Shambolic Ltd is a listed company, that specialises in property investment. It was founded by two sisters, Venus and Serena. At different times Venus and Serena have issued shares to bring funds into the company, and together they now own 35 per cent of the issued shares. The other major shareholder is Olympia, who owns 40 per cent, and who is also a director. The rest of the shareholding is held by a range of other shareholders.

There has been a lot of disagreement between Olympia and Venus concerning the direction of the company. Serena always supports her sister. At a board meeting, a decision is made to allot a substantial number of shares to another property investment company, Tutu Pty Ltd. The reason given at the meeting is that Tutu will be able to bring in more funding for Shambolic's investment deals. As a result, Olympia's voting power is reduced to 10 per cent.

Olympia overhears a conversation between Venus and Serena. She finds out that Tutu Pty Ltd is controlled by Venus and Serena's mother, and the real reason the shares were issued was to dilute Olympia's shareholding and voting power, as the sisters were concerned about a takeover attempt.

Advise the directors about the possibility of a legal challenge to their actions.

The DeBourgh Manufacturing Company was founded in 1909 as a metal-fabricating company in Minnesota by the four Berg brothers. In the 1980s, the company ran into hard times, as did the rest of the metal-fabricating industry. Among the problems that DeBourgh faced were declining sales, deteriorating labor relations, and increasing costs. Labour unions had resisted cost-cutting measures. Losses were piling up in the heavy job-shop fabrication division, which was the largest of the company’s three divisions. A division that made pedestrian steel bridges closed in 1990. The remaining company division, producer of All-American lockers, had to move to a lower-cost environment.

            In 1990, with the company’s survival at stake, the firm made a risky decision and moved everything from its high-cost location in Minnesota to a lower-cost area in La Junta, Colorado. Eighty semi-trailer trucks were used to move equipment and inventory 1,000 miles at a cost of $1.2 million. The company was relocated to a building in La Junta that had stood vacant for three years. Only 10 of the Minnesota workers transferred with the company, which quickly hired and trained 80 more workers in La Junta. By moving to La Junta, the company was able to go nonunion.

            DeBourgh also faced a financial crisis. A bank that had been loaning the company money for 35 years would no longer do so. In addition, a costly severance package was worked out with Minnesota workers to keep production going during the move. An internal stock-purchase “earnout” was arranged between company president Steven C. Berg and his three aunts, who were the other principal owners.

            The roof of the building that was to be the new home of DeBourgh Manufacturing in La Junta was badly in need of repair. During the first few weeks of production, heavy rains fell on the area and production was all but halted. However, DeBourgh was able to overcome these obstacles. One year later, locker sales achieved record-high sales levels each month. The company is now more profitable than ever with sales topping $6 million. Much credit has been given to the positive spirit of teamwork fostered among its approximately 80 employees. Emphasis shifted to employee involvement in decision making, quality, teamwork, employee participation in compensation action, and shared profits. In addition, DeBourgh became a more socially responsible company by doing more for the town in which it is located and by using paints that are more environmentally friendly.

After its move in 1990 to La Junta, Colorado, and its new initiatives, the DeBourgh Manufacturing Company began an upward climb of record sales. Table 1 shows the DeBourgh monthly sales figures from January 1993 through December 2001 (in $1,000s).

DeBourgh accountants computed a per-unit cost of lockers for each year since 1988, as shown in Table 2. Management has provided you with this data in the form of an Excel workbook.

Source: Adapted from “DeBourgh Manufacturing Company: A Move That Saved a Company,” Real-World Lessons for America’s Small Businesses: Insights from the Blue Chip Enterprise Initiative. Published by Nation’s Business magazine on behalf of Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in association with the Blue Chip Enterprise Initiative, 1992. See also DeBourgh, available at htt;://www.debourgh.com: and the Web site containing Colorado Springs top business stories, available at http://www.csbj.com/1998/981113/top_stor.htm.

The Assignment:

This assignment may be completed in groups of up to 4 students. Your task is to provide Steven Berg with a forecast of sales and per-unit labour costs for 2002.

For each data set:

Plot the data as a function of time.

Select an approach you believe will be effective in forecasting this data set.

?

Write a brief (no more than ½ page) explanation of why you chose the method you did – observations about the data and characteristics of the chosen methodology.

?

Generate a forecast for 2002. Show the spreadsheet(s) you used to build the model. Annotate briefly to explain your methodology.

Question Set 1: Two Independent Proportions

Reminder: The standard error is computed differently for a two-sample proportion confidence interval and a two-sample proportion hypothesis test.

Researchers are comparing the proportion of University Park students who are Pennsylvania residents to the proportion of World Campus students who are Pennsylvania residents. Data from a sample are presented in the contingency table below.

1. Construct a 95% confidence interval to estimate the difference between the proportion of all University Park students who are Pennsylvania residents and the proportion of all World Campus students who are Pennsylvania residents. If assumptions are met, use the normal approximation method. Show how you checked assumptions. You should not need to do any hand calculations. Use Minitab Express to construct the confidence interval. Remember to copy+paste all relevant Minitab Express output and always clearly identify your final answer. [15 points]

B. Interpret the confidence interval that you computed in part A by completing the following sentence. [5 points]

I am 95% confident that…

C. Use the five-step hypothesis testing procedure given below to determine if there is evidence of a difference between the proportion of University Park students who are Pennsylvania residents and the proportion of World Campus students who are Pennsylvania residents. If assumptions are met, use the normal approximation method. Use Minitab Express. You should not need to do any hand calculations. Remember to copy+paste all relevant Minitab Express output. [30 points]

Step 1: Check assumptions and write hypotheses

Step 2: Calculate the test statistic

Step 3: Determine the p-value

Step 4: Decide to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis

Step 5: State a real-world conclusion

Getting an MBA is an investment in yourself, and it should be viewed through the same lens as any other investment decision. So let's see if MBA is a good decision with a simplified example? We have to look at the two following options.

1. You go to business school, forego two years of salary, borrow around $50,000 per year (both tuition and cost of living) and then go on to make more money (this is the whole point) than you would on your current career trajectory.
2. You do not go to business school and continue to make your current salary and get raises and promotions at a normal rate. These are not easy assumptions to make but linear growth usually works best.
3. Your current salary is 50,000 and grows at 3% every year.
4. Your salary after MBA will be 90,000 and will grow by the same percentage, i.e. 3%.
5. Your cost of capital, i.e. interest rate at which you can finance your MBA is 7%
6. Assume you're doing your MBA at the age of 40, and have 20 years of working life after MBA (or 22 including MBA)
7. For simplicity, assume your first cash flow, i.e. the first tuition payment is next year, i.e. you don't have any explicit cash flows (tuition or salary) in the present (Year 0).

Calculate the NPV of MBA using the information above. Ignore opportunity costs, just use explicitly stated costs (tuition) and benefits (salary). Use Excel, and upload the Excel file using the dialog box at the bottom of the exam.

Select one:

a. $327,623.38

b. $957,594.29

c. $204,594.64

d. $1,227,888.92

1)The readings demonstrate some of the conflicting ethics between the legal system and science. For instance, the legal system is founded upon an adversarial model (here in the U.S. anyway –other countries use different models). In our adversarial legal system, and attorneys are ethically obligated to advocate for their client and tell the best story possible for their “side” out of the evidence available. In contrast, science is founded on objectivity – not advocacy – and thus data is supposed to speak for itself rather than be shaped to tell a good story. Why are these competing ethical foundations between the legal system and science important for understanding the challenge of practicing forensic psychology?
2)When a psychologist accepts a referral to do a forensic evaluation, who is the “client?” Discuss how and why this is a complicated question.  
3)Can a forensic psychologist wear “2 hats” – that is, can they serve in multiple roles in a case? For instance, in a child custody evaluation case, can a psychologist who provides treatment to the family then become the forensic psychologist hired in the case to conduct a child custody evaluation to help the court determine custody arrangements? Why or why not?

1-Is it appropriate for an individual to act on personal ethical beliefs (e.g., pro-life beliefs) in a work organization? For example, would it be appropriate to picket your company for offering health care benefits for abortion?”

2.  Describe a situation from a television show or a film in which an unethical behavior occurred.  Who was involved?  What were the results to others of the unethical behavior?  Have you seen this kind of situation before in other shows or films?  Does this represent "art imitating life" or "showing what sells?"

Aspartame is a low-calorie, high-intensity sweetener. It was discovered (by accident) by a research scientist at G.D. Searle & Co. who was working on an anti-ulcer drug. Use of aspartame in soft drinks was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1983. Searle extended the original patent to 1987 in Europe and 1992 in the US. In 1985, Monsanto acquired Searle, including the aspartame patent, and began selling the soft- drink version under the brand name “Nutrasweet.” The product had an enormous market as the sweetener in Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, in Europe, Asia, and especially the US (approximately 10 times the size of the European market). In 1986, Holland Sweetener Company (HSC) began building an aspartame plant in anticipation of the patent’s expiration. Analysts estimated that HSC’s capacity was about 5% of the world market. When HSC began selling its own version of aspartame in Europe, Monsanto dropped the price of Nutrasweet from $70 to $22-30 per pound. Since HSC had higher costs (production has a steep learning curve), HSC lost money at the new price and Monsanto had substantially lower profits in Europe. When the US patent expired, Coke and Pepsi signed long-term contracts with Monsanto.

(a) Would you expect a sharp drop in price after a patent expires?
(b) Who benefited from HSC’s entry?
(c) Why do you think Monsanto triggered a price war in Europe? Do you think this was a good strategy?

The university would like to conduct a study to estimate the true proportion of all university students who have student loans. According to the study, in a random sample of 215 university students, 86 have student loans.

(a) Construct a 99% confidence interval for estimating the true proportion of all university students who have student loans (2 marks)

(b) Provide an interpretation of the confidence interval in part (a). (1mark)

(c) Conduct an appropriate hypothesis test, at the 1% level of significance to test the claim that more than 30% of all university students have student loans.

1. Provide the hypothesis statement

2. Calculate the test statistic value

3. Determine the probability value

Note: if you need to use symbols , please use

• "u" for population mean "μ",

• Ho and Ha for  for the null and alternate hypothesis,

• "Y-hat" for "ŷ", "alpha" for α

Please provide your answers to the above questions by typing your answers using simple text. You need not show the work in detail.