How does national culture affect the selection process? Give some examples of the different selection processes used in different countries and try to explain why these differences occur.

Answer discussion style.

Discuss how organisational leadership style is related to employee leadership skills, leadership and business trends.

Please provide a mathematical (algebraic) formulation for each problem along with a solution using the Excel Solver.

Problem #1: Investment Problem (Product Mix Problem)

Brian Givens is a financial analyst for Retirement Planning Services, Inc. who specializes in designing retirement income portfolios for retirees using corporate bonds. He has just completed a consultation with the client who expects to have $750,000 in liquid assets to invest when she retires next month. Brian and his client agreed to consider upcoming bond issues from the following six companies.

The column labeled “Return” in this table represents the expected annual yield on each bond, the column labeled “Years to Maturity” indicates the length of time over which bonds will be payable, and the column labeled “Rating” indicates an independent underwriter’s assessment of the quality or risk associated with each issue. Assume that Brian re-invests into a bond when it matures. The expected annual yield does not change for each bond (has already factored compounded annual growth for the % return provided). This will also avoid the need to consider any NPV analysis that can alter the allocation. Think simple and keep the formulation linear.

Brian believes that all the companies are relatively safe investments. However, to protect his client’s income, Brian and his client agreed that no more than 25% of the money should be invested in any one investment and at least half of her money should be invested in long-term bonds which mature in ten or more years. Also, even though DynaStar, Eagle Vision, and Opti Pro offer the highest returns, it was agreed that no more than 35% percent of the money should be invested in these bonds since they also represent the highest risks (i.e., they were rated lower than “very good”).

Brian needs to determine how to allocate his client’s investments to maximize her income while meeting their agreed upon investment restrictions.

explain why profits are largest when mc=mr and describe how that works in monopolistic competition when the firm can choose the point on market demand where it wishes to operate

In Gonzales v. Raich, do you think Justice Stevens, for the Opinion of the Court, or Justice O'Connor, in her dissenting opinion gave the better argument on how the Commerce Clause should be interpreted?

1. Define the Kingdom Plantae before and after the impact of Whittaker, Margulis, and Schwartz (1969-1988). How has the change in classification schemes impacted the study of biology? Which of these two views is more consistent with the view of Marine Botany? Why?

​(Alternative dividend policies​)
Final earnings estimates for the Smithfield Meat Packing Company have been prepared for the CFO of the company and are shown in the following​ table:
YEAR   PROFITS AFTER TAXES
1 18,000,000
2 21,000,000
3 19,000,000
4 23,000,000
5 25,000,000
The firm has 7,700,000 shares of common stock outstanding. As assistant to the​ CFO, you are asked to determine the yearly dividend per share to be paid depending on the following possible​ policies:

a. A stable dollar dividend targeted at 50 percent of earnings over a​ 5-year period.

b. A​ small, regular dividend of ​$0.70 per share plus a​ year-end extra when the profits in any year exceed ​$20,000,000. The​ year-end extra dividend will equal 60 percent of profits exceeding ​$20,000,000.

c. A constant dividend payout ratio of 45 percent.

You must evaluate the purchase of a proposed spectrometer for the R&D department. The base price is $70,000, and it would cost another $10,500 to modify the equipment for special use by the firm. The equipment falls into the MACRS 3-year class and would be sold after 3 years for $28,000. The applicable depreciation rates are 33%, 45%, 15%, and 7%. The equipment would require an $13,000 increase in net operating working capital (spare parts inventory). The project would have no effect on revenues, but it should save the firm $67,000 per year in before-tax labor costs. The firm's marginal federal-plus-state tax rate is 35%.

a. What is the initial investment outlay for the spectrometer, that is, what is the Year 0 project cash flow? Enter your answer as a positive value. Round your answer to the nearest cent.  

b. What are the project's annual cash flows in Years 1, 2, and 3? Do not round intermediate calculations. Round your answers to the nearest cent.

c. If the WACC is 14%, should the spectrometer be purchased?

Complete the PA7_incomplete.py program (posted below) for an infinite interactive loop to process a dictionary. The program starts by asking an input file name where the dictionary entries are stored. This file will be assumed be present and to contain two items in each line as key and value pairs separated by a comma, like the example.txt file (posted below). The file could be possibly empty. The program reads the contents of this file into a dictionary, closes the file and presents user with the following menu choices in an infinite loop: Add an entry Show value for a key Delete an entry Save the file Print the current dictionary Quit Complete rest of the program to process the dictionary interactively with the user. The following appropriate actions should be taken for each one of them and then the menu should be shown again unless the user quits. Add an entry: Ask the user for the key and value, and make an entry, if the key already exists then prompt the user whether to overwrite its value. Show value for a key: Ask the user for the key and show the corresponding value, point out if the key does not exist.

def main():
d = {} # dictionary

# Read the file's contents in the dictionary d
filename = input("Give the file name: ")
file = open(filename,"r")
for line in file:
# read key and value
key, value = line.split(",")
# remove whitespaces before and after
key = key.lstrip()
key = key.rstrip()
value = value.lstrip()
value = value.rstrip()
# insert entry in the dictionary
d[key] = value
file.close()

loop=True # continue looping if true

while (loop):
print("\n\nEnter one of the following menu choices:")
print("1 Add an entry")
print("2 Show value for a key")
print("3 Delete an entry")
print("4 Save the file")
print("5 Print the current dictionary")
print("6 Quit")
choice = input("Choice 1-6: ")
print("\n\n")

if (choice=="1"): # Add an entry
k = input("Give the key: ")
v = input("Give its value: ")
# complete the rest
elif (choice=="2"): # Show value for a key
k = input("Give the key: ")
# complete the rest
elif (choice=="3"): # Delete an entry
k = input("Give the key to delete the entry: ")
# complete the rest
elif (choice=="4"): # Save the file
print("Saving the file")
# complete the rest
elif (choice=="5"): # Print the current dictionary
l = list(d.keys()) # get all the keys
l.sort() # sort them
# complete the rest
elif (choice=="6"): # Quit
loop=False
# complete the rest
else :
print("Incorrect choice")

Delete an entry: Ask the user for the key and delete the entry, point out if the key does not exist Save the file: Save to the same file name in the same comma-separated format (do not worry about the order of entries), make sure to close the file Print the current dictionary: show value entries of the current dictionary on the screen (in alphabetical order of the keys). End the program. If the dictionary has been modified since the last save, then prompt the user whether it should be saved before quitting.

The following represents a project that should be scheduled using CPM:

b. What is the critical path?

c. What is the expected project completion time? (Round your answer to 3 decimal places.)

Project completion time             days

d. What is the probability of completing this project within 22 days? (Do not round intermediate calculations. Round your answer to 4 decimal places.)

Probability           

Consider the titration of a 21.0 −mL sample of 0.110 M HC2H3O2 with 0.125 M NaOH. Determine the pH after adding 6.00 mL of base beyond the equivalence point.

Wolfson Corporation has decided to purchase a new machine that costs $3.9 million. The machine will be depreciated on a straight-line basis and will be worthless after four years. The corporate tax rate is 23 percent. The Sur Bank has offered Wolfson a four-year loan for $3.9 million. The repayment schedule is four yearly principal repayments of $975,000 and an interest charge of 7 percent on the outstanding balance of the loan at the beginning of each year. Both principal repayments and interest are due at the end of each year. Cal Leasing Corporation offers to lease the same machine to Wolfson. Lease payments of $1,110,000 per year are due at the beginning of each of the four years of the lease.

a. What is the NAL of leasing for Wolfson? (A negative answer should be indicated by a minus sign. Do not round intermediate calculations and enter your answer in dollars, not millions of dollars, rounded to 2 decimal places, e.g., 1,234,567.89.) b. What is the maximum annual lease Wolfson would be willing to pay?

1. Why is business execution so difficult on larger initiatives? Explain in detail

2. These are 5 factors in successful business execution: competencies, processes, disciplines, attitudes, and behaviors. Choose three 3 that you believe are the most important and explain why.