The head of Health Services at Goodheart University (GU) would like to investigate the proportion of smokers at GU. In order to do so, the head of Health Services chooses a random sample of 500 Goodheart students, and finds that 80 of them are smokers.

Construct a 90% confidence interval for the proportion of smokers at Goodheart University.

Case End of Chapter 10 page 373 - Small Teams, No Titles: Life at W. L. Gore –

After reading the case please answer each question below--

The classic Gore culture began in the basement of the home of Bill Gore, who left DuPont in 1958 to create his own enlightened version of the workplace. Gore built the company upon four core principles—fairness; the freedom to encourage others to grow in knowledge, skill, and responsibility; the ability to honor one's own commitments; and consultation with others before taking action that could affect the company “below the waterline.” Instead of the typical corporate hierarchy, he created a “flat lattice” organization that had not only no titles, but also no chains of command or predetermined channels of communication.

In Gore's model, associates communicate directly with one another and are accountable to their peers rather than bosses. Ideally, leaders in the company emerge naturally by demonstrating special knowledge, skill, or experience—“followship.”

The $1.84 billion company's flat organizational structure makes it exceptionally nimble. “If someone has an idea for a new product, they don't have to go up a hierarchy to find some boss to approve it,” says John Sawyer, chairman of the department of business administration at the University of Delaware. “Instead, they have to find peers in the organization who support the idea and will work with them. That open style of communication allows ideas to come up from the bottom.”

The company developed shred-resistant Glide dental floss, for example, after an associate wondered whether Gore's industrial fibers could be used for cleaning teeth as well. Engineers at Gore's Flagstaff, Arizona, plant worked for three years on their own to develop plastic-coated guitar string before they offered the product of their inspiration to the company, which successfully marketed it.

In his bestselling book The Tipping Point, author Malcolm Gladwell describes Gore's traditional practice of limiting the size of its plants to roughly 150 workers, because that was the largest group of people who could know one another well enough to converse in the hallway. Today, however, human resources associate Brinton works in a plant with more than 300 fellow associates. More important, associates in multiple countries may have to work together to service a single multinational client. In addition to encouraging the old hallway chats, Gore now has regular plant communications meetings where leaders share with the associates' news about company performance, discuss safety, and introduce new workers.

“It's a challenge to get bigger while staying small,” Brinton says. Associates still work in small teams and frequently meet face to face—though in some cases the teammates may be on several continents and do much of their communicating by phone or e-mail. “It's tough to build relationships by e-mail,” Brinton says. “For us, that's a work in progress right now. We do bring global teams together physically on a fairly regular basis.” Brinton can't calculate the expense of such travel, but says it is substantial.

In recent years, Gore has also begun subjecting its product development process to more discipline, the University of Delaware's Sawyer says. While associates still initiate their own projects and build support for them, an evaluation team measures their progress against metrics or goals that must be reached in order for a project to progress.

Gore's recruiters still spend months and sometimes years filling job vacancies because it isn't easy to find people who not only have the right skills, but also are temperamentally and intellectually suited for the unorthodox environment. “It isn't a company for everyone,” Brinton says. “It takes a special kind of person to be effective here—someone who is really passionate about sharing information, as opposed to controlling it. Someone who can handle a degree of ambiguity, as opposed to ‘Here's my job and I only do these tasks.’ Someone who's willing to lift his or her head up from the desk and see what the business's real needs are.”

These days, Gore associates use the company intranet to seek out opportunities elsewhere in the organization, but personal relationships still remain at the core of the company's development process—the relationship between an associate and his or her sponsor, and the relationships among sponsors. “The sponsor's role is to be broadly knowledgeable about the business, to be able to help the associate find opportunities,” Brinton says.

While other companies have instituted small, self-managed teams and some other aspects of Bill Gore's philosophy, no imitator has taken those concepts as far as the company he founded, says Henry Sims, Jr., a professor of management at the University of Maryland's graduate business school and an expert on self-managing teams. “One of the things that's different about Gore is that they started with this philosophy,” Sims says.

“There's a lot of evidence that these small, empowered teams can be very effective, but they take a great deal of time and attention to develop. And changing to that system requires a period of difficult and frustrating transition,” he says. “Once teams reach a mature stage, as they have at Gore, they can do things a lot better. They can produce products at a lower cost, bring in new processes more rapidly and smoothly, innovate more quickly.”

For full credit you must post your initial response 7 days from the opening of the DB and respond to at least two other students posts.

Discussion Questions

1. Gore's philosophy is focused on interpersonal relationships so much so that accountability is said to be to peers rather than one's supervisor. Are there any possible disadvantages to this approach?

2. What effective team principles or practices is Gore using?

3. What do you think it takes to be successful at Gore? How much do you think you could personally achieve in their environment?

4. How can you apply what you have learned from this chapter in your work or future career?

Cafeteria Workers who have been recently unionized at a private university in the Boston area. Their wages on average are $14.00 per hour and a starting wage it $12.50. Every two years workers receive raise averaging $1.00 based on their performance evaluations. Fringe benefits are limited to 10 days of paid holiday per year if they work more than 1,800 hours in the previous year, free use of the exercise facilities and a 25% discount for social events such as concerts and sports matches held on campus. And no other benefits. They are asking on average a $5.00 raise and 4% raise thereafter for the next three years. The management (university) believes that it is too excessive and the university will have to raise the cost of tuition for the university. Workers also want to be vested in the university's employee health plan if they work at least three years first and on average $1,800 hours per year. And some contribution to a retirement pension. Please advocate the position of the Union.

Your daughter just turned 4 years old. You anticipate she will start University when she turns 18. You would like to have funds in a registered education savings plan (RESP) to fund her education at that time. You anticipate she will spend 6 years in university, and it will cost $20,000 per year. She will need the $20,000 at the start of each school year. When she graduates (debt free) you would also like her to have $40,000 for a down payment on a condo or to travel. If the account promises to pay a fixed interest rate (APR) of 6% per year with monthly compounding, how much money do you have to deposit each quarter to ensure you will have enough when she starts university? Assume you will make the same deposit at the end of each quarter until she starts university.

exercise 4e

Construct an IFE Matrix for Your University

Purpose

this exercise gives you the opportunity to evaluate your online university’s major strengths and weaknesses.

As will become clearer in the next chapter, an organization’s strategies are largely based on striving to

take advantage of strengths and improving on weaknesses.

Instructions

Step 1 Join with two other individuals to form a three-person team. Develop a team IFE Matrix for

your online university. You may use the strengths and weaknesses determined in Exercise 1D on

page 36.

Step 2 What was your team’s total weighted score?

Step 3 Compare your team’s IFE Matrix to other teams’ IFE matrices. Discuss any major

differences.

Step 4 What strategies do you think would allow your university to capitalize on its major strengths?

What strategies would allow your university to improve on its major weaknesses?

4. The Athletic Department at State University has created numerous logos and designs foruse in their merchandising program. For each logo and design, State University Athletics has sought and received federal trademark registration. The athletic department has recently hired you as a new assistant athletic director to oversee the merchandising program and to develop a licensing program for State University Athletics marks and logos. Upon your arrival, the new merchandising and licensing athletic director discovers that dozens of local businesses, charitable organizations, and schools are using the mark and logos throughout the state. First, assuming such use is unauthorized, what must State University show in order to prevail if it decided to pursue trademark infringement actions against these users, and how would such showing be made? Second, assuming your boss would want to file a lawsuit only as a last resort, what steps would you recommend to curb this unauthorized use?

Laura, a recent graduate from a human resources diploma program from a local community college, has just landed her first role as a human resources coordinator at a small bottling company. Upper management has made it clear that they want Laura to make the updating of the current human resources manual her first priority. During her second week on the job, Laura was strolling down the hallway toward the break room to get herself a cup of coffee when she passed the director of marketing’s office. As she passed, she noticed an inappropriate picture of a woman visible on his computer. Shocked at what she had just seen, Laura continued down the hall, not sure what to do next. Upon returning to her office, Laura decided the best way to start revising the manual was to introduce a policy on appropriate computer use. She felt this would address the problem as she didn’t want to start her new job on a negative note by reporting the director of marketing to the CEO without a clear policy in place.

1. Do you agree with how Laura handled this situation? If so, why? If not, what would you have done differently?

2. Is it important for this company to have such a policy in place? If so, how can the employment (labour) standards act in your province/territory help in drafting a policy on appropriate computer use?

Singapore Clouds Ltd.’s (Microphone manufacturing and selling company), CFO, Mr. Michael has been asked by CEO, Mr. Ken, to assist with an investment appraisal.  They have recently completed a three-year feasibility study on whether, or not, to expand their market offerings and offer specially designed high-quality microphone for customers and invest in capital infrastructure for the production line.  The market research indicates no other competitors have ever sold this specially designed product before. It might open a completely new market for Clouds Ltd. In addition, it was revealed that this specially designed high-quality microphone could be sold via (e-trade) on-line trading system.

Clouds Ltd. is considering a proposal to acquire new machineries (which has an expected useful life of 6 years). If the company decides to purchase the new machineries, it will receive $ 74,000 for the existing machines in year 1. The existing machineries had been fully depreciated and the net book value of the assets is zero. The new equipment will be placed in service on 1 January 2021. The details regarding the proposal are as follows:

• Expected cost of the new machineries: $ 2,965,000.
• Expected installation costs of the new equipment: $ 35,000.
• Expected increase in working capital at the beginning of operations $ 72,000 and expected working capital at the end of the project $ 58,000.
• Expected investment allowance (tax free due to Covid-19 crisis) received from the government to support manufactures (at the end of year 1) is 10% of the total amount of capital invested (excluding working capital investment).
• Expected salvage value at the end of year 6 is nil.
• Expected repairs to maintain production efficiency (end of year 3): $ 127,000.
• Working capital will be released at the end of year 6.
• Expected increase in annual cash revenue: $760,000.
• Expected increase in annual cash operating expenses: $ 74,000.
• It is assumed that all cash flows occur at the end of each year.
• The taxation depreciation on the equipment would be 20% straight line.
• The company is subject to a 30% tax rate and has an after-tax required rate of return of 12%.

Required:

1. What type of investment is Clouds Ltd making?  Provide details as to why you came to this conclusion and other considerations in making the investment decision.
   
2. Calculate the Net Present Value (NPV) of the proposed investment after tax.
   
3. Advise Clouds Ltd management whether they should proceed with the project.

From 2010-2020 discuss the market performance in that 10 year period. What were some of the major drivers of performance during that decade?