Choose a US public company that sells inventory (everyone needs to pick a different company). Review their most recent Annual Report. .

Questions

1. What inventory costing method does the company use? Explain why you think the company uses this particular method?
2. What might happen to the company’s income and inventory balance if they chose an alternative costing method? Be specific in your example.
3. Does the company value their inventory at lower of cost or market (LCM)? If so, how does the company define market? What factors might it consider in deciding whether or not to write down its inventory?
4. If the company does not use LCM, what method does the company use to value its inventory in consideration of possible inventory write-downs?

Can help with this question. The company is Costco.

Graphic rating scale is the evaluation of employees’ performance by comparing employees against certain “absolute” standards along a number of performance dimensions.

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Question 27 (2.5 points)

If an applicant takes a test today and then retakes it a week from now, we expect the scores to be similar. This correlation between the scores means there is ______.

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Question 28 (2.5 points)

Which of the following is an acceptable interview question?

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Question 29 (2.5 points)

A company that places a high value on learning is also known as a(n) ______.

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Question 30 (2.5 points)

Selection bias is the extent to which a selection method measures what it is supposed to measure and how well it does so.

Question 30 options:

Managing diversity in a Chinese-owned multinational IT firm

Company background

Established in 1988 in Beijing, Lenovo Group Limited (formerly known as ‘Legend Group Limited’) is the largest IT enterprise in China. Lenovo employs some 25,000 staff in all its operations in nearly 70 countries, but with the majority of employ- ees working in China. In 1984, with an initial capital of RMB 200,000 funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a government-funded institution, 11 researchers formed the parent company of Lenovo. It was the first company to introduce the concept of the home computer in China. Lenovo’s main business activities are in the sale and manufacturing of desktop computers, notebook computers, mobile handsets, servers and printers. Lenovo is a stock-listed company, with the Chinese government holding over a quarter of its shares. In April 2003, the group adopted a new logo and the English brand name ‘Lenovo’, replacing the original English brand name ‘Legend’ in order to appeal to the international market. The English company name was also officially changed to ‘Lenovo Group Limited’ a year later. In December 2004, Lenovo spent US$1.25 billion to acquire IBM’s PC business. This was the largest cross-border acquisition in China’s IT industry (China Business, 13 December 2004). The acquisition process was completed in May 2005. The marriage of IBM and Lenovo created one of the world’s largest PC powerhouses. IBM possessed strong competitive advantage in the higher end of the customer market in its distribution channel, high quality customer resources, which complemented that of Lenovo. The two companies have main- tained a long-term cooperative strategy since the acquisition, with Lenovo having access to some of IBM’s key resources, such as technology, sales force, PartnerWorld, Global Finance and IBM Credit. The continuing expansion and globalization of Lenovo has brought a number of challenges to its HRM function, including the alignment of corporate HR strategy and DM after the acquisition of IBM’s PC business. Below are some of the issues that illustrate the challenges.

Managing foreign employees in China

Lenovo’s growing global presence in the IT sector has in recent years attracted an increasing number of non-Chinese citizens who wish to work in its operations in China. This is in part because they want to spend time in China to gain wider work experience and a deeper understanding of the country. These foreign citizens are employed by Lenovo under the same employment conditions as those offered to Chinese citizens. Free working meals and company-subsidized accommodation are some of the benefits that Lenovo offers its employees. These are traditional and typical workplace welfare provisions of Chinese firms. Under the housing scheme, newly recruited single employees are provided dormitory accommodation. Since housing is expensive in Beijing, this often takes the form of one bedroom shared by a few employees of the same gender. This arrangement is normal and acceptable to Chinese employees – Chinese students also share their dormitories in schools and universities, and in sweatshop manufacturing plants the situation is far worse where ten or more rural migrant workers are crowded in a room with poor facilities. However, foreign employees, though only very small in number compared with the Chinese employees, find it difficult to get used to this idea because of the lack of privacy. Lenovo (China) has no special policy to accommodate their needs. Different management style is another source of cultural shock to foreign employees. According to an HR manager, foreign employees all emphasize their cultural shock when they come to China. However, Lenovo (China) has not developed a formal policy to manage these cultural shocks. This has led to the turnover of a few of the foreign employees and the company has made no effort to retain them.

Managing Chinese graduate returnees from overseas

Since the early 2000s, an increasing number of Chinese who went abroad for their higher education have been returning to China to seek employment and career development. The majority of Chinese overseas graduate returnees (known as haigui in China) are keen to work for multinational firms, and are often the favourite candidates. Lenovo is among the top employers of choice for which haiguis want to work. These repatriated Western educated and trained graduates bring with them different life styles, perspectives and (often unrealistic) expectations that may depart from Chinese norms. Some of them are said to be complacent and consider themselves superior to other graduate employees who have not been abroad for education or training. They expect high salaries up front, fast promotion, flexibility and autonomy in their work. Turnover is common among haiguis when expectations are unmet or better offers are available elsewhere. How to recruit and manage overseas graduate returnees effectively is an important issue for MNCs operating in China. Companies are now reportedly more cautious in recruiting and managing these returnees because they are seen as ‘demanding’ employees who are difficult to retain. Lenovo shares some of these issues. Although turnover has not been a major problem, how to harmonize the relationship between haiguis and home- grown graduate employees is sometimes a challenge for line managers.

Gender equalities

Prior to Lenovo’s acquisition of the IBM PC business unit, Lenovo had more women at the senior management level. The proportion of women in senior management has actually declined since the acquisition because it is now part of a bigger inter- national operation. Two main reasons are attributed to this change. One is that there is a lower proportion of women at senior management level in the acquired business unit of IBM than in the Chinese operation. Another reason is that Lenovo has been through successive rounds of senior management restructuring after the acquisition, partly to do with the post-acquisition integration and partly to do with the poaching of senior managers among IT firms in China. Cultural clashes triggered by the post-acquisition integration have led to the departure of a number of senior managers. When new managers are recruited, they tend to bring their own people and HR initiatives with them, which will later be displaced by their successors when those managers depart. As an HR director observed, ‘It is organizational politics, rather than equal opportunities, that we consider in the recruitment of senior managers. You need to be competent as well as well connected to get the senior management’s job, and men tend to be better connected than women in the IT sector in general.’

Developing a global diversity management strategy

According to informants from Lenovo (China), diversity is not a key issue in the workforce in China. Therefore, it is not a priority of the company. The major task is post-acquisition integration to align the organizational cultures and become a truly international company. Nevertheless, Lenovo (China) does emphasize the need for employees to respect other employees’ rights and privacy. Aggressive or discriminaory behaviours are forbidden, even as jokes. These expectations are written in the business conduct guidelines for employees. However, Lenovo (China) does not have any specific equal opportunities or diversity management programmes to enforce these clauses. The acquired business unit of IBM has good HR practices, for example, WLB and DM. These have not yet been transferred to the Chinese operation due to staff shortages. There was a corporate initiative (stimulated from the US side) about grouping women at international level together to have a global forum to discuss diversity issues in 2006. Unfortunately, budget constraints meant that the plan was set to one side. The HR directors from Lenovo (US) are well aware of the challenge they face in transferring their US-developed diversity management programme to other branches across different countries and cultures. The US HR team are the people who are familiar with the concept and responsible for promoting its global diffusion, and they are approaching the task with extreme caution. This is in part, as they admit- ted, due to their unfamiliarity with the local environments in different parts of the world, although they are planning to visit Lenovo (China) for the first time. How to accommodate the diversity of the global workforce and leverage it to enhance the performance of the firm on the one hand, and how to develop a strong corporate culture that all employees will identify with on the other hand is their main HR con- cern, and a solution has yet to be found. According to all managerial informants, the corporate priority is talent management. A new scheme called ‘Mobility Plan’ has been implemented at the international level. The purpose of the plan is to give managers an opportunity to work overseas to gain international experience to be able to lead at a global level. It is not aimed at Chinese managers in principle, but in reality has mainly involved sending Chinese managers to the US for development.

Questions:

1: Identify and explain the main issues in this case study

2. What are the key issues of diversity management in this case study and how are they manifested?

A survey of MBA graduates of a business school obtained data on the first-year salary after graduation and years of work experience prior to obtaining their MBA. The data are given in excel.

Q: Write out the assumptions of simple linear regression. Use the output to validate assumptions or indicate if an assumption is not met.

Researchers investigated the speed with which consumers decide to purchase a product. The researchers theorized that consumers with last names that begin with letters later in the alphabet will tend to acquire items faster than those whose last names begin with letters earlier in the alphabet - called the last name effect. MBA students were offered tickets to a basketball game. The first letter of the last name of respondents and their response times were noted. The researchers compared the response times for two​ groups: (1) those with last names beginning with a​ letter, A-​I, and​ (2) those with last names beginning a​ letter, R-Z. Summary statistics for the two groups are provided in the accompanying table. Complete parts a and b below. Sample Size A-I: 18 R-Z: 18 Mean Response Time (Minutes) A-I: 23.26 R-Z: 16.82 Standard Deviation (Minutes) A-I: 9.87 R-Z: 8.49

A. Construct a 90% Confidence Interval for the difference between the true mean response times for MBA students in the two groups.

B. Based on the interval, part A, which group has the shorter mean response time? Does this result support the researchers' last name effect theory? Explain.

Margie works with young foster children in metropolitan Sydney. The service supports the needs of children from diverse backgrounds. Some children do not know or understand much about their culture or customs. Cultures represented include Islamic, Chinese, Korean, Sudanese, Syrian, Maori, Torres Strait Islander, and different Aboriginal cultures. Margie’s job as diversity officer is to promote diversity in the workplace, and ensure that staff are adequately trained to meet the diverse linguistic, cultural and social needs of the children. One of Margie’s colleagues, Lin, asks to speak to Margie about his concern regarding one of the children. Zayaan is a practising Muslim and has been placed with a white Australian family. Lin says that Zayaan has lost weight and appears undernourished. Lin is concerned that Zayaan is being neglected. When Zayaan is brought in for an interview with the family, she sits quietly and does not speak. Afterwards, Margie asks to speak with Zayaan on her own and, after quite a long interview, learns that Zayaan has been told that she cannot eat unless she eats the pork provided; she needs to swim at the beach with the other children; and she cannot practise Islam at home. question

1. Explain what Zayaan’s rights are, and what Margie and Lin’s responsibilities are to ensure Zayaan’s rights are protected?????

The process of identifying potential employees, communicating job and organizational attributes to them, and convincing them to apply for available jobs is called ______.

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Question 21 (2.5 points)

An unstructured interview is a type of interview in which questions are asked without a defined format, and the same type of information is not collected from all interviewees.

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Question 22 (2.5 points)

Which of the following is an example of a low-touch approach to learning?

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Question 23 (2.5 points)

Which of the following is not a step in progressive discipline?

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Question 24 (2.5 points)

An incomplete appraisal of an individual’s performance, in which important aspects are not measured, is a ______.

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Question 25 (2.5 points)

An agency that assists job seekers with career services and placement and employers with finding applicants and where services are affiliated with Department of Labor and offered at no charge is most likely at a ______.

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Ann is interviewing for job at GRG, Inc.. Bob is the company's hiring manager and is in charge of conducting interviews.

Ann informs Bob that she is in the United States for the next year with an appropriate visa. The job that she is seeking has been advertised as a short-term position to fill a vacancy pending the return of a permanent employee. Without question, Ann is qualified for the position and will remain in the country for a time after the permanent employee returns.

Bob inquires about Ann's national origin after she informed him about the visa. Specifically, Bob asked Ann what country she is from and how many languages she speaks. Bob also made a casual remark about her country's history of "civil unrest" and "history of abusive treatment to women". Bob further informed Ann, during the interview, that he likes to keep up with "foreign affairs" and "contemporary world events". Ann was not offended by Bob's comments or inquiries at the interview.

Ann was not hired for the position. She learned that GRG, Inc. hired a Caucasian female, approximately the same age as she who was born and raised in Illinois. Ann has filed charges of discrimination based on ancestry / national origin with the EEOC. What are her arguments? What are the applicable defenses that GRG, Inc. can raise? Who wins / why not?

1.       The social learning theory of Bandura emphasizes the importance of observing and modeling the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others. Since most behavior is learned through observing others, we store this information for future guidance and actions. When answering the questions below, identify how and when social learning was part of the experience.   

1.       Identify skills you believe you possess.   

•             Communication

•             Ability to Work Under Pressure

•             Decision Making

•             Time Management

•             Self-motivation

•             Conflict Resolution

•             Leadership

•             Adaptability

•             Teamwork

•             Creativity

•             Responsible

•             Able to Operate Under Pressure

•             Efficient

•             Computer and Internet Skills

•             Verbal Communication

•             Organizational Skills

•             Multi-tasking

•             Time Management

1.       capabilities Choose a job posting in an area of interest and analyze it, with a focus on the workplace required of the candidate.

1.       The skills that match are the skills you can use to market yourself and set yourself apart from other job applicants.

2.       Determine which of the skills are most important to you. Write how you will verbally describe these skills during a future job interview.

3.       Create a Word document with your list of skills and a description of how you will verbally communicate them in an interview and an elevator speech. (An elevator speech is a brief summary.)

The TOPCAR taxi company is developing a new computer system to be used to support taxi booking and corporate client credit accounts. This computer system aims to automate some manual processes and cut down on labour costs as TOPCAR has many customers from large corporate companies, e.g. CEO, and managers often need taxi trips to the airport. The following describes the activities that must be processed by the computer system:

A client company must first register and open a credit account with TOPCAR at TOPCAR’s website, in which case certain credit checks are made such as checking credit history of client company’s debt level. If the client company has no bad debt history, a credit account for the client company is set up.

At least 24 hours after successful account registration, authorized persons from such client company can request a taxi booking form TOPCAR’s website. When this happens, the availability of a taxi at the requested date and time is checked, as is the credit status of the client company checked. (Note that credit status in finance means a measure of a lender’s willingness to lend money to a particular person or organization, depending on their ability to repay).

If these two checks are successful, a booking is made, and a written confirmation is sent via SMS and emailed to client company. After the customer from the client company has used the taxi, the driver sends in a record of the work, including the cost, and this is added to client company’s account. (Note that driver is an outsourced worker from TOPCAR’s point of view.) At the end of each month, taxi bills are sent via SMS and emailed to client companies for settlement.

From the above description, draw a data flow diagram showing the flow of input information (and/or data) and output information (and/or data) to and from processes and database stores within this computer system and any external environmental elements that interact with this computer system. In this diagram, you must identify the following:

1. processes inside this computer system,                      
2. database stores, external environmental elements that interact with any of the processes identified

in (a)                                                 (5.5 marks)

3. input and output information (or data) to and from each of the processes, database stores, and external environmental elements identified in (a) and (b)        (7.5 marks)

(Hint: there are two environmental elements that interact with this computer system, and six main processes in this computer system)