You have recently graduated from college, and your job search led you to East Coat Yachts. Since you left the company’s business was seaworthy, you accepted a job offer. The first day on the job, while you are finishing your employment paperwork, Dan Ervin, who works in Finance, stops by to inform you about the company’s 401(k) plan.

A 401(k) plan is a retirement plan offered by many companies. Such plans are tax-deferred savings vehicles, meaning that any deposits you make into the plan are deducted from your current pretax income, so no current taxes are paid on the money. For example, assume your salary will be $50,000 per year. If you contribute $3,000 to the 401(k) plan, you will only pay taxes on $47,000 in income. There are also no taxes paid on any capital gains or income while you are invested in the plan, but you do pay taxes when you withdraw money at retirement. As is fairly common, the company also has a 5% match. This means that the company will match your contribution up to 5% of your salary, but you must contribute to get the match.

The 401 (k) plan has several options for investments, most of which are mutual funds. A mutual fund is a portfolio of assets. When you purchase shares in a mutual fund, you are actually purchasing partial ownership of the fund’s assets. The return of the fund is the weighted average of the return of the assets owned by the fund, minus any expense. The largest expense is typically the management fee, paid the fund manager. The management fee is compensation for the manager, who makes all of the investment decisions for the fund.

East Coast Yachts uses Bledose Financial Services as its 401(k) plan administrator. The investment options offered for employees are discussed below.

Company Stock: One option in 401(k) plan is stock in East Coast Yachts. The company is currently privately held. However, when you have interviewed with the owner, Ms. Larissa Warren, she informed you the company stock was expected to go public in the next three to four years. Until then, a company stock price is simple set each year by the board of directors.

Bledose S&P 500 Index Fund: This mutual fund tracks the S&P 500. Stocks in the fund are weighted exactly the same was the S&P 500. This means the fund return is approximately the return on the S&P 500, minus expenses. Since an index fund purchases assets based on the composition of the index it is following, the fund manager is not required to research stocks and make investment decisions. The result is that the fund expenses are usually low. The Bledose S&P 500 Index Fund charges expenses of 0.15% of assets per year.

Bledose Small Cap Fund: This fund primarily invests in small capitalization stocks. As such, the returns of the fund are more volatile. The fund can also invest 10% of its assets in companies based outside the United States. This fund charges 1.70% in expenses.

Bledose Large Company Stock Fund: This fund invests primarily in large capitalization stocks of companies based in the United States. The fund is managed by Evan Bledose and has outperformed the market in six of the last eight years. The fund charges 1.50% in expenses.

Bledose Bond Fund: This fund invests in long-term corporate bonds issued by U.S. domiciled companies. The fund is restricted to investments in bond with an investment grade credit rating. This fund charges 1.40% in expenses.

Bledose Money Market Fund: This fund invests in short-term, high credit quality debt instruments, which include Treasury bills. As such, the return on the money market fund is only slightly higher than the return on Treasury bills. Because of the credit quality and short-term nature of the investments, there is only a very slight risk of negative return. The fund charges 0.60% in expenses.

Each question is worth 05 points. A total of 25 points.

1. What advantages do the mutual funds offer compared to the company stock? Explain.

2. Assume you decide you should invest at least part of your money in large capitalization stocks of companies based in the United States. What are the advantages and disadvantages of choosing the Bledose Large Company Stock Fund compared to the Bledose S&P 500 Index Fund? Explain.

3. The returns on the Bledose Small Cap Fund are the most volatile of all the mutual funds offered in the 401(k) plan. Why would you ever want to invest in this fund? When you examine the expenses of the mutual funds, you will notice that this fund also has the highest expenses. Does this affect your decision to invest in this fund? Explain.

4. A measure of risk-adjusted performance that is often used is the Sharpe Ratio. The Sharpe Ratio is calculated as the risk premium of an asset divided by its standard deviation. The standard deviation and return of the funds over the past 10 years are listed below. Calculate the Sharpe ratio for each of these funds. You may assume risk free rate as 3%.

5. What portfolio allocation would you choose? Why? Explain your thinking carefully.

After reading the article, answer the below questions:

Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault, is not standing still. He talks fast. He may be thinking even faster. On his appearance at the student-run "View From The Top" leadership speakers series November 16, his rapid-fire thoughts on cars, global alliances, and looking for mistakes upheld his style as a man who is looking ahead and not wasting tim Ghosn's intensity and his track record — pulling Nissan back from the edge of bankruptcy — certainly put him in the running for the business salvation stratosphere already occupied by Lee Iacocca. A longer view of automotive history will make that call. For now, even with Nissan-Renault's recent somewhat off the mark sales performance making analysts raise their eyebrows, Ghosn is confident, pressing ahead, and thinking big. And not necessarily about selling cars in the United States. Vehicle sales in the United States, Europe, and Japan are either stable or declining, said Ghosn, who is looking to new markets such as India, Russia, China, Brazil, and Africa — where sales are expanding an average 20 percent annually. For perspective, Nissan's U.S. sales so far in 2007 have risen just 5.5 percent. People in these rapidly developing markets want all kinds of cars, he said, but the biggest demand is for the most economically accessible model — a $3,000 car. Nissan-Renault is partnering with two major automotive manufacturers (Ashok Leyland and Bajaj Auto Ltd.) to make light trucks and an affordable entry-level car. Ashok Leyland will build light trucks, and Bajaj Auto will focus on that $3,000 car, planned for a late 2011 rollout. It's another cross-cultural, global alliance that Ghosn thinks is absolutely necessary now for any company. He's a perfect example of how it can work. He's a polyglot born in Brazil to Lebanese parents, educated in Beirut and Paris, and the first non Japanese to head a major Japanese corporation. And recently it looked as though he might add an American company to his jobs, although talks ultimately failed for a possible top management position at General Motors. Ghosn was asked about that and answered with an analogy that would have done him well in a stand-up comedy competition. "Suppose you want to marry somebody and the father is very favorable, but not the bride." Relationships based on that set of circumstances, he said, "you'd better not pursue because that relationship will never be happy if there is no mutual appetite." When Ghosn arrived at Nissan in 1999, a mostly welcomed chief, he began to look at relationships and culture within the company and made changes — not all of them to be found in a typical management handbook. The thing to do, he said, is to find mistakes when they're small. "Small is solvable." The worst thing a manager can do is to hide a problem and let an organization "deviate from the course too much before you make the correction." Failure is important to good management, he said. If you create an environment where people are looking for mistakes, looking for dysfunction, that's very powerful." The best management lessons, he said, "are coming from real life. If you don't know what to do, look around you." Ghosn's path continues hurtling toward the future of cars. Renault announced this week that it's talking to Shai Agassi, whose bold promise to put an electric car in every driveway has already produced big investors. At Stanford, Ghosn talked about what's on the road now — vehicles that consume too much energy and too much fuel and soon will be obsolete. In his vision, the barrier is cost. He estimated that less than one vehicle out of a thousand today is a hybrid or an electric. And while buyers want their "green" vehicles affordable, he said, economies of technology investment must be achieved. "The more car manufacturers join forces, the more you can afford the expense required," he noted. He's listening more and more to consumers, no matter what. "We used to do cars we liked. It's good that you love the car, but an engineer in the United States will imagine a very different car than the one that will be driven in Mumbai." Ask who is the target customer and design a car for that person, he said. Example: In Mexico, Nissan will continue to manufacture a particular model of car that's ancient by current standards but has become a cherished icon in the Mexican taxi trade. And he talked about working with companies such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft to add something else to the technology packages available to drivers. He figured many spend at least two hours a day commuting "where there's nothing you can do but listen to music or talk on the phone." If carmakers try to create those new products on their own, "we're not going to get very far on our own." For all consumers' talk about fuel efficiency, however, he made sure he told this story of what happened recently at a Tokyo auto industry show. On display were a tiny, low-carbon footprint concept car and the 480 horsepower — non-energy-saving — Nissan GTR. Which one drew the biggest crowds? With perfect timing, he paused, then said: "The GTR."

A Brief background Case summary

Explain the Major Issues/Problems that need to be addressed in case (Questions that are often brought up within the case itself)

After reading the article, answer the below questions: Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault, is not standing still. He talks fast. He may be thinking even faster. On his appearance at the student-run "View From The Top" leadership speakers series November 16, his rapid-fire thoughts on cars, global alliances, and looking for mistakes upheld his style as a man who is looking ahead and not wasting tim Ghosn's intensity and his track record — pulling Nissan back from the edge of bankruptcy — certainly put him in the running for the business salvation stratosphere already occupied by Lee Iacocca. A longer view of automotive history will make that call. For now, even with Nissan-Renault's recent somewhat off the mark sales performance making analysts raise their eyebrows, Ghosn is confident, pressing ahead, and thinking big. And not necessarily about selling cars in the United States. Vehicle sales in the United States, Europe, and Japan are either stable or declining, said Ghosn, who is looking to new markets such as India, Russia, China, Brazil, and Africa — where sales are expanding an average 20 percent annually. For perspective, Nissan's U.S. sales so far in 2007 have risen just 5.5 percent. People in these rapidly developing markets want all kinds of cars, he said, but the biggest demand is for the most economically accessible model — a $3,000 car. Nissan-Renault is partnering with two major automotive manufacturers (Ashok Leyland and Bajaj Auto Ltd.) to make light trucks and an affordable entry-level car. Ashok Leyland will build light trucks, and Bajaj Auto will focus on that $3,000 car, planned for a late 2011 rollout. It's another cross-cultural, global alliance that Ghosn thinks is absolutely necessary now for any company. He's a perfect example of how it can work. He's a polyglot born in Brazil to Lebanese parents, educated in Beirut and Paris, and the first non Japanese to head a major Japanese corporation. And recently it looked as though he might add an American company to his jobs, although talks ultimately failed for a possible top management position at General Motors. Ghosn was asked about that and answered with an analogy that would have done him well in a stand-up comedy competition. "Suppose you want to marry somebody and the father is very favorable, but not the bride." Relationships based on that set of circumstances, he said, "you'd better not pursue because that relationship will never be happy if there is no mutual appetite." When Ghosn arrived at Nissan in 1999, a mostly welcomed chief, he began to look at relationships and culture within the company and made changes — not all of them to be found in a typical management handbook. The thing to do, he said, is to find mistakes when they're small. "Small is solvable." The worst thing a manager can do is to hide a problem and let an organization "deviate from the course too much before you make the correction." Failure is important to good management, he said. If you create an environment where people are looking for mistakes, looking for dysfunction, that's very powerful." The best management lessons, he said, "are coming from real life. If you don't know what to do, look around you." Ghosn's path continues hurtling toward the future of cars. Renault announced this week that it's talking to Shai Agassi, whose bold promise to put an electric car in every driveway has already produced big investors. At Stanford, Ghosn talked about what's on the road now — vehicles that consume too much energy and too much fuel and soon will be obsolete. In his vision, the barrier is cost. He estimated that less than one vehicle out of a thousand today is a hybrid or an electric. And while buyers want their "green" vehicles affordable, he said, economies of technology investment must be achieved. "The more car manufacturers join forces, the more you can afford the expense required," he noted. He's listening more and more to consumers, no matter what. "We used to do cars we liked. It's good that you love the car, but an engineer in the United States will imagine a very different car than the one that will be driven in Mumbai." Ask who is the target customer and design a car for that person, he said. Example: In Mexico, Nissan will continue to manufacture a particular model of car that's ancient by current standards but has become a cherished icon in the Mexican taxi trade. And he talked about working with companies such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft to add something else to the technology packages available to drivers. He figured many spend at least two hours a day commuting "where there's nothing you can do but listen to music or talk on the phone." If carmakers try to create those new products on their own, "we're not going to get very far on our own." For all consumers' talk about fuel efficiency, however, he made sure he told this story of what happened recently at a Tokyo auto industry show. On display were a tiny, low-carbon footprint concept car and the 480 horsepower — non-energy-saving — Nissan GTR. Which one drew the biggest crowds? With perfect timing, he paused, then said: "The GTR."

Two or Three main points that you found most useful to know and understand?

What did you learn from this case/chapter that could help you to lead Organizational Change?

Sunflower Incorporated Case study

S unflower Incorporated is a large distribution company with over 5,000 employees and gross sales of over $700 million (1991). The company purchases and distributes salty snack foods and liquor to independent retail stores throughout the United States and Canada. Salty snack foods include corn chips, potato chips, cheese curls, tortilla chips, and peanuts. The United States and Canada are divided into 22 regions, each with its own cen-tral warehouse, salespeople, finance depart-ment, and purchasing department. The company distributes national as well as local brands and packages some items under private labels. The head office encourages each region to be autonomous because of local tastes and prac-tices. The northeast United States, for example, consumes a greater percentage of Canadian whisky and American bourbon, while the West consumes more light liquors, such as vodka, gin, and rum. Snack foods in the Southwest are often seasoned to reflect Mexican tastes. Early in 1989, Sunflower began using a financial reporting system that compared sales, costs, and profits across regions. Management was surprised to learn that prof-its varied widely. By 1990, the differences were so great that management decided some standardization was necessary. They believed that highly profitable regions were sometimes using lower-quality items, even seconds, to boost profit margins. This practice could hurt Sunflower’s image. Other regions were facing intense price competition in order to hold mar-ket share. National distributors were pushing hard to increase their market share. Frito-Lay, Bordens, Nabisco, Procter & Gamble (Pringles), and Standard Brands (Planter’s peanuts) were pushing hard to increase market share by cut-ting prices and launching new products. As these problems accumulated, Mr. Steelman, president of Sunflower, decided to create a new position to monitor pricing and purchasing practices. Agnes Albanese was *Adapted from R. Daft, Organization Theory and Design decision (St. Paul: West, 1983), pp. 334–36. hired from the finance department of a com-peting organization. Her new title was director of pricing and purchasing, and she reported to the vice president of finance, Mr. Mobley. Steelman and Mobley gave Albanese great lati-tude in organizing her job and encouraged her to establish whatever rules and procedures were necessary. She was also encouraged to gather information from each region. Each region was notified of her appointment by an official memo sent to the regional managers. A copy of the memo was posted on each warehouse bulletin board. The announcement was also made in the company newspaper. After three weeks on the job, Albanese decided that pricing and purchasing decisions should be standardized across regions. As a first step, she wanted the financial executive in each region to notify her of any change in local prices of more than 3 percent. She also decided that all new contracts for local purchases of more than $5,000 should be cleared through her office. (Approximately 60 percent of items distributed in the regions was purchased in large quantities and supplied from the home office. The other 40 percent was purchased and distributed within the region.) Albanese believed that the only way to standardize operations was for each region to notify the home office in advance of any change in prices or purchases. Albanese discussed the proposed policy with Mobley. He agreed, so they submitted a formal proposal to the presi-dent and board of directors, who approved the plan. Sunflower was moving into the peak holi-day season, so Albanese wanted to implement the new procedures right away. She decided to send an e-mail to the financial and purchasing executives in each region notifying them of the new procedures. The change would be inserted in all policy and procedure manuals throughout Sunflower within four months. Albanese showed a draft of the e-mail to Mobley and invited his comments. Mobley said the Internet was an excellent idea but wondered if it was sufficient. The regions handle hundreds of items and were used to decentralized deci-sion making. Mobley suggested that Albanes ought to visit the regions and discuss purchasing and pricing policies with the executives. Albanese refused, saying that the trips would be expensive and time-consuming. She had so many things to do at headquarters that a trip was impossible. Mobley also suggested waiting to implement the procedures until after the annual company meeting in three months. Albanese said this would take too long because the procedures would not take effect until after the peak sales season. She believed the procedures were needed now. The e-mail went out the next day. During the next few days, replies came in from most of the regions. The executives were in agree-ment with the e-mail and said they would be happy to cooperate.
215
Eight weeks later, Albanese had not received notices from any regions about local price or pur-chase changes. Other executives who had visited regional warehouses indicated to her that the regions were busy as usual. Regional executives seemed to be following usual procedures for that time of year.

Questions

1) CORPORATE & BUSINESS STRATEGY                                                                                       

Identify known or perceived strategies (corporate-level, business-level, competitive, functional).

2)  

SWOT                             

Conduct a SWOT analysis. Identify internal strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities.                                                                                         

                              Strengths                                    Weaknesses                                                  

                              Opportunities                              Threats        

3.)

STRUCTURE & CONTROL SYSTEMS                                                                                 

Analyze structure and control systems and determine the degree of fit between the company's strategy (strategies) and structure.

Imaginary story
You have just been appointed as the Finance Director for South East Asia of a large multinational bank (the Bank of Northeastern States), based in the United States and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. You have been posted to a recent acquisition of a Stock Market listed manufacturing plant, Peninsula Transport located in a small township some 40 kilometres outside the capital city of Indonesia. Your instructions are to asset strip the acquired company then close it down within one year.
Two weeks into your appointment and having just arrived in Jakarta you are given a company provided apartment and have spent several days unpacking and settling in with your family. Today is your first day at work and Mr Mohamed, the incumbent CEO a man who has inherited the company from his father informs you that he knows exactly why you are in Indonesia and begs you not to close his company. As the day progresses, you begin to realise that before the $ 100 million acquisition, the factory had been a wholly owned family business that had served the community for more than four decades and employed just under half the town’s available workforce of three thousand people. Indeed, there were many families, some with three generations in current employment with the company. In addition, you also realise that many small and medium local enterprises support the factory and that to close it will devastate the entire community. The CEO claims that he and his family are victims of a conspiracy to close the factory and sell the land to build real estate on it. He shows you a newspaper report from several years ago that clearly depicts the land surrounding the town being earmarked for development under the government’s plans for the future of the area. This involves building several thousand residential units and expanding the township into a commuter suburb serving the capital city.
Mr Mohamed informs you that he has rejected several offers from the government and has successfully fought them in the courts and obtained ‘heritage status’protection to overturn a local government order for compulsory purchase of the land from his family who have owned it for several generations.
The local CEO also informs you that he has evidence of bribes and gifts being made by the Bank of Northeastern States to local politicians, as well as substantial donations to National People’s Party, a political party who are the incumbent government. It is very clear that there is a trail of corruption leading all the way back to your employers in Boston. That night you call your CEO at Northeastern Bank to inform him and are shocked when he responds with threats against you and your family that if you don’t do as instructed you will be arrested and thrown in jail by local police. The next morning before you leave for work, you are paid a clandestine visit by a senior police officer and he also informs you in a veiled threat that your situation in Indonesia leaves you and your family very vulnerable. At this point, you realise that you have been lied to by the Board of Northeastern States Bank and that they are partners in a web of corruption worth tens of millions of US Dollars involving local Indonesian politicians and local police.
You find yourself in a dilemma. If you follow through with your instructions you understand that you will be responsible for the social consequences of closing the factory and will be just as guilty as those who are involved in the conspiracy. If you don’t you will be fired and face an uncertain future in which you and your family, having already been threatened, leaves you in no doubt of the consequences of being arrested and detained in a foreign country where you have no rights.

Two questions to discuss:
1) What should you do?
2) Why would you do that?

Show that the deuteron has no bound excited states by estimating the excited state energy and comparing it to the potential well. Consider two cases for the excited state:

a) higher order radial eigenfunctions,
b) non-zero angular momentum.
c) If the nuclear force had a longer range R >R0 we could possibly have excited states. What would be the minimum and maximum values of R∗ so that there could be an excited state with l = 1 but no excited state with higher orders of the radial eigenfunction?

Kiplingers listed the top 100 schools based on many factors. from that list here is the average debt at graduation for various schools in the four selected states. at a=0.05 can it be concluded that the average debt differs for these four states. find H0 H1 CV and Test Statistic

new york

14,734 16,000 14,347, 14,392 12,500

virgina

14,524 15,176 12,665 12,591 18,385

california

13,171 14,431 14,689 13,788 15,297

penn

18,105 17,051 16,103 22,400 1,7976

The following payoff table shows profit for a decision analysis problem with two decision alternatives and three states of nature.

Suppose that the decision maker obtained the probabilities

P(s₁) = 0.65, P(s₂) = 0.15,

and

P(s₃) = 0.20.

Use the expected value approach to determine the optimal decision.

EV(d₁) = EV(d₂) = The optimal decision is  ? d₁ d₂

Financial analysts have estimated the returns on shares of Drucker Corporation and the overall market portfolio under various economic conditions as follows. The return for Drucker in the following three economic states of nature are forecasted to be: -15% in recession, +9% in moderate growth, and +30% in a boom. Estimates for the market as a whole in the same economic states are -8% in recession, +10% in moderate growth, and +23% in boom. The analyst considers each state to be equally likely. Using these data, compute the beta of Drucker Corporation's stock.