Summarize the history (creation) of the Central Bank of the US and trace its impact on the US economy.

Discuss the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution then discuss the erosion of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

Show graphically how an increase in US government spending affects the US trade deficit.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure: Can This Relationship Be Saved?

Written by Mary Anne Doty, Texas A&M University– Commerce

On January 31, 2012, news reports circulated that Susan G. Komen for the Cure had decided to stop funding clinical breast exams through a grant to Planned Parenthood. Initially, Komen cited the congressional investigation of Rep. Cliff Stearns, a conservative legislator who has pushed for abortion restrictions, as the reason for the change in policy barring grants to groups under government investigation. This decision had been made quietly in late November, 2011, with notification to Planned Parenthood in mid- December. As the story broke, Komen found itself in the middle of a controversy. Overnight the organization faced severe criticism (and some praise) as the story mushroomed through television and newspapers, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.1

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has become the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world, investing more than $1.9 billion since 1982. In April 2012 their website listed 124 corporate sponsors from varying organizations, including product brands (American Airlines, Ford Motor Company, Mohawk Flooring, and Yoplait Yogurt), retailers (Belk, Lowe’s, Old Navy, Walgreens), and sports organizations (Dallas Cowboys, Major League Baseball, Ladies PGA).2 In thirty years the brand had reached iconic proportions, beloved by people on all parts of the political spectrum. Charity Navigator, a website that rates nonprofit organizations on the percentage of funds used for the organization’s mission and on transparency, gave Komen a rating of 4/4 stars, with a score of 62/70.3 Supporters have a very personal link with the organization because volunteers have given (or walked) in honor of loved ones affected by breast cancer.

As word trickled out about the Komen decision, supporters and critics began sharing opinions through social networking sites. Former Komen supporters responded with anger and disappointment, many expressing feelings of betrayal. While the Komen grants totaled only $680,000 in 2011, an outpouring of donations to Planned Parenthood raised $3 million in three days, including over 10,000 new donors. As the lines were drawn for supporters of both organizations, most chose Planned Parenthood.4

The negative publicity also drew attention to many of Komen’s practices that had not faced public scrutiny.5 Among the complaints were: (1) the relatively small percentage of Komen funds that go to medical research for a cure (less than 19%); (2) high salaries of the founder and board members (founder Nancy Brinker is reportedly paid over $400,000 annually); (3) large legal expenses incurred from suing other charities defending the words “for the Cure” in their trademark; and (4) making women’s health a political issue.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure did not respond to the social media uproar initially, which angered many of their former supporters.6 Komen received a strong defense from people who disapproved of Planned Parenthood. Many of these were people who previously did not support Komen’s activities because of their grants to Planned Parenthood. In spite of the approval, it was not clear that this segment would replace the funding and other support at risk by the decision.

Corporate sponsors, who generally fear controversial issues, complained that Komen had not informed them of the policy change in advance.7 While none of the sponsors publicly abandoned Susan G. Komen for the Cure in the short term, they made it clear that better communication was expected if the relationship was to thrive.

After four days of intense negative publicity, Komen announced they were reversing their decision and would consider reinstating the Planned Parenthood grants.8 Komen founder Nancy Brinker apologized and announced that in the future groups will only be disqualified from receiving grants when they are under investigations that are “criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.”

This response was probably a case of “too little, too late” that angered those on both sides of the debate. Planned Parenthood supporters claimed the wording was full of loopholes and not a strong repudiation of the initial decision. Planned Parenthood opponents were angry that the decision was reversed and vowed not to support Komen in the future. The slow response managed to alienate a majority of the public.9

When the decision to defund Planned Parenthood’s grant became public on February 1, 2012, a number of Komen executives and employees resigned in protest, including a medical advisory board member, a health official, and the directors of several large Komen chapters. After the reversal on February 3, public outcry did not fade away. Karen Handel, Senior Vice President for Public Affairs, received most of the blame for the initial decision and for politicizing Komen policies by focusing on abortion politics rather than detecting and treating breast cancer. Handel, a former political candidate who had campaigned on an anti–Planned Parenthood platform, resigned on February 7.10

By February 23, news stories reported Komen hired a consulting firm to assess damage to their brand among supporters.11 The 20-minute survey tested the wording of various apologies and then measured the credibility of the Komen foundation and its leaders, along with the credibility of other public figures. Komen’s problems continued into March when two top executives resigned, the Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer, as well as the CEO of Komen’s New York City affiliate. As the organization struggled to repair its relationship with supporters, some Komen affiliates reported revenues were substantially lower than in previous campaigns, and participation in the Race for the Cure was also down.

It may take years to determine if Komen can repair its relationships and be restored as a premiere charity brand. The damage of these events affects employees in the form of poor morale, former supporters who are angered by Komen’s initial decision and are not mollified by the reversal of that decision, corporate sponsors who are leery of future controversy, a public that views Susan G. Komen for the Cure as a tarnished organization, and disappointed anti-abortion groups who remain opposed to Komen. Moving forward, it may be time to reexamine their mission. When the organization was founded in 1982, breast cancer was often a death sentence for women (and a few men) because the prognosis was poor when cancer was detected in later stages. Komen raised awareness of breast cancer and spent millions of dollars on public education and breast cancer screening. By any measure, those efforts were a resounding success. It may be time for Komen to focus their strategy on research and treatment (as implied by the trademark name, “…for the Cure”) and save their education campaigns for less informed segments.

Question 1: How did social media impact the complaining behaviors of donors and participants for Susan G. Komen for the Cure activities?

Question 2: What types of complaining behaviors were most apparent? What was the response by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to negative public publicity after their decision to stop funding mammograms in partnership with Planned Parenthood? Would you have responded differently had you been in charge?

Question 3: Officials at Susan G. Komen for the Cure seemed unprepared for the intensity of response that they encountered. How would an understanding of the difference between customer loyalty and customer inertia have prepared the Komen officials for the reactions they experienced?

Question 4: Does the Komen organization demonstrate I characteristics of relationship loyalty with their donors? Why or why not?

Question 5: Many Komen supporters switched their donations to Planned Parenthood after the negative public publicity. Use the concept of share of wallet to explain why this might have happened.

The Scenario

Joseph and Krystal are part of your social group. They joined Missile’s Financial Services together as middle managers. Each of them reports to a different senior manager. These managers report to the Managing Director. Once a month after payday you all try to have lunch together.

Joseph is very distressed. ‘I’ve had an awful week and this morning was the worst!’ He recounts what happen between himself and Nicholas his manager.

‘Nicholas and I were to meet with a new supplier to finalize a contract. I have been dealing with the supplier all this time and we just needed to finalize the costing. We had reached an agreement about the cost both of us were comfortable with it. All week I have been trying to get Nicholas to look at the contract and agree the figures etc. We really need this guy’s company they are fast, a good price point for us and willing to customize the stationary for such a small company. Anyway, Nicholas was always too busy to meet, I emailed him the contract and my teams thoughts on how we should proceed hoping he would read it.’

‘Anyway we met with the supplier this morning. We are going through the contract, the next thing I know Nicky says. ‘This won’t work for us, the cost is too high, where did these calculations come from?’ ‘If the floor had opened up and swallowed me I could have not been more embarrassed, I mean I spent three weeks working on it with accounting and legal! Joseph shaking his head continued, ‘he just took over the conversation, I mean we got the contract signed but in the end all that happened was that the figures were rearranged we still end up paying the same.’ ‘I am tired of this foolishness, he stays locked in his office on his cell everyday only God knows what he does in there.’

Krystal’s problem was very different but she was equally worried. Yesterday she attended a meeting with her manager and the managing director himself. She is the manager for one of the locations. The MD had called because he received the third quarter results and he was concerned that the new business loans and new customers targets have not been met for the third quarter in a row. In fact, the third quarter results were worst that the second quarter. The MD asked Krystal what remedial action she has taken over the time period.

Krystal has not been idle. She spoke with her colleagues who also manage other locations and they gave her some tips. She therefore proceeded to do the following. She has reorganized the tasks across the staff and given everybody new targets, which had been emailed to them. She had also brought in a sales trainer to give the staff a pep talk on meeting new people and how to confidently start conversations with strangers, finding sales prospects and marketing loan services. She had also intended to add a target that would require the loans officers to give a minimum of two monthly financial talk organized by them as well as each would visit two organizations to drum up business by introducing the company and its produces during staff meetings. Shirley confirmed that Krystal had emailed her about this some two weeks ago and she had signed off on it and suggested that Krystal have a meeting with the staff to discuss. To this point Krystal had not done the latter.

Krystal told her lunch partners that her manager Shirley, and the MD were concerned about her communication style. Further, they suggested that this was perhaps the reason why the initiatives were not appear to be working for Krystal or Missile Financial Services.

The MD had just received the results of the annual staff attitude survey. Krystal received acceptable grades from her staff on her one to one communication style. However only 1 of the targeted three 3 general staff meetings had been held. Staff satisfaction in her location also lagged behind that of the other 6 locations and did not meet the minimum 60%.

Shirley and MD are of the opinion that a programme of activities needs to be developed to bring the targets back on track. They think that a general staff meeting in Krystal’s shop is a first step and they promise her that they will be in attendance to give Krystal support.

1. If you were in Joseph’s shoes how would you have handled his manager’s behaviour prior to the meeting with the representative from the other company? As a group, discuss the pros and cons of the various ideas that the members of the group generated. From the pros and cons outlined by the members of the group, submit what the group considered as 2 each major pros and cons, along with an explanation of how the decision was arrived at.

2. How would you propose that Krystal organize the general staff meeting? Propose an agenda for the meeting.

3. Based on your study of change management, communication and leadership, provide Krystal, with a communication plan that will support her efforts to make changes.

Assume that on December 1, 2020, Lee Dunbar organizes a sole proprietorship company that will be known as App Solutions. App Solutions will initially perform 2 activities: Application Consulting and Programming.

The following transactions take place during the month of December:

Dec. 1   To start the business, Lee deposits $50,000 into the App Solution’s bank account.

Dec. 1   Web Solutions purchased a small office building for $220,000, paying $20,000 cash, and assuming a mortgage with a bank for the rest.

Dec. 1   Purchased supplies on account for $1,350.

Dec. 2   Received $7,500 cash for Application Consulting to be provided to customers in December.

Dec. 2   Paid a premium of $2,400 on a comprehensive insurance policy covering liability, theft, and fire. The policy covers a 1 year period, to November 30, 2020.

Dec. 2   Paid rent for the month of December, $1,800.

Dec. 3   Received an offer from a local retailer to rent the ground floor of the small office building purchased on Dec. 1^st. App Solutions received $3,600 for three months’ rent beginning December 1^st.

Dec. 4   Purchased computer equipment on account from Executive Supply Co. for $3,600.

Dec. 6   Paid $180 for a newspaper advertisement, to be run immediately.

Dec. 11 Paid creditors $400 for the Dec. 1^st supplies purchase.

Dec. 15 Paid a receptionist and part-time assistant $1,950 each for wages for first half of December.

Dec. 16 Received $3,100 from Programming fees earned for a completed Web site.

Dec. 16 Completed work for prepaid Application Consulting from Dec. 2.

Dec. 20 Paid $1,800 to Executive Supply Co. on the debt owed from the December 4^th transaction.

Dec. 21 Received $650 cash from customers for Application Consulting performed in the last few days.

Dec. 23 Purchased $1,450 of supplies by paying $550 in cash and charging the remainder on account.

Dec. 27 Paid the receptionist and the part-time assistant $1,950 each for wages for second half of December.

Dec. 31 Paid telephone for the month of December, $250.

Dec. 31 Paid $225 electricity bill for December.

Dec. 31 Received $2,870 cash from Application Consulting completed the last few days of December.

Dec. 31 Recognized Programming fees earned by not paid of $1,120 from the second half of December.

Dec. 31 Lee withdrew $3,000 from the company bank account for his own personal use.

Instructions (50 Marks in total):

1. Prepare the Documentation and Chart of Accounts worksheets .
2. Prepare journal entries in the General Journal for App Solutions for December. Do not make any adjustments for the month of December .
3. Post the journal entry amounts to T-accounts .
4. Create an Unadjusted Trial Balance for App Solutions for December 31, 2020 .

Please Note:     Do not apply any adjustments for the month of December 2020.

Use an Excel Spreadsheet file with five worksheets:

            First worksheet:            Documentation

Second worksheet:        Chart of Accounts.

Third worksheet:           General Journal.

Fourth worksheet:        T-Accounts.

Fifth worksheet:            Unadjusted Trial Balance.

Read the scenario. The things you say online can come back to haunt you. Organizations are using Google, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to check out applicants and current employees. In fact, some organizations see Google as a way to get "around discrimination laws, inasmuch as employers can find out all manner of information-some for a nominal fee-that is legally off-limits in interviews: your age, your marital status, fraternity pranks, stuff you wrote in college, political affiliations and so forth." And for those individuals who like to rant and rave about employers, there might be later consequences. That's why one senior at the University of Massachusetts pulled his Facebook profile.

Post your answers to the following questions, with regard to the scenario

What do you think about what companies are doing?

What positives and negatives are there to such behavior?

What are the ethical implications?

What guidelines might you suggest for an organization's selection process?

The family planning wing of the health department of a certain state wishes to conduct a survey at a university campus for estimating the average time gap between the births of children in families having two children. The frame available, of course, lists all the 400 families of the campus. As the prior identification of the families in the population, who have just two children was difficult, the investigator selected a WOR random sample of 50 families. In the sampled families, 20 families were found having two children. These 20 families were interviewed, and the information collected was:

Estimate the average gap between the births of two children, and obtain confidence limits for it.

Question 2: Single proportion

A large corporation’s training and development manager wants to determine a 98% confidence interval for the proportion of employees who have enrolled with universities while being employed. A sample of 990 employees indicates that 198 of them have started programmes with universities.

Due to a recent change in its training and development policy, the corporation is required to show that at least 25% of its employees have enrolled with universities while being employed.

Answer the following questions:

• What proportion of the sample employees have enrolled at a university while being employed?
• Navigate to the “Confidence interval” tab and, using the calculated proportion, determine the endpoints of the confidence interval as a proportion of employees. What do these values mean?
• Navigate to the “Sample size” tab and calculate how many more employees should be sampled to estimate the true proportion to within 0.02 (or 2%).
• Based on your calculations of the confidence interval, has the corporation met the requirements of the recent change in its training and development policy?