Abby Saavedra works in Thorton Corporation Manila a media empire with more than 45,000
employees worldwide operating in more than a hundred countries. The company provides critical
information to business and professionals on financial, legal, tax and accounting, scientific,
healthcare and media markets which are keys to quality decision making. For faster, efficient, timely
delivery of services to its clients, Thorton Corporation uses the latest technologies in information
and communication.
In Manila, majority of its more than 1,500 employees are millennials. They provide knowledge-based
support for content, customer and consulting services to clients around the world. Its employees
have strong backgrounds in banking and finance, economics, accounting, business, media,
communications, law, marketing and some of them possess multi-language proficiency.
One fine day, Abby was looking forward to her day in the office. While on her way to work, she
already had her day planned, nothing new or unusual or so she thought. Just a few hours in the
office, Abby was called by her immediate boss. As she made her way to the office of her boss, she
was wondering what additional work will be assigned to her. But she was wrong. Abby was called for
a different reason.
Days ago, Abby had a problem meeting the deadline for a book which they need to send to their
publisher. They were running after the production time which was critical for the book to be
published as scheduled. She attributed the delay to unclear instructions from Joy who is her US
counterpart. Considering that the problem does not only involve their team but will also affect
manufacturing, she decided to inform her immediate boss about it. In turn, her boss informed the
manager in the US who is his counterpart.
In the US, Joy was called by her boss to be clarified on the matter. However, she obviously did not
like what Abby did. She did not take it lightly as she felt offended. Joy believed that Abby should
have talked to her first and not bring the issue to her boss. Joy’s reaction reached Abby through her
boss.
During the discussion, Joy told Abby that she should have clarified matters with her only as the
problem can still be threshed out at their level. Abby explained that as it is their practice, she also
sent an email to her to inform her what happened but at the same time she also told her manager
about it. She said that it is common practice in their team to let their boss know whatever work-
related problems they have so that he will be able to address and solve them together with his US
counterpart.
According to Abby, her decision to tell her boss was perceived by Joy as kind of complaining. Abby’s
understanding is that it seems that in the US, employees do not usually escalate problems to their
boss as they settle the matter by themselves first. But in their office, she said that the norm is to
inform the managers because it is their job to solve problems within the team. Abby said that it was never her intention to put Joy in a bad light. She was just concerned with the production deadline so
she deemed it necessary to inform her boss which she didn’t know would bring the matter to his US
counterpart in the first place. She also believed that what she did was nothing unusual as it was for
her the normal thing to do.
Because of this incident, Abby realized how culture can serve as a major barrier in effective
communication. To better understand what happened, she also checked a tool in their office called
culture calculator. Based on the tool, Abby learned how different cultures work. She found that
Americans are egalitarian at work while Filipinos are hierarchical. The different ways of working
based on one’s culture explains the behaviour of both Joy and Abby. Moreover, Abby also realized
that sometimes email is not enough to fully convey one’s message as there are no emotions to it.
She said that when she finally had a teleconference with Joy, everything was settled as their face-to-
face interaction cleared her of any ill motive. According to Abby, her sincerity as shown in her facial
expression and her manner of speaking were keys to being able to fully impart her intentions. Lastly,
since then, whenever she tells her boss of any issue or concern at the office, she would ask him not
to tell his US counterpart for the meantime. *This case is based on actual events, but the institution’s
name and some of its characteristics have been changed.

Discussion Questions
1) Was Abby right in informing her immediate boss about the problem she had?
2) In this case, how does culture affect the reaction of both Abby and Joy?
3) How do communication technologies affect behaviour?
4) What is the role of communication in ensuring smooth interpersonal relations at work?
5) Cultural differences in communication is difficult to deal with in a global organisation. What
should organisations do to lessen if not avoid conflict that will arise from it?

Review the following scenario and respond to the follow-up questions in an APA formatted report of 2400-2600 words. Students will also submit a PowerPoint presentation of no more than 8 slides summarizing the case and your response, to be posted and discussed by peers in Unit 11. Case Tom, Dick, and Harry have been best friends since kindergarten. Tom is the business brain of the group. Dick is the mechanical one and Harry is the creative one. All grown-up, the boys decided that they should start making some serious money to provide for their expanding families. The boys decided that they salvage small scrap metal pieces, nuts, and bolts from junkyards and salvage yards which Harry would design and Dick would cast and weld into decorative art pieces. Tom will raise money from friends and family and look for distribution channels. Dick has a step-daughter, Dorothy, who is 16 and mechanically inclined as well. Dorothy could be Dick’s apprentice. Harry’s wife, Helen, is a recent BBA graduate from Yorkville University specializing in marketing and she could be recruited to help with sales and marketing. Helen’s good friend, Fern, is an award-winning designer with a national home decor chain who the group might be able to induce to join them. Tom’s twin brother, Tim, recently won the lottery and is pursuing his dream to be a photographer. Dick’s wife, Janine, is a real estate agent; she believes she has found an old warehouse in the industrial part of town that could be turned into their headquarters. The owner of the warehouse, Jordan, is retiring and open to the idea of selling or renting the space. How might the business be structured? What might be some of the legal issues that could arise in operating the business and selling the product? What are some of the agreements that might be needed?

Please answer the following questions:

1. a) What is a basket purchase?

b) How are you supposed to account for basket purchases? What are the options, if any?

c) What is a ‘business combination? What are the procedures for its accounting?

d) What is goodwill? How do you calculate it? Is it amortized? What FASB regulates its treatment? (be specific!)

2. As an individual with available liquidity on hand you have a choice to make an investment in a company. You may choose to purchase a bond or purchase stock. You are in your mid-50s and the funds you are willing to invest represent 30% of your net worth and 50% of your liquidity. The company has been in business for 15 years and has issued bonds in the past.

What is your thought process in order to make a decision? What do you want to review in the company? What do you want to know?

Give all the details as to what would be your criteria, with full details, prior to making a decision. Be specific, ranging from YOU personally to the COMPANY. At the end make a decision as to what you would do.

You work for an unemployment agency that distributes unemployment checks to unemployed workers in your state. Your boss recently learned that the president proposed a 21 percent increase in the minimum wage, and she wants you to provide her with an estimate of the number of additional workers who will file for unemployment compensation claims next year if the bill passes. Based on library research at a nearby university, you learn that about 200,000 workers in your state earn at or below the current minimum wage. Further library research turns up a study that reports the own price elasticity of demand for minimum wage earners to be −0.30. Based on your findings, how many additional workers do you think will file unemployment claims in your state?

Each year about 1500 students take the introductory statistics course at a large university. This year scores on the final exam are distributed with a median of 74 points, a mean of 70 points, and a standard deviation of 10 points. There are no students who scored above 100 (the maximum score attainable on the final) but a few students scored below 20 points. a.Is the distribution of scores on this final exam symmetric, right skewed, or left skewed? b.Would you expect most students to have scored above or below 70 points? c.What is the probability that the average score for a random sample of 40 students is above 75? (please round to four decimal places) Additionally, can this question be answered using excel or statcrunch?

Q3 Foreign currency translation A: 20 marks

On January 1, 2020, in an effort to diversify, Bauman Corp. (a Canadian company that sells decorative cedar branches), purchased 80% of Noskova Inc, an American company that manufacturers nitrous oxide, for US$50,000.

Noskova’s book values approximated its fair values on that date except for plant and equipment, which had a fair value of US$30,000 with a remaining life expectancy of 5 years.   A goodwill impairment loss of US$1,000 occurred during 2020. Noskova’s January 1, 2020, Balance Sheet is shown below (in U.S. dollars):

The following exchange rates were in effect during 2020:

Sales, purchases and other expenses occurred evenly throughout the year.
Dividends declared and paid December 31, 2020.
The financial statements of Bauman (in Canadian dollars) and Noskova (in U.S. dollars) are shown below:

Balance Sheets

Translate Noskova’s 2020 Income Statement into Canadian dollars if the functional currency is the Canadian dollar (i.e. the same functional currency as the parent).

14-60.

Referring to Exercise 14-58, suppose a student has an SAT score of 400. What is her estimate GPA at State University? Discuss the ramifications of using the model developed in Exercise 14-58 to estimate this student’s GPA.

14-58

At State University, a study was done to establish whether a relationship exists between students’ graduating grade point average (GPA) and the SAT verbal score when the student originally entered the university. The sample data are reported as follows:

GPA    2.5 3.2 3.5 2.8 3.0 2.4 3.4 2.9 2.7 3.8

SAT    640 700 550 540 620 490 710 600 505 710

a. Develop a scatter plot for these data and describe what, if any, relationship exists between the two variables, GPA and SAT score.

b. (1) Compute the correlation coefficient. (2) Does it appear that the success of students at State University is related to the SAT verbal scores of those students? Conduct a statistical procedure to answer this question. Use a significance level of 0.01.

c. (1) Compute the regression equation based on these sample data if you wish to predict the university GPA using the student SAT score. (2) Interpret the regression coefficients.

Compute the following ratios for two years. You may use Excel to compute your ratios. (all these formulas should be bases on the company you picked, in this case (Johnson & Johnson) use numbers from balance sheet and income statements found online.

Debt ratio

Gross profit margin

Free cash flow

Times interest earned

Accounts receivable turnover

Inventory turnover

Prepare a DuPont Analysis of ROE for two years, including computations of

Return on Sales

Asset Turnover

Return on Assets

Financial Leverage

Return on Equity

Briefly evaluate the ratio trends. Indicate on your worksheet whether each ratio is:

stronger / weaker

quicker /slower

more / less liquid

more / less risk

Suire Corporation is considering dropping product D14E. Data from the company's accounting system appear below:

All fixed expenses of the company are fully allocated to products in the company's accounting system. Further investigation has revealed that $193,500 of the fixed manufacturing expenses and $108,500 of the fixed selling and administrative expenses are avoidable if product D14E is discontinued.

Required:

a. According to the company's accounting system, what is the net operating income earned by product D14E? (Net losses should be indicated by a minus sign.)

b. What would be the financial advantage (disadvantage) of dropping product D14E? Should the product be dropped?