Task: Reporting on economic, social and environmental ramification of COVID 19

You are working as a management accountant with Clean Living Limited, a large travel company that specialises in green tours- package tours to environmentally sensitive destinations. These type of tours had been growing in popularity among local and international tourists until the breakdown of the COVID 19 pandemic in December. The Clean Living Limited has branches in Australia, China, India, and Singapore. The company management had been contemplating to expand its open tours packages to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and Serengeti safari park in Tanzania by the end of 2020.

However, due to the worldwide spread of the COVID 19 as a pandemic, the company’s current operation has become totally stagnant. The company’s management is seriously considering redesign its strategic planning and operation to minimise the damage and to ensure future sustainable operations. Remember, your report is crucial for management to undertake immediate strategic changes.

Required:

You are asked to prepare a report on the following:

1. Identify and briefly explain the possible financial, environmental, social and broader economic consequences the company is being exposed to.

2. Identify the key stakeholders of the company that are going to be affected by the pandemic

4. Highlight the possible changes to the following indicator:

(a) Return on Investment (ROI)

(b) Residual Income (RI)

(c) Economic Value Added (EVA)

(d) Earnings Per Share (EPS)

5. The company management anticipates that the situation will get back to normal by the end of September. Traditionally, the peak season starts from the beginning of November and continues until the end of March. In the meantime, they are contemplating the development on a sustainable Balanced Scorecard to regain its competitive position in the market within the shortest possible time. You are given the following list of variables related to the economic, social and environmental perspectives. Select one variable from each perspective that you consider as the most important, provide your argument in favour of your selection.

Instructions:

Your report should be structured as follows:

Assessment – Module 4

Directions: Complete these questions and submit to the correct Assignments folder on D2L. Please upload as a Word document (.docx) or a .pdf.
You can print this and write in the space provided, type your answers here, or write answers on a separate sheet of paper and upload photos. If you upload photos, please put page numbers on your pages and make sure the photos aren’t blurry.
Note: Sometimes the book isn’t so good at giving examples, so you are allowed to discuss this on the discussion forum, work with other people, or ask me for help.

1.   The table below gives selling prices for 24 houses in the fictional SE Portland neighborhood of Westsellstock in July 2016. (Numbers are in thousands of dollars.)
315
310
314
337
288
292
277
267
336
361
169
339
295
318
271
241
288
241
345
321
340
306
228
314

   •   Find the mean and standard deviation of the prices of these 24 houses.
   •   What conditions and assumptions do you need to check to create a confidence interval for the mean price of houses in Westsellstock?
   •   To create a 95% confidence interval, we need to know the value of t* for a sample this size. What is that value? (Looking it up in a table is the easiest.)
   •   Create the 95% confidence interval. (It’s okay if the conditions aren’t met.)
   •   Interpret the interval with a sentence. (Be sure your sentence includes the context of this situation, so it should be about house prices.)

2.   A consumer advocate wants to collect a sample of jelly jars and measure the actual weight of the product in the container. He needs to collect enough data to construct a confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 2.5 grams with 99% confidence. The standard deviation of these jars is usually 3 grams. What do you recommend for his sample size?

3.   The heights of women in the fictional country of Rohkia follow a Normal distribution. You’d like to perform a hypothesis test to see if the average height of Rohkian women is significantly more than 61 inches.
   You select 8 women at random and measure their heights (in inches), which are recorded in the table below.
61
61
62
64
67
63
64
62

a.   Find the mean and standard deviation of the heights in the sample. Use the correct symbols for this sample data.
b.   Write hypotheses to test whether the population height is over 61 inches.
c.   Perform the calculations for the test. Please report the value of test statistic (t) and the p-value.
d.   Can we conclude the mean height of Rohkian women is significantly greater than 61 inches? Explain why or why not. (Use α = 0.05)

While many organizational costs can be planned for, the actual results may vary from the initial projections. Assessing how these variances impact the bottom line is an essential task of many managers.

For this Assignment, review the information in the scenario posted in the entry titled Week 5 Assignment located in the Doc Sharing link. You will utilize the information in this week’s Resources and your course text to consider how variance analysis and the results obtained from conducting such an analysis might impact decision making. There is also an Excel template provided in the same entry in the Doc Sharing link that you may find helpful in completing this Assignment.

The Assignment:

• Part 1: Calculate all materials and labor variances in a spreadsheet by using a program like Excel. Be sure to include price, quantity, wage rate, and labor efficiency variances.
• Part 2: Prepare a memo to your subordinate, using a program like Word.
  • Summarize and analyze the actual costs in relation to the standard costs incurred for the month.
  • Ask for clarification of any variances that need to be investigated.

Be sure to include whether alternatives exist for the future of the organization and explain how the results of the variance analysis might influence those alternatives.

Week 5 Assignment

ComfortRight, Inc. is a manufacturer of high-quality products designed to help support healthy backs and spines. Their newest product offering is a massage chair. Below is the standard cost structure for the chair:

This month, ComfortRight manufactured 500 massage chairs. The following costs were incurred:

Adapted from: Zimmerman, J. L. (2014). Accounting for decision making and control (8^th ed.). New York: NY: McGraw-Hill, “Healing Touch”, p. 565.

Suppose you are the senior controller for ComfortRight and you plan to perform a variance analysis of the massage chairs manufactured to determine if the standards are being met. Once you have completed the analysis, you plan to show it to the production department manager and ask for an explanation of any variances that you believe should be examined.

In his own words, Daniel Jones was “The Dude.” With his waist-long dreadlocks, part-time rock band, and well-paid job managing a company’s online search directory—he seemed to have it all. Originally from Germany, Jones, now age 32, earned his doctorate and taught at the University of Munich before coming to the United States, where he started his career in computers. In 1996, Jones started working with the company as a director of operations for U.S.-Speech Engineering Service and Retrieval Technology—working on a new, closely guarded search engine tied to the company’s .net concept.

The company allows employees to order an unlimited amount of software and hardware, at no cost, for business purposes. Between December 2001 and November 2002, Jones ordered or used his assistant and other employees (including a high school intern) to order nearly 1,700 pieces of software which had very low cost but were worth a lot on the street. He then resold them for reduced prices— reaping millions. When items with a cost of goods sold of more than $1,000 are ordered, an e-mail is sent to the employee’s direct supervisor, who must click on an “Approve” button before the order is filled. In no individual order was the cost of goods more than 1,000—he made sure none of the orders required a supervisor’s approval. The loosely controlled internal ordering system reflects the trust the company puts in its employees.

In June, FBI agents said they saw Jones exchanging a large box of software for cash in a department store parking lot.

You are a newly hired fraud examiner. You have been asked to write a preliminary report on the Dude Case scenario based on the information presented in Units 1 to 4 and findings from your additional research.  Your essay should be 1,500 words. Word limit is not inclusive of bibliography and cover page

In your essay the following points must be addressed fully:

a) Determine if fraud was committed and if so describe the symptoms of fraud that might be evident to a fellow employee.

b) As discussed in one of the units, all frauds involve key elements. Identify and describe the elements of the Jones fraud.

c) In the scenario, Jones' employer has been putting more emphasis on controlling cost. With the slowing of overall technology spending, executives have ordered managers to closely monitor expenses and have given vice presidents greater responsibility for statements of financial positions. What positive or negative consequences might this pose to the company in future fraud prevention?

d) Describe the company's fraud prevention programme and identify any improvements that might be necessary.

Case 2 (Ms. Brown continued, I need answers typed please I posted case 1 in the end if you need it).

Patient: Brown, Francine

DOB: 04/25/44

Medical Record Number: 09052016

Allergies: NKA

Precautions: Fall

Height: 5’ 2”

Weight: 60.4 kg

Ms. Brown condition improves, and she is discharged home after her admission to the hospital for her CVA. She has residual right-sided weakness in her arm and leg and a right-sided visual field cut. Ms. Brown is prescribed the following daily medications: metoprolol, warfarin, simvastatin, and furosemide.

Ms. Brown lives alone in an apartment and was set up with visiting nurse services and home physical therapy. She uses a walker to ambulate. The nurse notices that Ms. Brown drags her right foot when ambulating. Ms. Brown reports that she tires easily has been unable to complete her ADL’s aside from toileting and brushing her teeth.

What is a priority nursing diagnoses for Ms. Brown?

Set an outcome (goal statement) for this diagnosis.

What interventions would you take to meet this nursing outcome?

Fast forward one week: Write an evaluative statement for your nursing diagnosis. (You can embellish the story however you’d like.)

if you need case 1 here it is

Case 1

Patient: Brown, Francine

DOB: 04/25/44

Medical Record Number: 09052016

Allergies: NKA

Precautions: Fall

Height: 5’ 2”

Weight: 60.4 kg

Your patient, Ms. Brown, is admitted to the hospital after a CVA (Stroke) secondary to irregular heartbeat. She also has a history of HTN and hyperlipidemia. Ms. Brown lives alone and was found down on the floor by her neighbor. It was estimated she had been down on the ground for around 14 hours.

Ms. Brown is unable to walk at this time and is confined to her bed. She has a poor appetite and eats only bites at each meal. She has several episodes of bladder and bowel incontinence daily.

What are your primary concerns for Ms. Brown? Word two of these concerns as nursing diagnoses (one actual & one risk for)

Nursing Diagnosis statement actual (3 parts):

Nursing Diagnosis statement potential or “risk for” (2 parts):

Select an outcome (goal statement) for one of the nursing diagnosis selected from above.

What nursing interventions would you perform to treat these concerns? What interprofessional team members could you involve in the care of Ms. Brown?

Generate and provide your answers to ALL questions using a Microsoft Excel Worksheet(s) and submit this Worksheet as a separate document with your Word document file.

Note: You may answer this question in two or more Excel Worksheets – one Worksheet containing the table and the other Worksheet containing all the plots. Alternatively, you may choose to provide each plot in a separate Worksheet.  

Demonstrate how the spectral emissive power inside a blackbody cavity changes with respect to the following parameters:

Temperature and wavelength, hence, find Eλ(λ, T), by:

a) Creating a table with the (λ, T) values as follows:

1. Wavelengths, λ, from 0.1 μm to 100 μm, on the first (left-most) column. Use increments of:  

→ 0.1 μm from 0.1 μm to 1.0 μm;  

→ 0.5 μm from 1.0 μm to 10 μm;

→ 1.0 μm from 10 μm to 100 μm;

2. Temperatures, T, values of: 293.15 K; 793.15 K; 1293.15 K; 1793.15 K; 2293.15 K; 7500 K; and, 12000 K.

3. Calculate Eλ(λ, T) using units of W/m2·μm and assume the constants C1 = 374210000 and C2 = 14388.  

Set up your table with each separate column corresponding to each given value of T. Ensure that you clearly label each column in your table and include the relevant units.

[Hint: There should be seven separate columns in your table for the Eλ(λ, T) calculations and eight columns in your table altogether with the inclusion of the left-most column consisting of the λ values.

The recommendation is that you fill in each separate column in your table using a different background colour in order to facilitate the examination of the different T calculations and to assist in identifying the corresponding plots.]

4. Clearly demarcate the visible region in your table. You may do this by selecting a different coloured font for the values of λ (and the corresponding Eλ values) that fall within this region.

b) Plot the calculated values of Eλ(λ, T) ensuring that you set out each plot as follows:

1. Display the calculated Eλ(λ, T) values on the vertical axis.

2. Display the wavelengths on the horizontal axis. Select the logarithmic scale, to base 10, to display your values on this axis.

3. Clearly demarcate the visible region in each plot.

4. Include a title in each plot, clearly identifying the relevant value of T and ensure that you label both axes (including units).

[Hint: The recommendation is that you fill in the background of each plot in the same colour as the corresponding column in your table in order to facilitate the analyses of the different T calculations.]

Using the circular flow of income model, supported by a diagram, show the effect on an economy such as the UK, of a fall in investment by British firms and a reluctance by Chinese companies to buy goods from the UK.

Word Limit: 200 words

CASE STUDY BELOW

Growth and Climate Change
Even before the Coronavirus pandemic that swept across the world in 2020 the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was already warning of a slowdown in global economic activity.
In a report published in November 2019 it argued that it was a lack of direction on global climate policy that was reducing business investment. Although it did not go as far as to predict a recession, it was pessimistic about the future for continued growth.
There are calls for action from governments to address challenges, some of which have both long term and more immediate consequences.
In relation to climate change, the OECD argued that extreme weather events such as heat waves, drought and storms could lead to disruption of economic activity and could inflict long lasting damage on people, capital and land. Economists are well aware of the negative externalities caused by economic growth and many economists have long argued that climate change presents the biggest environmental threat to economic well -being and standards of living in the future. The British economist, Nicholas Stern, referred to global climate change as the greatest ever example of market failure and that insufficient policy action could increase the costs of climate change.
Stern argued that while climate change presents a long-term challenge for governments in addressing these issues, there is no alternative but for immediate action to be taken to try and reduce these costs. Governments were unwilling to allocate resources in the short term to deal with long term problems but this was not a sensible strategy. For Stern, in order to maintain real increases in economic prosperity in the future, there is a relatively small cost that needs to be allocated to tackling the problems of climate change in the short run. The OECD report argues that there is indeed already an impact on business investment of uncertainty over climate change policy and that this is at the centre of slowing growth. For the OECD as for Stern, governments must act quickly.
"Without a clear sense of direction on carbon prices, standards and regulation, and without the necessary public investment, businesses will put off investment decisions, with dire consequences for growth and employment," the OECD said.
Among the other challenges to short term global growth that the OECD mentioned was the change in the Chinese economy. As incomes grow on average in China, it is becoming a more services-oriented economy which means the country's demand for imported goods for its industries to process, was unlikely to grow as strongly in the future. As well as this, after thirty years of rapid economic growth in China, the Chinese government was trying to manage its growth so as to prevent overheating in the economy.

Suppose we want to do our own test of whether the way students take notes affects their memory for material (like the Mueller and Oppenheimer study), but we have a three condition experiment, where students are randomly assigned to: 1) a "b.y.o." room where students bring in their backpacks and can use whatever device (laptop/ipad, paper notebook, livescribe pen) and whatever style of note-taking / note-taking sofware they think works best for them; 2) a "laptop" room where students can only takes notes on a word processing program on a blank laptop with no internet connection and 3) a "paper & pen" room where students can only take notes in blank paper notebooks with a pen. After students watch a TED talk and take notes for 30 minutes, they will be given a quiz, and we want to know whether students with different kinds of note-taking opportunities differ in their average quiz scores.

We collect the data and find the following statistics from three groups of 50 students each (total N=150):

Quiz scores:  

byo group: Mean = 21.0,

laptop group: M = 28.0,

paper&pen group: M = 33.5

also, SSb = 38.0                     SSe = 672.5

Now...

1) First explain why we need to know not only the mean quiz score for each group, but also the between groups variance and within groups variance of this data?

2) If we are going to test a significant effect of note-taking device on quiz score a) what statistical test are we going to have to do? b) what are the degrees of freedom for this test (hint: there should be two numbers reported here) and so c) what are our MSB and your MSEd) what is the F-ratio?

3) Does this support (with a reasonably low probability of making a Type 1 error) the claim that there is a significant effect of note-taking device on quiz scores? Explain your reasoning.

4) At this point, what (statistically speaking) more might you want to know?

5) If the standard error of the mean is  sqrt(4.6/50=0.092) = .303 then show me how you can use that to conduct the three post-hoc Tukey HSD tests.

6) What did you just do those tests for? And, what did you learn from them?

7) After going through all of this would you still (statistically speaking) have anything else you might like to know? If so, what, and how would it help you better understand the relationship between note-taking and retention?

As preparation for the final research paper, you formulated a theory about the correlation between measurable independent variables (causes) and one measurable dependent variable (the effect). Be sure to have at least two independent variables for proposed research paper. This rough draft should include the following four items which serve as the foundation for the final research paper after instructor feedback is given.

Submit this Word File in this Canvas section for your Term Project Rough Draft, with Data.

The dependent variable for this study Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Player Salary is determined by independent variables such as player’s batting average (AVG), on-base plus slugging (OPS), and runs batted in (RBI). The most important independent variable in this relationship is OPS because if the player has a high rate of reaching base it contributes to the player’s AVG and RBI.

I plan to utilize the model below:

Player’s annual salary: b0+b1AVG+b2OPS+b3RBI

Employee Health Insurance Plans

Part I

Consider the four health plans below with an eye to choosing one to offer to the company's employees. Assume that the health plans and their annual per employee premiums are as follows:

The employer will pay 80% of the premium for individual coverage, and the employee will pay the remaining 20% as well as the entire additional premium for family coverage. (The premiums listed above, while realistic in magnitude, are hypothetical and computed solely for the purpose of this project.) All of the plans are managed care plans. Assume that the benefit package is the same across all plans, so there is no difference between them in what services are covered.

In addition to the above data, click here to view and investigate the Online Report on Quality Performance Results in New York State, the latest report card issued by the New York State Department of Health, 2013, and incorporate the information into your evaluation.

You can view the various categories of measures on which health plans are rated (e.g., Access to Care, Adult Living with Illness, etc.). Click each link for a summary chart that presents the performance (usually as a percentage score) of each plan in the group on the relevant measures and how each plan compares to regional and statewide scores.

Submit a 2-page analysis in a Microsoft Word document that outlines the plan you selected and why. Generally, you would select the plan with the highest score, but if you chose a plan with a lower score, explain why. Include the following elements in your analysis:

Explain which factors (e.g., price and/or performance measures) were most important to your choice of plan and how you derived the weights for each factor you used.

Indicate, on a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable or confident you are that you made the right choice, with 10 being most confident.

Part II

You need to use the multiattribute utility (MAU) technique to respond to the following questions. Although the technique can be performed with pencil and paper, it is recommended you use a Microsoft Excel to do the various calculations involved.

Click the following links to access the information on using the MAU technique:

MAU Model

MAU Example

Compare your level of confidence at the time you completed Part I to your confidence level for Part II, when you used this decision aid.

Was it helpful? What were its advantages and disadvantages?

Did it make the decision harder to make or easier to justify?

Support your responses with examples.

Cite any sources in APA format.