You are a manager at PopUp Company, who manufactures toaster ovens. Your company produces two types of toaster ovens: basic and deluxe.  PopUp Company currently uses a traditional unit-based costing system, however, you feel strongly the company should switch to an activity-based costing system. You believe this change would provide you more accurate costing information, which would allow for better strategic decision making.

Required:

1.Compare the traditional and activity-based cost management systems. Give advantages and disadvantages of each and discuss how these concepts will relate to PopUp Company.

2.

Case Study

Mary Tappin, an assistant Vice President at Galaxy Toys, was disturbed to find on her desk a memo from her boss, Gary Resnick, to the controller of the company. The memo appears below:

GALAXY TOYS INTERNAL MEMO

Sept 15

To: Harry Wilson, Controller

Fm: Gary Resnick, Executive Vice President

As you know, we won't start recording many sales until October when stores start accepting shipments from us for the Christmas season. Meanwhile, we are producing flat-out and are building up our finished goods inventories so that we will be ready to ship next month.

Unfortunately, we are in a bind right now since it looks like the net income for the quarter ending on Sept 30 is going to be pretty awful. This may get us in trouble with the bank since they always review the quarterly financial reports and may call in our loan if they don't like what they see. Is there any possibility that we could change the classification of some of our period costs to product costs, such as the rent on the finished goods warehouse?

Please let me know as soon as possible. The President is pushing for results.

Mary didn't know what to do about the memo. It wasn't intended for her, but its contents were alarming.

Required:

Q1:a. Why has Gary Resnick suggested reclassifying some period costs as product costs? (i.e., what is the reason behind such a suggestion and why do you think reclassifying period costs to product costs will improve the net operating income?)

Q2:b. Why do you think Mary was alarmed about the memo? (You might think of it from ethical and other perspectives).

Case Study

Mary Tappin, an assistant Vice President at Galaxy Toys, was disturbed to find on her desk a memo from her boss, Gary Resnick, to the controller of the company. The memo appears below:

GALAXY TOYS INTERNAL MEMO

Sept 15

To: Harry Wilson, Controller

Fm: Gary Resnick, Executive Vice President

As you know, we won't start recording many sales until October when stores start accepting shipments from us for the Christmas season. Meanwhile, we are producing flat-out and are building up our finished goods inventories so that we will be ready to ship next month.

Unfortunately, we are in a bind right now since it looks like the net income for the quarter ending on Sept 30 is going to be pretty awful. This may get us in trouble with the bank since they always review the quarterly financial reports and may call in our loan if they don't like what they see. Is there any possibility that we could change the classification of some of our period costs to product costs, such as the rent on the finished goods warehouse?

Please let me know as soon as possible. The President is pushing for results.

Mary didn't know what to do about the memo. It wasn't intended for her, but its contents were alarming.

Required:

Q1:a. Why has Gary Resnick suggested reclassifying some period costs as product costs? (i.e., what is the reason behind such a suggestion and why do you think reclassifying period costs to product costs will improve the net operating income?)

Q2:b. Why do you think Mary was alarmed about the memo? (You might think of it from ethical and other perspectives).

1. Archway Adventures has compiled data for 2017 on customer orders by region and product group as follows:

Let us assume that these are representative of the pattern of orders that they anticipate seeing in 2018.

1. Are the events “Toy” and “Rest of the World” independent? Explain.
2. The rows of the table are mutually exclusive categories. How would our summary be complicated if some orders were for multiple products?

2. 54.5% of Archway’s orders come from North America, 31.5% from Europe and the remaining 14% from the rest of the world. Among North American customers, 3% complained about late or lost deliveries. Similarly, complaints were received from 8% of European customers and 15% of customers from the rest of the world.

1. Construct a probability tree that shows all combinations of where orders originated and whether customers complained. Label all branches in terms of what the event is on the branch and the corresponding probability (e.g., P(A), PA’), P(B|A), P(B’|A),…). Also determine the probability for each ending joint event (e.g., P(Europe and Complain)).
2. Summarize all of the joint probabilities in a probability table.
3. What percentage of Archway customers complained about delivery problems?
4. Among those who complained, what percentage were from Europe?

The Bombay phenotype occurs when an individual human is homozygous for a recessive allele at the FUT1 locus. Individuals with this genotype do not make a precursor substance required to synthesize the A and B antigens that sometimes appear on human red blood cells. Regardless of their genotype at the ABO blood type locus, individuals who are homozygous for the Bombay phenotype allele at the FUT1 locus will appear to have blood type O on standard blood type tests.

Note: There are two possible alleles at the FUT1 locus: the normal allele, symbolized as H, and the Bombay phenotype allele, symbolized as h. There are three possible alleles at the ABO blood type locus, symbolized as A, B, and O. Alleles A and B are dominant to allele O. Alleles A and B have a codominant relationship with each other.

A man who is a heterozygous carrier of the Bombay phenotype allele and has blood type AB has children with a woman who is also a heterozygous carrier of the Bombay phenotype allele and has blood type O. Write out the full genotypes (including both loci) for each of these individuals. Specify which genotype belongs to the man and which genotype belongs to the woman.

What would be the probability of the two individuals producing offspring with each of the blood types below:

A, B, AB, O

Problem 3-35 (LO. 3, 4)

Determine whether the individuals will qualify as the taxpayer's dependent in each of the following independent scenarios. Specify whether the dependency exemption would come under the qualifying child category, the qualifying relative category, or "not applicable" (if the individual does not qualify as a dependent).

a. Andy maintains a household that includes a cousin (age 12), a niece (age 18), and a son (age 26). All are full-time students. Andy furnishes all of their support.

b. Jackie provides all of the support of a family friend's son (age 20), who lives with her. She also furnishes most of the support of her stepmother, who does not live with her.

c. Raul, a U.S. citizen, lives in Costa Rica. Raul's household includes his friend Helena, who is age 19 and a citizen of Costa Rica. Raul provides all of Helena's support.

d. Karen maintains a household that includes her ex-husband, her mother-in-law, and her brother-in-law (age 23 and not a full-time student). Karen provides more than half of all their support. Karen is single and was divorced last year.

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Agency is a contractual relationship, involving an agent and a principal, in which the agent is given the authority to represent the principal in dealings with third parties. The most common example is an employer-employee relationship wherein an agent (employee) is given the power by a principal (employer) to act on his or her behalf. An agent may be an employee or an independent contractor. A principal is a person who employs an agent to act on his or her behalf.

A principal (employer) has full control over his or her employee. The employee must complete the work assigned by following the instructions of the employer. An independent contractor is an individual hired by an employer to perform a specific task. The employer has no control over the methods used by the independent contractor. The following are among those who act independently of an employer: electricians, carpenters, plumbers, television repairpersons, and automobile mechanics. brokers, and investment advisors. Independent contractors may also employ others in their Independent contractors also include professional agents such as lawyers, physicians, accountants, securities brokers, insurance brokers, real estate field who will be bound to them as employees.

• The relationship between employers and employees or independent contractors is a fiduciary one. Why?
• What are the Duties of Employees?
• What are the Duties of Independent Contractors?
• How does a court determine if you are an employee or an independent contractor?
• As an employer which would you hire?

Question 1: Netflix would like to carry out market research to understand the online interactions among fans of its original programming such as ‘Orange is the New Black’ and ‘House of Cards’. Netflix hopes to use these customer insights to understand what aspects of these programmes make them so popular. What research approach would best help Netflix gather this type of information from viewers? Explain your choice. (10 marks – approximately 500 words / 1 page).

The information about Netflix is above

Netflix Case: Netflix Uses Technology to Change How We Watch Videos

When Netflix was founded in 1997 in the United States, the movie rental giant Blockbuster had thousands of stores from coast to coast, filled with video cassettes ready for immediate rental to customers (Pride et al., 2018). Netflix had a different vision from this well-established, well-financed competitor. Looking at the recent development of DVD technology, Netflix saw an opportunity to change the way consumers rent movies. The entrepreneurial company built its marketing strategy around the convenience and low cost of renting DVDs by mail, for one low monthly subscription fee.

Instead of going to a local store to pick out a movie, subscribers logged onto the Netflix website to browse the DVD offerings and click to rent. Within a day or two, the DVD would arrive in the customer’s mailbox, complete with a self-mailer to return the DVD. And, unlike any other movie rental service, Netflix customers were invited to rate each movie on the Netflix website, after which they’d see recommendations tailored to their individual interests (Pride et al., 2018).

Fast-forward to the 21^st century. Video cassettes are all but obsolete, and Blockbuster, once the dominant brand in movie rentals, has only one remaining shop in the US as consumer demand has shifted to digital distribution for entertainment (Porter, 2019). In Australia, both Blockbuster and Video Ezy still had a brand presence in 2018 (Pride et al., 2018). Since then, Blockbuster’s last Australian shop closed in March 2019 (Porter, 2019), and Video Ezy exists in the form of vending machines (kiosks) after its shops closed (Rosenberg, 2018).

Both brands have been prompted to reassess their distribution channels. You may notice more DVD rental kiosks such as “Video Ezy Express” popping up in convenient locations, including outside supermarkets and shopping complexes, in a bid to improve brand reach and accessibility. DVD rental kiosks, like online services, are accessible around the clock and reduce many store costs, including wages.

In contrast, by completely eliminating the need for brick-and-mortar stores or kiosks, Netflix has minimised its costs and extended its reach to any place that has postal service and Internet access (Pride et al., 2018). The company still rents DVDs by mail (Monahan & Griggs, 2019), but it has also taken advantage of changes in technology to add video streaming on demand.

Now, customers can stream movies and television programmes to computers, television sets, videogame consoles, DVD players, Smartphones, and other web-enabled devices. One advantage to the company is that streaming a movie costs Netflix less per customer than paying the postage to deliver and return a DVD to that customer.

Netflix’s Use of Technology: From Data-Tracking to Streaming

Netflix made technology a core competency from the very beginning. Because the business has always been web-based, it can electronically monitor its customers’ online activity and analyse everything that customers view or click on.

With this data, Netflix can fine-tune the website, determine which movies are most popular among which market segments, prepare for peak periods of online activity, and refine the recommendations it makes based on each individual’s viewing history and interests. The company also uses its technical know-how to be sure that the website looks good on any size screen, from a tiny Smartphone to a large-screen television.

A few years ago, planning for a significant rise in demand for streaming entertainment, Netflix decided against investing in expanded systems for this purpose. Instead, it arranged for Amazon Web Services to provide the networking power for streaming (Pride et al., 2018).

By 2018, on a typical night in the US, Netflix streaming occupied up to 20,000 servers in Amazon data centres (Pride et al., 2018). Demand was so strong by that time, in fact, that Netflix streaming accounted for about one-third of all internet traffic to North American homes during the evening (Pride et al., 2018). This percentage is only expected to increase. The Australian market, however, may pose technological hurdles, as the National Broadband Network is still being rolled out and is not available in all areas, meaning that accessibility may not be as straightforward as it is in America (Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, n.d.).

Although Blockbuster and Video Ezy are no longer a competitive threat in their traditional form, Netflix does face competition from Amazon’s own video streaming service, Amazon Prime Video, which headed to Australia and New Zealand’s shores in 2017 (Pride et al., 2018).

Other direct competitors include well-established Hulu, YouTube, Nine Entertainment, and

Fairfax media’s joint-venture Stan, and Foxtel’s movie-streaming service Presto. It also competes with other entertainment providers, including cable, satellite, and broadcast television. Foxtel, for example, has dramatically reduced its basic cable packages in an effort to retain its share of the market in face of increasing competition from on-demand services (Pride et al., 2018).

Netflix Offers Exclusive Programming to Customers

To differentiate itself from its competitors, Netflix commissioned exclusive programming such as House of Cards, Arrested Development, and Orange is the New Black. The cost to produce such programs runs to hundreds of millions of dollars (Pride et al., 2018). Between May–December 2019, Netflix added 179 original programmes to its American streaming service, or an average of 30 new shows a month, or about one show per day (Fruhlinger, 2019). Netflix plans to continue pouring money into exclusive content because of the payoff in positioning, positive publicity, and customer retention.

The way that Netflix releases its exclusive programming reflects its in-depth knowledge of customer behaviour. The company found through its data analysis that customers often indulge in ‘binge watching’ for a series they like, viewing episodes one after another in a short time.

Based on this research, in 2013 Netflix launched all 13 episodes of the inaugural season of House of Cards at one time, an industry first (Pride et al., 2018). Executives gathered at headquarters to monitor the introduction, cheering as thousands of customers streamed episode after episode. By the end of the first weekend, many customers had watched the entire series and shared their excitement via social media, encouraging others to subscribe and watch. When Netflix won multiple Emmy Awards for House of Cards, it was another first—the first time any Internet company had been honoured for the quality of its original programming.

One key measure of Netflix’s growth is the strong increase in the number of monthly subscribers. In 2015, Netflix had about 70 million subscribers worldwide, of which 26 million were located outside the US (Pride et al., 2018). In 2019, Netflix had 151 million paid subscribers worldwide (158 million if free trials are included) (Kafka, 2019).

Despite the brand only launching in Australia in March 2015, it already has close to 2 million subscribers in 2018 (Pride, 2018). By July 2019, Netflix had more than 11.6 million subscribers in Australia, up 18% from the year prior (Gruenwedel, 2019) Its closest direct competitor, Stan, had 2.6 million subscribes in early 2019 (Knox, 2019).

Netflix will not say how many subscribers that it has in New Zealand, but a recent survey of 1,000 people, commissioned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification and carried out by UMR Research, found that 72% of respondents subscribed to Netflix. Of the same respondent sample, 77% said they watched television shows and movies using a paid online service (Kenny, 2019).

Keys to Netflix’s successful launch include offering free-trials and access to stripped-back free versions, as well as continued investment in original programming. It appears that streaming is the new broadcasting, and that ‘on-demand’ spells the demise of scheduled entertainment.

Can you please type out the answer

A random sample of n = 12 individuals is selected from a population with µ = 70, and a treatment is administered to each individual in the sample. After treatment, the sample mean is found to be M = 74.5 with SS = 297. Is there evidence to indicate that your sample is significantly different from the population using α=.05? calculate the effect size for your results.