He was fortunate that a general employee attitude survey was imminent. He decided to insert a subsection in this survey that consisted of questions to establish employees’ attitudes to quality. This went to each of the 130 employees at Swindon.

Mick was confident that his research strategy would yield rich, valid and reliable data on management beliefs and employee attitudes and practice, which would enable him to propose a framework of core values to facilitate the embedding of quality into Zarlink, Swindon. This would enable him to make a valuable contribution to the well-being of Zarlink and pass his MBA!

Discussing the case and incorporating answers to the questions below. It is important to address each of the questions presented. Respond to these questions in an essay format using APA style of writing, and use at least 5 peer-reviewed references.

Question:

1 Which type(s) of research strategy is Mick employing?

2 In what other ways could Mick have used the literature to refine his research question?

3 In what other ways might Mick have achieved his research aim?

The Paris Company purchased an 80% interest in Seine, Inc. for $600,000 on July 1, 2015, when Seine had the following balance sheet:

The inventory is understated by $20,000 and is sold in the third quarter of 2015. The building has a fair value of $320,000 and a 10-year remaining life. The equipment has a fair value of $120,000 and a remaining life of 5 years. Any remaining excess is attributed to goodwill.

From July 1 through June 30, 2016, Seine had net income of $100,000 and paid $10,000 in dividends.

Assume that Paris uses the equity method to record its investment in Seine.

Required:

On January 1, 20X1, Prange Company acquired 100% of the common stock of Seaman Company for $600,000. On this date Seaman had total owners' equity of $400,000. Any excess of cost over book value is attributable to a patent, which is to be amortized over 10 years.

During 20X1 and 20X2, Prange has appropriately accounted for its investment in Seaman using the simple equity method.

On January 1, 20X2, Prange held merchandise acquired from Seaman for $30,000. During 20X2, Seaman sold merchandise to Prange for $100,000, of which $20,000 is held by Prange on December 31, 20X2. Seaman's gross profit on all sales is 40%.

On December 31, 20X2, Prange still owes Seaman $20,000 for merchandise acquired in December.

Required:

Complete the worksheet similar to Figure 4-1 (following) for consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 20X2. Prepare your worksheet in Excel. Following is a template in Figure 4-1 that will guide you in setting up your worksheet in Excel.