In December 2016, Arshad Ali joined Imperial Computers Ltd. (ICL) as a Senior Programmer, with a handsome pay. Prior to this job, he worked successfully as an assistant programmer in Gem Computers (Gem). Arshad felt that ICL offered better career prospects, as it was growing much faster than Gem, which was a relatively small company.

Although Arshad had enjoyed working there (at Gem), he realized that to grow further in his field, he would have to join a bigger company, and preferable one that handled international projects. He was sure he would excel in his position at ICL, just as he had done in his old job at Gem.

ICL had international operations and there was more than a slim chance that he would be sent to USA or the UK on a project. Knowing that this would give him a lot of exposure, besides looking good on his resume, Arshad was quite excited about his new job.

Arshad joined Gunjan’s five-member team at ICL. He had met Gunjan during the orientation sessions, and was looking forward to working under her. His team members seemed warm and friendly, and comfortable with their work. He introduced himself to the team members and got to know more about each of them.

Wanting to know more about his boss, he casually asked Rehman, one of the team members, about Gunjan. Rehman said, “Gunjan does not interfere with our work. In fact, you could even say that she tries to ignore us as much as she can.” Arshad was surprised by the comment but decided that Gunjan was probably leaving them alone to do their work without any guidance, in order to allow them to realize their full potential.

At Gem, Arshad had worked under Sultan and had looked up to him as a guide and mentor – always guiding, but never interfering. Sultan had let Arshad make his own mistakes and learn from them. He had always encouraged individual ideas, and let the team discover the flaws, if any, through discussion and experience. He rarely held an individual member of his team responsible if the team as a whole failed to deliver – for him the responsibility for any failure was collective. Arshad remembered telling his colleagues at Gem that the ideal boss would be someone who did not interfere with his/her subordinate’s work. Arshad wanted to believe that Gunjan too was the non-interfering type. If that was the case, surely her non-interference would only help him to grow.

In his first week at work, Arshad found the atmosphere at the office a bit dull. However, he was quite excited. His team had been assigned a new project and was facing a few glitches with the new software. He had thought about the problem till late in the night and had come up with several possible solutions. He could not wait to discuss them with his team and Gunjan. He smiled to himself when he thought of how Gunjan would react when he will tell her that he had come up with several possible solutions to the problem. He was sure she would be happy with his having put in so much effort into the project, right from day one.

He was daydreaming about all the praise that he was going to get when Gunjan walked into the office. Arshad waited for her to go into her cabin, and after five minutes, called her up, asking to see her. She asked him to come in after tem minutes. When he went in, she looked at him blankly and asked, “Yes?” Not sure whether she had recognized him, Arshad introduced himself. She said, “Ok, but why did you want to meet me?” Arshad started to tell her about the problems they were having with the software. But before he could even finish, she told him that she was busy with other things, and that she would send an email with the solution to all the members of the team by the end of the day, and that they could then implement it immediately. Arshad was somewhat taken aback. However, ever the optimist, he thought that she had perhaps already discussed the matter with the team.

Arshad came out of Gunjan’s cabin and went straight to where his team members sat. He thought it would still be nice to bounce ideas off them and also to see what solutions others might come up with. He told them of all the solutions he had in mind. He waited for the others to come up with their suggestions but not one of them spoke up. He was surprised, and asked them point-blank why they were so disinterested.

Aftab, one of the team members, said, “What is the point in our discussing these things? Gunjan is not going to have time to listen to us on discuss anything. She will just give us the solution she thinks is best, and we will just do what she tells us to do; why waste everyone’s time?”

Arshad felt his heart sink. Was this the way things worked over here? However, he refused to lose heart and thought that maybe, he could change things a little. But as the days went by, Arshad realized that Gunjan was the complete opposite of his old boss.

While she was efficient at what she did and extremely intelligent, she had neither the time nor the inclination to groom her subordinates. Her solutions to problem were always correct, but she was not willing to discuss or debate the merits of any other ideas that her team might have. She did not hold the team down to their deadlines not did she ever interfere. In fact, she rarely said anything at all. If work did not get finished on time, she would just blame her team, and totally disassociate herself from them.

Time and again, Arshad found himself thinking of Sultan his old boss, and of how he had been such a positive influence. Gunjan, on the other hand, even without actively doing anything, had managed to significantly lower his motivation levels.

Arshad gradually began to lose interest in his work – it had become too mechanical for his taste. He didn’t really need to think; his boss had all the answers. He was learning nothing new, and he felt his career was going nowhere. As he became more and more discouraged, his performance suffered. From being someone with immense promise and potential Arshad was now in danger of becoming just another mediocre techie.

Questions:

Q1. What, according to you, were the reasons for Arshad’s disillusionment? Answer the question using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Case Study In December 2016, Arshad Ali joined Imperial Computers Ltd. (ICL) as a Senior Programmer, with a handsome pay. Prior to this job, he worked successfully as an assistant programmer in Gem Computers (Gem). Arshad felt that ICL offered better career prospects, as it was growing much faster than Gem, which was a relatively small company. Although Arshad had enjoyed working there (at Gem), he realized that to grow further in his field, he would have to join a bigger company, and preferable one that handled international projects. He was sure he would excel in his position at ICL, just as he had done in his old job at Gem. ICL had international operations and there was more than a slim chance that he would be sent to USA or the UK on a project. Knowing that this would give him a lot of exposure, besides looking good on his resume, Arshad was quite excited about his new job. Arshad joined Gunjan’s five-member team at ICL. He had met Gunjan during the orientation sessions, and was looking forward to working under her. His team members seemed warm and friendly, and comfortable with their work. He introduced himself to the team members and got to know more about each of them. Wanting to know more about his boss, he casually asked Rehman, one of the team members, about Gunjan. Rehman said, “Gunjan does not interfere with our work. In fact, you could even say that she tries to ignore us as much as she can.” Arshad was surprised by the comment but decided that Gunjan was probably leaving them alone to do their work without any guidance, in order to allow them to realize their full potential. At Gem, Arshad had worked under Sultan and had looked up to him as a guide and mentor – always guiding, but never interfering. Sultan had let Arshad make his own mistakes and learn from them. He had always encouraged individual ideas, and let the team discover the flaws, if any, through discussion and experience. He rarely held an individual member of his team responsible if the team as a whole failed to deliver – for him the responsibility for any failure was collective. Arshad remembered telling his colleagues at Gem that the ideal boss would be someone who did not interfere with his/her subordinate’s work. Arshad wanted to believe that Gunjan too was the non-interfering type. If that was the case, surely her non-interference would only help him to grow. In his first week at work, Arshad found the atmosphere at the office a bit dull. However, he was quite excited. His team had been assigned a new project and was facing a few glitches with the new software. He had thought about the problem till late in the night and had come up with several possible solutions. He could not wait to discuss them with his team and Gunjan. He smiled to himself when he thought of how Gunjan would react when he will tell her that he had come up with several possible solutions to the problem. He was sure she would be happy with his having put in so much effort into the project, right from day one. He was daydreaming about all the praise that he was going to get when Gunjan walked into the office. Arshad waited for her to go into her cabin, and after five minutes, called her up, asking to see her. She asked him to come in after tem minutes. When he went in, she looked at him blankly and asked, “Yes?” Not sure whether she had recognized him, Arshad introduced himself. She said, “Ok, but why did you want to meet me?” Arshad started to tell her about the problems they were having with the software. But before he could even finish, she told him that she was busy with other things, and that she would send an email with the solution to all the members of the team by the end of the day, and that they could then implement it immediately. Arshad was somewhat taken aback. However, ever the optimist, he thought that she had perhaps already discussed the matter with the team. Arshad came out of Gunjan’s cabin and went straight to where his team members sat. He thought it would still be nice to bounce ideas off them and also to see what solutions others might come up with. He told them of all the solutions he had in mind. He waited for the others to come up with their suggestions but not one of them spoke up. He was surprised, and asked them point-blank why they were so disinterested. Aftab, one of the team members, said, “What is the point in our discussing these things? Gunjan is not going to have time to listen to us on discuss anything. She will just give us the solution she thinks is best, and we will just do what she tells us to do; why waste everyone’s time?” Arshad felt his heart sink. Was this the way things worked over here? However, he refused to lose heart and thought that maybe, he could change things a little. But as the days went by, Arshad realized that Gunjan was the complete opposite of his old boss. While she was efficient at what she did and extremely intelligent, she had neither the time nor the inclination to groom her subordinates. Her solutions to problem were always correct, but she was not willing to discuss or debate the merits of any other ideas that her team might have. She did not hold the team down to their deadlines not did she ever interfere. In fact, she rarely said anything at all. If work did not get finished on time, she would just blame her team, and totally disassociate herself from them. Time and again, Arshad found himself thinking of Sultan his old boss, and of how he had been such a positive influence. Gunjan, on the other hand, even without actively doing anything, had managed to significantly lower his motivation levels. Arshad gradually began to lose interest in his work – it had become too mechanical for his taste. He didn’t really need to think; his boss had all the answers. He was learning nothing new, and he felt his career was going nowhere. As he became more and more discouraged, his performance suffered. From being someone with immense promise and potential Arshad was now in danger of becoming just another mediocre techie.

Question2: What should Arshad do to resolve his situation?

The senior management of the company have requested you to provide a report on the
following for a selected client who intend to invest $250,000

LO 1.1 Select one or more companies that you want to invest in London stock exchange.

Link to the London Stock exchange is

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/home/homepage.htm

• Provide justification as to WHY you want to invest in this company or companies

• Who will be the company's stakeholders?

• Why would they be interested in this company?

Reasons for a company to want to have some free cash flow available to it at all times?

Why would the government tax system at the federal and states level be set up so that the tax rate on regular income (wages and profits) is higher than the tax rate on interest, dividends, and capital gains?  Who benefits from this?   

What is the concept of book value and how it is calculated.  Why is it different from stockmarket value?  Which is better, higher book or higher market, and why?  

Chapter 7 clarifies the 4 ways in which leaders can enhance the abilities and contributions of followers - offering clarity of direction, providing opportunities for growth, giving honest and constructive feedback, and protecting followers from organizational roadblocks. Research a company who's leader failed to do ONE of the four. How did the leader fail his/her followers? What happened to the organization as a result? Did the leader who failed everyone ever gain the respect back from their followers? If so, how?

Bunny Company produces a part that is used in the manufacture of one of its products. The costs associated with the production of 11,000 units of this part are as follows:

Direct materials $25,000

Direct labor 34,000

Variable factory overhead 65,000

Fixed factory overhead 50,000

$174,000

Of the fixed factory overhead costs, $9,000 is avoidable.

Required:

a. Assuming there is no alternative use for the facilities, should Bunny Company take advantage of an offer from a supplier who is willing to sell Bunny Company 11,000 units of the same part for $12.50 per unit?

b. Would your answer to Part A change if the facilities could be rented for $10,000 a year?

This assignment challenges students to formulate a professional response to in-depth issues contained in a real-life Video Business Case. Students will act as an independent professional business consultant reporting to senior managers of the company concerned. Students are expected to provide informed and robust advice to this business client. The video below is provided by Ernst and Young company. It refers to the issues faced by an organisation in the Maritime Safety Industry. Ernst and Young is required to solve these issues.

As students, we are appointed as consultants. Firstly, we should identify the issue clearly and the cause. Secondly,we need to propose alternatives. Thirdly, we should do a decision criteria. We should then recommend the solutions accordingly. And do an ethical issue recognition.

Here is the case.

ISSUE

So, the issue we had to resolve involved a private sector organization who operate in the maritime safety industry. They are a well-established private company and provide global services to a number of different organizations. The issue arose due to a point of inflection that they arrived at as an organization.

Historically over the last 30 to 40 years they'd established a range of services which were well known and well trusted and well regarded by the organization's they interacted with. As a company they were very satisfied with their financial performance they had a very strong reputation and brand in the market.

What they had realized a number of years ago, was that they couldn't remain static a company and they needed to change the way they deliver that particular service to their clients so the rate of change outside of their industry insular competitors was accelerating far beyond their own internal rate of change.

So, at the risk of standing still they realized they had to transform their organization so they undertook this and began this transformation about three years prior to I guess us getting involved and the issue arose that they had probably three different points of inflection where they effectively had to stop that transformation which was occurring and restarted and this was causing a number of concerns to the board and to the company itself.

So there was financial concerns there was regulatory concerns, there was reputational risk at stake and also there was the sustainability of the services as it impacted Maritime Safety. So through this process they realized that the structure they had in place at that time was not going to allow them to successfully deliver this transformation so they engaged us at that point in time to do a health check and review of what had occurred today and give an independent perspective on whether that transformation was actually going to be successful and provide a set of recommendations around what changes they should make and what options they should consider regarding affecting or impacting that transformation within the organization

ISSUE BACKGROUND

So the company size was probably what we describe as a small to medium sized organization so maybe 40 to 50 employees strong. Their board was and is consisted of a number of large enterprise type organizations and the reason they engaged us as a firm was to come in and provide that intermediary layer between the organization itself who were delivering the transformation pretty much in-house and themselves as independent board members to gave them a view of the success likely success on of that transformation occurring.

So a bit more background and context around the transformation was it had a number of different elements to it one was organizational two was cultural and three was technical or technology-based so the company itself as I said earlier was primarily in maritime safety but in essence they were also delivering a technology service to their clients

CAUSE

the issue was primarily caused by the organization itself not having an independent perspective on the likely success are indeed the path to success to effect a transformation. it also had little independent oversight over how it could have actually transformed or changed that transformation through these various inflection points that it went through. there was also a degree of organizational capability which was missing and identified but hadn't been independently verified through the previous two to three-year pass. so the company itself continued to provide the services in parallel with changing and transform himself internally. so one of the significant issues that we identified was that there was no burning platform or desire to change because it was operating quite successfully in his traditional way. the same people that were providing that traditional Swedish services were also trying to effect a transformation. so there was no actual completion date or reason to ever successfully complete a transformation because the company was actually operating very successfully true delivering its ongoing suite of service causes that we identified through I guess that initial review we did of the company was that the approach to addressing the issues that encountered historically was to bring in in-house some additional capability in the same areas so they continued to feel like exasperate some of the issues through bringing in similar capability and similar services and functions without ever separating and bringing in a new perspective our new approach so the issues if you like were continuous they weren't evolving they weren't being addressed or identified and no root cause analysis are indeed kind of path forward was being identified by the organization through that that analysis so the board were quite concerned that he couldn't see the end to this transformation or project they were continuing to be successful but they were recognizing that they were being outpaced potentially by some of their competitors and they also identify that there was a lack of innovation of strategy that was being put in place by the company and the reputational risk and commercial risk was increasing on a monthly basis and hence they involved us as an organization to come in and do that independent review and then identify what some of those different options to proceed were for them moving forward.

Apple Inc.

Introduction. Start with an introductory paragraph or two explaining the purpose of the report.

Brief History of the Company. In no more than one (1) page address the following:
•   What is the company’s principal line of business and major competitors?
•   What are their key products/services?
•   On what day does the company’s fiscal year end?
•   Provide a brief history of the company: When did the company first go public? Have they had any stock splits since then? Any other relevant data about their stock.
•   Who is their current CEO, CFO?
•   What else would a potential investor want to know?

Body: address the following questions related to your selected company in paragraph (not list) form.
1.   Who is the company’s current auditor? What does the auditor do?
2.   What method of depreciation is used by the company to depreciate its operational assets?
3.   What inventory method is used to state the value of the company’s inventory?
4.   Does the company have treasury stock (or a repurchase program)? Explain.
5.   Does the company have any investments? If so, what categories?
6.   What is the largest source of cash from financing activities?
7.   What is the largest use of cash from investing activities?
8.   Describe one footnote that presents additional detail about a reported financial statement number (provide the footnote number or letter).
9.   Describe one footnote that reports financial statement information not listed as a number in the financial statements (provide the footnote number or letter).
10.   What was the overall trend of the stock price for the most recent year?

1. Dr. Woz and Dr. Yaz want to test whether violent video games have an effect on aggressive thinking. In order to test aggressive thinking, Woz and Yaz are going to use a test developed at GTA University; scores greater than 70 on the test indicate agreement with statements that endorse aggressive behavior. They select a sample of n = 100 teenagers from a local high school for the study. Each of the students spends an hour playing a first-person shooter video game and then takes the test. The mean and standard deviation for the sample is M = 73 and s = 20. Woz and Yaz would like to know if the sample mean of 73 is statistically significantly different from 70 using a two-tailed test with ? < .05 and critical values of t of ±1.98.

a. What is the null hypothesis for this test? H₀ =

b. What is the estimated standard error for this test?

c. Calculate the value of t (round to two decimal places, if rounding is necessary).

d. Do you accept or reject the null hypothesis?

2. A paired samples t-test produces the following results: t(99) = 2.15, p < .05. The study included 1 blank participants and the decision was to 2 blank the null hypothesis. (Note: Your first answer will be a number and your second will be a word.)

3. The estimated standard error: