University of The Cumberlands

RISK ANALYSIS, REAL OPTIONS AND CAPITAL BUDGETING

Baldwin Corporation is a public corporation listed on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) market. The company researches, develops, manufactures, and sells various products in the health care industry worldwide. Baldwin Inc. operates in three main segments: consumer, pharmaceutical, and medical devices segments. The primary corporate objective of the company is to maximize the value of the owners’ equity by increasing the price of its shares in the stock market. Unfortunately, the company’s stock price has been declining over the past year because of declining sales, cash flow uncertainties, and weak financial ratios. The board of directors have hired a new CFO, Lok Acharya to turnaround the fortunes of the company. Lok earned his PhD in Strategic Management from UC in 2018. After his MBA he worked for five years as sales and marketing consultant for a pharmaceutical company. As a result, Lok does not have much work experience in corporate finance, although in his graduate finance courses, he learnt about time value of money and its applications in financial and investment decisions.

Despite his lack of experience in corporate finance, Lok wants to create value for the company through efficient management of working capital, and prudent capital budgeting activities by expanding the company’s products into new markets. He is considering a capital investment either in the State of Ohio or North Dakota because of growing market demand for the company’s products in both States and the recent changes to the States’ tax legislations that give tax incentives to new companies. The company has announced plans to invest about $2.2 million in its medical devices and pharmaceutical segments. Lok believes that decisions such as these, with price tags in the millions, are obviously major undertakings, and the risks and rewards must be carefully weighed. Lok knows that good financial decisions increase the value of a company’s stock, and bad financial decisions decrease the value of the stock. Lok is working hard to make Baldwin Inc. one of the leading firms in the health care industry.

Lok has been reading articles in financial journals on capital budgeting decisions and risk analysis. He has written down the following ideas on project evaluation techniques from book chapters and peer-reviewed articles:

1. The most popular capital budgeting techniques used in practice to evaluate and select projects are payback period, net present value (NPV), Profitability Index (PI), and internal rate of return (IRR).

2.Payback period is the number of years required for a company to recover the initial investment cost. The shorter the payback period, the better the project.

3. Net Present Value (NPV) technique: NPV is found by subtracting a project’s initial cost of investment from the present value of its cash flows discounted using the firm’s weighted average cost of capital. It shows the absolute amount of money in dollars that the project is expected to generate.

Decision Criteria of NPV

If NPV > 0, accept the project

If NPV < 0, reject the project

The decision rule for mutually exclusive project is to select the project with the highest NPV.

4. Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is the intrinsic rate of return the project is likely to generate. The IRR is the discount rate or the rate of return that will equate the present value of the cash outflows with the present value of the cash inflows (i.e., NPV = 0).

Decision Rule:

Accept the project if IRR > cost of capital

Reject the project if IRR < cost of capital

5. Profitability Index is the ratio of the present value of the future expected cash flows after initial investment divided by the amount of the initial investment. Accept if PI > 1.0 and reject if PI < 1.0.

Exhibit 1: The expected cash flows in US$ from the project in Ohio and North Dakota.

Year	Cash flow (Ohio)	Cash flow (ND)
0	(2,200,000)	(2,450,000)
1	450,000	350,000
2	558,000	185,000
3	562,000	205,000
4	587,000	300,000
5	600,000	370,000
6	625,000	590,000
7	630,000	500,000
8	685,000	483,000
9	690,000	480,000
10	692,000	620,000

The company’s policy is to select projects using NPV technique and IRR. The cost of capital is 12% for the Ohio project and 10% for ND project.

1. You have been hired as a financial consultant to help evaluate the project. Baldwin Inc. wants you to do the following:

a. Calculate the payback period (PBP) for the two projects.

b. Calculate the profitability Index (PI) for the two projects.

c. Calculate the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for the two projects.

d. Calculate the Net Present Value (NPV) for the two projects.

e. Use the NPV technique to recommend which investment project it should accept, assuming the cost of capital of financing the Ohio project is 12% and 10% for the North Dakota project?

2. Lok knows how bad forecast can ruin capital budgeting decisions. If the cost of capital changes from 12% to 13% for Ohio project and remains the same for ND project, does the company have to pursue the project?

3. Lok wants to analyze the risk of the project using sensitivity analysis and Monte Carlo simulation.

a. Explain to Baldwin Inc. how the two risk analysis models can be used to analyze risk of the project.

4. Lok has estimated the fixed costs (including depreciation) of the Ohio project to be $6 million, sales price is $2,000, and the variable cost is $800, giving a contribution margin of $1,200. What is the accounting profit break-even quantity for this project?

5. Baldwin Inc. wants to know the likely effect of the capital budgeting decision on its stock price (increase, decrease, no change, or not sure). Choose one and explain why.

University of The Cumberlands

I need an explanation for this Management question to help me study.

Case Study 11.1: It’s an Agile World

This case illustrates a common problem in software and IT development, where programmers and IT staff are anxious to lock in specifications as early as possible so they can “get to work” without having to worry about invasive or disruptive input from the end users. Unfortunately, what typically happens is that the finished product is not what the users needed or thought they needed and a long list of fixes and modifications are needed to make it work correctly. This case is based on a true story in a hospital IT department that routinely struggled with these sorts of user conflicts until they sifted to an Agile methodology.

Questions

Why does the classic waterfall project planning model fail in this situation? What is it about the IT department’s processes that leads to their finished systems being rejected constantly?
How would an Agile methodology correct some of these problems? What new development cycle would you propose?
Why are “user stories” and system “features” critical components of an effective IT software development process?
Using the terms “Scrum,” “Sprint,” and “User stories,” create an alternative development cycle for a hypothetical software development process at Northwest Regional Hospital.

Case Study 12.2: “First Come, First Served”: Resource Challenges for Sunrise Restoration

This case is intended to highlight the challenges in resource assignment, particularly in the common cases where project managers within the same firm are competing with each other for the use of scarce and valuable human resources to accomplish their tasks. Without clear guidance from top management and a valid priority system, the ability to acquire resources is often the result of chaotic bargaining and negotiation among equals. This case is based on a real situation and the outcomes were very much in line with the way they are described in the case. The business owner did not want to simply invest in more resources for fear that they would be underutilized. He much preferred the system of negotiating among his project managers, even if that led to inefficient utilization of the resources that were available. Students can be asked to take the side of the owner or Tyler to debate the options that Sunrise can use to manage its resources.

Questions

Describe some of the resource constraints that Sunrise and its project managers are facing.
Is Sunrise’s current model of prioritizing resource assignments viable? Why or why not?
How could technology alleviate some of Sunrise’s resource management issues?
Would Tyler’s suggestion to hire additional technicians and purchase more equipment solve the resource problems at Sunrise? Why or why not?

University of the Cumberlands

Problem Set #3

Attached Files:

Stakeholder Register Exercise.docx Stakeholder Register Exercise.docx – Alternative Formats (20.083 KB)

Stakeholder Register & Communications Matrix Exercise

Instructions: Using your Week 2 Business Case complete the following Stakeholder Register Exercise (Exhibit 6.4 on page 183 of the Kloppenborg text) and Project Communications Matrix (Exhibit 6.9 on page 192). Complete instructions and templates based on these exhibits have been provided (see attached document).

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 6

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 6Assigned Readings:Chapter 13: Procurement ManagementChapter 14: Quality PlanningInitial Postings: Read and reflect on the assigned readings for the week. Then post what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding in each assigned textbook chapter.Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook should be a source listed in your reference section and cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion.Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:
1. In addition to cost, what factors should be considered in selecting a building contractor? What can go wrong if the lowest bid is selected and nothing else is considered?
2. What is the difference between an RFP and an RFQ? Give two specific examples where an RFQ could be used and two specific examples where it is more likely that the organization will go with an RFP. (Use examples NOT from your textbook.)
[Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!] [Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA review]Submitting the Initial Posting:Your initial posting should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST. Response to Other Student Postings: Respond substantively to the post of at least two peers, by Friday, 11:59 p.m. EST. A peer response such as “I agree with her,” or “I liked what he said about that” or similar comments are not considered substantive and will not be counted for course credit.[Continue the discussion through Sunday,11:59 p.m. EST by highlighting differences between your postings and your colleagues’ postings. Provide additional insights or alternative perspectives]Evaluation of posts and responses: Your initial posts and peer responses will be evaluated on the basis of the kind of critical thinking and engagement displayed. The grading rubric evaluates the content based on seven areas:Content Knowledge & Structure, Critical Thinking, Clarity & Effective Communication, Integration of Knowledge & Articles, Presentation, Writing Mechanics, and Response to Other Students.
Problem Set #6

1.Cost reimbursable contract calculation.
1. 1. A contract calls for a total payment of $800,000 with a guarantee. Essentially the contractor is guaranteed to make at least $200,000 above his costs. If the contractor can demonstrate his costs exceed $600,000, the project will pay the difference, with a $50,000 ceiling on the overage. The contractor demonstrates he spent $623,000. How much (gross) must the project remit to the contractor?
  2. Another option for the same contract has the contractor guaranteed to be paid his costs plus 20%, for costs that exceed $600,000. With the same initial assumption—guarantee of $800,000 gross payment (no requirement to itemize costs), but if the contractor can show that costs exceed $600,000, the project will pay $800,000 plus the costs that exceed $600,000, plus 20% of those excess costs, with a ceiling of $900,000 gross. The contractor demonstrates he spent $623,000. How much (gross) must the project remit to the contractor?
  3. Under option 1.b, at what dollar amount of total costs would the contractor be assuming all of the excess costs beyond that point?
  4. In which option did the project assume more of the risk of a cost overrun? Explain.
2. Prepare a Pareto chart of the possible causes for a student to fail a final examination in a university course.

University of the Cumberlands

Submit the paper for analyzing and solving an ethical dilemma following the attached outline which include details of the expectations for this assignment.

APA format

Please find attached document for more details

Paper – Topic Examples

Should consumer protection regulations limit residential mortgage interest rates?

Can employers who pay health insurance benefits require employees to be non-smokers?

Should national health care be funded by a national sales tax?

Non-compensated boards: Advantages for better corporate oversight

Should colleges abolish athletic scholarships?

Pros and cons of legal drinking at 18

Are college athletes under less academic scrutiny than other students?

Government bailouts: Why should the taxpayers ante up for corporate misdeeds?

Conflict of interest: Private prisons and the burgeoning U.S. prison population

The end of unions: Has the moral imperative ended for their existence?

Teacher merit pay – Will it help improve our schools?

Failure of competition: Why charter schools haven’t worked as planned.

Civil Unions: Pros and cons for business

Should executive compensation be limited by law?

Do constitutional guarantees of free speech apply to images?

Can employers ban religious symbols in the workplace?

Does “No Child Left Behind” Leave Any Children Behind?

Sex Selection – Should We Choose Our Future Children?

A School Counselor’s Ethical Dilemma – Disclosure to Parents

Is Capital Punishment Ethical: Should Michael Addison Have Received the Death Penalty?

In the Professional Business of Sports is it Ethical for Athletes to Use Steriods?

If You Thought Homeroom was Hard: The Ethics of Military Recruitment in Our Public High Schools

Ethical Issue of Gay Marriage

Automotive Bailout Plan: Ethical or Unethical?

Is Outsourcing Ethical?

Should Senior Management Take Responsibility for Corporate Failure and Scandal?

Ethical Dilemmas of Growth Hormones in Animal Feed

Continuing Gender Discrimination in Title IX Athletics

Ethical Challenges in Animal Rights and Animal Welfare Organizations

Should Countries Require More Regulations on International Trade?

Medical Marijuana: Patients vs. Politics

Business Regulation of Personal Use of Computers

Free Speech and the Workplace

Healthcare: A Human Right

Fake Luxury Products In China

The Growth in Chinese Luxury Goods: Effects on the Chinese Economy

Advertising’s Bad Effects on Young People

Bioethical Dilemma: Ethics of Cloning for Reproduction

Euthanasia: Suicide, Mercy Killing or Right-to-Die?

Should the U.S. Government Prohibit Gun Ownership?

Abortion (Un)Ethical

The Ethical Position of Gambling in the United States

Is Foreign Aid Helping or Hurting Haiti?

Reverse Discrimination

Severance Packages: Ethically Defensible?

Tatoos and Piercings: Discrimination in the Workplace

Sex Selection – Should We Choose Our Future Children?

Ethics of Police Interrogations

Does Whistle-Blowing Violate Company Loyalty?

Digital Piracy and the Music Industry: What is to Blame for the Industry’s Downfall?

Ethical Issues in Using Pirated Software

Cultural Roadblocks to Ending Bribery

Should Genetically Modified Food be Labeled as Such?

Employer Monitoring of Employee Email and Internet Usage

University of the Cumberlands

Answer below questions, Chapter 9 & 10 in Information Systems for Business and Beyond

References: At least three peer-reviewed and try to answer from textbook too, scholarly journal references.

Chapter 9 – study questions 1-10, Exercise 3

Study questions:

1. Describe the role of a systems analyst.

2. What are some of the different roles for a computer engineer?

3. What are the duties of a computer operator?

4. What does the CIO do?

5. Describe the job of a project manager.

6. Explain the point of having two different career paths in information systems.

7. What are the advantages and disadvantages of centralizing the IT function?

8. What impact has information technology had on the way companies are organized?

9. What are the five types of information-systems users?

10. Why would an organization outsource?

Exercise:

3. How is the IT function organized in your school or place of employment? Create an organization chart showing how the IT organization fits into your overall organization. Comment on how centralized or decentralized the IT function is.

Chapter 10 – study questions 1-10, Exercise 1

Study questions:

1. What are the steps in the SDLC methodology?

2. What is RAD software development?

3. What makes the lean methodology unique?

4. What are three differences between second-generation and third-generation languages?

5. Why would an organization consider building its own software application if it is cheaper to buy one?

6. What is responsive design?

7. What is the relationship between HTML and CSS in website design?

8. What is the difference between the pilot implementation methodology and the parallel implementation methodology?

9. What is change management?

10. What are the four different implementation methodologies?

Exercise:

1. Which software-development methodology would be best if
an organization needed to develop a software tool for a small group of users in
the marketing department? Why? Which implementation methodology should they
use? Why?

University of The Cumberlands

DISCOUNTED CASH FLOW VALUATION

Sara Gandhi is a 50-year-old entrepreneur with a great idea of developing a new computer software product that will help users communicate using the next-generation magnet. Sara owns a software company registered as S corporation. S Corp is a special designation that allows small businesses to be taxed as if they were a sole proprietorship or a partnership rather than as a corporation whilst at the same time enjoying limited liability of a corporation. Sara is satisfied with this choice because she is aware that one of the disadvantages of a corporation is the double taxation of corporate earnings. Sara is determined to make sure her business succeeds. She has a long-term plan of expanding the business to some emerging countries. She has been reading some articles in finance journals about time value of money and how she can apply the concept to manage her finances and expansion plans. The time value of money holds that it is better to receive money sooner than later. Money that is available today is worth more than money to be received in the future. This is so because money in hand today can be invested to earn a positive rate of return, thereby producing more money in the future. On her google search she came across this article:

Rahman, M. (2018). Time value of money: A case study on its concepts and its applications in real life problems. International Journal of Research in Finance and Management, 1(1), 18 – 23.

The article discusses a contemporary financial planning problem of correctly solving time value of money problems and identifying the cash flows and timing necessary for financial and investment decisions. Rahman (2018) explains with practical examples the applications of the concept of time value of money to retirement planning, valuing of stocks and bonds, setting up loan amortization schedules, and making capital budgeting decisions. Sara does not fully understand some of the finance terms such as future value and compounding, present value and discounting, perpetuity, annuities etc. that the article discussed. She believes that once she grasps these time value of money concepts, she will be able to make sound financial and investment decisions. Her major concern is that these concepts require application of some basic quantitative techniques which she tried to avoid at the graduate school twenty years ago.

Sara has approached you for help in answering the following personal and business-related questions:

1. Suppose Sara has $150,000 to invest in an individual retirement account (IRA) at an interest rate of 8% per year for her retirement in 15 years. How much money can she accumulate at the end of the time period?

2. Sara wants to send her two-year old daughter to college in 16 years. She has assumed that she would need $120,000 at the time in order to pay for her tuition, room and board, school supplies etc. If she can earn an average of 8% per year, how much money does she need to invest today as a lump sum to achieve that goal?

3. Sara wants to move $60,000 from her checking accounts and invests it in money market securities for 5 years. The money market earns 8% interest compounded annually. How much can this investment grow at the end of the investment period?

4. Sara wants to find the present value of the following uneven cash flows she expects to receive in the next 3 years from her business.

Year	Cash Flows
1	$135,000
2	$140,000
3	$145,000

What is the present value of the cash flows assuming the discount rate is 7%?

5. Sara is considering a perpetuity that pays $100 a year. If the interest rate is 6%, what is the value of the perpetuity?

6. Sara also wants to invest in preferred stocks issued by Camden Company. The company is about to pay $3 dividend per share on its stock. Investors anticipate that the annual dividend will rise by 6% a year forever. If Sara requires a rate of return of 11% on the stock, what is the current price of Camden stock?

7. Sara’s software company is thinking of buying a real estate property for $400,000 with the intention of selling it at the end of the year. The company expects that the property will be worth $480,000 in one year. If the interest rate is 10%, should the company buy the property?

8. Should the company purchase the property if the interest rate is 25%?

9. Sara’s company wants to calculate the end-of-the year wealth if the company receives an annual rate of 24% compounded monthly. Calculate the effective annual rate.

10. If an annual percentage rate of 24% is compounded quarterly, what is the effective annual rate for Sara software company?

University of The Cumberlands

EFFICIENT CAPITAL MARKETS AND CAPITAL STRUCTURE

The CEO of Angelina Corporation, Sara Brown is meeting with the company’s board of directors to discuss efficient capital markets and behavioral challenges and their impact on the company’s stock. She explains that if capital markets are efficient, management cannot create value by fooling investors, and market value of stock reflects underlying intrinsic value. She added that stock prices reflect available information. Investors are rational and will analyze the available information and adjust their estimates of stock price in a rational way. Sara gave the following statements about the efficient market hypothesis:

Statement 1: Because information is reflected in prices immediately, investors should expect to obtain a normal rate of return. Information reflects so quickly in stock prices that no investor can gain competitive advantage over other investors.

Statement 2: Stock prices reflect underlying value.

Statement 3: Prices of stocks will only change if new information becomes available.

Statement 4: Managers cannot boost stock prices through creative accounting.

Statement 5: All shares of stock have the same expected returns.

A board member, David Goldreich has drawn Sara’s attention to three forms of market efficiency namely weak-form efficiency, semi-strong efficiency, and strong-form efficiency. Mr. Goldreich explains that under each form, different types of information are assumed to reflect in stock prices.

Another board member, Michael Burton, says that new research studies are emerging in behavioral finance that question the rationality of investors. Mr. Burton explains that investors do not act rationally all the time in the investment decision making process so the market cannot be efficient. The results of the studies indicate that investors are prone to heuristics-driven biases such as overconfidence, decision regret, familiarity, conservatism, representativeness, and confirmation bias. The meeting was postponed to next week when the board will meet to finish the discussion on the efficient markets and consider the capital structure of Angelina corporation.

The board chairman wants you to address the following questions before the next meeting.

1. Determine whether the following statements by Sara Brown about efficient market hypothesis are correct or incorrect:

a. Statement 1

b. Statement 2

c. Statement 3

d. Statement 4

e. Statement 5

2. What different types of information are assumed to reflect in the company’s stock price? Explain the different types of information under each form of market efficiency as stated by Mr. Goldreich.

3. An individual investor, Ms. Brenda Biswa wants to invest in Angelina corporation. She has gathered data on the company from the current issue of the company’s annual financial report, newspapers, and press release of the capital investment project. Assuming the market is semi-strong efficient, can Ms. Biswa earn above-average returns using this material public information? Explain.

4. Ms. Brenda Biswa is consulting with her financial advisor, Paul Marsh. Paul believes that new information does not quickly get to all investors and that it takes time to analyze and act on new information. He tells Ms. Biswa that investors are not rational, deviations from rationality are similar across investors, and arbitrage, although costly, cannot eliminate inefficiencies. Does Paul Marsh believe in market efficiency? Explain why.

5. Explain how behavioral biases of overconfidence, regret, representativeness, and familiarity can affect investment behavior of investors of Angelina Corporation.

6. The board is meeting to discuss its capital structure. Explain the basic goal of financial management with regard to capital structure to the board of Angelina Corporation.

7. Angelina Corporation wants to determine the optimal capital structure that will maximize the value of the company by restructuring its finances. The original capital structure has no debt with a firm value of $1,000,000 (in millions) and the four possibilities under the new capital structure are presented below:

	No debt	Proposed	Proposed	Proposed	Proposed
	(Original structure $000)	restructuring 1	restructuring 2	restructuring 3	restructuring 4
Debt	0	500,000	400,000	300,000	200,000
Equity	1,000,000	650,000	850,000	800,000	830,000
Firm value	1,000,000	1,150,000	1,250,000	1,100,000	1,030,000

Percentage of debt	0	43.48	32.00	27.27	19.42
Percentage of equity	100	56.52	68.00	72.73	80.58

Return to shareholders after restructuring	4.80%	10.10%	13.60%	6.10%	5.12%
Weighted average cost of capital (WACC)	15.80	9.50	9.30	10.20	14.50

Base only on the information in the table, should Angelina Corporation restructure the firm? Explain. If yes, which proposed capital structure do you recommend for Angelina Corporation and why?

University of the Cumberlands

Activity I – Qualitative Risk . Imagine that you are a member of a project team that has been charged with developing a new product for the residential building industry. Using a qualitative risk analysis matrix, develop a risk evaluation for a project based on the following information: :

Identified risk factors Likelihood

1. Key team members pulled off project 1. High

2. Chance of economic downturn 2. Low

3. Project funding cut 3. Medium

4. Project scope changes 4. High

5. Poor spec. performance 5. Low

Based on this information, how would you rate the consequences of each of the identified risk factors? Why? Construct the risk matrix and classify each of the risk factors in the matrix.

Activity II – Sochi Olympics—What’s the Cost of National Prestige?

The Sochi Olympics was an example of project costs running out of control; so much so that the final price tag (estimated to be more than $50 billion), dwarfed the costs of every other Olympic Games to this point in time. In addition to picking a questionable, sub-tropical location for the Games, from the very beginning, the process of developing the site was subject to meddling from politicians, including President Vladimir Putin. Another major cost to the final price tag was related to charges of wide-spread corruption, as sub-projects for the Games (such as infrastructure, buildings, and roads) ended up with highly inflated price tags. This is a great case for general class discussion as we consider the purpose for Olympic Games, the challenges of cost control with critical deadlines that must be adhered to, and the fact that costs are rising for Games to the point where in 2017, Rome, Budapest, and several other cities withdrew their bids to host the 2024 Olympics because they could not trust the final costs and could not justify the value they would gain versus the costs of the project.

Questions

Consider the following statement: “Government-funded projects intended to serve as ‘prestige projects,’ such as the Sochi Olympics, should not be judged on the basis of cost.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why?
Project success is defined as adherence to budget, schedule, functionality (performance), and client satisfaction. Under these criteria, cite evidence that suggests the Sochi Olympics project was a success and/or failure.
When a project has a “hard gate,” like being ready on time, how does that affect normal success criteria? Is it fair to judge a project with a critical completion date by normal project success standards? Why or why not?
Consider the problems with the Rio Olympics sites that quickly occurred following completion of the 2016 Summer Games. Access the internet to find evidence of the current state of the Sochi Olympic site. How is it being used and what are the current problems and opportunities for Sochi?

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I’m working on a Management exercise and need support.

Case Study 3.1 Keflavik Paper Company

Keflavik Paper is an organization that has lately been facing serious problems with the results of its projects. Specifically, the company’s project development record has been spotty: While some projects have been delivered on time, others have been late. Budgets are routinely overrun, and product performance has been inconsistent, with the results of some projects yielding good returns and others losing money. They have hired a consultant to investigate some of the principal causes that are underlying these problems, and he believes that the primary problem is not how project are run but how they are selected in the first place. Specifically, there is little attention paid to the need to consider strategic fit and portfolio management in selecting new projects. This case is intended to get students thinking of alternative screening measures that could potentially be used when deciding whether or not to invest in a new project.

Questions

Keflavik Paper presents a good example of the dangers of excessive reliance on one screening technique (in this case, discounted cash flow). How might
Assume that you are responsible for maintaining Keflavik’s project portfolio. Name some key criteria that should be used in evaluating all new projects before they are added to the current portfolio.
What does this case demonstrate about the effect of poor project screening methods on a firm’s ability to manage its projects effectively?

Case Study 4.1—In Search of Effective Project Managers

This case involves Pureswing Golf, and illustrates the problems when organizations attempt to locate competent project managers without any systematic plan for identifying and training good potential candidates. They are discovering that the “voluntary approach,” whereby new project managers are solicited seemingly at random from around the company, simply does not work. Many of these individuals likely do not have the skills or a reasonable understanding of what it takes to manage projects effectively.

Questions

Imagine you are a human resources professional at Pureswing who has been assigned to develop a program for recruiting new project managers. Design a job description for the position.
What qualities and personal characteristics support a higher likelihood of success as a project manager?
What qualities and personal characteristics would make it difficult to be a successful project manager?

University of the Cumberlands

Attached is a file named expansion on which you need to expand on. The basic information is all there that is required for the assignment, however it needs to be more detailed and specific.

The client needed to be used is on the link provided: https://linksharing.samsungcloud.com/hZTuAgMTPEDB

The assignment requires that you identify and complete 2 relevant assessment tools (with rational for your choice; not an Adult symptom screener and no duplicates. i.e. two depression screeners), a suicide screener, and the MSE. You will be required to interpret the assessment results (write a narrative for all three using the Zuckerman thesaurus, also include how you would follow up based upon the screeners), form a plausible diagnosis (with rationale for choosing, refer to DSM-5 for criteria), and develop a relevant treatment plan. The treatment plan should include 2 treatment goals –with at least one related to each diagnosis–, with 2 objectives for each goal, and 2 interventions for each objective. Utilize the course texts to write the clinical assessment and tx plan. Use a formal clinical writing style and APA formatting as much as possible. Use the format for the treatment plan provided above.

Course textbooks: Case Documentation in Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Theory-Informed, Competency-Based Approach

ISBN: 9781305545120 Authors: Diane R. Gehart

Clinical Assessment Workbook: Balancing Strengths and Differential Diagnosis

ISBN: 9781305480926 Authors: Elizabeth Pomeroy

Zuckerman thesaurus: https://www.academia.edu/14845662/Clinicians_Thesa…

All information and instructions will be provided in the attachments below. Please go through each to fully understand what is required. The example treatment plan provided below should be used as a guide.Examples of how to write a narrative for the MSE (mental status examination) will be attached below. Please use the course textbooks and Zukerman thesaurus to write narratives. Also, the 2 treatment goals require 2 objectives for each goal and 2 interventions for each objective.The objectives need to be measurable. Please refer to attachment below on SAMIC goals. Interpretation of assessment results need to be done using narrative form.

University of The Cumberlands

Question 1

‘Jenny Cochran, a graduate of The University of Tennessee with 4 years of experience as an equities analyst, was recently brought in as assistant to the chairman of the board of Computron Industries, a manufacturer of computer components.

During the previous year, Computron had doubled its plant capacity, opened new sales offices outside its home territory, and launched an expensive advertising campaign. Cochran was assigned to evaluate the impact of the changes. She began by gathering financial statements and other data. (Data Attached)

What effect did the expansion have on sales and net income? What effect did the expansion have on the asset side of the balance sheet? What do you conclude from the statement of cash flows?
What is Computron’s net operating profit after taxes (NOPAT)? What are operating current assets? What are operating current liabilities? How much net operating working capital and total net operating capital does Computron have?
What is Computron’s free cash flow (FCF)? What are Computron’s “net uses” of its FCF?
Calculate Computron’s return on invested capital (ROIC). Computron has a 10% cost of capital (WACC). What caused the decline in the ROIC? Was it due to operating profitability or capital utilization? Do you think Computron’s growth added value?
What is Computron’s EVA? The cost of capital was 10% in both years.
Assume that a corporation has $200,000 of taxable income from operations. What is the company’s federal tax liability?
Assume that you are in the 25% marginal tax bracket and that you have $50,000 to invest. You have narrowed your investment choices down to municipal bonds yielding 7% or equally risky corporate bonds with a yield of 10%. Which one should you choose and why? At what marginal tax rate would you be indifferent?

Question 2

James Madison was brought in as assistant to Computron’s chairman, who had the task of getting the company back into a sound financial position. Madison must prepare an analysis of where the company is now, what it must do to regain its financial health, and what actions to take. Your assignment is to help her answer the following questions, using the recent and projected financial information shown next. Provide clear explanations, not yes or no answers.

Why are ratios useful? What three groups use ratio analysis and for what reasons?
Calculate the profit margin, operating profit margin, basic earning power (BEP), return on assets (ROA), and return on equity (ROE). What can you say about these ratios?
Calculate the inventory turnover, days sales outstanding (DSO), fixed assets turnover, operating capital requirement, and total assets turnover. How does Computron’s utilization of assets stack up against other firms in its industry?
Calculate the current and quick ratios based on the projected balance sheet and income statement data. What can you say about the company’s liquidity position and its trend?
Calculate the debt ratio, liabilities-to-assets ratio, times-interest-earned, and EBITDA coverage ratios. How does Computron compare with the industry with respect to financial leverage? What can you conclude from these ratios?
Calculate the price/earnings ratio and market/book ratio. Do these ratios indicate that investors are expected to have a high or low opinion of the company?
Use the extended DuPont equation to provide a summary and overview of Computron’s projected financial condition. What are the firm’s major strengths and weaknesses?
What are some potential problems and limitations of financial ratio analysis?
What are some qualitative factors analysts should consider when evaluating a company’s likely future financial performance?

Submit your answers in a Word document.

University of The Cumberlands

I’m working on a finance exercise and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Question 1

What effect did the expansion have on sales and net income? What effect did the expansion have on the asset side of the balance sheet? What do you conclude from the statement of cash flows?
What is Computron’s net operating profit after taxes (NOPAT)? What are operating current assets? What are operating current liabilities? How much net operating working capital and total net operating capital does Computron have?
What is Computron’s free cash flow (FCF)? What are Computron’s “net uses” of its FCF?
Calculate Computron’s return on invested capital (ROIC). Computron has a 10% cost of capital (WACC). What caused the decline in the ROIC? Was it due to operating profitability or capital utilization? Do you think Computron’s growth added value?
What is Computron’s EVA? The cost of capital was 10% in both years.
Assume that a corporation has $200,000 of taxable income from operations. What is the company’s federal tax liability?
Assume that you are in the 25% marginal tax bracket and that you have $50,000 to invest. You have narrowed your investment choices down to municipal bonds yielding 7% or equally risky corporate bonds with a yield of 10%. Which one should you choose and why? At what marginal tax rate would you be indifferent?

Question 2

Why are ratios useful? What three groups use ratio analysis and for what reasons?
Calculate the profit margin, operating profit margin, basic earning power (BEP), return on assets (ROA), and return on equity (ROE). What can you say about these ratios?
Calculate the inventory turnover, days sales outstanding (DSO), fixed assets turnover, operating capital requirement, and total assets turnover. How does Computron’s utilization of assets stack up against other firms in its industry?
Calculate the current and quick ratios based on the projected balance sheet and income statement data. What can you say about the company’s liquidity position and its trend?
Calculate the debt ratio, liabilities-to-assets ratio, times-interest-earned, and EBITDA coverage ratios. How does Computron compare with the industry with respect to financial leverage? What can you conclude from these ratios?
Calculate the price/earnings ratio and market/book ratio. Do these ratios indicate that investors are expected to have a high or low opinion of the company?
Use the extended DuPont equation to provide a summary and overview of Computron’s projected financial condition. What are the firm’s major strengths and weaknesses?
What are some potential problems and limitations of financial ratio analysis?
What are some qualitative factors analysts should consider when evaluating a company’s likely future financial performance?

University of The Cumberlands

D-Assignment 1

A simulated disaster and comprehensive recovery test may involve many of an organization’s key personnel for several days: is this a reasonable burden to place on a busy, competitive company? How would you argue against the inevitable tendency to shortcut the procedure?

· Explain, define, or analyze the topic in detail of about 600 words.
Share an applicable personal experience
Provide an outside source (for example, an article from the UC Library) that applies to the topic, along with additional information about the topic or the source (please cite properly in APA 7)
Make an argument concerning the topic

Assignment 2

It is a priority that students are provided with strong educational programs and courses that allow them to be servant-leaders in their disciplines and communities, linking research with practice and knowledge with ethical decision-making. This assignment is a written assignment where students will demonstrate how this course (Bus Cont Plan & Disas Recov Plan) research has connected and put into practice within their own career.

Provide a reflection of at least 500 words (or 2 pages double spaced) of how the knowledge, skills, or theories of this course have been applied, or could be applied, in a practical manner to your current work environment. If you are not currently working, share times when you have or could observe these theories and knowledge could be applied to an employment opportunity in your field of study.

ETC – Assignment 3

Threat Modeling

A new medium-sized health care facility just opened and you are hired as the CIO. The CEO is somewhat technical and has tasked you with creating a threat model. The CEO needs to decide from 3 selected models but needs your recommendation. Review this week’s readings, conduct your own research, then choose a model to recommend with proper justifications. Items to include (at a minimum) are:

User authentication and credentials with third-party applications
3 common security risks with ratings: low, medium or high
Justification of your threat model (why it was chosen over the other two: compare and contrast)

You will research several threat models as it applies to the health care industry, summarize three models and choose one as a recommendation to the CEO in a summary with a model using UML Diagrams (Do not copy and paste images from the Internet). In your research paper, be sure to discuss the security risks and assign a label of low, medium or high risks and the CEO will make the determination to accept the risks or mitigate them.

Your paper should meet the following requirements:
Be approximately four to six pages in length, not including the required cover page and reference page.
Share an applicable personal experience
Provide an outside source (for example, an article from the UC Library) that applies to the topic, along with additional information about the topic or the source (please cite properly in APA 7)
Make an argument concerning the topic

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Assignment Content

Select an organization or publicly-traded company and locate a relevant data set (sales, revenue, etc.). Apply the concepts covered during the week to a use case with real-world data for a business or organization.
Provide a brief explanation of your data, the business or organization, and the use case. If you are uncertain of the data or organization to use for this assignment, please contact me.Once you have chosen a data set and organization, create an Excel file in which you apply functions to demonstrate the use case. On a separate sheet in the Excel file, write a brief overview and summary in which you:

Provide an overview of your data, business/organization, and use case

Analyze the data and give reasoning of why you think it is useful to the business or organization.

Articulate what Excel functions you have used and apply it to the dataset to demonstrate it.

Submit your complete Excel file to the Assignments area of the course. You may use the same organization throughout your assignments, but the use case must be unique and directly apply concepts covered in each week
Goals for this week and their relationship to our course objectives

This week our learning materials, activities, and assignments will help you achieve these goals:
- Begin to understand the purpose of Histograms and Pareto Charts
- Practice using Histograms and Pareto Charts
- Develop a proficiency with the use of Histograms and Pareto Charts
which will assist you in achieving these course objectives:
- Understand different techniques used for data analysis.
- Analyze the core concepts of data and information management as it relates to organizational information needs.
- Design and implement realistic predictive solutions based on data eliminating uncertainty about data quality.
- NOTE: This week’s content explores how histograms and pareto charts are used by business analysts illustrates the frequency of an event occurring.
- i need 3 pages for this assignment & references too.

University of the Cumberlands

Question 1

What effect did the expansion have on sales and net income? What effect did the expansion have on the asset side of the balance sheet? What do you conclude from the statement of cash flows?
What is Computron’s net operating profit after taxes (NOPAT)? What are operating current assets? What are operating current liabilities? How much net operating working capital and total net operating capital does Computron have?
What is Computron’s free cash flow (FCF)? What are Computron’s “net uses” of its FCF?
Calculate Computron’s return on invested capital (ROIC). Computron has a 10% cost of capital (WACC). What caused the decline in the ROIC? Was it due to operating profitability or capital utilization? Do you think Computron’s growth added value?
What is Computron’s EVA? The cost of capital was 10% in both years.
Assume that a corporation has $200,000 of taxable income from operations. What is the company’s federal tax liability?
Assume that you are in the 25% marginal tax bracket and that you have $50,000 to invest. You have narrowed your investment choices down to municipal bonds yielding 7% or equally risky corporate bonds with a yield of 10%. Which one should you choose and why? At what marginal tax rate would you be indifferent?

Question 2

Why are ratios useful? What three groups use ratio analysis and for what reasons?
Calculate the profit margin, operating profit margin, basic earning power (BEP), return on assets (ROA), and return on equity (ROE). What can you say about these ratios?
Calculate the inventory turnover, days sales outstanding (DSO), fixed assets turnover, operating capital requirement, and total assets turnover. How does Computron’s utilization of assets stack up against other firms in its industry?
Calculate the current and quick ratios based on the projected balance sheet and income statement data. What can you say about the company’s liquidity position and its trend?
Calculate the debt ratio, liabilities-to-assets ratio, times-interest-earned, and EBITDA coverage ratios. How does Computron compare with the industry with respect to financial leverage? What can you conclude from these ratios?
Calculate the price/earnings ratio and market/book ratio. Do these ratios indicate that investors are expected to have a high or low opinion of the company?
Use the extended DuPont equation to provide a summary and overview of Computron’s projected financial condition. What are the firm’s major strengths and weaknesses?
What are some potential problems and limitations of financial ratio analysis?
What are some qualitative factors analysts should consider when evaluating a company’s likely future financial performance?

Submit your answers in a Word document. APA format

Text book

Title: Corporate Finance

ISBN: 9781337909747

Authors: Ehrhardt

Publisher: Cengage

Edition: 7TH 20

University of the Cumberlands

Reply:

Association Rule Mining :

Finding patterns in data can be done in a variety of methods, one of which is data mining. It identifies features (dimensions) that occur in pairs, as well as features (dimensions) that are “correlated.” What does the worth of one characteristic reveal about the worth of another? People who buy diapers, for example, are more inclined to buy baby powder. Alternatively, we may write the assertion as follows: If (people buy diapers), then (they buy baby powder). Take note of the if/then rule. This does not imply that when individuals buy baby powder, they also buy diapers. In general, we can state that just because condition A tends to B does not guarantee that B also tends to A. Keep an eye on the directionality!
We can use Association Rules in any dataset where features take only two values i.e., 0/1. The measures of effectiveness of the rule are as Follows:
Support, Confidence, Lift, Affinity, Leverage. Support refers to how much historical data backs up your rule, whereas confidence refers to how certain we are in the rule’s validity.
The percent of rows containing both A and B, or the combined probability of A and B, can be used to compute support.

Why is the association rule especially important in big data analysis?
Large amounts of data are accumulated in databases in many commercial environments as a result of day-to-day activities. The rules of the mining association are built on this foundation. Customer purchase data is acquired on a daily basis in retail, for example, at checkout counters in city stores or when purchasing online. Market basket transactions are frequently included in the accumulated data items. Managers are interested in studying the acquired data in order to understand about their clients’ purchase habits. consider real-world datasets Millions or billions of transactions are sifted through 100000 different things in order to find 1000 different rules. This motivates the use of association rule mining techniques to automate the procedure. These rules aid in the identification of new opportunities and methods for cross-selling products to clients in the retail industry.

How does the association rule allow for more advanced data interpretation?
In order to execute association rule mining, many algorithms are employed to detect common itemsets. The Apriori method is the most well-known, but the FP Growth method is also frequently employed. There’s also the Maximal Frequent Itemset Method (MAFIA Algorithm), which is a comparable algorithm. All algorithms have distinct benefits and drawbacks, and they must be chosen based on the data analysis situation at hand.

University of The Cumberlands

You are the new administrator of the Miami Medical Group, a 50 physician multi-specialty group practice. You have 10 years of industry experience and an MHA from University of the Cumberland’s. The physicians in the group have always been very conservative in dealing with the group’s finances. In the past, the group has never kept extra money in the bank but has distributed it to the doctors. As the group has grown over the past few years, younger physicians have decided to make changes and update their business practices. The younger physicians now control the Board of Directors. You have asked by the board chairman to design a cash management program that will benefit the practice but keep the older doctors pacified.

The Miami Medical Group occupies a 15,000 square foot building, which houses the majority of the physicians and all of the ancillary services. The group also operates 3 5,000 square foot practices geographically dispersed throughout the city’s various ethnic communities. The group generates $20,000,000 per year in revenue with 70% operating expenses.

Issues

As you begin to design the cash management system, you realize the scope of the assignment is much greater. Cash management only looks at immediate needs, while looming changes on the forefront will dictate the need for a more sophisticated planning process that accounts for the sustainability and viability of the organization for the future.

Many factors complicate the financial planning process, including:

The Affordable Care Act will be fully implemented in 2014.
The reimbursement model is changing from fee for service.
Federal, state, and local regulation and scrutiny of healthcare organizations is increasing.
Regulators are looking at income distribution within medical groups.

Assignment

This assignment includes these components: outline, presentation, and a memo:

Prepare an outline of your cash management plan for presentation to the board.
Prepare a 4-5 PowerPoint slides summarizing your plan to use at the board meeting.
Prepare a 2-page memo explaining all of the critical issues facing the group on the financial landscape, and explain how the doctors will ultimately benefit from the plan. You must read 4 – 6 peer-reviewed journal articles, and use the information from them to support your outline, presentation, and memo. Your goal is to demonstrate to the doctors your plan is sound and meets the anticipated changes facing them.

The memo format requirements are as follows:

Do not exceed 2 pages
Use a 12-point font
Use full-block format—single space within paragraphs, and double space between them
Use standard memo format (To, From, Date, Subject [no “Dear . . . .” salutation or “Sincerely” close—those conventions are for letters, not memo)
Use APA format to credit your sources—parenthetical references within the memo and the corresponding reference list at the end of the memo
Credit your sources for the presentation as well
Assignment is due Day 7 of Week 4

University of The Cumberlands

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to business initiatives that benefit society. These initiatives fall into three categories, often called the triple bottom line, which are social, environment, and economic. At first, many businesses didn’t take corporate social responsibility seriously or at least pretended to when it came to the environment in what’s known now as greenwashing. However, as consumers have become more aware and educated on social issues like global warming and unethical labor practices, they have begun demanding businesses institute policies that benefit all of society rather than just the business’ bottom line.

So, what happens if companies don’t practice corporate social responsibility? Simply put, consumers will take their money and business to a company that does. Now that you know the basics, let’s delve deeper into why CSR matters, how it impacts business today, and a few examples of businesses that have implemented CSR successfully. (Vize, 2016)

Q1)Why Corporate Social Responsibility Matters & How it Impacts Business

While it was widely held in previous decades that companies should only focus on their bottom lines, the past decade has seen a change in this thinking. In fact, 66 percent of online consumers said they would pay more for products or services from companies that are socially and environmentally responsible, according to a 2015 Nielsen survey. That same survey also found that consumer-goods’ brands with a commitment to sustainability outperform those that don’t.

Besides the potential loss of socially conscious consumers, CSR impacts a business’ ability to attract top talent and affects employees’ job satisfaction levels and retention rates. The next generation of workers currently entering the workforce seek out employers with a clear and effective CSR strategy. Quality talent in 2016 wants to be employed by a transparent company with the goal of doing good, while also making a profit. Businesses that don’t prioritize a corporate social responsibility strategy risk losing top talent to companies that are doing so.

Additionally, businesses that practice CSR have happier and more satisfied employees. This is because employees feel working for a socially conscious employer gives them a sense of purpose. Also, businesses practicing corporate social responsibility tend to invest more in their employees and work harder to create a workplace that employees enjoy returning to each day. Given that the current average in the U.S. for employee tenure is 4.2 years, implementing an expansive and effective CSR strategy can help employers retain their current employees for longer.

The rise of social media has also impacted the importance of corporate social responsibility. Today, companies with unethical business practices are exposed harshly on social media and can have their reputation damaged greatly in a matter of a few hours. Alternatively, social media also works as a tool to highlight companies implementing CSR or those with ethical business practices, which can lead to increased sales, a larger audience reach, and free positive publicity. (Vize, 2016)

Examples of Successful Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies:

Here’s a look at a few major companies that have successfully implemented CSR strategies.

Ben & Jerry’s: This Vermont-based brand is well-known for its corporate social responsibility. In fact, it’s a cornerstone of how this company operates. In addition to speaking out and creating various flavors around social issues, the company has a history of proven social responsibility dating back to 1985 when they established the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation. The brand uses only fair-trade ingredients and also developed a sustainability program for dairy farms in Vermont. This is a great example of a business that is prioritizing environmental and social issues, while also donating to various additional charities, organizations, and movements.

Target: Many critics of CSR claim a major corporation cannot afford to prioritize social or environmental justice while still being profitable, but Target clearly proves this wrong. The massive company has worked since 1946 to provide local and environmental support to the communities their stores are located in. Along with implementing sustainable business practices, Target also organizes and donates to various charity campaigns and initiatives. Since 2010, the company has donated more than $875 million to the area of education alone. Target also made headlines this year for social justice when they came out with their pro-transgender bathroom policy, which was and still is a divisive issue across the U.S. Showing consumers they are not afraid to take a stand for what’s right.

Google: Despite being one of the largest corporations in the world, Google is an excellent example of a business that is constantly working for the betterment of society. In addition to various other CSR initiatives, the company has implemented a widely successful environmental policy called Google Green, which is a corporate effort to use resources more efficiently and support renewable energy sources. It has led to an overall reduction in power requirements for their data centers by 50 percent. (Vize, 2016)

Q2)What do you think blockchain technology can do to support CSR concerns of marketers? How is this technology helpful in this context?

Blockchain keeps technology honest. The former sheds light on the latter, and it’s a key ingredient in keeping cryptocurrency and other business technologies accountable. But what if blockchain could help businesses thrive while also doing social good?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a major rock for many companies. It allows them to display their organizational values, serve their communities, and inspire a new generation of brand loyalists. (Caputo, 2018)

But just like the businesses that sponsor them, CSR initiatives require transparency in both results and processes—blockchain can do both. Business leaders can use blockchain to align their CSR initiatives with trustworthiness and reliability, two traits every organization wants to embody.
By embracing blockchain and its inherent transparency, a company creates trust internally and positive buzz externally. To achieve this accountability, follow these best practices:

1. Leverage blockchain to record impact results. Recording and measuring activities can help you make better decisions about which social initiatives to support. It also improves the efficiency of your programs and helps convince skeptical stakeholders of CSR’s value. Measurement might feel like an afterthought, but it’s crucial for companies to recognize the value in measurement and understand that it can save them time and resources in the long run. According to Ben Darlington, director of Benefacto and GivX, this mental shift involves adopting an organizational mindset that embraces impact assessments. “It’s important to change this mentality and understand how measurement can be applied to benefit your organization and make your life easier,” Darlington said. CSR builds momentum when it’s able to demonstrate value. Leaders should use blockchain technology to showcase relevant impact metrics and demonstrate progress. This is a show of good faith to customers and a way to keep leadership’s big-picture focus.

2. Be open about your intentions. As noted by a Unilever study, 33% of consumers choose brands they perceive as taking a stand on social issues or being environmentally aware. Leaders practice CSR as a way to illustrate their personal values, and they should see blockchain as another way to depict those beliefs. Enact this strategy by giving consumers, governments, corporations, and other interested parties access to your initiative’s metrics and operations. That transparency allows leaders to see what elicits the best response from a target audience, empowering executives with the insight they need to make informed decisions. The heart of CSR is a commitment to improving the world. Give access to anyone interested in seeing what you’re doing to propel your business (and the world) forward.

3. Use AI for predictive analysis. Establish a microdata approach that allows AI to conduct a predictive analysis of the impact of CSR initiatives before they begin. Data analytics naturally folds into predictive analytics, using historical data to forecast potential outcomes. Predictions no longer rely on human interaction to query data, validate patterns, and inform assumptions. In the past, human understanding dictated “What/if” assumptions despite any limitations that human volume, time, and costs placed on predictive capability. Thanks to AI predictive analysis, those barriers disappear in favor of more precise predictions. If every corporate question had an answer as simple as blockchain, businesses would all be better off. Blockchain makes data accurate and unimpeachable, meaning leaders genuinely committed to their CSR goals would be wise to use blockchain to grow beyond vague promises. (Caputo, 2018)

Conclusion

Consumers want to do business with a company they can trust. Due to this, it’s now commonplace for a business to have a sustainability report and various CSR initiatives in place. In order to remain competitive in today’s marketplace, which is only growing more interwoven with social and environmental issues, businesses must practice corporate social responsibility. Those that don’t will be unable to attract or retain top talent, continue to experience decreased sales, and risk going viral for all the wrong reasons on social media leading to a damaged reputation. (Caputo, 2018)

References

Caputo, S. (2018). 3 Ways Blockchain Can Positively Influence CSR. Retrieved from https://boardmember.com/3-ways-blockchain-positively-influence-csr/.

Vize, S. (2016). Corporate Social Responsibility: Why its Important. Retrieved from https://mondo.com/corporate-social-responsibility-2016/.

University of The Cumberlands

1. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is when a business enterprise operates in a moral and sustainable way and offers with its environmental and social impacts. This capability a cautious consideration of human rights, the community, environment, and society in which it operates.

Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility

It’s noticeably vital that your enterprise operates in a way that demonstrates social responsibility. Although it’s no longer a prison requirement, it’s viewed as desirable exercise for you to take into account social and environmental issues.

Social accountability and moral practices are imperative to your success. The 2015 Cone Communications/Ebiquity Global CSR learn about located that a marvelous 91% of world shoppers count on corporations to function responsibly to tackle social and environmental issues. Furthermore, 84% say they searching for out accountable merchandise anywhere possible (Gond, J., & Moon, J. 2012).

As the above information show, shoppers are increasingly more conscious of the significance of social responsibility, and actively are seeking merchandise from corporations that function ethically. CSR demonstrates that you’re a enterprise that takes an hobby in wider social issues, alternatively than simply these that influence your income margins, which will entice clients who share the identical values. Therefore, it makes suitable enterprise experience to function sustainably.

2 principal factors on CSR

a.Lack of Community Participation in CSR Activities

Majorly, communities who are supposed beneficiaries of CSR software exhibit much less activity which will have an effect on their participation and contribution. Also, very little efforts are being made to unfold CSR inside neighborhood communities and instill self-belief in the people. The scenario is similarly aggravated with the aid of insufficient verbal exchange between the corporation and the neighborhood at the grassroots level (Weber, J., & Wasieleski, D. M. 2018).

b.Issues of transparency

Lack of transparency is one of the key issues. There is a grasp that companion NGOs or nearby implementation businesses do no longer share ample records and make efforts to divulge statistics on their programs, tackle concerns, verify affects and make use of funds. This perceived lack of transparency has a terrible have an effect on the system of have confidence constructing between businesses and neighborhood communities, which is key to the success of any CSR initiative.

2. Blockchain maintains science honest. The former sheds mild on the latter, and it’s a key ingredient in retaining crypto foreign money and different commercial enterprise applied sciences accountable. But what if blockchain should assist agencies thrive whilst additionally doing social good.

Corporate social Responsibility (CSR) is a most important rock for many companies. It approves them to show their organizational values, serve their communities, and encourage a new technology of manufacturer loyalists. But simply like the corporations that sponsor them, CSR initiatives require transparency in each consequences and approaches blockchain can do both. Business leaders can use blockchain to align their CSR initiatives with trustworthiness and reliability, two qualities each business enterprise needs to embody (Gond, J., & Moon, J. 2012).

Companies that show up duplicitous displease consumers. A Trinity Mirror find out about notes that 58% of adults don’t have faith manufacturers that fail to exhibit concrete proof that they maintain their promises. Consumers demand social accountability and accountability, each of which blockchain can construct into a company’s processes.

References

Gond, J., & Moon, J. (2012). Corporate social responsibility. London: Routledge.

Weber, J., & Wasieleski, D. M. (2018). Corporate social responsibility. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited.

University of The Cumberlands

Question 1

Assume that you are nearing graduation and have applied for a job with a local bank. As part of the bank’s evaluation process, you have been asked to take an examination that covers several financial analysis techniques. The first section of the set addresses time value of money analysis. See how you would do by answering the following questions.

Draw time lines for (a) a $2000 lump sum cash flow at the end of year 4, (b) an ordinary annuity of $1000 per year for 5 years, and (c) an uneven cash flow stream of -$450, $1000, $650, $850 and $500 at the end of years 0 through 4.
What is the future value of an initial $1000 after 5 years if it is invested in an account paying 5% annual interest?
What is the present value of $1000 to be received in 4 years if the appropriate interest rate is 5%?
We sometimes need to find out how long it will take a sum of money (or anything else) to grow to some specified amount. For example, if a company’s sales for 2020 is $1000 and expected to grow at a rate of 10% per year, how long will it take sales to double?
If you invested $10,000 in an investment account and you expect it to double in 4 years, what interest rate must it earn?
What is the future value of a 5-year ordinary annuity of $1000 if the appropriate interest rate is 5%? What is the present value of the annuity?
What is the future value of $1000 after 4 years under 10% annual compounding? Semiannual compounding? Quarterly compounding? Monthly compounding? Daily compounding
What is the effective annual rate (EAR or EFF%)? What is the EFF% for a nominal rate of 5%, compounded semiannually? Compounded quarterly? Compounded monthly? Compounded daily?
Construct an amortization schedule for a $1,000, 12% annual rate loan with 4 equal installments. What is the annual interest expense for the borrower, and the annual interest income for the lender, during Year 2?
Suppose on January 1 you deposit $1000 in an account that pays a nominal, or quoted, interest rate of 12%, with interest added (compounded) daily. How much will you have in your account on October 1, or 9 months later?
You want to buy a car, and a local bank will lend you $10,000. The loan would be fully amortized over 6 years (72 months), and the nominal interest rate would be 10%, with interest paid monthly. What is the monthly loan payment?
While Mary Corens was a student at the University of Tennessee, she borrowed $20,000 in student loans at an annual interest rate of 5%. If Mary repays $200 per year, then how long (to the nearest year) will it take her to repay the loan?

Question 2

1. Jackson Corporation’s bonds have 10 years remaining to maturity. Interest is paid annually, the bonds have a $1,000 par value, and the coupon interest rate is 9%. The bonds have a yield to maturity of 10%. What is the current market price of these bonds?

2. Renfro Rentals has issued bonds that have a 10% coupon rate, payable semiannually. The bonds mature in 10 years, have a face value of $1,000, and a yield to maturity of 9%. What is the price of the bonds?

3. Wilson Wonders’s bonds have 10 years remaining to maturity. Interest is paid annually, the bonds have a $1,000 par value, and the coupon interest rate is 10%. The bonds sell at a price of $900. What is their yield to maturity?

4. Heath Foods’s bonds have 10 years remaining to maturity. The bonds have a face value of $1,000 and a yield to maturity of 9%. They pay interest annually and have a 10% coupon rate. What is their current yield?

5. Suppose Hillard Manufacturing sold an issue of bonds with a 12-year maturity, a $1,000 par value, a 10% coupon rate, and semiannual interest payments.

Two years after the bonds were issued, the going rate of interest on bonds such as these fell to 5%. At what price would the bonds sell?
Suppose that 2 years after the initial offering, the going interest rate had risen to 11%. At what price would the bonds sell?
Suppose that 2 years after the issue date (as in part a) interest rates fell to 5%. Suppose further that the interest rate remained at 5% for the next 10 years. What would happen to the price of the bonds over time?

University of the Cumberlands

Think about the last time you utilized a mobile application or attempted to build your own mobile website. What planning process did you go through before you began your project? You may have considered the steps or tasks you needed to perform. You may also have considered the resources and platforms needed for your outcome. For example, which model fits your business domain needs? Do you have time constraints that will make completing the web application/site difficult within a reasonable period of time? You may also have considered the myths that surround developing mobile apps and the difficulties generally associated with mobile app development.

How does design & utility make a difference between good vs great websites? Explain
How is deciding between a mobile application vs a mobile website an important consideration by developers? Explain.
Why are push notifications the preferred method of communication over instant messaging among young people?

Respond to the following posts

Discussion 1:

It takes a short to distinguish between a good and a great website. Design and utility make a difference between a great versus good website in designing and transforming the excellent approach to becoming a great one. The utility consists of secondary tools and actions such as subscribe, contact, sign in, save, change the view, print, and share. These activities significantly affect the satisfaction of the website visitor, engagement, and user experience. Utilities should be put in place where users expect them and can use them. A good website may not be enough since it might be boring with static designs. Besides, design and utility may make a difference in the website when the designers feel that they made a good design but wants to improve its details and make it go beyond expectations hence becoming great. Usually, good websites have an effortless function suite and provide content that does not require special effort to find and read. Notably, they have a homepage based on Java script banners or flash to showcase their service or product portfolio. A good design delights a visitor while a great one engages the visitors and turns their visits into conversations. Distinguishing between great and good design does not involve the way elements are implemented. Relatively, it involves testing the outcome of the potential modifications for the visitors’ and users’ best possible benefits (Armour, 2018).

The interactive and rich experiences we expect from the mobile apps have helped create new expectations and standards for every digital media, including the web. The web result is the websites that have evolved and become more app-like through their powerful functionality. While developing a mobile web, the first step a mobile developer should consider is developing a mobile website. A mobile app is deemed helpful while developing an application meant for a specific purpose that may not be effectively accomplished using the web browser. A website has more inherent advantages in comparison to apps since it has broader compatibility, accessibility, and also it is cost-effective.

As mobile keeps on growing around the world, the question of website versus app remains a factual consideration for companies that want to establish a mobile presence. If the initial goals of the mobile are marketing-driven or they are aiming to create a broad mobile presence that can easily be maintained and can be shared among users. Our lives are likely to be facilitated by the countless applications that are running on the various devices with different sensors in which a collection of all pieces regarding everything that we do as well as feeding the big data brains may become accustomed to applications concerning our needs just because they have known us.

References

Armour, B. (2018, April 20). Mobile App Vs. Mobile Website: Which Is the Better Option? Retrieved May 4, 2021, from https://www.business2community.com/mobile-apps/mobile-app-vs-mobile-website-which-is-the-better-option-02048068

Sonmez, J. (2016, December 5). What is Mobile Development? Simple Programmer. Retrieved from https://simpleprogrammer.com/what-is-mobile-development/

Discussion 2:

The design and utility makes a hug difference when it comes to making a great website. The UI design decides the appeal to the customers and the utility ensures the customer satisfaction. In this generations mobile applications run on design and utility. If I don’t have access to their website browser that is when a mobile application comes handy. The context that must be understood but cannot be changed or controlled. These include hardware affordances, platform capabilities and UI conventions, and the environment in which your application is used. The implementation that can be controlled in an application, such as performance, design, and integration with platform features such as accelerometer data or notifications (Hoehle & Venkatesh, 2015).

Despite the importance of usability, social and cultural norms on the success of a mobile app, there are very few apps in the field of health and fitness that consider their impacts of usability and cultural and social norms when designing the apps. The new era is completely in awe of push notifications instead of Instant messaging. It is way easier to reach people easily in a much faster way. When a push notification pops up on the lock screen youngsters tend to make them click. The fewer words the better and these notifications are much better as the user knows from whom and what the message would be pertaining from the application (Aynob et al., 2009).

References

Hoehle, H., & Venkatesh, V. (2015). Mobile Application Usability. Mis Quarterly, 39(2), 435-472.

binti Ayob, N. Z., Hussin, A. R. C., & Dahlan, H. M. (2009, April). Three layers design guideline for mobile application. In 2009 International Conference on Information Management and Engineering (pp. 427-431). IEEE.

University of The Cumberlands

In each of the following selling situations determine:

What nonverbal signals is the buyer communicating?
How would you respond nonverbally?
What would you say?

The buyer seems happy to see you. Because you have been calling on him for several years, the two of you have become business friends. In the middle of your presentation, you notice the buyer slowly lean back in his chair. As you continue to talk, a puzzled look comes over his face.
As you begin the main part of your presentation, the buyer reaches for the telephone and says, “Keep going; I need to tell my secretary something.”
As a salesperson with only six months’ experience, you are somewhat nervous about calling on an important buyer who has been a purchasing agent for almost 20 years. Three minutes after you have begun your presentation, he rapidly raises his arms straight up into the air and slowly clasps his hands behind his head. He leans so far back in his chair that you think he is going to fall backward on the floor. At the same time, he crosses his legs away from you and slowly closes his eyes. You keep on talking. Slowly the buyer opens his eyes, uncrosses his legs, and sits up in his chair. He leans forward, placing his elbows on the desk top, propping his head up with his hands. He seems relaxed as he says, “Let me see what you have here.” He reaches his hand out for you to give him the presentation materials you have developed.
At the end of your presentation, the buyer leans forward, his arms open, and smiles as he says, “You really don’t expect me to buy that piece of junk, do you?”

Guidelines:

Identify the following in each scenario:
- What nonverbal signals is the buyer communicating?
- How would you respond nonverbally?
- What would you say?
The paper should be at least 1– 1.5 pages in length.
Bullet points can be used
Times New Roman 12-pt font, double-spaced, 1inch margins.
APA formatting and citation should be used.

University of the Cumberlands

Task1:words:300

Analyzing financial statements helps healthcare leaders determine the opportunities and problems the organization faces financially. At its core, the financial statement is a pulse of the financial health of the organization, defining whether it is capable of paying expenditures, overburdened with debt, or flush with capital to expand. There are two primary methods of financial statement analysis: horizontal and vertical. Other methods are extensions of these.

To prepare for this Discussion:

Identify one example of an event that has changed the operations of your organization or an organization with which you are familiar with. If you are not currently working in a healthcare organization (HCO), you may choose a case study from a reliable source from which to work.

Review this week’s Reading and Learning Resources.

Task2:words:450

Read and reflect on the assigned readings for the week. Then post what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding in each assigned textbook chapter.Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook should be a source listed in your reference section and cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion.

Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:

When two people are talking, they want the listener to understand what they are saying. They both want to be effective communicators. The same is true of the salesperson who wants the buyer to listen to a sales presentation. What can the salesperson do to help ensure that the buyer is listening?

[Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!]

[Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA review]

Task3:words:300

Assume you are a security professional. You are determining which of the following backup strategies will provide the best protection against data loss, whether from disk failure or natural disaster:

Daily full server backups with hourly incremental backups
Redundant array of independent disks (RAID) with periodic full backups
Replicated databases and folders on high-availability alternate servers

Answer the following question(s):

Which backup strategy would you adopt? Why?

include intext citations and references in APA format

University of the Cumberlands

Reflection (R1) Week 2

Chapter 2 of the book provides an introduction and overview of various blockchain platform startups from recent years that currently exist in the market:

Everledger: a permanent ledger for diamond certification and related transaction history.
Cardano: a smart contract platform that seeks to deliver more advanced features than any protocol previously developed.
Stellar: a platform that connects banks, payments systems, and people. Moves money quickly, reliably, and at almost no cost.
NEO: a competitor to Ethereum, NEO is developing an open network for a smart economy.
Coinbase: a platform to buy and sell bitcoin and ether.
Lisk: a platform that enables the development and publishing of blockchain applications with your own sidechains.
Blockstream: offers software and hardware solutions using the Blockchain.
tØ: a blockchain-based trading platform.
OpenBazaar: a decentralised marketplace.
BitFury: one of the biggest bitcoin mining infrastructure providers
Augur: a decentralised prediction market built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Neureal: open source and decentralised artificial intelligence.
Maidsafe: a distributed platform that enables the creation of fast and secure applications.
IPFS: a peer-to-peer distributed file system that aims to replace http.
Imagjn: developing a reputation protocol to enable collaboration among individuals, organisations, and things.
EOS: a smart contract platform for DApps that raised over $4 billion in their token sale.

You task in this assignment is to select one of these startup companies mentioned from the textbook and conduct a brief research assessment on them in a 3-4 page paper addressing the following:

What is the company’s target business function?
What type of business advantage do they provide markets and companies?
What is the current challenge do you think in your own words this company has in being adopted in business today?
What is the company’s overall marketing approach? Are they on social media, blogs, or an any other medium to be discovered by clients?

University of the Cumberlands

Attached is a copy of the week’s research terms. Topics will be selected on a first come first serve basis. To claim a topic, go to this week’s discussion forum (below) and check what topics remain available. Select an available topic and start a new discussion thread by placing ONLY the topic in the Subject Line (do not put your name or anything else here). Leave the body of the thread blank and save the post. In weeks where there are insufficient topics for everyone; once all topics have been selected you may then start selecting from the entire list again. But there should never be three posts on the same topic – if so the last one posted will receive no credit.

After your topic selection, research your selected topic in the university’s electronic library from only academic (refereed) journals. You will need at least three journal references and the textbook. Start your research with the textbook so it always grounds your topic. When your research is complete post it in the discussion forum below.

Your research papaer should be at least 650+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced).

Structure your paper as follows:
1. Cover page
2. Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in your own words.
3. Purpose of Research should reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and professional practice and the larger body of research.
4. Review of the Literature summarized in your own words. Note that this should not be a “copy and paste” of literature content, nor should this section be substantially filled with direct quotes from the article. A literature review is a summary of the major points and findings of each of the selected articles (with appropriate citations). Direct quotations should be used sparingly. Normally, this will be the largest section of your paper (this is not a requirement; just a general observation).
5. Practical Application of the literature. Describe how your findings from the relevant research literature can shape, inform, and improve current business and professional practice related to your chosen topic.
6. Conclusion in your own words
7. References formatted according to APA style requirements

University of the Cumberlands

Chapter 8. Motivation: From Concepts to Applications

Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:

Lewis Vacation Rentals has been experiencing a recent decline in its bookings. In an effort to increase sales, the company is offering its employees a 1 percent share in the company profit over the next six months in addition to regular employee salaries. Will this plan increase motivation? Why or why not?

[Your initial post should be at least 600+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA review]

Part- 2 ( 2 Pages)

1. Evaluate variable-pay programs in terms of their impact on motivation and productivity.

2. Please discuss one of the drawbacks to a piece-rate plan.

The assignment is to answer the question provided above in essay form. This is to be in narrative form. Bullet points should not to be used. The paper should be at least 1.5 – 2 pages in length, Times New Roman 12-pt font, double-spaced, 1 inch margins and utilizing at least one outside scholarly or professional source related to organizational behavior. This does not mean blogs or websites. This source should be a published article in a scholarly journal. This source should provide substance and not just be mentioned briefly to fulfill this criteria. The textbook should also be utilized. Do not use quotes. Do not insert excess line spacing. APA formatting and citation should be used.

University of the Cumberlands

In this assignment, you are to critically read and evaluate a scholarly article’s strengths, weaknesses, and contributions to the study field. Learning how to critique a journal article has several benefits, including preparing you for publishing in the future and keeping you current on the literature in your field of study. The practical application is developing the ability to look at research within your organization and industry with a knowledgeable, critical eye.

The University Library subscribes to many journals and provides you access to appropriate collections to support this assignment. Using the UC Library, locate and review the following peer-reviewed articles:

De Meulenaere, K., De Winne, S., Marescaux, E., & Vanormelingen, S. (2021). The role of firm size and knowledge intensity in the performance effects of collective turnover. Journal of Management, 47(4), 993-1023.

Weller, I., Süß, J., Evanschitzky, H., & von Wangenheim, F. (2020). Transformational leadership, high-performance work system consensus, and customer satisfaction. Journal of Management, 46(8), 1469-1497.

Gupta, V. K., Mortal, S. C., Silveri, S., Sun, M., & Turban, D. B. (2020). You’re fired! Gender disparities in CEO dismissal. Journal of Management, 46(4), 560-582.

Marshall, D. R., Davis, W. D., Dibrell, C., & Ammeter, A. P. (2019). Learning off the job: Examining part-time entrepreneurs as innovative employees. Journal of Management, 45(8), 3091-3113.

Paterson, T. A., & Huang, L. (2019). Am I expected to be ethical? A role-definition perspective of ethical leadership and unethical behavior. Journal of Management, 45(7), 2837-2860.

Pak, J., & Kim, S. (2018). Team manager’s implementation, high performance work systems intensity, and performance: a multilevel investigation. Journal of Management, 44(7), 2690-2715.

Following your review, choose one article from this list; critically evaluate the article’s strengths, weaknesses, and contribution to the study field using the outline below as a guide:

Cover page

The cover page will include:
- Articles Title and Author (s)
- Name of Journal (s)
- Date of publication
- Your name

Executive Summary

Summarize the significant aspects of the entire article, including:
- The overall purpose and general area of study of the article.
- The specific problem being addressed in the study.
- The main findings of the article.

Literature Review

Briefly summarize the overall themes presented in the Literature Review.
- Was the literature review applicable to the study, current and thorough?
- Were there gaps in the literature review?

Data Analysis

Identify the methodology used: qualitative, quantitative, mixed? Was the chosen methodology appropriate for the study? Why or why not?
Did the data analysis prove or disprove the research questions? Explain.

Results/Conclusion

In this section, you will address the following:
- Describe the article’s relevance to the field of knowledge.
- Outline the strengths and weaknesses of the article. Be specific.
- Based on the article, what future research do you think needs to be accomplished in this area?
- What are your key points and takeaways after analyzing the article?

University of the Cumberlands

Submit the paper for analyzing and solving an ethical dilemma following the attached outline which include details of the expectations for this assignment.

Please find attached document for more details, please use APA format

Paper – Topic Examples

Should consumer protection regulations limit residential mortgage interest rates?

Can employers who pay health insurance benefits require employees to be non-smokers?

Should national health care be funded by a national sales tax?

Non-compensated boards: Advantages for better corporate oversight

Should colleges abolish athletic scholarships?

Pros and cons of legal drinking at 18

Are college athletes under less academic scrutiny than other students?

Government bailouts: Why should the taxpayers ante up for corporate misdeeds?

Conflict of interest: Private prisons and the burgeoning U.S. prison population

The end of unions: Has the moral imperative ended for their existence?

Teacher merit pay – Will it help improve our schools?

Failure of competition: Why charter schools haven’t worked as planned.

Civil Unions: Pros and cons for business

Should executive compensation be limited by law?

Do constitutional guarantees of free speech apply to images?

Can employers ban religious symbols in the workplace?

Does “No Child Left Behind” Leave Any Children Behind?

Sex Selection – Should We Choose Our Future Children?

A School Counselor’s Ethical Dilemma – Disclosure to Parents

Is Capital Punishment Ethical: Should Michael Addison Have Received the Death Penalty?

In the Professional Business of Sports is it Ethical for Athletes to Use Steriods?

If You Thought Homeroom was Hard: The Ethics of Military Recruitment in Our Public High Schools

Ethical Issue of Gay Marriage

Automotive Bailout Plan: Ethical or Unethical?

Is Outsourcing Ethical?

Should Senior Management Take Responsibility for Corporate Failure and Scandal?

Ethical Dilemmas of Growth Hormones in Animal Feed

Continuing Gender Discrimination in Title IX Athletics

Ethical Challenges in Animal Rights and Animal Welfare Organizations

Should Countries Require More Regulations on International Trade?

Medical Marijuana: Patients vs. Politics

Business Regulation of Personal Use of Computers

Free Speech and the Workplace

Healthcare: A Human Right

Fake Luxury Products In China

The Growth in Chinese Luxury Goods: Effects on the Chinese Economy

Advertising’s Bad Effects on Young People

Bioethical Dilemma: Ethics of Cloning for Reproduction

Euthanasia: Suicide, Mercy Killing or Right-to-Die?

Should the U.S. Government Prohibit Gun Ownership?

Abortion (Un)Ethical

The Ethical Position of Gambling in the United States

Is Foreign Aid Helping or Hurting Haiti?

Reverse Discrimination

Severance Packages: Ethically Defensible?

Tatoos and Piercings: Discrimination in the Workplace

Sex Selection – Should We Choose Our Future Children?

Ethics of Police Interrogations

Does Whistle-Blowing Violate Company Loyalty?

Digital Piracy and the Music Industry: What is to Blame for the Industry’s Downfall?

Ethical Issues in Using Pirated Software

Cultural Roadblocks to Ending Bribery

Should Genetically Modified Food be Labeled as Such?

Employer Monitoring of Employee Email and Internet Usage

please select from any of the above topics for your paper

On the number of papers, please try to cover as much as matter you can based on recommended outline

University of The Cumberlands

Answer below questions, Chapter 5 & 6 in Information Systems for Business and Beyond

References: At least two peer-reviewed, scholarly journal references.

Chapter 7 – study questions 1-10, Exercise 2

Study questions:

1. What is the productivity paradox?

2. Summarize Carr’s argument in “Does IT Matter.”

3. How is the 2008 study by Brynjolfsson and McAfee different from previous studies? How is it the same?

4. What does it mean for a business to have a competitive advantage?

5. What are the primary activities and support activities of the value chain?

6. What has been the overall impact of the Internet on industry profitability? Who has been the true winner?

7. How does EDI work?

8. Give an example of a semi-structured decision and explain what inputs would be necessary to provide assistance in making the decision.

9. What does a collaborative information system do?

10. How can IT play a role in competitive advantage, according to the 2008 article by Brynjolfsson and McAfee?

Exercise:

2. Do some independent research on Nicholas Carr (the author of “IT Doesn’t Matter”) and explain his current position on the ability of IT to provide competitive advantage.

Chapter 8 – study questions 1-10, Exercise 2

Study questions:

1. What does the term business process mean?

2. What are three examples of business process from a job you have had or an organization you have observed?

3. What is the value in documenting a business process?

4. What is an ERP system? How does an ERP system enforce best practices for an organization?

5. What is one of the criticisms of ERP systems?

6. What is business process re-engineering? How is it different from incrementally improving a process?

7. Why did BPR get a bad name?

8. List the guidelines for redesigning a business process.

9. What is business process management? What role does it play in allowing a company to differentiate itself?

10. What does ISO certification signify?

Exercise:

2.Review the return policies at your favorite retailer, then answer this question. What information systems do you think would need to be in place to support their return policy?

University of The Cumberlands

Resources: Please find the below videos for resources as additional resources.

1. https://youtu.be/nBFeZx-ovo4

2. https://youtu.be/j9w7hEfeIbE

Dissertation topic : Usage of Blockchain in Supply chain management (Please let me know if you are comfortable with a different one) – I need it to be around Blockchain as that is my Major. Also, please make sure there is no plagiarism and covered the requirements with APA format.

Requirements : Need two separate papers

QUALITATIVE Journal Article Reviews

You will review both quantitative and qualitative research. The topic is up to you as long as you choose a peer-reviewed, academic research piece. I suggest choosing a topic that is at least in the same family as your expected dissertation topic so that you can start viewing what is out there. There are no hard word counts or page requirements as long as you cover the basic guidelines. You must submit original work, however, and a paper that returns as a large percentage of copy/paste to other sources will not be accepted. (Safe Assign will be used to track/monitor your submission for plagiarism. Submissions with a Safe Assign match of more than 25% will not be accepted.)

Please use APA formatting and include the following information:

Introduction/Background: Provide context for the research article. What led the author(s) to write the piece? What key concepts were explored? Were there weaknesses in prior research that led the author to the current hypothesis or research question?
Methodology: Describe how the data was gathered and analyzed. What research questions or hypotheses were the researcher trying to explore? What statistical analysis was used?
Study Findings and Results: What were the major findings from the study? Were there any limitations?
Conclusions: Evaluate the article in terms of significance, research methods, readability and the implications of the results. Does the piece lead into further study? Are there different methods you would have chosen based on what you read? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the article in terms of statistical analysis and application? (This is where a large part of the rubric is covered.)
References

QUANTITATIVE Journal Article – Review

Please use APA formatting and include the following information:

Introduction/Background: Provide context for the research article. What led the author(s) to write the piece? What key concepts were explored? Were there weaknesses in prior research that led the author to the current hypothesis or research question?
Methodology: Describe how the data was gathered and analyzed. What research questions or hypotheses were the researcher trying to explore? What statistical analysis was used?
Study Findings and Results: What were the major findings from the study? Were there any limitations?
Conclusions: Evaluate the article in terms of significance, research methods, readability and the implications of the results. Does the piece lead into further study? Are there different methods you would have chosen based on what you read? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the article in terms of statistical analysis and application? (This is where a large part of the rubric is covered.)
References

University of The Cumberlands

Your assignment objective reverts to the data and research objective you were assigned in week four, the first part of the visualization project. Need to refresh your memory? Go to the folder labeled Visualization Project Instructions to access parts one and two of the visualization project.

You are not creating or writing a planning document. You should use your planning information to tailor your results. You will demonstrate your understanding of the visualization process in this assigned work.

You will present the results to management via a written report based on the customer complaint data.
You must use the objective assigned in the Homework 2 Instructions (part 1 of the project).
You must use the data provided in the Homework 3 Instructions (part 2 of the project).
I highly encourage you to work through the information provided in R and RStudio, Units 1 – 6, before working on this project.
Do not forget to cite and reference the data sources. Failure to credit external sources is not acceptable.

You are responsible for submitting 2 items, a paper, and an R script file.

Paper

Your figures will not contain any other part of RStudio. Do not include images of programming code nor programming code in your paper. That information is only needed in the R script you submit. This is not a ‘how-to’ in R.
When you document your work in your paper, provide an interpretation of every figure in your paper. Label every figure with the word Figure and a numeric index, like Figure 1, followed by Figure 2. Keep your figures left-align. When you provide your interpretations, make sure to include what figure you are referring to. For example, Shown in Figure 1, there is… and the rest of your interpretations. Alternatively, your reference to a figure could follow the information you have written based on the figure shown at the end of this sentence (see Figure 1). The figure annotation within the confines of a figure is in bold letters. The following line is the title of the figure; it is in italics and not bolded.
All figures in the paper must be key findings. There should be many more visualizations in the programming than in the paper because key findings must be assessed from multiple perspectives.
When providing your interpretations, use real words. Do not use odd capitalization or variable names unless the variable name is a real word.

Script file

This file should contain everything needed to run the file. If steps were taken to modify the original data set in previous homework submissions (i.e., part 1, part 2, or part 3), include that programming code in this script file. All libraries should still be found in one place, near the top of the script file, after the leading comments required in every script file.
The programming shall include the questions you posed to yourself to drive your analysis in the comments.
You will have more visualizations of data in your programming than in your paper. If you program a graph that is not meaningful, annotate that in comments in your programming but do not include that visualization in your paper.
Do not leave incomplete programming code in your script file.
You may receive a warning when you submit your work. This warning indicates that SafeAssign does not automatically check R script files. This is not an error and is not preventing your submission.

University of The Cumberlands

I’m studying for my Management class and need an explanation.

Question 1

What effect did the expansion have on sales and net income? What effect did the expansion have on the asset side of the balance sheet? What do you conclude from the statement of cash flows?
What is Computron’s net operating profit after taxes (NOPAT)? What are operating current assets? What are operating current liabilities? How much net operating working capital and total net operating capital does Computron have?
What is Computron’s free cash flow (FCF)? What are Computron’s “net uses” of its FCF?
Calculate Computron’s return on invested capital (ROIC). Computron has a 10% cost of capital (WACC). What caused the decline in the ROIC? Was it due to operating profitability or capital utilization? Do you think Computron’s growth added value?
What is Computron’s EVA? The cost of capital was 10% in both years.
Assume that a corporation has $200,000 of taxable income from operations. What is the company’s federal tax liability?
Assume that you are in the 25% marginal tax bracket and that you have $50,000 to invest. You have narrowed your investment choices down to municipal bonds yielding 7% or equally risky corporate bonds with a yield of 10%. Which one should you choose and why? At what marginal tax rate would you be indifferent?

Question 2

Why are ratios useful? What three groups use ratio analysis and for what reasons?
Calculate the profit margin, operating profit margin, basic earning power (BEP), return on assets (ROA), and return on equity (ROE). What can you say about these ratios?
Calculate the inventory turnover, days sales outstanding (DSO), fixed assets turnover, operating capital requirement, and total assets turnover. How does Computron’s utilization of assets stack up against other firms in its industry?
Calculate the current and quick ratios based on the projected balance sheet and income statement data. What can you say about the company’s liquidity position and its trend?
Calculate the debt ratio, liabilities-to-assets ratio, times-interest-earned, and EBITDA coverage ratios. How does Computron compare with the industry with respect to financial leverage? What can you conclude from these ratios?
Calculate the price/earnings ratio and market/book ratio. Do these ratios indicate that investors are expected to have a high or low opinion of the company?
Use the extended DuPont equation to provide a summary and overview of Computron’s projected financial condition. What are the firm’s major strengths and weaknesses?
What are some potential problems and limitations of financial ratio analysis?
What are some qualitative factors analysts should consider when evaluating a company’s likely future financial performance?

University of the Cumberlands

Part 3: Visualizing Data

Along the same thought process as Part 1 and Part 2 of the visualization project, for Part 3 you will visualize data. For this assignment, your assignment objective is still understanding the data, not presenting visualizations to an audience. When you visualize the data, make sure that you view the same information from multiple perspectives. A different perspective may be found by using different geometry or a different subgroup, like a filter or a grouped summary (group_by and summarise) in a visualization.

The data and research focus you will use are the same as what you were assigned in Part 1 and Part 2 of this project.

You are responsible for submitting 2 items: a paper and an R script file.

Paper

Update the plan you had established in the first part of the visualization project. If there are updates needed in the cleaning or exploration, or in the editorial thinking, update that information, as well. Make sure to update the introduction and conclusion, as needed.
The primary goal of this assignment is to continue the visualization project, viewing the information, as it relates to the research question, from multiple perspectives.
There should be no less than 10 different visualizations in your paper. You can save them from the Plot pane in RStudio. The visualizations should be similarly sized. The x- and y-axis titles must be legible in the paper. If the text is too small, make the plot smaller before saving. You can do this by modifying either the width or the height after selecting “Save as Image…”

Your figures will not contain any other part of RStudio. Do not include images of programming code, nor programming code in your paper. That information is only needed in the R script you submit. This is not a ‘how-to’ in R.
When you document your work in your paper, provide an interpretation of every figure in your paper. Label every figure with the word “Figure” and a numeric index, like Figure 1, followed by Figure 2. Keep your figures left-align. When you provide your interpretations, make sure to include what figure you are referring to. For example, “Shown in Figure 1, there is” or your interpretation, followed by “(see Figure 1).” When documented this way, it’s similar to the formatting of a citation, within the confines of parentheses, and within the ending punctuation. The figure annotation is in bold letters. the following line is the title of the figure; it is in italics and not bolded. These both will be entered as text in your paper, not included with the visualization in R.
When providing the different perspectives of the same information, make sure that you clearly indicate which figures contain the same information and whether the different perspectives align or if the different perspectives seem to indicate a different relationship between the data fields.
When providing your interpretations use real words. Don’t use the capitalization shown in the variable names, nor the variables names, unless it is also a word. For example, population represents both a real word and a variable. However, median_household_income is not a word, it is only a variable name and should not be found in your paper. You can refer to the data in this field with the words median household income, without the underscore, or you could define that income represents median household income, then just refer to it as income.

Script file

This file should contain everything needed to run the file. If there were steps taken from the original data set and it was modified in the previous homework submission, include that programming code in this script file. All libraries should still be found in one place, near the top of the script file, after the leading comments required in every script file.
The programming should include the questions you posed to yourself that led your visualizations in the comments.
You may have more visualizations in your programming than in your paper. If you find that one of your visualizations of data is not meaningful, you can annotate that in comments in your programming, but do not include that visualization in your paper.
Don’t leave incomplete programming code in your script file.
You may receive a warning when you submit your work. This warning indicates that R script files are not automatically checked by SafeAssign. This is not an error and is not preventing your submission.

Consider the guidelines, suggestions, and other tips provided in previous assignments. All of that still applies here. If you have any questions, please send me an email.

When you document this information, you will need to write it as a research paper. This is not a blog, a discussion, or a short answer paper. You will need to include an introduction, a topic sentence, supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion.

University of the Cumberlands

You are to select a firm that is experiencing significant economic, social, personal distress as a result of the fallout from COVID and the measures taken to combat it. You are writing as a managerial economics consultant with no way of predicting the course of the virus, how long it and restrictions on business activities will last, or what the economic climate will be like in the future. Begin by providing a BRIEF background and history of the firm and their place in the industry/economy they operate in. Historical information is to be short. More important is their current status – but not the most important. The firm you are consulting for knows its history and is primarily interested in learning about what they can do in the present and near future – this is where the great majority of your work should be. Detail the challenges they face at present and may encounter in the days ahead. Frame these challenges in the context of the real risks and uncertainties being dealt with. With the goal of helping the firm to eventually reach a fully functioning and healthy, profitable state, you are to provide recommendations for what actions they should take to deal with these successfully. This is the core of the project and where the majority of your efforts are to be directed. These actions should be practical, achievable and clearly stated – no fuzzy, feel good notions allowed. The material should be based on what you gain from sound industry/firm/economic/societal research and the application of a broad range of concepts and theories covered in this course, with more from economics and other relevant areas added at your discretion.

Do not select business that are currently successful, like Google, Facebook, Home Depot etc. Find one that is of interest to you that is experiencing real distress and may not survive. Do not use any work from previous classes or individuals (your own or others). Material in this Research Project is to be CURRENT – as in up to today if possible – with a clear focus on what can be done in the days ahead.

University of The Cumberlands

I’m working on a management project and need an explanation to help me learn.

The Martian Movie assignment

The movie “The Martian” can be viewed through the framework of project management. There are two different but simultaneous projects going on in The Martian. One is the survival project of Mark Watney and the other is the project aiming to save him. Watney has the right skills for his survival project: he’s a botanist, he knows how to repair a broken Pathfinder and the most important thing is he doesn’t panic even in his first day alone on Mars. On the other hand, he’s not alone in this project. The members of the ‘remote’ team helping him are trying their best to achieve their goal. This is a good example for the importance of the communication between the team even if they are far away!

The movie can be rented on YouTube for $3.99. Below is the link…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZDLAaDYos

For this assignment, as we watch the movie, you will be required to address the following questions and answer them.

Submitted through SafeAssign for originality, scores must be below 25%.
Follow APA formatting guidelines (i.e. include a reference page) Do not allow your margins to be reduced by utilizing bullet point margins. This will lead to point deductions. Only Pinto textbook needs to be cited; do not worry about citing the movie.

Question #1 (1 full page)

The definition of a project as provided by Pinto (2019): A project is a unique venture with a beginning and end, conducted by people to meet established goals within parameters of cost, schedule, and quality. A project can be considered to be any series of activities and tasks that:

Have a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications
Have defined start and end dates
Have funding limits, if applicable
Consume human and nonhuman resources, such as money, people, equipment
Are multifunctional (i.e., cut across several functional lines)

How does this definition fit the movie personalities and events versus just operations management?

Question #2 (~3 pages or 1 page each process)

Select 3 of the project management processes below. For each of the 3 you must 1) provide a brief description of each process, 2) describe how Mark Watney or one of the project teams manages this process, and 3) provide a specific example of the management of this process from the movie and why this is a good example.

Perform Integrated Change Control

Validate and Control Scope

Control Schedule

Control Costs

Control Quality

Control Resources

Monitor Communications

Monitor Risks

Control Procurements

Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Question #3 (1/2 to 1 full page)

Do you think Mark Watney is a champion? Why or why not?

University of the Cumberlands

I’m working on a management question and need an explanation to help me learn.

Case 13.3 “Dear Mr. President—Please Cancel our Project!”: The Honolulu Elevated Rail Project

This case is a great current example of a very expensive project that was kicked off because of an assumed need—to relieve congestion in downtown Honolulu through an elevated urban rail system. Critics argue that in addition to having a ballooning cost, the actual planning was poorly conceived, leaving Honolulu with an intrusive and ugly rail system through the downtown area, ruining panoramic views, and impeding traffic. Additionally, advocates underestimated the power needs for the rail system, requiring the transport authority to renegotiate electricity fees for the system. Finally, the original costs that were assumed for the project were calculated during an economic downturn and with the economy booming again, the costs of the project have gone up dramatically. All of these elements points to a state Governor who is anxious to be rid of the project and hoping that President Trump will deny additional federal funding, in which case the project will likely be cancelled.

Questions

Why are public works projects like the Honolulu Rail project nearly impossible to stop once they have been approved, even if later cost estimates skyrocket?
Project Management researchers have charged that many large infrastructure projects, like this one, suffer from “delusion” and “deception” on the parts of their advocates. Explain how “delusion” might be a cause of ballooning budgets in this project. How does “deception” affect the final project budget overruns?

Case Study 14.1—New Jersey Kills Hudson River Tunnel Project

This case illustrates the challenges in making an early termination decision. Often, particularly in the case of public projects, there is a real difficulty in stopping a project once it has gotten “on the books.” As a result, projects with huge cost overruns, like Boston’s “Big Dig” are allowed to continue almost indefinitely. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made a tough call in deciding to cancel the Hudson River Tunnel project because he was given a number of rosy projections that did not match the actual costs incurred to that date. This is a great case to let students pick sides: should Christie have cancelled the project or not? There are arguments to be made that the need was strong (although others could argue that the need was over-sold). On the other hand, the history of the project to date and the uncertainty about future federal funding made it a real gamble, especially during a time of economic recession.

Questions

How would you respond to the argument that it is impossible to judge how successful a project like this one would have been unless you actually do it?
Take a position, either pro or con, on Christie’s decision to kill the ARC. Develop arguments to support your point of view.
In your opinion, how clearly must a large infrastructure project like ARC have determined its need, costs, and so forth before being approved? If the criteria are too stringent, what is the implication for future projects of this type? Would any ever be built?

University of The Cumberlands

Kirk (2019) states that the topic of color can be a minefield. The judgement involved with selecting the right amount of color for a particular application can be daunting. With regards to visualizations, there are different levers that can be adjusted to create the desired effects (Kirk, 2019). The levers are associated with the HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) color cylinder.

Reply post

Select and elaborate on one of the following:

Color Hue Spectrum
Color Saturation Spectrum
Color Lightness Spectrum

Reply to post;

Lightness spectrum

This is the third property of color. Lightness measures the degree of light reflected how light or dark a color is. Adding white makes the color lighter, which in turn creates tints, and adding black makes it darker and creates shades (Waldman, 2014).

The effect of light is relative to other components in the composition.

For one color of a particular hue, the perception of lightness is also more intense if we increase saturation. For example, a saturated yellow will always look brighter than a saturated blue (Stiles, 2012). The practicality of this application is incredibly useful for directing the audience’s attention to specific areas within your frame.

References:

Stiles, W. (2012). Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley Series in Pure and Applied Optics. ISBN 978-0-471-02106-3.

Waldman, G (2014). Introduction to light: the physics of light, vision, and color. Mineola: Dover Publications. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-486-42118-6.

Discussion 2:

Color saturation spectrum

Color saturation is the color intensity in a given image. The image appears to be purer when saturation is increased. Moreover, when saturation is reduced, the image appears to be pale or washed out. A highly saturated image contains clear, bright, and rich colors, while the one with lower saturation veers towards greyscale. Generally, a saturation of a color is among the three properties of colors: hue and value, and saturation. It is sometimes known as chroma, though with a slightly different meaning. Chrome defines the color brilliance in an absolute term following the Munsell color system.

Technically, color saturation is an expression of light bandwidth from a source. Since hue defines the image color, in particular, saturation describes the intensity of the hue. When there is complete saturation of a color, it is considered the most authentic version. The moment the lightness level is constant, saturation is defined as the rate that runs from 0% to 100%. The saturation of a color determines how a given hue will appear in given lighting conditions. For instance, the wall painted with solid color looks a bit different during the day than its exact appearance at night.

Color saturation does not define the lightness or the darkness of a color. Several saturated colors tend to be lighter than the ones saturated, and thus, when white is added to the latter, it will increase its brightness to the extent that all will match. It means that color brightness is controlled by the amount of white in the hue. In summary, colors behave less saturated when the object is further from the one observing it and recedes to distant due to atmospheric perspective.

References

Usiagwu, M. (2020). What Does Color Saturation Mean? Color saturation, https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1968/color-saturation.

University of the Cumberlands

Research Project #2 – Group Submission

The journal indicated below describes a national project. Based on the journal, and on your team’s understanding of the project, answer the questions below:

DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0000332

Journal title: “1976 Montreal Olympics: Case Study of Project Management Failure”

#QuestionPoints1Was it an internal or external project? Provide rationale. 2.52Identify at least 10 major stakeholders for the project.2.53What were the needs or expectation of each stakeholder?2.54Identify and describe at least 5 most important resources used in the project.2.55What was the alternative approach for the project (i.e. if the stadium had not been built, what else could have been done to ensure the olympics still occurred)?2.56Based on (5) above, was building the stadium at this location and at this time the best approach to have been chosen? Provide rationale using PV, NPV, IRR, B/C. [1 page]107Provide two Level 3 Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) for this project. These two should be the intial (or planned) and final (or actual) WBS. Explain the difference [2 pages]58Based on (7), was there an evidence of scope creep in the project? Provide rationale.2.59Create one network diagram for the project using the final WBS in (7) above [1 page]1510Use the Level 2 tasks in the final WBS to create one GANTT chart for the project. [1 page]1511Use the initial and final WBS to create two high-level budgets for the project. These two should be the initial and final budgets. Explain the difference. [2 pages]1512Using the risk sources, describe three major (broad) categories of risks in the project.313Using a table, list at least ten individual risks ranked by severity, and also link each of them to one of the categories in (12) above [1 page]1514For each risk in (13) above, describe at least one thing that was done, or could have been done to mitigate that risk.2.515Was there adequate quality management processes in place (including quality planning, quality assurance and quality control)? Provide rationale. 216Was there adequate outsourcing in the project? Provide rationale.2.517The journal title indicates this project was a failure. Do you agree? Provide rationale. 2.518If anyone in your group was appointed the project manager for this project, what would you have done differently to make this project successful?2.519Describe at least five major lessons that can be learned from this project.2.520Other – Abstract, Introduction, Conclusion (one paragraph each)521Other – Effective APA (Times New Roman, font size 12, double-spaced, in-text citations, grammar, reference list, etc)522Other Considerations2.5

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I don’t know how to handle this Management question and need guidance.

Question 1

Start with the partial model in the attached.

The stock of Matrix Computing sells for $65, and last year’s dividend was $2.53. Security analysts are projecting that the common dividend will grow at a rate of 9% a year. A flotation cost of 12% would be required to issue new common stock. Matrix’s preferred stock sells for $42.00, pays a dividend of $3.32 per share, and new preferred stock could be sold with a flotation cost of 10%. The firm has outstanding bonds with 25 years to maturity, a 15% annual coupon rate, semiannual payments, $1,000 par value. The bonds are trading at $1,271.59. The tax rate is 20%. The market risk premium is 5.5%, the risk-free rate is 7.0%, and Matrix’s beta is 1.2. In its cost-of-capital calculations, Matrix uses a target capital structure with 40% debt, 10% preferred stock, and 50% common equity.

a. Calculate the cost of each capital component—in other words, the after-tax cost of debt, the cost of preferred stock (including flotation costs), and the cost of equity (ignoring flotation costs). Use both the CAPM method and the dividend growth approach to find the cost of equity.

b. Calculate the cost of new stock using the dividend growth approach.

c. Assuming that Matrix will not issue new equity and will continue to use the same tar-get capital structure, what is the company’s WACC

Question 2

Start with the partial model in the attached.

Pinto.com has developed a powerful new server that would be used for corporations’ Internet activities. It would cost $25 million at Year 0 to buy the equipment necessary to manufacture the server. The project would require net working capital at the beginning of each year in an amount equal to 12% of the year’s projected sales; for example, NWC0 = 12%(Sales1 ). The servers would sell for $21,000 per unit, and Pinto believes that variable costs would amount to $15,000 per unit. After Year 1, the sales price and variable costs will increase at the inflation rate of 2.5%. The company’s nonvariable costs would be $1.5 million at Year 1 and would increase with inflation. The server project would have a life of 4 years. If the project is undertaken, it must be continued for the entire 4 years. Also, the project’s returns are expected to be highly correlated with returns on the firm’s other assets. The firm believes it could sell 2,000 units per year. The equipment would be depreciated over a 5-year period, using MACRS rates. The estimated market value of the equipment at the end of the project’s 4-year life is $1 million. Pinto.com’s federal-plus-state tax rate is 20%. Its cost of capital is 10% for average-risk projects, defined as projects with a coefficient of variation of NPV between 0.8 and 1.2. Low-risk projects are evaluated with an 8% project cost of capital and high-risk projects at 13%.

Develop a spreadsheet model, and use it to find the project’s NPV, IRR, and payback.
Now conduct a sensitivity analysis to determine the sensitivity of NPV to changes in the sales price, variable costs per unit, and number of units sold. Set these variables’ values at 10% and 20% above and below their base-case values.
Now conduct a scenario analysis. Assume that there is a 25% probability that best-case conditions, with each of the variables discussed in Part b being 20% better than its base-case value, will occur. There is a 25% probability of worst-case conditions, with the variables 20% worse than base, and a 50% probability of base-case conditions.
If the project appears to be more or less risky than an average project, find its risk-adjusted NPV, IRR, and payback.
On the basis of information in the problem, would you recommend the project should be accepted?

Question 3

You are a financial analyst for the Waffle Company. The director of capital budgeting has asked you to analyze two proposed capital investments, Projects A and B. Each project has a cost of $50,000, and the cost of capital for each is 10%.

The projects’ expected net cash flows are as follows:

Expected Net Cash Flows

Year

Project A

Project B

($50,000)

25,000

15,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

15,000

5,000

15,000

5,000

15,000

Calculate each project’s payback period, net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), modified internal rate of return (MIRR), and profitability index (PI).
Which project will you select if your decision was based solely on the project’s payback period?
Which project or projects should be accepted if they are independent?
Which project should be accepted if they are mutually exclusive?
d. How might a change in the cost of capital produce a conflict between the NPV and IRR rankings of these two projects? Would this conflict exist if r were 6%? (Hint: Plot the NPV profiles.)

Question 4

Marvin Industries must choose between an electric-powered and a coal-powered forklift machine for its factory. Because both machines perform the same function, the firm will choose only one. (They are mutually exclusive investments.) The electric-powered machine will cost more, but it will be less expensive to operate; it will cost $102,000, whereas the coal-powered machine will cost $69,500. The cost of capital that applies to both investments is 10%. The life for both types of machines is estimated to be 6 years, during which time the net cash flows for the electric-powered machine will be $26,150 per year, and those for the coal-powered machine will be $20,000 per year. Annual net cash flows include depreciation expenses.

Calculate the NPV and IRR for each type of machine, and decide which to recommend

University of the Cumberlands

Case 13.3 “Dear Mr. President—Please Cancel our Project!”: The Honolulu Elevated Rail Project

Questions

Why are public works projects like the Honolulu Rail project nearly impossible to stop once they have been approved, even if later cost estimates skyrocket?
Project Management researchers have charged that many large infrastructure projects, like this one, suffer from “delusion” and “deception” on the parts of their advocates. Explain how “delusion” might be a cause of ballooning budgets in this project. How does “deception” affect the final project budget overruns?

Case Study 14.1—New Jersey Kills Hudson River Tunnel Project

Questions

How would you respond to the argument that it is impossible to judge how successful a project like this one would have been unless you actually do it?
Take a position, either pro or con, on Christie’s decision to kill the ARC. Develop arguments to support your point of view.
In your opinion, how clearly must a large infrastructure project like ARC have determined its need, costs, and so forth before being approved? If the criteria are too stringent, what is the implication for future projects of this type? Would any ever be built?

Please download textbook from this link. Use textbook chapters to answer the questions on assigned readings – chapter 13 and 14 https://dokumen.pub/project-management-achieving-c…

done

University of the Cumberlands

description/specification that describes a new enterprise blockchain application, along with high-level design features. The purpose of the product description/specification is to describe your group’s novel enterprise blockchain application and how its features satisfy the design principles for a sustainable blockchain business network, how you will implement the main governance requirements, what channels you’ll implement and how each will be used, and what the main API requirements are to interact with your applications. Your final project will describe the new enterprise blockchain application to a level of detail that prospective participants and customers will understand the value the product offers and the requirements to participate in the business network. Part 1 (Written Specification) Develop a novel business application that relies on enterprise blockchain functionality. Do not use the Letter of Credit application described on your book and do not simply describe an existing product. Your product may be inspired by an existing product, but it must be novel. Describe your business idea, focusing on how enterprise blockchain technology is central to its value and uniqueness. Create a product description/specification that describes a new enterprise blockchain application, along with high-level design features in your novel business network. Explain how the application’s features satisfy the design principles for a sustainable blockchain business network, how you will implement the main governance requirements, what channels you’ll implement and how each will be used, and what the main API requirements are to interact with your applications. Your body of your paper should be no less than 1500 words. The document you submit should in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx) and be named using the following criteria: BLCN532_SECTION_GROUPNUMBER_Project.docx • SECTION is the section number of your current course (1 letter and 2 digits)Your specification should include the following: 1) Problem definition (What problem is your application trying to solve?) 2) Purpose statement of the business network (i.e. enterprise blockchain environment) Do NOT use the Letter of Credit business network. Come up with a new idea. a. Describe your business environment (what business are you in?) b. Describe the goals of your application. c. Describe what value your blockchain application provides to your existing and potential customers and partners. 3) Description of the main application features and benefits. 4) Explanation of how your enterprise blockchain application’s features satisfy each of the 7 Design Principles for Sustainable Blockchain Business Networks. 5) Explanation of how you propose to address each of the 8 elements of Blockchain Network Governance covered in chapter 2. 6) Describe the channels your business network will implement and how each one will be used. Justify the need for each channel. 7) List and describe the most important high-level.8) Cite at least 5 external, peer reviewed scholarly resources to support your specification.(NOTE: patents are NOT peer reviewed.)

Assignment: Provide a reflection of at least 1500 words (or 2 pages double spaced) of how the knowledge, skills, or theories of this course have been applied, or could be applied, in a practical manner to your current work environment. If you are not currently working, share times when you have or could observe these theories and knowledge could be applied to an employment opportunity in your field of study. Requirements: Provide a 1500 word (or 2 pages double spaced) minimum reflection. Use of proper APA formatting and citations. If supporting evidence from outside resources is used those must be properly cited. Share a personal connection that identifies specific knowledge and theories from this course. Demonstrate a connection to your current work environment. If you are not employed, demonstrate a connection to your desired work environment. You should NOT, provide an overview of the assignments assigned in the course. The assignment asks that you reflect how the knowledge and skills obtained through meeting course objectives were applied or could be applied in the workplace
Paper and PPT required

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Discussion Forum Week 5

Initial Postings: Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook must be the primary source utilized and listed in your reference section (and properly cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion. This means that they support the material from the textbook. Do not use other sources to substitute for or replace the textbook.

Provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:

1) Identify each of the four organizational culture types with respect to power, and the strongest motivator for each type. In which organizational cultures do you feel most and least comfortable working? Why?

2) List and describe at least four organizational culture characteristics that increase the likelihood of project success. Why is each characteristic helpful?

3) Describe each method of decision making a project team may use. Using examples, tell when each is most appropriate.

Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!

Your initial post should be at least 500+ words and in APA format (written in full essay, using proper paragraph structure, sources cited within the body of the main text and Times New Roman with font size 12).

Submitting the Initial Posting: Your initial post should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST.

Response to Other Student Postings: Respond substantively (at least 100 words) to the post of at least two peers, by Friday, 11:59 p.m. EST. A peer response such as “I agree with her,” or “I liked what he said about that” or similar comments are not considered substantive and will not be counted for course credit. Also, just repeating information from the course material or your own initial post does not satisfy these criteria.

Continue the discussion through Sunday, 11:59 p.m. EST by highlighting differences between your postings and your colleagues’ postings. Provide additional insights or alternative perspectives. This means an on-going conversation in addition to the two required responses above.

Evaluation of posts and responses: Your initial posts and peer responses will be evaluated on the basis of the kind of critical thinking and engagement displayed. The grading rubric evaluates the content based on four areas: Content Knowledge & Structure, Critical Thinking, Presentation & Writing Mechanics, and Response to Other Students.

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 5

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 5Assigned Readings:Chapter 11: Resource PlanningChapter 12: Budget PlanningInitial Postings: Read and reflect on the assigned readings for the week. Then post what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding in each assigned textbook chapter.Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook should be a source listed in your reference section and cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion.Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:
1. How would a cost management plan address the challenges of managing project costs within the internal financial procedures and accounting codes of an organization?
2. What benefits do budgeting processes bring to projects, and what weaknesses do they possess?
[Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!] [Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA review]Submitting the Initial Posting:Your initial posting should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST. Response to Other Student Postings: Respond substantively to the post of at least two peers, by Friday, 11:59 p.m. EST. A peer response such as “I agree with her,” or “I liked what he said about that” or similar comments are not considered substantive and will not be counted for course credit.[Continue the discussion through Sunday,11:59 p.m. EST by highlighting differences between your postings and your colleagues’ postings. Provide additional insights or alternative perspectives]Evaluation of posts and responses: Your initial posts and peer responses will be evaluated on the basis of the kind of critical thinking and engagement displayed. The grading rubric evaluates the content based on seven areas:Content Knowledge & Structure, Critical Thinking, Clarity & Effective Communication, Integration of Knowledge & Articles, Presentation, Writing Mechanics, and Response to Other Students.

Problem Set #5

Earned-value analysis. A project budget calls for the following expenditures:

Task	Date	Budgeted Amount
Build forms	April 1	$10,000
Pour foundation	April 1	$50,000
Pour foundation	May 1	$100,000
Frame walls	May 1	$30,000
Frame walls	June 1	$30,000
Remaining tasks	July 1 and beyond	$500,000

Define each term in your own words, calculate these values for the above project, and show your work:

Budgeted cost baseline (make a graph illustrating this one)
Budget at completion (BAC)
Planned value (PV) as of May 1
Earned value (EV) as of May 1 if the foundation work is only two-thirds complete. Everything else is on schedule.
SV as of May 1.
Actual cost as of May 1 is $160,000. Calculate the cost variance (CV) as of May 1.
Schedule performance index (SPI)
Cost performance index (CPI)
Estimate to complete (ETC), assuming that the previous cost variances will not affect future costs
Estimate at completion (EAC)

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Assignment Content

This week you set up a website for your MBA Program Assessment digital portfolio. Your website/digital portfolio will include artifacts (signature assignments) from each of your core courses to demonstrate your learning in the MBA program. This digital portfolio is something you can use in interviews as you take the next steps in your career.
This week you only need to create a webpage for this class, post your short introduction biography on the site, and create pages for the core program courses where you can upload your artifacts throughout the term. In week 8, you submit your completed MBA Program Portfolio & Assessment.
1. create your website (see details on how to do this below);
2. submit your assignment.
Step 1: Create Your Website
1. Select and set up your website using Wix or Google Sites. Your website must be viewable by me.
2. Name your website: “Your Name’s MBA Program Portfolio”.
3. Include images and backgrounds that emphasize your focus but be careful that these are not too distracting. Your website should represent you as a business professional.
4. Create the following pages on your website. You should have one page for each core MBA course and a biography page:
5. Biography – Add a short biography, as the author of the site.
6. Organizational Behavior & Theory
7. Value Systems & Professional Ethics
8. Strategic Marketing
9. Managerial Economics
10. Managerial Finance
11. Management Information Systems
12. Management Accounting
Step 2: Submit Your Assignment
1. Take a screenshot of your introduction biography page (directions for taking a screenshot on any device). Include your website’s header that shows the name and the menu that shows the pages.
2. Insert your screenshot into a Word document and include the hyperlink to your website in the document. Make sure I can view your site.
3. Click the “MBA Program Assessment: Set-up Your Digital Portfolio” link in week 1.
4. Use the “Browse Computer” option to select your Word document. Make sure that your document includes the link to your website and a screenshot of your introduction biography page.

University of the Cumberlands

Case 13.3 “Dear Mr. President—Please Cancel our Project!”: The Honolulu Elevated Rail Project

Questions

Why are public works projects like the Honolulu Rail project nearly impossible to stop once they have been approved, even if later cost estimates skyrocket?
Project Management researchers have charged that many large infrastructure projects, like this one, suffer from “delusion” and “deception” on the parts of their advocates. Explain how “delusion” might be a cause of ballooning budgets in this project. How does “deception” affect the final project budget overruns?

Case Study 14.1—New Jersey Kills Hudson River Tunnel Project

Questions

How would you respond to the argument that it is impossible to judge how successful a project like this one would have been unless you actually do it?
Take a position, either pro or con, on Christie’s decision to kill the ARC. Develop arguments to support your point of view.
In your opinion, how clearly must a large infrastructure project like ARC have determined its need, costs, and so forth before being approved? If the criteria are too stringent, what is the implication for future projects of this type? Would any ever be built?

University of the Cumberlands

The movie can be rented on YouTube for $3.99. Below is the link…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZDLAaDYos

For this assignment, as we watch the movie, you will be required to address the following questions and answer them.

Question #1 (1 full page)

Have a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications
Have defined start and end dates
Have funding limits, if applicable
Consume human and nonhuman resources, such as money, people, equipment
Are multifunctional (i.e., cut across several functional lines)

How does this definition fit the movie personalities and events versus just operations management?

Question #2 (~3 pages or 1 page each process)

Perform Integrated Change Control

Validate and Control Scope

Control Schedule

Control Costs

Control Quality

Control Resources

Monitor Communications

Monitor Risks

Control Procurements

Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Question #3 (1/2 to 1 full page)

Do you think Mark Watney is a champion? Why or why not?

University of The Cumberlands

After reviewing/reading Chapters 7 & 8 of the textbook, access UC’s online Library and conduct research within the “Business Source Premier (EBSCO Host)” search engine and locate a Project Management Journal article among the thousands of journal articles made available within the many years of publications the Library holds. The Project Management Journal article should tie directly into at least one highlight from the assigned chapters (Chapters 7 & 8) reading/review material for the week. This weekly research paper should include at least 3 pages, but not more than 3 pages, in the narrative and it should be typed in APA formatting (title page, reference page, no abstract page, double-spacing, Times New Roman 12 font, 1 inch margins, in-text citations, etc…).

Your paper should contain the following headings:

Introduction
Summary of the article
Relevant points made by the author
Critique of the article
Application of the concepts in the article
Refer Chapters 7 and 8 from book Larson, E. (2021). Project Management – The Managerial Process, 8th Edition, ISBN: 9781260238860

Chapter 7: Managing Risk

Learning Objectives:

Describe the risk management process
Understand how to identify project risks
Assess the significance of different project risks
Describe the four different responses to managing risks
Understand the role contingency plans play in risk management process
Understand opportunity management and describe the four different approaches to responding to opportunities in a project
Understand how contingency funds and time buffers are used to manage risks on a project
Recognize the need for risk management being an ongoing activity
Describe the change control process

Chapter 8: Scheduling Resources and Costs

Learning Objectives:

Understand the differences between time-constrained and resource-constrained schedules
Identify different types of resource constraints
Describe how the smoothing approach is used on time-constrained projects
Describe how leveling approach is used for resource-constrained projects
Understand how project management software creates resource-constrained schedules
Understand when and why splitting tasks should be avoided
Identify general guidelines for assigning people to specific tasks
Identify common problems with multiproject resource scheduling
Explain why a time-phased budget baseline is needed
Create a time-phased project budget baseline

I Dont have a book but here are the content and this might give you idea for what sort of topic to be selected.

University of the Cumberlands

Scenario:

You have recently been hired as a Chief Information Governance Officer (CIGO) at a large company (You may choose your industry). This is a newly created position and department within the organization that was founded on the need to coordinate all areas of the business and to provide governance of the information. You will need to hire for all positions within your new department.

The company has been in business for more than 50 years and in this time has collected vast amounts of data. Much of this data has been stored in hard copy format in filing cabinets at an offsite location but in recent times, collected business data is in electronic format stored in file shares. Customer data is being stored in a relational database, but the lack of administration has caused data integrity issues such as duplication. There are currently no policies in place to address the handling of data, business or customer. The company also desires to leverage the marketing power of social media, but has no knowledge of the types of policies or legal issues they would need to consider. You will also need to propose relevant metrics that should be collected to ensure that the information governance program is effective.

The CEO and Board of Directors have tasked you to develop a proposal (paper) that will give them the knowledge needed to make informed decisions on an enterprise-wide Information Governance program, addressing (at a minimum) all of these issues, for the company.

Requirements:

The paper should include at a minimum of the following sections:

a.Title page

b.Executive Summary (Abstract)

c.Body

i.Introduction (including industry discussion – 1-2 pages)

ii.Annotated Bibliography (2-3 pages)

iii.Literature review (2-3 pages)

iv.Program and technology recommendations, including:

1.Metrics

2.Data that matters to the executives in that industry, the roles for those executives, and some methods for getting this data into their hands.

3.Regulatory, security, and privacy compliance expectations for your company

4.Email and social media strategy

5.Cloud Computing strategy

d.Conclusion

e.References

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Case Study 5.2: California’s High-Speed Rail Project

A goal of the Obama administration has been to promote high-speed rail across the most populous and geographically-dispersed states in the United States. The idea is to adopt more energy-saving initiatives while also helping to improve state’s infrastructure. It is with this in mind that the Federal Government made billions available to various states in the 2008–2010 budget cycles. After the Fall, 2010 elections, several states that had elected Republican governors refused the grants, suspicious that this seed money would not be sufficient to pay for what they viewed as unnecessary construction based on over-optimistic expectations of the need for and use of high-speed rail. One of the states that accepted the money and has moved forward strongly into high-speed rail has been California, which has already begun work on a 65-mile section in the middle of the state, earning the derisive nickname, the “train to nowhere.” This case details the state’s projections regarding the need for high-speed rail, against the views of infrastructure experts and critics who charge that for a state that is already in a severe budget crisis, this is just the sort of project that makes no sense economically or demographically.

Questions

Assess the benefits and drawbacks of the high-speed rail project. In your opinion, do benefits outweigh drawbacks, or vice versa? Why? Justify your answer.
What are the implications of starting a project based on tenuous projections that may or may not come true 10 years from now?
Could you justify the California high-speed rail project from the perspective of a massive public works initiative? In other words, what other factors enter into the decision of whether to pursue a high-speed rail project? Why are they important?

Case Study 6.1: Columbus Instruments

This case is based on a true story of a once-successful organization that had allowed its project management practices to degenerate to the point where assignment to a project team was often a mark of disfavor and a sign of pending termination. The case involves issues of motivation, structural effects on projects, and project team staffing. It offers students an opportunity to see how, if left unchecked, certain behaviors by department heads and others in the organization can work counter to the desires to use project teams to improve organizational profitability and instead make them a dumping ground for malcontents and poor performers.

Questions

What are the implications of CIC’s approach to staffing project teams? Is the company using project teams as training grounds for talented fast-trackers, or as dumping grounds for poor performers?
How would you advise the CEO to correct the problem? Where would you start?
Discuss how issues of organizational structure and power played a role in the manner in which project management declined in effectiveness at CIC.

University of The Cumberlands

What is data visualization?

What is the purpose of visualizing data?

What is the difference between data and information, in terms of analyzing and visualizing data?

What process is necessary to analyze or visualize data?
What techniques do you hope to learn from this course?
General forum requirements:
Three posts are required: the initial post and two peer responses.

RESPONSE 1:

What is data visualization?

Data visualization, in simple terms, means to analyze data visually in a graphical or pictorial format. Data visualization helps decision-makers make decisions much more efficiently and effectively by making it easier to look at such massive data visually.

– What is the purpose of visualizing data?

The primary purpose of data visualization is to make it easier for decision-makers to interpret and analyze big complex data by just looking at graphs or pictures.

– What is the difference between data and information in terms of analyzing and visualizing data?

Data is a very unorganized and raw form of facts and figures or information. Data contains vast information; however, when the data is structured, interpreted, analyzed, and visualized, then it becomes information that is required.

In short, the conclusion made after analyzing and visualizing data is information.

– What process is necessary to analyze or visualize data?

The process necessary to analyze or visualize data is to first create the question and be clear on it, create or gather data, clean up the data by removing redundancies, errors, missing data, etc., selecting the graph type or pictorial best for representing the data, selecting a tool to create the pictorial format, manage the data in the tool, create a visualization.

– What techniques do you hope to learn from this course?

I really hope to learn new tools that can be used for data visualization. I also want to learn the efficient and effective ways to manage the data in raw form. I also want to be able to clean up data.

RESPONSE 2:
Peer Post 2

Data visualization is basically translating complex information into visual form so that it could be easily understood. The visual form can be in different types like maps, flowcharts, bar graphs, Pie charts, etc. Data visualizations help us to understand large data sets easily and they help us in identifying their pattern or occurrences.

The main purpose of data visualization is to collect the large/complicated data sets and compile that data into visual forms so that it becomes easy to understand and would become easy for decision making. With the help of data visualization even complex data can be understood easily and even by the person who’s not familiar with data.

Data is described as raw unstructured, unorganized facts whereas the information is basically organized and structured data that is shown or depicted in the visual form. Data is not dependent on information, but information depends on Data. Data is analyzed and transformed into a visual context which makes it as a piece of information that let us make decisions and understand the data better.

Ans:4 Design process is basically necessary for visualizing data. The design process is divided into 4 stages namely briefing the data which is usually to see that what is wrong or what we want to visualize from this data. The second part is the main in which we collect and clean the data. In the third stage, we will finalize the visualization technique to be used considering on factors like what data to display, data types, the Understanding ability of the audience. Forth and the last stage is creating the data into a visualization story so that it is easy to understand and fulfills its motive.

From this course, I hope to learn data visualization techniques with which I would be able to analyze and visualize my data easily and it would be greatly helpful in my career growth too.

University of the Cumberlands

I’m trying to learn for my Computer Science class and I’m stuck. Can you help?

Q 1

The first feature that indicates that the data is correct is accuracy. The integrity of the data is judged by how it is reflected in the real world. Completeness is another quality. The term “complete data” refers to comprehensive information. This entails gathering all of the pertinent information. Then there’s dependability. This indicates that the information supplied does not contradict itself. Finally, the data’s relevancy is quite important. The individual going into the field must understand why the data is needed. This will help them decide what kind of data to acquire and what data not to collect.

Q 2

A prototype-based cluster is created in numerical data by calculating the average of all points inside the group. According to Martino et al. (2020), a prototype is considered medoid and rounded in the case of categorical characteristics. In irregular and interwoven collection, a graph-based cluster is employed. Two items are brought together with the requirement that a certain distance separates them. When there is a noisy, irregular cluster in a low-density zone, density-based is utilized.

Q 3

A scalable cluster algorithm is a method for generating and collecting huge amounts of data (Alshehri et al., 2018). It can work with datasets that have both continuous and categorical features. This method may be scaled up to improve cluster number determination in noisy data. It’s also useful for determining cluster membership.

Q 4

When selecting an algorithm, there are several crucial things to consider. The amount of training data must be substantial. This entails gathering enough data to produce a trustworthy result. A huge amount of training data resulted in more observations than features, requiring a high variance method. Another element is linearity. The majority of algorithms use the assumption that classes can be partitioned using a straight line. However, linear data is not required; logistic regression can be used instead.

University of The Cumberlands

The movie can be rented on YouTube for $3.99. Below is the link…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZDLAaDYos

For this assignment, as we watch the movie, you will be required to address the following questions and answer them.

Question #1 (1 full page)

Have a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications
Have defined start and end dates
Have funding limits, if applicable
Consume human and nonhuman resources, such as money, people, equipment
Are multifunctional (i.e., cut across several functional lines)

How does this definition fit the movie personalities and events versus just operations management?

Question #2 (~3 pages or 1 page each process)

Perform Integrated Change Control

Validate and Control Scope

Control Schedule

Control Costs

Control Quality

Control Resources

Monitor Communications

Monitor Risks

Control Procurements

Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Question #3 (1/2 to 1 full page)

Do you think Mark Watney is a champion? Why or why not?

University of the Cumberlands

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 11

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 11
Assigned Readings:Chapter 12. Project Control
Initial Postings: Read and reflect on the assigned readings for the week. Then post what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding in each assigned textbook chapter.Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook should be a source listed in your reference section and cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion.Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:
1. Give an example of an organization that does not use any control systems. Is this justified?
2. Suppose that you have decided to build a new house. Explain what kind of project control you will consider and why.
[Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!] [Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA review]Submitting the Initial Posting:Your initial posting should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST. Response to Other Student Postings: Respond substantively to the post of at least two peers, by Friday, 11:59 p.m. EST. A peer response such as “I agree with her,” or “I liked what he said about that” or similar comments are not considered substantive and will not be counted for course credit.[Continue the discussion through Sunday,11:59 p.m. EST by highlighting differences between your postings and your colleagues’ postings. Provide additional insights or alternative perspectives]Evaluation of posts and responses: Your initial posts and peer responses will be evaluated on the basis of the kind of critical thinking and engagement displayed. The grading rubric evaluates the content based on seven areas:Content Knowledge & Structure, Critical Thinking, Clarity & Effective Communication, Integration of Knowledge & Articles, Presentation, Writing Mechanics, and Response to Other Students.
Activity 11

An activity on the critical path of a project was scheduled to be completed within 12 weeks, with a budget of $8,000. During a performance review, which took place 7 weeks after the activity was initiated, it was found that 50% of the work had already been completed and that the actual cost was $4,500.
1. Calculate the EV of the activity.
2. Calculate the CI and SI for the activity.
3. Calculate the expected BAC using the original estimate approach.
4. Calculate the expected BAC using the revised estimate approach.
5. Compare and discuss the results obtained in parts (c) and (d).

University of the Cumberlands

Read the Case: “To Enter or Not to Enter Competitive Environment of Supermarkets in Hong Kong” and Answer the Questions Below

Access: https://hbsp.harvard.edu/import/855138

Case Synopsis: This case describes a hypothetical situation faced by a fictitious international conglomerate, ICL, that intends to enter the retail grocery market in Hong Kong. The conglomerate’s interest in the Hong Kong supermarket industry was initially kindled by the plan of Hutchison Whampoa, Ltd. (HWL) to sell its leading supermarket chain PARKnSHOP in August 2013. However, in October 2013, HWL reversed course and decided not to sell PARKnSHOP, saying that the sale would not deliver maximum value to its shareholders. Before embarking into new territory, ICL wanted an in-depth understanding of the Hong Kong grocery market environment, competitors, and potential barriers to entry. The conglomerate was aware that the new Competition Law, which was expected to take effect in 2015, might have profound implications on the grocery market landscape in Hong Kong.

Learning Objective

This case provides students with an understanding of the competitive behavior of dominant players in an oligopolistic industry and the importance of competition laws to counteract certain anticompetitive conduct. Drawing on the experience of failed and successful entrants, students can explore various business strategies and formulate a strategy for a new supermarket entrant in Hong Kong to maximize its chances of success.

Case Study Question

Analyze the competitive environment of the supermarket industry in Hong Kong and the competitive response of the two leading supermarket chains. Does the competition of the two leading chains’ parent companies in multiple market segments have an impact on the competitive environment?
Analyze the strategic positions of PARKnSHOP and Wellcome in the market, and in particular, their bargaining power vis-a-vis suppliers and consumers. What are their keys to sustaining leadership in the market?
What strategies did PARKnSHOP and Wellcome use to overcome the challenges posed by their competitors? Are there legal risks in pursuing such strategies with the Competition Ordinance in place? What is the impact to consumers when the supermarkets try to defend their market share?
Should the international conglomerate enter the retail grocery market in Hong Kong? If so, what could it do to increase the chance of a successful and profitable entry?

University of the Cumberlands

In this course project, you will be asked to design an operating budget for a healthcare organization. For a for-profit entity, you can find the financial statements and any additional information on one of the many sites where such information is available, such as Zacks Investment Research, Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, etc. For example, search the site with HCA Holdings’ ticker symbol (“HCA”) and then look for the “Financial” tab or section when you come to the site’s HCA Holdings page. For the not-for-profit entity, you can locate a local, regional, or national nonprofit, religious-based healthcare system, and download and review the financial statements.

Project Objectives

To successfully complete this project, you will be expected to:

Apply fundamental concepts and practices of financial management and accounting to a healthcare organization.
Analyze financial statements and other reports to evaluate the overall operational and financial stability of a healthcare organization.
Demonstrate an understanding of how financial indicators are used to make assumptions about future financial performance.
Demonstrate an understanding of how operational indicators are used to make assumptions about future operational performance.
Design an operating budget for a healthcare organization.
Develop recommendations for a healthcare organization that are
supported by financial and operational analysis and indicators.

The greatest value in a course comes from applying the concepts, theories, and principles explored during class. The operating budget project will be graded according to the criteria below and is worth 30% of your total grade. This project gives you an opportunity to select a healthcare organization with which you are familiar, analyze the operations and design an operating budget for the organization. Then, drawing on the concepts and principles from readings, exercises, current events, and class discussions, develop an operating budget project in which you:

Introduce the healthcare organization (background):
Define the operating and financial condition,
Analyze the organization using financial and operational indicators,
Search the literature for operational benchmarks of healthcare organizations and do a comparative analysis,
Offer assumptions,
Develop an operating budget to address financial and operational conditions; and
Develop a conclusion

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Discuss what performance management is and how it influences effective teams.
Review table 11.1, define leadership behaviors (in your own words) and note which behaviors are beneficial at specific organizational activities (example: project planning, leading coworkers, etc…). Please note at least five organizational activities and be specific when responding.
Note at least two organizational capabilities and compare and contrast each.

Please be sure to answer all the questions above in the initial post.

Please ensure the initial post and two response posts are substantive. Substantive posts will do at least TWO of the following:

Ask an interesting, thoughtful question pertaining to the topic
Expand on the topic, by adding additional thoughtful information
Answer a question posted by another student in detail
Share an applicable personal experience
Provide an outside source
Make an argument

iscussion 1:

1. Discuss what performance management is and how it influences effective teams.

Performance management is about aligning all the employees work, their measures and KPI is the development plan it’s what the organization wants to achieve their strategies, their themes and their outcomes. After done that it’s important to access over time how well this alignment is working assessing one employee performance is not the same as an appraisal. It allows the management to develop opportunities to asses and reward team members[ CITATION Sur16 \l 1033 ]. It allows mangers to create practical goals and it should meet the specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based. It leads to building an engaged team by welcoming open conversation. Asking them a full feedback on regular basis provide a post task reviews. It creates a transparency; it tells how employees prepare and how to deliver a positive outcome.

2. Review table 11.1, define leadership behaviors (in your own words) and note which behaviors are beneficial at specific organizational activities (example: project planning, leading coworkers, etc…). Please note at least five organizational activities and be specific when responding.

These leadership behaviors consist of different roles in delivering organizational activities. Organizational activities and type of leadership behavior appropriate are follows:

Planning: It is a process of creating goals for the company, in this stage the leadership behavior needs to bring the employees together; it is the place where all the stakeholders of the organization should meet and discuss about how to move the organization forward.

Staffing: for a significant staffing in the company, the leadership need to build the trust between him/her and employees can lead to organization performance.

Budgeting: It is the platform to use the organization resources effectively, leaders should have decision making behavior since there is a need to weigh among the alternatives while budgeting.

Reporting: delivering the result to stakeholders is a crucial process, the leaders need to have participant behaviors, since it need to combine different communication channels for effective communication to relevant stakeholders.

Directing: Delegation of duties is crucial for any organization, the management delegates duties to mange the mangers who later delegate to work force. In this stage it need behavior of respect and code of ethics.

3. Note at least two organizational capabilities and compare and contrast each.

There are many organizational capabilities and two of them are Innovation and Change. Innovation, it is the capability of the organization to generate new models which create a competitive advantage in the market[ CITATION Gur15 \l 1033 ]. It consists of come up with different ideas and convert the ideas into a product or service into practical for the organization. On the other side, change is also the ability of the organization to adopt the new trends in the market; it includes adopting the new technology. Innovation is beneficial for organization to have a significant profit in long run. Change consist of a level of negative, since it copes with change in government regulations an increase in Taxes.

References:

Inan., G., & Bititci, U. S. (2015). Understanding organizational capabilities and dynamic Understanding organizational capabilities and dynamic . Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 210, 310-319.

Noronha., S. F., Aquinas., & manezes, A. d. (2016). IMPLEMENTING EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: A SCOPING REVIEW. International Journal of Management and Applied Science, 2(5), 85-89.

Rashida., I. M., Samah., I. H., Razali., R., & Sham, M. (2016). The Importance of Perceived Leadership Elements in Strategic University. Procedia Economics and Finance, 39, 422-426.

Discussion 2:

Performance Management

Performance management is a kind of management tool which helps managers to monitor the entire works of employees and their performances. The terminology of performance management is a kind of goal for the betterment of an environment where we can perform our best abilities to reduce the efficiency of work. The performance management program will help most of the managers and employees to check out all the goals programs and expectations which are related to the company goals and visions. In general, performance management provides a particular view of the workplace (Basuki et al., 2020). With the help of this performance management, we can completely have a motivator environment within the organization and can also complete every task within the provided time.

Leadership Behaviours

Leadership behaviors are a personality and action which will create an effective response towards a leader. It is also a behavior that can be processed as a person who guides and teaches all the ethical rights and procedures under a business. Effective leadership behaviors will increase the productivity of the team and will also help to retain people as employees will be less active in living the organizations and also will perform best with successive results. The best behavior switch has to be e considered to be a leader are they must be honest they must be confident in their decisions they must be approachable to every employee they must be treated as an example. Better and best suggestions for the employee. If a decision is taken related to the project then the leader must not change the decision so he must have to be confident through his decisions and must be focused during the decision making (Wu et al., 2021). Under regular meetings within the organization, a leader must have to provide objective feedback ok with the employee performance and also with the project representations. If any employee finds difficulties in performing or in creating any sort of activity then a leader must give them a chance to approach him and discuss his difficulties. A leader must also provide a regular reward program to the employees for their performance.

Organizational Capabilities

Talent and accountability are two types of organizational activity that are somewhere similar to each other. The main importance of talent is the employee of the candidate must be innovative and constructed in their skills whereas accountability must include all types of skills within an organization or a project to innovate a new kind of development. Talent is a terminology that refers to an individual skill that is required by the technology and the organization (Louro et al., 2019). Accountability is a process in which all those individual skills and methodologies have to be implemented within the organization. Talent refers to the individual skill whereas accountability refers to the employee performance within the organization.

References

Basuki, Zulfikar, R., Khuzaini, & Widyanti, R. (2020). Warranting Increased Operational Performance of Pharmaceutical Firms of Indonesia through Collaborative and Calculative HRM Practices: Mediating Role of Employee Engagement. Systematic Reviews in Pharmacy, 11(2), 516–524. https://doi.org/10.5530/srp.2020.2.79

Louro, A. C., Brandão, M. M., Jakli?, J., & Sarcinelli, A. (2019). How can Customer Analytics Capabilities Influence Organizational Performance? A moderated mediation analysis. Brazilian Business Review (Portuguese Edition), 16(4), 369–382. https://doi.org/10.15728/bbr.2019.16.4.4

Wu, M., Zhang, L., Imran, M., Xu, J., & Yu, R. (2021). Impact of differential leadership on innovative behavior of employees: A double-edged sword. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 49(2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.9746

University of The Cumberlands

i.Topic pick anyone this five

1)Challenges to our understanding of leadership.

2) Roles of leaders in creating ethical organizations.

3)How organizations can create team players.

4) Strengths and weaknesses of group decision making.

5)Employee job engagement for managers.

ii. Research/find a minimum at least four (4), preferably five (5) or more, different peerreviewed articles on your topic from the University of the Cumberlands Library online business database. The article(s) must be relevant and from a peer-reviewed source. While you may use relevant articles from any time frame, current/published within the last five (5) years are preferred. Using literature that is irrelevant or unrelated to the chosen topic will result in a point reduction.

iii. Write a four (4) to five (5) page double spaced paper in APA format discussing the findings on your specific topic in your own words. Note – paper length does not include cover page, abstract, or references page(s).

iv. Structure your paper as follows:

a. Cover page

b. Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in your own words.

c. Purpose of Research should reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and professional practice and the larger body of research.

d. Review of the Literature summarized in your own words. Note that this should not be a “copy and paste” of literature content, nor should this section be substantially filled with direct quotes from the article. A literature review is a summary of the major points and findings of each of the selected articles (with appropriate citations). Direct quotations should be used sparingly. Normally, this will be the largest section of your paper (this is not a requirement; just a general observation).

e. Practical Application of the literature. Describe how your findings from the relevant research literature can shape, inform, and improve current business and professional practice related to your chosen topic.

f. Conclusion in your own words

g. References formatted according to APA style requirements Grading Criteria: ? Content Knowledge & Structure (25 points): All of the requested components are completed as assigned; content is on topic and related to organizational behavior, critical thinking is clearly demonstrated (few, if any, direct quotations from the source in the paper);

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Review the attached file. Suzie has an issue. She can either move to NY or FL and needs to review some data that her agent gave her. The agent reviewed house prices and crime ratings for houses that Suzie would be interested in based on her selection criteria. She wants to live in an area with lower crime but wants to know a few things:

Is it more expensive or less expensive to live in FL or NY?
Is the crime rate higher in FL or NY (Note a low score in crime means lower crime)?
Is the crime rate higher in lower or higher house price areas?

Using the R tool, show the data in the tool to answer each of the questions. Also, show the data visualization to go along with the summary.

If you were Suzie, where would you move based on the questions above?
After you gave Suzie the answer above (to #4), she gave you some additional information that you need to consider:
1. She has $100,000 to put down for the house.
2. If she moves to NY she will have a job earning $120,000 per year.
3. If she moves to FL she will have a job earning $75,000 per year.
4. She wants to know the following:
  1. On average what location will she be able to pay off her house first based on average housing prices and income she will receive?
  2. Where should she move and why? Please show graphics and thoroughly explain your answer here based on the new information provided above.

Note: The screenshots should be copied and pasted and must be legible. Only upload the word document. Be sure to answer all of the questions above and number the answers. Be sure to also explain the rational for each answer and also ensure that there are visuals for each question above. Use two peer reviewed articles to support your position.

University of The Cumberlands

Question 1

At year-end 2018, Marvel Company total assets were $4.5 million, and its accounts payable were $850,000. Sales, which in 2018 were $5.5 million, are expected to increase by 25% in 2019. Total assets and accounts payable are proportional to sales, and that relationship will be maintained. Marvel typically uses no current liabilities other than accounts payable. Common stock amounted to $ 2.25 million in 2018, and retained earnings were $150,000. Marvel has arranged to sell $25,000 of new common stock in 2019 to meet some of its financing needs. The remainder of its financing needs will be met by issuing new long-term debt at the end of 2019. (Because the debt is added at the end of the year, there will be no additional interest expense due to the new debt.) Its net profit margin on sales is 2.5%, and 55% of earnings will be paid out as dividends.

a. What were Marvel’s total long-term debt and total liabilities in 2018?

b. How much new long-term debt financing will be needed in 2019? (Hint: AFN – New stock = New long-term debt.)

Question 2

Suppose you decide (as did Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg) to start a company.

Your product is a software platform that integrates a wide range of media devices, including laptop computers, desktop computers, digital video recorders, and cell phones. Your initial market is the student body at your university. Once you have established your company and set up procedures for operating it, you plan to expand to other colleges in the area and eventually to go nationwide. At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, you plan to go public with an IPO and then to buy a yacht and take off for the South Pacific to indulge in your passion for underwater photography. With these issues in mind, you need to answer for yourself, and potential investors, the following questions.

What is an agency relationship? When you first begin operations, assuming you are the only employee and only your money is invested in the business, would any agency conflicts exist? Explain your answer.

If you expanded and hired additional people to help you, might that give rise to agency problems? Explain your answer

Suppose you need additional capital to expand, and you sell some stock to outside investors. If you maintain enough stock to control the company, what type of agency conflict might occur?

Suppose your company raises funds from outside lenders. What type of agency costs might occur? How might lenders mitigate the agency costs?

Suppose your company is very successful, and you cash out most of your stock and turn the company over to an elected board of directors. Neither you nor any other stockholders own a controlling interest (this is the situation at most public companies). List six potential managerial behaviors that can harm a firm’s value.
What is corporate governance? List five corporate governance provisions that are internal to a firm and under its control. What characteristics of the board of directors usually lead to effective corporate governance?
List three provisions in the corporate charter that affect takeovers.
Briefly describe the use of stock options in a compensation plan. What are some potential problems with stock options as a form of compensation?
What is block ownership? How does it affect corporate governance?
Briefly explain how regulatory agencies and legal systems affect corporate governance.

University of the Cumberlands

The research must be conducted using peer-reviewed trade or academic journals. While Blogs, Wikipedia, encyclopedias, course textbooks, popular magazines, newspaper articles, online websites, etc. are helpful for providing background information, these resources are NOT suitable resources for this research assignment.

Assignment Requirements:

Choose a research topic from the chapter readings or from the list provided by your professor.

Research/find a minimum at least four (4), preferably five (5) or more, different peer-reviewed articles on your topic from the University of the Cumberlands Library online business database. The article(s) must be relevant and from a peer-reviewed source. While you may use relevant articles from any time frame, current/published within the last five (5) years are preferred. Using literature that is irrelevant or unrelated to the chosen topic will result in a point reduction.

Write a four (4) to five (5) page double spaced paper in APA format discussing the findings on your specific topic in your own words. Note – paper length does not include cover page, abstract, or references page(s).

Structure your paper as follows:

Cover page

Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in your own words.

Purpose of Research should reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and professional practice and the larger body of research.
Review of the Literature summarized in your own words. Note that this should not be a “copy and paste” of literature content, nor should this section be substantially filled with direct quotes from the article. A literature review is a summary of the major points and findings of each of the selected articles (with appropriate citations). Direct quotations should be used sparingly. Normally, this will be the largest section of your paper (this is not a requirement; just a general observation).
Practical Application of the literature. Describe how your findings from the relevant research literature can shape, inform, and improve current business and professional practice related to your chosen topic.

Conclusion in your own words

References formatted according to APA style requirements

Grading Criteria:

Content Knowledge & Structure (15 points): All of the requested components are completed as assigned; content is on topic and related to managerial economics, critical thinking is clearly demonstrated (few, if any, direct quotations from the source in the paper); scholarly research is demonstrated; topics and concepts gained from the assigned reading and/or from research is evident.

Critical Thinking (8 points): Demonstrates substantial critical thinking about topics and solid interpretation of materials and reflection.

Clarity & Effective Communication (8 points): Communication is clear, concise, and well presented; scholarly writing is demonstrated; grammar, sentence structure, writing in third person, and word choice is used correctly.

University of the Cumberlands

Hello,

I’m currently working as a Software Developer(IBM Datacap, .Net, Pega, Python). here below are my job duties.

Job Duties:

Working on Managing, Implementing multiple projects on Datacap.
Developed and implemented Datacap Solution for Client forms scanning, recognition, Indexing, and export to FileNet P8 and Pega.
Developing Custom Actions in C#, and Developing in Python.
Configured different client forms using OCR, ICR, barcode data extraction techniques.
Use of Datacap data extraction technology to automate the conversion of unstructured and physical data — email files, PDF, Word, Excel – into actionable insight.
Configured Rulerunner to run the page identification and recognition tasks automatically
Using Datacap Application Manager to create the custom values which can be used in Datacap studio while developing an application.
Develop new forms (templates) for OCR.
Performed integration of Datacap with SQL database, Content Engine and Pega.
Configuring web client and creating workflows in web client.
Working on planning & Implementing Datacap 9.1.7 based solution for Documents Scanning, Import via different sources: email, fax, images, Indexing, document OCR and ICR configuration for autofill.
Configured NENU (Datacap Maintenance Manager) to delete old batches and Aborted batches.
Extensively working on field validations and custom panels for ICN manual tasks.
Creation and Configuration of Rule Sets, Rules and Functions for all the tasks.
Using different page identification techniques fingerprint matching, text matching and manual page identification.
Creating custom actions using C# code to call Web Service in Verify screens for Member ID or Policy Number lookups to get Index values from Database.
Fingerprint creation for various prescription forms to recognize data by creating zones, applied locate functions for the forms which are unstructured.
Performed integration of Datacap with
SQL database, Content Engine and Pega.
Used
ADO.NET and its components Data Reader, Dataset, Connection and Data
Adapter to access the SQL database.
Data
Validation and testing using SQL and PL/SQL with Oracle.

My Program of Study: Ph.D. in Information Technology. please provide a brief explanation of how the position for which you are applying for CPT approval directly relates to your program of study.

I have Completed the below Courses.

ITS 835 Enterprise Risk Management

ITS 834 Emerging Threats and Countermeasures

ITS 833 Information Governance

ITS 530 Analyzing and Visualizing Data

ITS 836 Data Science and Big Data Analytics

ISOL 534 Application Security

ISOL 531 Access Control

ISOL 536 Security Architecture and Design

ITS 831 Information Technology Importance in Strategic Planning

ITS 832 Information Technology in a Global Economy

Coming Semester Courses:

ISOL 532 Telecommunications and Network Security

ISOL 633 Legal Regulations, Compliance, and Investigation.

Please write Minimum of 200 words, a brief explanation of how the position(Software Developer) for which you are applying for CPT approval directly relates to your program of study.

And attached PDF courses catalog related to my program. please follow the pdf and Please be sure to write clearly and legibly!

Thank you.

University of The Cumberlands

I’m working on a management case study and need an explanation to help me learn.

Case Study 11.1: It’s an Agile World

Questions

Why does the classic waterfall project planning model fail in this situation? What is it about the IT department’s processes that leads to their finished systems being rejected constantly?
How would an Agile methodology correct some of these problems? What new development cycle would you propose?
Why are “user stories” and system “features” critical components of an effective IT software development process?
Using the terms “Scrum,” “Sprint,” and “User stories,” create an alternative development cycle for a hypothetical software development process at Northwest Regional Hospital.

Case Study 12.2: “First Come, First Served”: Resource Challenges for Sunrise Restoration

Questions

Describe some of the resource constraints that Sunrise and its project managers are facing.
Is Sunrise’s current model of prioritizing resource assignments viable? Why or why not?
How could technology alleviate some of Sunrise’s resource management issues?
Would Tyler’s suggestion to hire additional technicians and purchase more equipment solve the resource problems at Sunrise? Why or why not?

University of the Cumberlands

Question 1

The attached file contains hypothetical data for working this problem. Goodman Corporation’s and Landry Incorporated’s stock prices and dividends, along with the Market Index, are shown in the file. Stock prices are reported for December 31 of each year, and dividends reflect those paid during the year. The market data are adjusted to include dividends.

Use the data given to calculate annual returns for Goodman, Landry, and the Market Index, and then calculate average returns over the five-year period. (Hint: Remember, returns are calculated by subtracting the beginning price from the ending price to get the capital gain or loss, adding the dividend to the capital gain or loss, and dividing the result by the beginning price. Assume that dividends are already included in the index. Also, you cannot calculate the rate of return for 2015 because you do not have 2014 data.)
Calculate the standard deviation of the returns for Goodman, Landry, and the Market Index. (Hint: Use the sample standard deviation formula given in the chapter, which corresponds to the STDEV function in Excel.)
On a stand-alone basis which corporation is the least risky?
Construct a scatter diagram graph that shows Goodman’s and Landry’ returns on the vertical axis and the Market Index’s returns on the horizontal axis.
Estimate Goodman’s and Landry’s betas as the slopes of regression lines with stock returns on the vertical axis (y-axis) and market return on the horizontal axis (x-axis). (Hint: use Excel’s SLOPE function.) Are these betas consistent with your graph?
The risk-free rate on long-term Treasury bonds is 8.04%. Assume that the market risk premium is 6%. What is the expected return on the market? Now use the SML equation to calculate the two companies’ required returns.
If you formed a portfolio that consisted of 60% Goodman stock and 40% Landry stock, what would be its beta and its required return?
Suppose an investor wants to include Goodman Industries’ stock in his or her portfolio. Stocks A, B, and C are currently in the portfolio, and their betas are 0.769, 0.985, and 1.423, respectively. Calculate the new portfolio’s required return if it consists of 30% of Goodman, 20% of Stock A, 30% of Stock B, and 20% of Stock C.

Question 2

Quest Financial services balance sheets report $200 million in total debt, $100 million in short-term investments, and $30 million in preferred stock. Quest has 10 million shares of common stock outstanding. A financial analyst estimated that Quest’s value of operations is $1000 million. What is the analyst’s estimate of the intrinsic stock price per share?

Question 3

Lincoln Incorporated is expected to pay a $4.5 per share dividend at the end of this year (i.e., D1 = $4.50). The dividend is expected to grow at a constant rate of 5% a year. The required rate of return on the stock is, r_s, is 12%. What is the estimated value per share of Boehm stock?

Question 4

Assume that the average firm in Masters Corporation’s industry is expected to grow at a constant rate of 3% and that its dividend yield is 5%. Masters is about as risky as the average firm in the industry and just paid a dividend (D₀) of $2.5. Analysts expect that the growth rate of dividends will be 25% during the first year (g_0,1= 25%) and 10% during the second year (g_1,2= 10%). After Year 2, dividend growth will be constant at 5%. What is the required rate of return on Masters’s stock? What is the estimated intrinsic per share?

Question 5

Several years ago, Macro Riders issued preferred stock with a stated annual dividend of 5% of its $600 par value. Preferred stock of this type currently yields 10%. Assume dividends are paid annually.

a. What is the estimated value of Macro’s preferred stock?

b. Suppose interest rate levels have risen to the point where the preferred stock now yields 14%. What would be the new estimated value of Macro’s preferred stock?

Question 6

1. Define each of the following terms:

Call option
Put option
Strike price or exercise price
Expiration date
Exercise value
Option price
Time value
Writing an option
Covered option
Naked option
In-the-money call
Out-of-the-money call
LEAPS

2. The current price of a stock is $50. In 1 year, the price will be either $65 or $35. The annual risk-free rate is 10%. Find the price of a call option on the stock that has an exercise price of $55 and that expires in 1 year. (Hint: Use daily compounding.)

3. The exercise price on one of Chrisardan Company’s call options is $20, its exercise value is $27, and its time value is $8. What are the option’s market value and the price of the stock?

Submit your answers in a Word and/or Excel document.

Text book

Title: Corporate Finance

ISBN: 9781337909747

Authors: Ehrhardt

Publisher: Cengage

Edition: 7TH 20

University of the Cumberlands

Case Study 5.2: California’s High-Speed Rail Project
A
goal of the Obama administration has been to promote high-speed rail
across the most populous and geographically-dispersed states in the
United States. The idea is to adopt more energy-saving initiatives while
also helping to improve state’s infrastructure. It is with this in
mind that the Federal Government made billions available to various
states in the 2008–2010 budget cycles. After the Fall, 2010 elections,
several states that had elected Republican governors refused the grants,
suspicious that this seed money would not be sufficient to pay for what
they viewed as unnecessary construction based on over-optimistic
expectations of the need for and use of high-speed rail. One of the
states that accepted the money and has moved forward strongly into
high-speed rail has been California, which has already begun work on a
65-mile section in the middle of the state, earning the derisive
nickname, the “train to nowhere.” This case details the state’s
projections regarding the need for high-speed rail, against the views of
infrastructure experts and critics who charge that for a state that is
already in a severe budget crisis, this is just the sort of project that
makes no sense economically or demographically.
Questions
1. Assess
  the benefits and drawbacks of the high-speed rail project. In your
  opinion, do benefits outweigh drawbacks, or vice versa? Why? Justify
  your answer.
2. What are the implications of starting a project based on tenuous projections that may or may not come true 10 years from now?
3. Could
  you justify the California high-speed rail project from the perspective
  of a massive public works initiative? In other words, what other
  factors enter into the decision of whether to pursue a high-speed rail
  project? Why are they important?
Case Study 6.1: Columbus Instruments
This
case is based on a true story of a once-successful organization that
had allowed its project management practices to degenerate to the point
where assignment to a project team was often a mark of disfavor and a
sign of pending termination. The case involves issues of motivation,
structural effects on projects, and project team staffing. It offers
students an opportunity to see how, if left unchecked, certain behaviors
by department heads and others in the organization can work counter to
the desires to use project teams to improve organizational profitability
and instead make them a dumping ground for malcontents and poor
performers.
Questions
1. What
  are the implications of CIC’s approach to staffing project teams? Is
  the company using project teams as training grounds for talented
  fast-trackers, or as dumping grounds for poor performers?
2. How would you advise the CEO to correct the problem? Where would you start?
3. Discuss
  how issues of organizational structure and power played a role in the
  manner in which project management declined in effectiveness at CIC.
The answer should be in APA 7th edition format.

University of the Cumberlands

Scenario

Always Fresh allows external users, such as vendors and business partners, to access the Always Fresh Windows environment. You have noticed a marked increase in malware activity in the test environment that seems to originate from external users. After researching the likely source of new malware, you conclude that allowing external users to connect to your environment using compromised computers exposes Always Fresh to malware vulnerabilities.

After consulting with your manager, you are asked to create a policy that will ensure all external computers that connect to Always Fresh environment are malware free. You create the following policy:

“To protect the Always Fresh computing environment from the introduction of malware of any type from external sources, all external computers and devices must demonstrate that they are malware free prior to establishing a connection to any Always Fresh resource.”

Consider the following questions:

What does “malware free” mean?
How can a user demonstrate that their computer or device is malware free?
What are the steps necessary to establish a malware-free computer or device?
How should Always Fresh verify that a client computer or device is compliant?

Tasks

Create a malware protection procedure guide that includes steps for installing and running anti-malware software. Fill in the following details to develop your procedure guide:

1.Provide a list of approved anti-malware software solutions—include at least three leading antivirus and two anti-spyware products. You may include Microsoft products and third-party products. Instruct users to select one antivirus and one anti-spyware product and install them on their computer.

Describe the process of:
- Running regular malware scans. Mandate that automatic scans occur whenever the computer is idle. If that setting is unavailable, mandate daily fast scans and biweekly complete scans.
Provide steps to follow any time malware is detected.

a.Ensuring anti-malware software and data is up to date. Mandate daily updates.

a.Immediate reaction—what to do with current work, leave the computer on or turn it off

b.Who to contact

c.What information to collect

The procedure guide may be used by company security professionals in the future. Hence, all steps listed should be clear and self-explanatory.

Required Resources

Internet access
Course textbook
Format: Microsoft Word (or compatible)
Citation Style: APA

Submission Requirements

§Font: Times New Roman, size 12, double-space

§Length: 3 to 4 pages

Self-Assessment Checklist

§I created a procedure guide that provides clear instructions that anyone with a basic technical knowledge base can follow.

§I created a well-developed and formatted procedure guide with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

I followed the submission guidelines.

University of the Cumberlands

At UC, it is a priority that students are provided with strong educational programs and courses that allow them to be servant-leaders in their disciplines and communities, linking research with practice and knowledge with ethical decision-making. This assignment is a written assignment where students will demonstrate how this course research has connected and put into practice within their own career. Assignment: Provide a reflection of at least 500 words (or 2 pages double spaced) of how the knowledge, skills, or theories of this course have been applied, or could be applied, in a practical manner to your current work environment. If you are not currently working, share times when you have or could observe these theories and knowledge could be applied to an employment opportunity in your field of study. Requirements: Provide a 500 word (or 2 pages double spaced) minimum reflection. Use of proper APA formatting and citations. If supporting evidence from outside resources is used those must be properly cited. Share a personal connection that identifies specific knowledge and theories from this course. Demonstrate a connection to your current work environment. If you are not employed, demonstrate a connection to your desired work environment. You should NOT, provide an overview of the assignments assigned in the course. The assignment asks that you reflect how the knowledge and skills obtained through meeting course objectives were applied or could be applied in the workplace.

Here are my everyday roles and responsibilities,

Responsibilities included, but not limited to, inventory accounting, hiring, payroll, scheduling, discipline and training; managing junior managers and supervisors, leaded department stand outs and forecasting meetings.

Coordinated duties of hotel departments including Front Office, Housekeeping, Maintenance, and Food & Beverage Teams. Ensured employees were performing assigned tasks and reacted to staff & guest needs.

Structured and implemented training plans and standard operating procedures manual for the front office department which in turn increased brand compliance scores.

Focused on Problem Resolution to address any guest issues and trained staff in Problem Resolution, achieving best monthly score in hotel history in first full month on the job.

Responsible for all financial aspects of business; maintaining inventories, purchasing for all outlets of hotel, forecasting and budgeting daily revenues and expenses.

Managed guest feedback, comments, and complaints to maximize guest satisfaction, create memorable experiences, and increase guest return rate.

Coordinated daily Operations meeting to share information between departments and capitalize on key customer interaction opportunities.

Responsible for revenue management and being active and aggressive with online revenue producers.

Coordinated and implemented sales and marketing activities of the property. Communicated with existing and perspective clients to establish a strong professional relationship.

Reviewed and analyze monthly revenue numbers, stats, and guest comments and take appropriate action to improve.

Worked with the Regional Revenue Manager to drive ADR (Average Daily Rate) and occupancy to achieve the corporate.

Participated in on-going sales activities to bring in new business, build loyalty with established customers, and develop.

Budgetary responsibilities in creating the annual budgets, evaluating monthly Profit and Loss statements and assist with creating monthly variance reports.

Develop additional selling skills with associates on how to recommend additional products and services to increase sales.

Set up controls (overtime, safety deposit boxes, master keys, banks, etc.) and audit them on a timely basis to ensure the accuracy and completeness of all work handled by the front desk.

Supervised management of housekeeping, front office, security and building/grounds maintenance.

University of the Cumberlands

Case 13.3 “Dear Mr. President—Please Cancel our Project!”: The Honolulu Elevated Rail Project

This
case is a great current example of a very expensive project that was
kicked off because of an assumed need—to relieve congestion in downtown
Honolulu through an elevated urban rail system. Critics argue that in
addition to having a ballooning cost, the actual planning was poorly
conceived, leaving Honolulu with an intrusive and ugly rail system
through the downtown area, ruining panoramic views, and impeding
traffic. Additionally, advocates underestimated the power needs for the
rail system, requiring the transport authority to renegotiate
electricity fees for the system. Finally, the original costs that were
assumed for the project were calculated during an economic downturn and
with the economy booming again, the costs of the project have gone up
dramatically. All of these elements points to a state Governor who is
anxious to be rid of the project and hoping that President Trump will
deny additional federal funding, in which case the project will likely
be cancelled.

Questions

Why
are public works projects like the Honolulu Rail project nearly
impossible to stop once they have been approved, even if later cost
estimates skyrocket?
Project
Management researchers have charged that many large infrastructure
projects, like this one, suffer from “delusion” and “deception” on the
parts of their advocates. Explain how “delusion” might be a cause of
ballooning budgets in this project. How does “deception” affect the
final project budget overruns?

Case Study 14.1—New Jersey Kills Hudson River Tunnel Project

This
case illustrates the challenges in making an early termination
decision. Often, particularly in the case of public projects, there is a
real difficulty in stopping a project once it has gotten “on the
books.” As a result, projects with huge cost overruns, like Boston’s
“Big Dig” are allowed to continue almost indefinitely. New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie made a tough call in deciding to cancel the
Hudson River Tunnel project because he was given a number of rosy
projections that did not match the actual costs incurred to that date.
This is a great case to let students pick sides: should Christie have
cancelled the project or not? There are arguments to be made that the
need was strong (although others could argue that the need was
over-sold). On the other hand, the history of the project to date and
the uncertainty about future federal funding made it a real gamble,
especially during a time of economic recession.

Questions

How
would you respond to the argument that it is impossible to judge how
successful a project like this one would have been unless you actually
do it?
Take a position, either pro or con, on Christie’s decision to kill the ARC. Develop arguments to support your point of view.
In
your opinion, how clearly must a large infrastructure project like ARC
have determined its need, costs, and so forth before being approved? If
the criteria are too stringent, what is the implication for future
projects of this type? Would any ever be built?

University of The Cumberlands

The final product is to be a 5-10 page report submitted here as a word document, with all sources referenced. The 5-10 pages does not include a cover page or references and any charts, graphs, pictures etc. can be put in an appendix. The format is mostly up to you, with the qualifier that it serve the interests of firms needing paths of action that enable them to survive and prosper. To that end, do not use SWOT etc. forms that are not suited to the specifics of the present and near future.

A REAL firm must be selected that is experiencing REAL distress, with you developing REAL solutions to be used in the present and future, not what has already been done. – these should be approximately 80% of the final product. NO CREDIT WILL BE GIVEN IF THESE REQUIREMENTS ARE NOT MET.

University of The Cumberlands

APA
Format please

Topic is

Individuals and Groups

Attached
is a copy of the week’s research terms. Topics will be selected on a
first come first serve basis. To claim a topic, go to this week’s
discussion forum (below) and check what topics remain available. Select
an available topic and start a new discussion thread by placing ONLY
the topic in the Subject Line (do not put your name or anything else
here). Leave the body of the thread blank and save the post. In weeks
where there are insufficient topics for everyone; once all topics have
been selected you may then start selecting from the entire list again.
But there should never be three posts on the same topic – if so the last
one posted will receive no credit.

After
your topic selection, research your selected topic in the university’s
electronic library from only academic (refereed) journals. You will
need at least three journal references and the textbook. Start your
research with the textbook so it always grounds your topic. When your
research is complete post it in the discussion forum below.

Structure your paper as follows:
1. Cover page
2. Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in your own words.
3. Purpose of Research should
  reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and
  professional practice and the larger body of research.
4. Review of the Literature summarized
  in your own words. Note that this should not be a “copy and paste” of
  literature content, nor should this section be substantially filled with
  direct quotes from the article. A literature review is a summary of the
  major points and findings of each of the selected articles (with
  appropriate citations). Direct quotations should be used sparingly.
  Normally, this will be the largest section of your paper (this is not a
  requirement; just a general observation).
5. Practical Application of
  the literature. Describe how your findings from the relevant research
  literature can shape, inform, and improve current business and
  professional practice related to your chosen topic.
6. Conclusion in your own words
7. References formatted according to APA style requirements

University of the Cumberlands

Case Study 11.1: It’s an Agile World

Questions

Why does the classic waterfall project planning model fail in this situation? What is it about the IT department’s processes that leads to their finished systems being rejected constantly?
How would an Agile methodology correct some of these problems? What new development cycle would you propose?
Why are “user stories” and system “features” critical components of an effective IT software development process?
Using the terms “Scrum,” “Sprint,” and “User stories,” create an alternative development cycle for a hypothetical software development process at Northwest Regional Hospital.

Case Study 12.2: “First Come, First Served”: Resource Challenges for Sunrise Restoration

Questions

Describe some of the resource constraints that Sunrise and its project managers are facing.
Is Sunrise’s current model of prioritizing resource assignments viable? Why or why not?
How could technology alleviate some of Sunrise’s resource management issues?
Would Tyler’s suggestion to hire additional technicians and purchase more equipment solve the resource problems at Sunrise? Why or why not?

University of the Cumberlands

Activity I – Qualitative Risk Assessment. Imagine that you are a member of a project team that has been charged with developing a new product for the residential building industry. Using a qualitative risk analysis matrix, develop a risk assessment for a project based on the following information: :

Identified risk factors Likelihood

1. Key team members pulled off project 1. High

2. Chance of economic downturn 2. Low

3. Project funding cut 3. Medium

4. Project scope changes 4. High

5. Poor spec. performance 5. Low

Based on this information, how would you rate the consequences of each of the identified risk factors? Why? Construct the risk matrix and classify each of the risk factors in the matrix.

Activity II – Sochi Olympics—What’s the Cost of National Prestige?

Questions

Consider the following statement: “Government-funded projects intended to serve as ‘prestige projects,’ such as the Sochi Olympics, should not be judged on the basis of cost.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why?
Project success is defined as adherence to budget, schedule, functionality (performance), and client satisfaction. Under these criteria, cite evidence that suggests the Sochi Olympics project was a success and/or failure.
When a project has a “hard gate,” like being ready on time, how does that affect normal success criteria? Is it fair to judge a project with a critical completion date by normal project success standards? Why or why not?
Consider the problems with the Rio Olympics sites that quickly occurred following completion of the 2016 Summer Games. Access the internet to find evidence of the current state of the Sochi Olympic site. How is it being used and what are the current problems and opportunities for Sochi?

University of The Cumberlands

Review the following peer-reviewed articles:

Critically evaluate the article’s strengths, weaknesses, and contribution to the study field using the outline below as a guide:

Cover page

The cover page will include:
- Articles Title and Author (s)
- Name of Journal (s)
- Date of publication
- Your name

Executive Summary

Summarize the significant aspects of the entire article, including:
- The overall purpose and general area of study of the article.
- The specific problem being addressed in the study.
- The main findings of the article.

Literature Review

Briefly summarize the overall themes presented in the Literature Review.
- Was the literature review applicable to the study, current and thorough?
- Were there gaps in the literature review?

Data Analysis

Identify the methodology used: qualitative, quantitative, mixed? Was the chosen methodology appropriate for the study? Why or why not?
Did the data analysis prove or disprove the research questions? Explain.

Results/Conclusion

In this section, you will address the following:
- Describe the article’s relevance to the field of knowledge.
- Outline the strengths and weaknesses of the article. Be specific.
- Based on the article, what future research do you think needs to be accomplished in this area?
- What are your key points and takeaways after analyzing the article?

University of the Cumberlands

Scenario:

Requirements:

The paper should include at a minimum of the following sections:

You must include at least two figures or tables. These must be of your own creation. Do not copy from other sources.
Must cite at least 10 references and 5 must be from peer reviewed scholarly journals (accessible from the UC Library).
This paper should be in proper APA format and avoid plagiarism when paraphrasing content. It should be a minimum of 8 pages in length (double-spaced), excluding the title page and references.

Milestones:

Week 3 – Introduction Section – A 2-3 page paper describing the industry chosen and potential resources to be used. 100 pts.
Week 5 – Develop a full annotated bibliography (3-4 pages) and develop the literature review (3-4 pages). 200 pts.
Week 7 – Completed final research paper (both milestones combined together and include the last sections as discussed in the list above). 300 pts.

University of The Cumberlands

Case Study 11.1: It’s an Agile World

Questions

Why does the classic waterfall project planning model fail in this situation? What is it about the IT department’s processes that leads to their finished systems being rejected constantly?
How would an Agile methodology correct some of these problems? What new development cycle would you propose?
Why are “user stories” and system “features” critical components of an effective IT software development process?
Using the terms “Scrum,” “Sprint,” and “User stories,” create an alternative development cycle for a hypothetical software development process at Northwest Regional Hospital.

Case Study 12.2: “First Come, First Served”: Resource Challenges for Sunrise Restoration

Questions

Describe some of the resource constraints that Sunrise and its project managers are facing.
Is Sunrise’s current model of prioritizing resource assignments viable? Why or why not?
How could technology alleviate some of Sunrise’s resource management issues?
Would Tyler’s suggestion to hire additional technicians and purchase more equipment solve the resource problems at Sunrise? Why or why not?

University of the Cumberlands

Is it more expensive or less expensive to live in FL or NY?
Is the crime rate higher in FL or NY (Note a low score in crime means lower crime)?
Is the crime rate higher in lower or higher house price areas?

Using the R tool, show the data in the tool to answer each of the questions. Also, show the data visualization to go along with the summary.

If you were Suzie, where would you move based on the questions above?
After you gave Suzie the answer above (to #4), she gave you some additional information that you need to consider:
1. She has $100,000 to put down for the house.
2. If she moves to NY she will have a job earning $120,000 per year.
3. If she moves to FL she will have a job earning $75,000 per year.
4. She wants to know the following:
  1. On average what location will she be able to pay off her house first based on average housing prices and income she will receive?
  2. Where should she move and why? Please show graphics and thoroughly explain your answer here based on the new information provided above.

University of The Cumberlands

Many business environments have both visible and invisible physical security controls. You see them at the post office, at the corner store, and in certain areas of your own computing environment. They are so pervasive that some people choose where they live based on their presence, as in gated access communities or secure apartment complexes. Alison is a security analyst for a major technology corporation that specializes in data management. This company includes an in house security staff (guards, administrators, and so on) that is capable of handling physical security breaches. Brad experienced an intrusion—into his personal vehicle in the company parking lot. He asks Alison whether she observed or recorded anyone breaking into and entering his vehicle, but this is a personal item and not a company possession, and she has no control or regulation over damage to employee assets. This is understandably unnerving for Brad, but he understands that she’s protecting the business and not his belongings.

When or where would you think it would be necessary to implement security measures for both?

Task2:words:300

We looked at several topics on global IT strategies, technologies, models, and networking during this session.

As you get closer to starting your own dissertation, you will need to choose a topic in your first dissertation class, DSRT-736, so it is essential to start preparing. This week, let us take a look at some topics to consider, and by the end of the week, we could have several ideas for dissertation topics

Since you have already examined several research articles, another way would be to examine previous dissertations in these areas.

Visit the University of Cumberland’s library, go to the Dissertation Database, and locate an interesting topic on global IT.

Here are some pointers that will help critically evaluate some viable topics.

Is the topic attainable for a first-time dissertation student?

Is the problem rooted in the literature?

Is the research empirical, i.e., is there a survey, is there an interview guide, has the data been analyzed via some statistical tool?
Is there a theoretical model or framework discussed?
Discuss the topic, the problem the model has been used in the research, and any present findings.

University of The Cumberlands

Research Paper: This is a graduate course and students will be expected to research and write papers summarizing in their own words what they have found on current topics from the weekly readings. Research is a theoretical review of relevant literature and application of findings in the literature to a topic related to a specific industry, field, or business problem.

The research must be conducted using peer-reviewed trade or academic journals. While Blogs, Wikipedia, encyclopedias, course textbooks, popular magazines, newspaper articles, online websites, etc. are helpful for providing background information, these resources are NOT suitable resources for this research assignment.

Assignment Requirements:

Choose a research topic from the chapter readings or from the list provided by your professor.
Research/find a minimum at least four (4), preferably five (5) or more, different peer reviewed articles on your topic from the University Library online business database. The article(s) must be relevant and from a peer-reviewed source. While you may use relevant articles from any time frame, current/published within the last five (5) years are preferred. Using literature that is irrelevant or unrelated to the chosen topic will result in a point reduction.
Write a four (4) to five (5) page double spaced paper in APA format discussing the findings on your specific topic in own words. Note- paper length does not include cover page, abstract, or references page(s).
Structure your paper as follows:
Cover page
Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in own words.
Purpose of Research should reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and professional practice and the larger body of research.
Review of the Literature summarized in own words. Note that this should not be a “copy and paste” of literature content, nor should this section be substantially filled with direct quotes from the article. A literature review is a summary of the major points and findings of each of the selected articles (with appropriate citations). Direct quotations should be used sparingly. Normally, this will be the largest section of your paper (this is not a requirement; just a general observation).
Practical Application of the literature. Describe how your findings from the relevant research literature can shape, inform, and improve current business and professional practice related to your chosen topic.
Conclusion in own words
References formatted according to APA style requirements

University of the Cumberlands

I’m working on a business multi-part question and need support to help me study.

Question 1

Integrated Waveguide Technologies (IWT) is a 6-year-old company founded by Hunt Jackson and David Smithfield to exploit metamaterial plasmonic technology to develop and manufacture miniature microwave frequency directional transmitters and receivers for use in mobile Internet and communications applications. IWT’s technology, although highly advanced, is relatively inexpensive to implement, and its patented manufacturing techniques require little capital as compared to many electronics fabrication ventures. Because of the low capital requirement, Jackson and Smithfield have been able to avoid issuing new stock and thus own all of the shares. Because of the explosion in demand for its mobile Internet applications, IWT must now access outside equity capital to fund its growth, and Jackson and Smithfield have decided to take the company public. Until now, Jackson and Smithfield have paid themselves reasonable salaries but routinely reinvested all after-tax earnings in the firm, so dividend policy has not been an issue. However, before talking with potential outside investors, they must decide on a dividend policy. Your new boss at the consulting firm Flick and Associates, which has been retained to help IWT prepare for its public offering, has asked you to make a presentation to Jackson and Smithfield in which you review the theory of dividend policy and discuss the following issues.

a. (1) What is meant by the term “distribution policy”? How has the mix of dividend payouts and stock repurchases changed over time?

(2) The terms “irrelevance,” “dividend preference” (or “bird-in-the-hand”), and “tax effect” have been used to describe three major theories regarding the way dividend payouts affect a firm’s value. Explain these terms, and briefly describe each theory.

(3) What do the three theories indicate regarding the actions management should take with respect to dividend payouts?

(4) What results have empirical studies of the dividend theories produced? How does all this affect what we can tell managers about dividend payouts?

b. Discuss the effects on distribution policy consistent with: (1) the signaling hypothesis (also called the information content hypothesis) and (2) the clientele effect.

c. (1) Assume that IWT has completed its IPO and has a $112.5 million capital bud-get planned for the coming year. You have determined that its present capital structure (80% equity and 20% debt) is optimal, and its net income is forecasted at $140 million. Use the residual distribution approach to determine IWT’s total dollar distribution. Assume for now that the distribution is in the form of a dividend. Suppose IWT has 100 million shares of stock outstanding. What is the forecasted dividend payout ratio? What is the forecasted dividend per share? What would happen to the payout ratio and DPS if net income were forecasted to decrease to $90 million? To increase to $160 million?

(2) In general terms, how would a change in investment opportunities affect the payout ratio under the residual distribution policy?

(3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of the residual policy? (Hint: Don’t neglect signaling and clientele effects.)

d. (1) Describe the procedures a company follows when it makes a distribution through dividend payments.

(2) What is a stock repurchase? Describe the procedures a company follows when it makes a distribution through a stock repurchase.

e. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a firm repurchasing its own shares.

f. Suppose IWT has decided to distribute $50 million, which it presently is holding in liquid short-term investments. IWT’s value of operations is estimated to be about $1,937.5 million; it has $387.5 million in debt and zero preferred stock. As mentioned previously, IWT has 100 million shares of stock outstanding.

(1) Assume that IWT has not yet made the distribution. What is IWT’s intrinsic value of equity? What is its intrinsic stock price per share?

2) Now suppose that IWT has just made the $50 million distribution in the form of dividends. What is IWT’s intrinsic value of equity? What is its intrinsic stock price per share?

(3) Suppose instead that IWT has just made the $50 million distribution in the form of a stock repurchase. Now what is IWT’s intrinsic value of equity? How many shares did IWT repurchase? How many shares remained outstanding after the repurchase? What is its intrinsic stock price per share after the repurchase?

g. Describe the series of steps that most firms take when setting dividend policy.

h. What are stock splits and stock dividends? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

i. What is a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP), and how does it work?

Question 2

Gamut Satellite Inc. produces satellite earth stations that sell for $150,000 each. The firm’s fixed costs, F, are $1.5 million, 20 earth stations are produced and sold each year, profits total $400,000, and the firm’s assets (all equity financed) are $5 million. The firm estimates that it can change its production process, adding $10 million to assets and $500,000 to fixed operating costs. This change will reduce variable costs per unit by $5,000 and increase output by 30 units. However, the sales price on all units must be lowered to $140,000 to permit sales of the additional output. The firm has tax loss carryforwards that render its tax rate zero, its cost of equity is 18%, and it uses no debt.

Determine the variable cost per unit
Determine the new profit if the change is made
What is the incremental profit?
What is the projects expected rate of return for the next year (defined as the incremental profit divided by the investment)?
Should the firm make the investment? Why or why not?
Would the firm’s break-even point increase or decrease if it made the change?
Would the new situation expose the firm to more or less business risk than the old one? Show workings

University of the Cumberlands

Question 1

Assume that you are nearing graduation and have applied for a job with a local bank. As part of the bank’s evaluation process, you have been asked to take an examination that covers several financial analysis techniques. The first section of the question addresses time value of money analysis. See how you would do by answering the following questions.

Draw time lines for (a) a $2000 lump sum cash flow at the end of year 4, (b) an ordinary annuity of $1000 per year for 5 years, and (c) an uneven cash flow stream of -$450, $1000, $650, $850 and $500 at the end of years 0 through 4.
What is the future value of an initial $1000 after 5 years if it is invested in an account paying 5% annual interest?
What is the present value of $1000 to be received in 4 years if the appropriate interest rate is 5%?
We sometimes need to find out how long it will take a sum of money (or anything else) to grow to some specified amount. For example, if a company’s sales for 2020 is $1000 and expected to grow at a rate of 10% per year, how long will it take sales to double?
If you invested $10,000 in an investment account and you expect it to double in 4 years, what interest rate must it earn?
What is the future value of a 5-year ordinary annuity of $1000 if the appropriate interest rate is 5%? What is the present value of the annuity?
What is the future value of $1000 after 4 years under 10% annual compounding? Semiannual compounding? Quarterly compounding? Monthly compounding? Daily compounding
What is the effective annual rate (EAR or EFF%)? What is the EFF% for a nominal rate of 5%, compounded semiannually? Compounded quarterly? Compounded monthly? Compounded daily?
Construct an amortization schedule for a $1,000, 12% annual rate loan with 4 equal installments. What is the annual interest expense for the borrower, and the annual interest income for the lender, during Year 2?
Suppose on January 1 you deposit $1000 in an account that pays a nominal, or quoted, interest rate of 12%, with interest added (compounded) daily. How much will you have in your account on October 1, or 9 months later?
You want to buy a car, and a local bank will lend you $10,000. The loan would be fully amortized over 6 years (72 months), and the nominal interest rate would be 10%, with interest paid monthly. What is the monthly loan payment?
While Mary Corens was a student at the University of Tennessee, she borrowed $20,000 in student loans at an annual interest rate of 5%. If Mary repays $200 per year, then how long (to the nearest year) will it take her to repay the loan?

Question 2

5. Suppose Hillard Manufacturing sold an issue of bonds with a 12-year maturity, a $1,000 par value, a 10% coupon rate, and semiannual interest payments.

Two years after the bonds were issued, the going rate of interest on bonds such as these fell to 5%. At what price would the bonds sell?
Suppose that 2 years after the initial offering, the going interest rate had risen to 11%. At what price would the bonds sell?
Suppose that 2 years after the issue date (as in part a) interest rates fell to 5%. Suppose further that the interest rate remained at 5% for the next 10 years. What would happen to the price of the bonds over time?

Submit your answers in a Word and/or Excel document.

Text book

Title: Corporate Finance

ISBN: 9781337909747

Authors: Ehrhardt

Publisher: Cengage

Edition: 7TH 20

University of The Cumberlands

Select a portion of the Website that you have been assigned.

Target.com

You are to perform a heuristic evaluation of that Website or product. You are required to use Nielsen’s 10 heuristics for this assignment, available online at: http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html

To guide you in your complete analysis of the usability analysis, you are required to identify at least one scenario that reflects how a user is likely to use your Website or product in real-life. Try and replicate the user experience as part of the study heuristic evaluation.

This can be very general — if you were evaluating a hotel or airline website, for example, you might think about someone trying to cash in all their frequent “traveler” points, or someone trying to trade in their points as part of a transaction. Your goal here is to develop a basic scenario that will guide your heuristic evaluation.

Using the scenario, you will then systematically evaluate the interface – screen by screen on a transactional basis of your chosen site or product, checking to see which interface elements you encounter (if any) result in problematic experiences. Once you experience challenging experiences, you will document these areas and identify ways in which these areas can be improved potentially in order to avoid violating any of Nielsen’s heuristics.

Note: You should work from your scenario, and not work from the heuristics (i.e., don’t take each heuristic one at a time, looking for heuristic violations on the site).

It is strongly encouraged you integrate at least 2-3 screenshots of your user experience to include the outputs of your study. When responding, make sure to answer each of these questions:

Identify the website or product you have been assigned (including a screenshot), and briefly describe the reason you selected the section of the Website evaluated.

Describe the scenario you used to focus your evaluation, and explain how you approached the site/product with respect to the usability heuristics.

Provide a detailed analysis of the usability flaws you found for this site, along with a) the heuristics each flaw violates, and b) an explanation of why this flaw violates those heuristics.

Discuss some possible design recommendations that could improve the site, explaining how each recommended change would address the usability flaws you identified above.

University of the Cumberlands

Need APA Writing for the below qustions.
1. In your browser, navigate to https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/policyissues/information-security-policy-development-guide-large-small-companies-1331. Read Sections 1-5 of the SANS Policy Development Guide.

Summarize the Policy Development Guide’s recommendations for organizing a policy hierarchy and selecting policy topics.

2. In your browser, navigate to https://www.cio.com/article/3243684/what-is-cobit-a-framework-for-alignment-and-governance.html.

Describe the core principles and objectives of COBIT 2019.

3. Review the following list of risks, threats, and vulnerabilities at the fictional Healthwise Health Care Company.

Unauthorized access from public Internet
Hacker penetrates IT infrastructure
Communication circuit outages
Workstation operating system (OS) has a known software vulnerability
Unauthorized access to organization-owned data
Denial of service attack on organization’s e-mail
Remote communications from home office
Workstation browser has software vulnerability
Weak ingress/egress traffic-filtering degrades performance
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) access points are needed for Local Area Network (LAN) connectivity within a warehouse
User destroys data in application, deletes all files, and gains access to internal network
Fire destroys primary data center
Intraoffice employee romance gone bad
Loss of production data
Need to prevent rogue users from unauthorized WLAN access
LAN server OS has a known software vulnerability
User downloads an unknown e-mail attachment
Service provider has a major network outage
User inserts a USB hard drive with personal photos, music, and videos on organization-owned computers
Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunneling between the remote computer and ingress/egress route

For each risk, threat, or vulnerability in the list above, select an appropriate security policy that might help mitigate it. You can select one of the SANS policies or choose one from the following list. Write summary as stated.

3. Organize the security policies you selected so that they can be used as part of an overall framework for a layered security strategy.

Security Policies

Acceptable Use Policy

Access Control Policy

Business Continuity—Business Impact Analysis (BIA) Policy

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Policy

Data Classification Standard and Encryption Policy

Internet Ingress/Egress Traffic Policy

Mandated Security Awareness Training Policy

Production Data Backup Policy

Remote Access Policy

Vulnerability Management and Vulnerability Window Policy

Wide Area Network (WAN) Service Availability Policy

4.A user at Digital Innovation Products has been using company network resources to download torrent files onto a USB drive and transfer those files to their home computer. IT tracked down the torrent traffic during a recent network audit. Unfortunately, the company does not have a current policy that restricts this type of activity.

Write summary by Identifyingat least two appropriate policies that should be in place to define this type of behavior and the consequences thereof.

Writea overview for C-level executives explaining which policies should be added to the company’s overall security policy framework, why they should be added, and how those policies could protect the company.

University of the Cumberlands

I’m studying for my Management class and don’t understand how to answer this. Can you help me study?

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 9
Assigned Readings: Chapter 10. Resource Management
Initial Postings: Read and reflect on the assigned readings for the week. Then post what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding in each assigned textbook chapter. Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook should be a source listed in your reference section and cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion. Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:
1. Discuss an example of a project that is not subject to resource constraints. Is this project subject to other constraints?
2. Why is the impact of scheduling and resource allocation generally more significant in multiproject organizations? How do large fluctuations in demand affect the situation?
[Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!] [Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA review]Submitting the Initial Posting:Your initial posting should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST. Response to Other Student Postings: Respond substantively to the post of at least two peers, by Friday, 11:59 p.m. EST. A peer response such as “I agree with her,” or “I liked what he said about that” or similar comments are not considered substantive and will not be counted for course credit.[Continue the discussion through Sunday,11:59 p.m. EST by highlighting differences between your postings and your colleagues’ postings. Provide additional insights or alternative perspectives]Evaluation of posts and responses: Your initial posts and peer responses will be evaluated on the basis of the kind of critical thinking and engagement displayed. The grading rubric evaluates the content based on seven areas:Content Knowledge & Structure, Critical Thinking, Clarity & Effective Communication, Integration of Knowledge & Articles, Presentation, Writing Mechanics, and Response to Other Students.
Activity 9

A project has 11 activities that can be accomplished either by one person working alone or by several people working together. The activities, precedence constraints, and time estimates are given in Table below. Suppose that you have up to five people who can be assigned on any given day. A person must work full days on each activity, but the number of people working on an activity can vary from day to day.

Activity Immediate predecessors Person-days required

A 10

B A 8

C A 5

D B 6

E D 8

F C 7

G E,F 4

H F 2

I F 3

J H,I 3

K J,G 2
1. Prepare an AOA network diagram, and calculate the critical path, total slacks, and free slacks assuming that one person (independently) is working on each task.
2. Prepare an early-start Gantt chart.
3. Prepare a daily assignment sheet for personnel with the goal of finishing the project in the minimum amount of time.
4. Prepare a daily assignment sheet to “best” balance the workforce assigned to the project.
5. By how many days could the project be compressed if unlimited personnel resources were available?

University of the Cumberlands

I need an explanation for this Computer Science question to help me study.

In your browser, navigate to and read the “Remote Access Policy” template at https://www.sans.org/information-security-policy/. Using your favorite search engine, locate a remote access policy for a higher education institution and locate a remote access policy for a healthcare provider.

Write a brief summary of the information during your research. In your summary, focus on the key elements of the remote access policy. You should also identify any unique elements of remote access policies for higher education and healthcare institutions. Be sure to provide links to the remote access policies you identified for higher education & healthcare provider.

2.Identify a security control or countermeasure to mitigate each risk and threat identified in the Remote Access Domain and write brief summary. These security controls or countermeasures will become the basis of the scope of the Remote Access Domain policy definition to help mitigate the risks and threats commonly found within the Remote Access Domain.

3. Create an organization-wide remote access policy for Healthwise Health Care and write the below
a.Policy Statement —-Define your policy verbiage.
b.Purpose/Objective —-Define the policy’s purpose as well as its objectives and policy definitions

c.Scope—-Define whom this policy covers and its scope. What elements, IT assets, or organization-owned assets are within this policy’s scope?

d.Standards —-Does the policy statement point to any hardware, software, or configuration standards? If so, list them here and explain the relationship of this policy to these standards. In this case, Remote Access Domain standards should be referenced, such as encryption standards and VPN standards; make any necessary assumptions.

e. Procedures—–Explain how you intend to implement this policy for the entire organization.
f. Guidelines —– Explain any roadblocks or implementation issues that you must overcome in this section and how you will surmount them per defined guidelines. Any disputes or gaps in the definition and separation of duties responsibility may need to be addressed in this section.

4. Use the internet to find information about remote access policies and home network protection, and then use this information to create a training document for remote employees. Write brief summary in 250 words.

University of the Cumberlands

In chapter 4, the author discusses different options for testing blockchain applications. For our course, we have chosen to use Ganache, a local test blockchain. Explore some of the advantages and disadvantages of using local and public blockchains to test apps and contrast the two options.

Create a new thread (by the FIRST DUE DATE)
- Contract the advantages and disadvantages of using local and public blockchains to test applications.
- Explain how each advantage and disadvantage impacts blockchain application development, and why each is important to a successful blockchain implementation.

I’m interested to read what YOU learned from this week’s reading. Do NOT submit a research paper. Tell me what you think.

Think of three questions you’d like to ask other students and add these to the end of your thread.
- The questions must be taken from material you read in Chapter 1 or 2, and each question should start a discussion topic.
- You’re not trying to test each other, but you are trying to start a discussion.
Finally, go to three other students’ threads and post comments, answering at least one of their questions.
- For EACH comment you post, use the 3CQ approach (described above.)
- When someone asks you a question, answer it!

ALL threads and comments must be substantive AND ORIGINAL. (I’m looking for about a paragraph – not just a short answer.) Do not plagiarize!! Use your own words.

The discussions in this class exist to simulate face-to-face discussions. To reach that goal, we will adhere to the 3CQ model. After posting each thread, you will post at least 3 comments on other students’ threads, and each comment must conform to the 3CQ model (Compliment, Comment, Connect, Question). This model encourages discussions that extend class learning and participation.

Here is a description of the 3CQ model:

1. Compliment – Start off positive. Compliment the person on something specific you have read or observed in the person’s blog post. For example:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I really liked …

2. Comment – Comment on something relevant and meaningful about what the person wrote. Be specific! Remember your comment might not always be agreement. You can “politely” disagree. For example:

I agree with you about …
I respect your opinion, but I think …

3. Connect – Connect with something the person wrote (Text-to-Self, Text-to-Text, Text-to-World). Explain your connection with details giving your audience a clear idea of what you’re talking about by using sensory details. For example:

I can connect with you about …
I once read a story about …
I had the same thing happen to me…

4. Question – Ask a specific question about something written or the writer. Keep the conversation going!

Remember that ALL discussions must use the 3CQ approach to interaction.

University of The Cumberlands

1. Consider the data set shown in Table (Table 6.15, 515 page), with an item taxonomy given in Figure 6.25. Example of market basket transactions

– https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/apriori-algorithm/

– https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/apriori-algori…

– https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/association-rule/

Answer for the following questions.

(a) Consider the approach where each transaction t is replaced by an extended transaction t1 that contains all the items in t as well as their respective ancestors.

For example, the transaction t = { Chips, Cookies} will be replaced by t1 = {Chips, Cookies, Snack Food, Food}. Use this approach to derive all frequent itemsets (up to size 4) with support ≥ 70%.

(b) Consider an alternative approach where the frequent itemsets are generated one level at a time. Initially, all the frequent itemsets involving items at the highest level of the hierarchy are generated. Next, we use the frequent itemsets discovered at the higher level of the hierarchy to generate candidate itemsets involving items at the lower levels of the hierarchy.

For example, we generate the candidate itemset {Chips, Diet Soda} only if {Snack Food, Soda} is frequent. Use this approach to derive all frequent itemsets (up to size 4) with support ≥ 70%.

2. Consider the data set shown in Table. Example of market basket transactions

Answer for the following questions.

(a) Compute the support for itemsets {e}, {b, d}, and {b, d, e} by treating each transaction ID as a market basket.

(b) Use the results in part (a) to compute the confidence for the association rules {b, d} → {e} and {e} → {b, d}. Is confidence a symmetric measure? (

c) Repeat part (a) by treating each customer ID as a market basket. Each item should be treated as a binary variable (1 if an item appears in at least one transaction bought by the customer, and 0 otherwise). Use this result to compute the confidence for the association rules {b, d} → {e} and {e} → {b, d}.

(d) Use the result in part (c) to compute the confidence for the association rules {b, d} → {e} and {e} → {b, d}.

University of the Cumberlands

In week #8, your midterm project was to provide a security assessment for Vestige, Inc, an online software company that specialize in selling ad spaces in their parent company’s magazine. Vestige manages an online database that allows their customers to upload and pay for their business ads for magazine placement. Because Vestige’s database needs to connect to the parent company’s database, the parent company has requested that Vestige system be assessed and verified as secure.

Now that you have provided your security assessment, the next step is to provide Vestige, Inc. with your Security Portfolio. Using this week’s Reading on the NIST framework that includes the 5-step process for creating a balanced portfolio of security products, your assignment will be to create a Security Portfolio with the following sections:

1. Cover Page (i.e. APA title page)

2. Background (provide a synopsis your midterm security assessment on Vestige)

3. For each security need identified (or needs to be identified) from your Week #8’s Midterm Assignment, Find the products that will deliver the needed capabilities for the right price, and tell why you chose that product.

Follow the below criteria, please.

Criteria:

————

1. No errors in APA style. Scholarly style. Writing is flowing and easy to follow.

2. Strong introduction of the topic’s key questions), terms. Clearly delineates subtopics to be reviewed. Specific thesis statement.

3. Strong review of key conclusions. Strong integration with thesis statement. An insightful discussion of the impact of the researched material on the topic.

4. All references and citations are correctly written and present

5. All material clearly related to subtopic, main topic. Strong organization and integration of material within subtopics. Strong transitions linking subtopics, and main topic.

6. Strong peer-reviewed research based on support for the thesis.

7. The paper is free of grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors.

You can use my course material textbook if needed:

Title: Securing Systems

Subtitle: *PLEASE SEE BOOKSTORE LINK BELOW TO PURCHASE REQUIRED MATERIALS

ISBN: 9781482233971

Authors: Brook S. E. Schoenfield

Publisher: CRC Press

Publication Date: 2015-05-20

University of the Cumberlands

Describe the key components within the incident response plan you identified. Be sure to cite the plan by including a link. —Answer should be not more than 300 words
In your browser, navigate to “A Six-Stage Methodology for Incident Response,” at http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/networking/incident-response/1578702569/a-methodology-for-incident-response/ch03lev1sec2 and “Outline the six-step methodology for performing incident response. List each step and its purpose. How closely does the plan that you reviewed follow this methodology?”
Navigate to “Security Policy Templates” at https://www.sans.org/information-security-policy/, then locate and review the “Security Response Plan Policy” and write briefly “Describe how this policy would be associated with an incident response plan.”
Create an incident response policy that grants team members full access and authority to perform forensics and maintain a chain of custody for physical evidence containment. Create this policy for the Bankwise Credit Union and write the below sections briefly in one paragraph
a) Policy Statement
b)Purpose/Objectives -Write policy’s purpose as well as its objectives; use a bulleted list for the policy definition. Define the incident response team members and the authorization and authority granted to them during a crisis or while securing an incident situation.
c) Scope- Define this policy’s scope and whom it covers. What elements, IT assets, or organization-owned assets are within the scope of this policy? What access and authority are granted to the incident response team members that may be outside of standard protocol?
d) Standards-Does this policy point to any hardware, software, or configuration standards? If so, list them here and explain the relationship of this policy to these standards
e) Procedures—Explain how you intend to implement this policy across the organization. Also, define and incorporate the six-step incident response approach here along with how the chain of custody must be maintained throughout any evidence collection process.
f) Guidelines —- Explain any roadblocks or implementation issues that you must address in this section and how you will overcome them per defined policy guidelines.
Identify and define an incident scenario for Bankwise Credit Union. The incident must involve some type of cybersecurity issue.
Create a brief abstract of the scenario to be approved by C-level executives.

University of The Cumberlands

The marketing research process comprises six steps: 1: problem definition, 2: development of an approach to the problem, 3: inquire about design definition, 4: fieldwork or data collection, 5: information arrangement and investigation and, 6: report planning and presentation. It details the methods fundamental for getting the specified data. Its reason is to plan a consider that will test the theories of intrigued, decide possible answers to the inquire about questions, and give the necessary data for choice making.

Choices moreover are made concerning information that ought to be gotten from the respondents (e.g., by conducting a study or an explore), and survey and inspecting arrange too are planned input to choose foremost suitable respondents for the study. The research plan includes auxiliary information examination, subjective investigation; quantitative information strategies (overview, perception, and experimentation); data required; estimation and scaling strategies; survey plan; examining preparation and test measure, and arranging information investigation.

Systematic research planning is needed at all the stages of the showcasing research handle. The methods took after at each organize are methodologically sound, well recorded, and, as conceivable, arranged in progress. Promoting inquire about employments the logical strategy in that information is collected and analyzed to test earlier ideas or hypotheses. Marketing research points to supply precise data that reflects a natural state of undertakings and, in this way, ought to be conducted unbiasedly. Whereas inquire about is continuously impacted by the researcher’s investigate reasoning, it ought to be free from the individual or political predispositions of the analyst or the administration.

Firstly, I would dodge the allurement to offer gigantic determination of things, or it’ll be hurling nourishment after the night. Moreover, I will consider what the eatery kitchen is competent in creating. Are there sufficient stations to offer all the sorts of pizzas indicated within the question? It is exceptionally precarious to have a different combination of the nourishment things within the cafe because it will require a parcel of stock and raw material. If demand isn’t satisfactory to fulfill the anticipated fetched, at that point, the business is unquestionably reaching to be in misfortune. Ideally, I would like to satisfy each student’s request, but it isn’t conceivable to encourage these items at a lower cost.

Reasonability too implies not overpowering your clients with choices. As well, numerous alternatives can befuddle individuals, or more regrettable, and it might indeed intuitively stretch them a small. Attempt to keep your dishes to seven or eight in each category or area. In arranging to decide the item blend that I would like to serve my clients, I will conduct a conjoint investigation of the different combinations of pizza and will figure out the foremost prevalent combination that the understudies select.

I would moreover attempt to assess what kind of pizza, garnishes, hull sorts will be favored by the clients. In arrange to do so, I will ask the clients to rate the best 20 combinations beginning from most preferred to slightest selected. Out of this list, I will start working on the top 10 combinations, which are being chosen by the more significant part of the understudies. This is often the foremost successful strategy of fulfilling the most extreme number of clients

University of the Cumberlands

part 1

1) Develop a budget for the project “getting an undergraduate degree.” Explain your assumptions and your analysis.

2) Assume that you are in charge of developing your state’s department of transportation budget. Write specific instructions for project managers in your department to facilitate a bottom-up budgeting process.

part 2 Initiating the project

1. Suppose you are purchasing a new car, and you decide to use a scoring model to decide among four options. What would be your top three criteria and what would be each criteria’s relative weight?

2. In your opinion, what are the three most important items in your project charter? How did each help you plan your project better?

3. Upon seeing the rough draft of your charter, your project sponsor asks you to move the finish date up by two months. What do you do?

part 3 Marketing

i. Go online and compare three franchises (e.g., franchise.org, americasbestfranchises.com, or whichfranchise.com). Choose two franchises in the same industry (e.g., fast food) and the third franchise from another industry (e.g., hair cutting). Make a table to report the fee structures (upfront, continued licensing), as well as benefits touted for franchisees of each franchise system. What would tempt you to pitch in with some friends and buy a franchise when you finish your degree?

ii. If you were to take your company global, which 3 countries would be your first targets and why? What kinds of strategies and products fit with those countries’ segments of customers?

part 4 Organizational behavior

a. You are on a team which features individuals high in openness and emotional stability. What is the likely result of task conflict within your team? Why is this?

part 5 Legal ethical and social

1. Discuss the various defenses in contract formation, stating what is required to establish each individual defense, and providing examples of when the defense may be found valid.

2. Sly Salesperson sells cars. While selling a car, Sly Salesperson tells the potential buyer that “this is the best car around. It’s a great car and sips gas.” The car has an average fuel rating. Has Sly Salesperson committed a misrepresentation? Fraud? Why or why not? Does the analysis change if Sly Salesperson says the car get 40 miles per gallon, but in fact the car only gets 30 miles per gallon?

University of the Cumberlands

Chapter 14. Customer Satisfaction and Customer Relationships.

Chapter 15. Marketing Research Tools.

Initial Postings: Read and reflect on the assigned readings for the week. Then post what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding in each assigned textbook chapter.Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook should be a source listed in your reference section and cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion.

Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:

Discuss how core factors, cues to quality, and interpersonal factors of a product influence your buying decisions. Discuss with supporting examples.
Imagine designing a conjoint for your b-school’s café. In particular, you’re in charge of the daily pizza orders. Pizzas are tricky—while they’re a simple food, they can be created in a zillion combinations. What factors should you test in terms of your fellow students’ likely preferences? Wheat crust vs. white, thick vs. thin, plain cheese vs. sausage vs. sausage and green pepper vs. vegetarian (you get the picture). Design a conjoint that would result in identifying 2 or 3 popular slices that your café managers could order every morning. The student body knows you’re responsible—how do you make most of them happy?

[Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!]

[Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced).

Submitting the Initial Posting:Your initial posting should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST.

Response to Other Student Postings: Respond substantively to the post of at least two peers, by Friday, 11:59 p.m. EST. A peer response such as “I agree with her,” or “I liked what he said about that” or similar comments are not considered substantive and will not be counted for course credit.

[Continue the discussion through Sunday,11:59 p.m. EST by highlighting differences between your postings and your colleagues’ postings. Provide additional insights or alternative perspectives]

Evaluation of posts and responses: Your initial posts and peer responses will be evaluated on the basis of the kind of critical thinking and engagement displayed. The grading rubric evaluates the content based on seven areas:

Content Knowledge & Structure, Critical Thinking, Clarity & Effective Communication, Integration of Knowledge & Articles, Presentation, Writing Mechanics, and Response to Other Students.

University of The Cumberlands

Need to have the two papers Article 1 and Article 2 on two different topics

Article Reviews
You will write a 2 page review/abstract/summary on an article from a peerreviewed scholarly journal. This is to assess your ability to select and summarize
the research of others, analyze and apply the research of others, and communicate
professionally and effectively to their regard. However, the most important
rationale for this assignment is for you to see how statistical analysis is presented.
Instructions:
1. Use the library system (https://www.ucumberlands.edu/library) or online catalog to
locate a journal article that pertains to your research, thesis, or area of
interest. The article you chose should have performed some statistical
analysis of gathered data and made an inference using something other than
just the average (mean). That is, they can’t just talk about averages; they
must have used one of these tests: t-test, chi-square, F-test, Fischer test,
ANOVA, MANOVA, ANCOVA, Mann-Whitney, correlation, regression.
2. Read the article thoroughly.
3. Write a 2-page summary about the article following the given guidelines.
Guidelines:
1. Your review should include:
a. The question/problem being researched by the author
b. The experiment that will answer the question
c. How they collected data
d. Analysis of the data (Must identify the statistical test used)
e. Their conclusion or findings
2. Your review can be single spaced or double spaced in at least 11 pt font.
3. You should make a bibliography to list the article you chose and practice APA
format. NOTE: The APA Guidelines address specifically how the reference
page is title and how articles are provided! Note: It is not called Bibliography.
4. Graphs or visual representations are not needed for this assignment.
5. A title page is not required, but you may include one if you want to practice
APA style. If you have a title page, your submission is 4 pages. If you do not
have a title page, your submission is 3 pages. Do not go over. There are
points associated with following the directions.
6. Your grade on these assignments will be based on the rubric below. FOLLOW
THESE GUIDELINES.

University of the Cumberlands

Write paper summarizing in your own words what they have found on current topics from the weekly readings. Research is a theoretical review of relevant literature and application of findings in the literature to a topic related to a specific industry, field, or business problem.

The research must be conducted using peer-reviewed trade or academic journals.

Assignment Requirements:

Choose a research topic from the chapter readings or from the list provided by your professor.
Research/find a minimum 1 peer-reviewed articles on your topic from the University of the Cumberlands Library online business database. The article(s) must be relevant and from a peer-reviewed source. Published within the last five (5) years are preferred.
Write 3 page double spaced paper in APA format discussing the findings on your specific topic in your own words. Note – paper length does not include cover page, abstract, or references page(s).
Structure your paper as follows:
1. Cover page
2. Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in your own words.
3. Purpose of Research should reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and professional practice and the larger body of research.
4. Review of the Literature summarized in your own words. Note that this should not be a “copy and paste” of literature content, nor should this section be substantially filled with direct quotes from the article. A literature review is a summary of the major points and findings of each of the selected articles (with appropriate citations). Direct quotations should be used sparingly. Normally, this will be the largest section of your paper (this is not a requirement; just a general observation).
5. Practical Application of the literature. Describe how your findings from the relevant research literature can shape, inform, and improve current business and professional practice related to your chosen topic.
6. Conclusion in your own words

University of the Cumberlands

The University of the Cumberlands (UC) Library subscribes to many journals and provides you access to appropriate collections to support this assignment. Using the UC Library, locate and review the following peer-reviewed articles:

Gupta, V. K., Mortal, S. C., Silveri, S., Sun, M., & Turban, D. B. (2020). You’re fired! Gender disparities in CEO dismissal. Journal of Management, 46(4), 560-582.

Marshall, D. R., Davis, W. D., Dibrell, C., & Ammeter, A. P. (2019). Learning off the job: Examining part-time entrepreneurs as innovative employees. Journal of Management, 45(8), 3091-3113.

Paterson, T. A., & Huang, L. (2019). Am I expected to be ethical? A role-definition perspective of ethical leadership and unethical behavior. Journal of Management, 45(7), 2837-2860.

Pak, J., & Kim, S. (2018). Team manager’s implementation, high performance work systems intensity, and performance: a multilevel investigation. Journal of Management, 44(7), 2690-2715.

Following your review, choose one article from this list; critically evaluate the article’s strengths, weaknesses, and contribution to the study field using the outline below as a guide:

Cover page

The cover page will include:
- Articles Title and Author (s)
- Name of Journal (s)
- Date of publication
- Your name

Executive Summary

Summarize the significant aspects of the entire article, including:
- The overall purpose and general area of study of the article.
- The specific problem being addressed in the study.
- The main findings of the article.

Literature Review

Briefly summarize the overall themes presented in the Literature Review.
- Was the literature review applicable to the study, current and thorough?
- Were there gaps in the literature review?

Data Analysis

Identify the methodology used: qualitative, quantitative, mixed? Was the chosen methodology appropriate for the study? Why or why not?
Did the data analysis prove or disprove the research questions? Explain.

Results/Conclusion

In this section, you will address the following:
- Describe the article’s relevance to the field of knowledge.
- Outline the strengths and weaknesses of the article. Be specific.
- Based on the article, what future research do you think needs to be accomplished in this area?
- What are your key points and takeaways after analyzing the article?

University of The Cumberlands

Summary:

To apply all acquired knowledge in the last Project Assignments to create a Database Scheme. For this project, the ERD is provided to you.

Deliverables:

SQL Script with your name as follows: YourLastName_Project_Ph3.sql.

MS Word Document with your OUTPUT, named as follows: YourLastName_Project_Ph3_Output.doc.

ZIP file to include the two files mentioned above.

Required Software:
MySQL DBMS by Oracle. MySQL Community Server and MySQL Workbench.
Follow Step 1-3 for your Course Project Phase phase 1, to install the required software components.

Lab Steps:

Step 1: Analyze the ERD for a student information system provided below. Be alert for the specifications provided for: 1) Entities, 2) Attributes, 3) Primary Key, and 4) Relationships. You will need to have a clear understanding for these components to create your database using MySQL.

Step 2: Create a New Database in MySQL, Produce SQL File, Drop Table

Create a new Database, as you did in your Course Project Phase 1 deliverable and you already created a database using the MySQL DBMS. Reference the attached video (Course Project Ph1 Video.mp4), for a demonstration to create a new Database using MySQL. This video was initially presented to you for phase 2 of your project. Also, reference the supplemental text: Available for Free download as part of our UC Library. MySQL Database Usage & Administration. (2010). By Vaswani, Vikram. McGraw Hill. ISBN: 978-0-07-160550-2. Link to UC Library: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=nlebk&AN=291311&site=eds-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_ii

Utilize the SQL dialect you learned so far in this course for MySQL. Use the file supplemental textbook: MySQL Database Usage & Administration. (2010). By Vaswani, Vikram. McGraw Hill, as supplement your knowledge of the MySQL dialect.

Create your SCRIPT file to be named: YourLastName_Project_Ph3.sql.

Step 3: Include the following commands at the tops of your scripts:

SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS STUDENT;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS CAMPUS;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS ROOM;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS COURSE;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS INSTRUCTOR;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS APPROVED_INSTRUCTOR;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS CLASS;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS STUDENT_GRADE;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;
Step 4: Create Tables in your database
Create a new Table for each of the entities provided to you in the ERD diagram in Step 1.
Add a column to represent each attribute addressed in the ERD diagram in Step 1.
Designate Primary Key, as noted in the ERD diagram in Step 1.
Designate a Foreign Key relationship between the tables, as noted in the ERD diagram in Step 1.
Enable referential integrity on the relationships, as needed.
Enable cascade updates as needed on the relationships.
Step 5: Designate Data Types. Update the data type as needed to enforce the domain constrain of the data. This needs to be completed for every column for all tables.

Dates: they should have a date data designation type.

Surrogate keys: shall be auto-numbered

Character type: shall have a character data designation type.
Step 6: Column Constraints Designation.
Grade designation must be of one of these values as follows: A, B, C, D, E, F, W, E (E=enrolled, and W = withdrawn).
Student’s first and last names are not to be designated as NULL.
Course Credit hours shall be BETWEEN one and four.
The instructor first and last name must NOT be NULL

Course name designation has to be UNIQUE and must not be NULL type.

Step 7: Data Table Addition

Use the INSERT operator to add minimum 2-3 rows of data per each database.
You are free to use any values you might like for each of the columns.
NOTE/ Reminder: you are required to add data to the parent table prior to adding any data to child tables, as referential integrity is enabled.

Step 8: Executing your SCRIPT

Must incorporate the COMMIT command at the end of your Script

Must incorporate the SHOW TABLES command, to display the table you created. At the end of the script created.
Must incorporate the SELECT statement to show data allocated for each table. This would be added at the end of the script.
EXECUTE your SCRIPT.
Copy and paste your OUTPUT into your MS Word file as follows: YourLastName_Project_Ph3_Output.doc
Step 9: Upload your work

Upload ZIP file to include the two files as follows: 1) SQL Script with your name as follows: YourLastName_Project_Ph3.sql, and 2) MS Word Document with your OUTPUT, named as follows: YourLastName_Project_Ph3_Output.doc.

University of The Cumberlands

Research Paper: This is a graduate course and students will be expected to research and write papers summarizing in their own words what they have found on current topics from the weekly readings. Research is a theoretical review of relevant literature and application of findings in the literature to a topic related to a specific industry, field, or business problem.The research must be conducted using peer-reviewed trade or academic journals. While Blogs, Wikipedia, encyclopedias, course textbooks, popular magazines, newspaper articles, online websites, etc. are helpful for providing background information, these resources are NOT suitable resources for this research assignment. Please Note: The UC Library staff are very helpful with assisting students in using the UC Online Library journal database. Please contact them if you have issues. In addition, the instructor has provided additional resources, including a research tutorial, in the “Course Resources” folder in the “Content” area of the course.Assignment Requirements:

Choose a research topic from the chapter readings or from the list provided by your professor.

Research/find a minimum at least four (4), preferably five (5) or more, different peer-reviewed articles on your topic from the University of the Cumberlands Library online business database. The article(s) must be relevant and from a peer-reviewed source. While you may use relevant articles from any time frame, current/published within the last five (5) years are preferred. Using literature that is irrelevant or unrelated to the chosen topic will result in a point reduction.

Write a four (4) to five (5) page double spaced paper in APA format discussing the findings on your specific topic in your own words. Note – paper length does not include cover page, abstract, or references page(s).

Structure your paper as follows:

Cover page

Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in your own words.

Purpose of Research should reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and professional practice and the larger body of research.

Review of the Literature summarized in your own words. Note that this should not be a “copy and paste” of literature content, nor should this section be substantially filled with direct quotes from the article. A literature review is a summary of the major points and findings of each of the selected articles (with appropriate citations). Direct quotations should be used sparingly. Normally, this will be the largest section of your paper (this is not a requirement; just a general observation).

Practical Application of the literature. Describe how your findings from the relevant research literature can shape, inform, and improve current business and professional practice related to your chosen topic.

Conclusion in your own words

University of the Cumberlands

Kirk (2019) tells us that Data adjustments affect what data is displayed and Presentation adjustments affect how the data is displayed. Each of these adjustments involve specific features. Data adjustments include: Filtering, Highlighting and Participating. Presentation adjustments include: Annotating, Animating and Navigating. This week you also reviewed: “What is Interactive Visualization”, a website at: https://www.sisense.com/glossary/interactive-visualization/

Reply Post

Select one Data adjustment feature and one Presentation adjustment feature and expand on each.

When replying to a classmate’s post, offer your opinion on what they posted – give your thoughts about their chosen interactivity feature and/or other information you learned about how interactivy works in visualization.

Discussion 1:

Data filtering is one of the data adjustments features, and it is the process of removing unwanted components from a given data. Also, it is the process of selecting a part of data and using its subset to do analysis or view data. It needs one to give a specific rule or identify the logic of the cases included in the data analysis. It is also referred to as sub-setting data or drilling down of data. One reason for filtering is to clean data and remove the information that has errors and is not applicable for analysis. For instance, a decision can be made to remove respondents who have not completed a given survey and the ones who raced through the survey and selected the answers with attention to the answer. Filtering also can be used to view results and evaluate the performance of the statistical models and algorithms. the primary purpose is to divide the sample into several groups and apply the analysis independently to every group and giving

Annotating is one of the data presentation adjustments, and it is the process of placing labels on data that appear in various formats like videos and text. For the case data visualization, chart annotation gives out an extra detail that highlights the points or uses for disambiguation. Therefore, when an annotation is filled with graphics, it will distract the data visual silence, and thus it is vital to find the most appropriate balance. The annotations can be well applied in giving specific details on the individual points, line segments, and cluster points. Also, they can be applied in the explanation of empty spaces (Brock, 2015). The most use of annotation is printing bars values in the bar chart. It is thus helpful but cannot be a compulsory requirement. Annotations also use a simple typeface, just like axis labels. There is no need to use vibrant colors and fancy fonts because they act as distractions and hardens the reading.

References

Brock, T. (2015). How to Improve Your Data Visualizations with Annotations. Data visualization: Annotations, https://www.infragistics.com/community/blogs/b/tim_brock/posts/annotate-wisely#:~:text=Merriam%20Webster%20defines%20an%20annotation,be%20used%20for%20disambiguation%20purposes.

Facer, C. (2020). data adjustments: data filtering. Data adjustments, https://www.isa.org/intech-home/2018/july-august/features/data-filtering-in-process-automation-systems.

Discussion 2:

Interactive Data Visualization focuses on the graphical representation of the data that the user interacts with the data and the information. It is also known as the visual display used by the analytics to represent the data using the various analytical tools. Visualization makes the data representation easier for the user to explore, manipulate and interact with the data. The data analytics uses various dynamic charts, changing colors, and shapes based on the queries ot interactions. One of the best things about the interactive visualization is that it offers better access to real-time data. (sisense, n.d.)

One data adjustment feature that I would like to mention is the focus. Focusing is the feature that controls the visually emphasized data and how the data are highlighted. This focus feature helps the users choose the value that has the top most priority and the values that bring the most attention to the user. So in the focus feature, we can say that the values that have the most importance are obtained in the first place. The users think or choose to get attention to the filters, maybe through the modification and making it more attractive through various effects such as depth through colors such as the foreground, mid-ground, and background. The change can be done in other ways, too, like sorting arrangement; when we use this technique, no data are eliminated from the display but simply relegating in its contrast or position. (Kirk, 2016)

Example: Geography on the avg national income, In the model, we can bring the average national income and get to the left, and the left will emphasize different cohorts of the income distribution of people across the United States.

References

Kirk, A. (2016). Data Visualization: A handbook for Data-Driven design. Thousand Oak, CA: Sage Publications Ltd.

sisense. (n.d.). Interactive Data Visualization. Retrieved from sisense: https://www.sisense.com/glossary/interactive-visua…

University of The Cumberlands

Attached Files:
- Chapter 3- Chartering Projects.pptx Chapter 3- Chartering Projects.pptx – Alternative Formats (1.857 MB)
- Chapter 3: Chartering Projects.This chapter discusses chartering projects. The project charter is a document issued by the project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities. The charter can further be considered an agreement by which the project sponsor and project manager (and often the project core team) agree at a high level what the project is, why it is important, key milestone points in the schedule, major risks, and possibly a few other items. It allows the project manager and core team to understand and agree to what is expected of them.Finally, Microsoft Project, a tool that facilitates effective project planning, controlling, and communicating, is introduced. Microsoft Project is utilized in eight chapters to demonstrate how to automate various project planning and control techniques. The examples and illustrations in this book use Microsoft Project 2016. If a person is using an earlier version of Microsoft Project, there are slight differences. If a person is using a competing project scheduling package, the intent remains the same, but the mechanics of how to create certain documents may differ.After completing this chapter, each student should be able to perform the following:Core Objectives:
1. Describe what a project charter is and why it is critical to project success.
2. List the various elements of a charter and why each is used.
3. Create each section of a charter for a small sample project using given project information.
4. Technical Objectives:
5. Initialize a project in Microsoft Project and set up a milestone schedule.
6. Behavioral Objectives:
7. Work with a team to create a complete charter for a real project and present it to a sponsor for ratification.
8. Negotiate with a sponsor to develop a realistic and achievable project charter.

University of the Cumberlands

Susans Consulting Company (SCC) – Problem Overview

Susans Consulting Company (SCC) has been in business for ten years and has experienced a significant turnover in the project management group, which has prompted senior leadership to investigate.

A preliminary review by senior leadership has determined that Project Managers are frustrated with the amount of required project management documentation, which has impacted their ability to manage projects successfully.

A recent review of the project management process has determined that SCC has spent between 30-40% of its total project budget on projects’ overhead costs to include project management costs. A review of industry standards is between 5-15% higher than most companies. In addition, senior leaders found that projects are being delivered between 25% and 50% over budget and late 95% of the time.

Note: Project Management overhead includes the PM’s time managing the project, attending meetings, and developing the required documentation.

SCC Request: SCC has reached out to your team because you are experts in defining project management processes and delivering projects on time. The SCC request includes the following:

The development of a new project management process which at a minimum should include the following:

- The ability to track issues, risks, changes
- The ability to view project activities consists of a view of what has been completed and what activities the team is working on over the next reporting period
- The company must have a view into total life cycle project costs to include what has been spent to date, baseline budget, any changes to the budget, remaining budget, and cost of the project at completion
In addition, to the new process request, SCC has a new project they need to complete by the end of the year with a limited budget and no project management staff.

Assignment

Identify a project manager – this individual is responsible for the team assignment ensuring that team members are completing their assigned work on time.
I will act as the sponsor both for the project and for the methodology build-out. Any questions should be directed to me.

The group assignment has two parts

Part 1: Build a Methodology

- - Identify and descript the methodology to be used by the company. Both a narrative and pictorial representation is required.
  - Identify and describe the deliverables which must be completed for each project by the project team.
  - Identify and describe the process the Project Management Office should use when reviewing changes to the methodology, this should include cadence for the process reviews.
  - Identify the prioritization technique the project manager will use to prioritize work delivered in the process. Look at options like PV, IRR, NPV, Pay Back Period
  - Identify and describe any risks you see with the new process and mitigation strategies.
  - Identify and describe the optimum organizational structure for your methodology.
  - Identify and describe the life cycle costing model for your methodology

Part 2: Project Description

In addition to building a methodology, SCC has hired you to complete a high-profile project using your new methodology.

- - Project Description: Develop algorithm(s) to monitor user activity on the internet, the algorithms should work on the following applications used by the business today.
    - Application A
    - Application B
    - Application C
    - Application X
    - Application Y
    - Application Z
  - Project Costs:

Given the critical nature of the project, the company has provided the following information in terms of cost for each application.

- - - Year 0 is the projected cost the company has estimated for the build of the component. This includes a 15% overhead cost for project management work
    - Year 1-Year 5 is the amount of revenue the company has estimated for the product
    - The Acceptable Rate of Return for all projects with the company is 10%

- Part 2A: Project Requirements

Your paper should include the following information:

Project scope statement
Using the methodology outlined above, describe each phase of the project and its deliverables
Using your defined project management process outlined above, describe the life cycle model for this project
Create a WBS for the project. Remember your WBS is a deliverable base, so there should be a section of your WBS which outlines our project management deliverables
Using your defined prioritization process, prioritize each application.
Using the defined organizational structure, create a pictorial and narrative description of the organizational structure for the project.
Identify at least ten potential stakeholders for your project.
Identify at least five risks to include both threats and opportunities associated with the project. For each risk, please include the following information:
- Category
- Impact
- Probability
- Description of the risk
- Mitigation Strategy

University of the Cumberlands

The movie “The Martian” can be viewed through the framework of project management. There are two different but simultaneous projects going on in The Martian. One is the survival project of Mark Watney and the other is the project aiming to save him. Watney has the right skills for his survival project: he’s a botanist, he knows how to repair a broken Pathfinder and the most important thing is he doesn’t panic even on his first day alone on Mars. On the other hand, he’s not alone in this project. The members of the ‘remote’ team helping him are trying their best to achieve their goals. This is a good example of the importance of communication between the team even if they are far away!

The movie can be rented on YouTube for $3.99. Below is the link…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZDLAaDYos

For this assignment, as we watch the movie, you will be required to address the following questions and answer them.

Submitted through SafeAssign for originality, scores must be below 25%.
Follow APA formatting guidelines (i.e. include a reference page) Do not allow your margins to be reduced by utilizing bullet point margins. This will lead to point deductions. Only Pinto textbook needs to be cited; do not worry about citing the movie.

Question #1 (1 full page)

Have a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications
Have defined start and end dates
Have funding limits, if applicable
Consume human and nonhuman resources, such as money, people, equipment
Are multifunctional (i.e., cut across several functional lines)

How does this definition fit the movie personalities and events versus just operations management?

Question #2 (~3 pages or 1 page each process)

Select 3 of the project management processes below. For each of the 3 you must

1) provide a brief description of each process,

2) describe how Mark Watney or one of the project teams manages this process, and

3) provide a specific example of the management of this process from the movie and why this is a good example.

Perform Integrated Change Control

Validate and Control Scope

Control Schedule

Control Costs

Control Quality

Control Resources

Monitor Communications

Monitor Risks

Control Procurements

Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Question #3 (1/2 to 1 full page)

Do you think Mark Watney is a champion? Why or why not?

University of the Cumberlands

Topic – Coexistence of federal law and state law.

research and write papers summarizing in own words what you have found on current topics from the weekly readings. Research is a theoretical review of relevant literature and application of findings in the literature to a topic related to a specific industry, field, or business problem.

are NOT suitable resources for this research assignment.

Assignment Requirements:

i. Research/find a minimum at least four (4), preferably five (5) or more, different peer- reviewed articles on your topic from the University of the Cumberlands Library online business database. The article(s) must be relevant and from a peer-reviewed source. While you may use relevant articles from any time frame, current/published within the last five (5) years are preferred. Using literature that is irrelevant or unrelated to the chosen topic will result in a point reduction.

ii. Write a four (4) to five (5) page double spaced paper in APA format discussing the findings on your specific topic in your own words. Note – paper length does not include cover page, abstract, or references page(s).

iii. Structure your paper as follows:

a. Cover page

b. Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in your own words.

c. Purpose of Research should reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and professional practice and the larger body of research.

University of the Cumberlands

I’m working on a business exercise and need an explanation to help me learn.

Research Paper -Individual Submission

Please Note: The UC Library staff are very helpful with assisting students in using the UC Online Library journal database. Please contact them if you have issues. In addition, the instructor has provided additional resources, including a research tutorial, in the “Course Resources” folder in the “Content” area of the course.

Assignment Requirements:

Choose a research topic from the chapter readings or from the list provided by your professor.
Research/find a minimum at least four (4), preferably five (5) or more, different peer-reviewed articles on your topic from the University of the Cumberlands Library online business database. The article(s) must be relevant and from a peer-reviewed source. While you may use relevant articles from any time frame, current/published within the last five (5) years are preferred. Using literature that is irrelevant or unrelated to the chosen topic will result in a point reduction.
Write a four (4) to five (5) page double spaced paper in APA format discussing the findings on your specific topic in your own words. Note – paper length does not include cover page, abstract, or references page(s).
Structure your paper as follows:
1. Cover page
2. Overview describing the importance of the research topic to current business and professional practice in your own words.
3. Purpose of Research should reflect the potential benefit of the topic to the current business and professional practice and the larger body of research.
4. Review of the Literature summarized in your own words. Note that this should not be a “copy and paste” of literature content, nor should this section be substantially filled with direct quotes from the article. A literature review is a summary of the major points and findings of each of the selected articles (with appropriate citations). Direct quotations should be used sparingly. Normally, this will be the largest section of your paper (this is not a requirement; just a general observation).
5. Practical Application of the literature. Describe how your findings from the relevant research literature can shape, inform, and improve current business and professional practice related to your chosen topic.
6. Conclusion in your own words
7. References formatted according to APA style requirements
Attach your paper to the Discussion board by the Thursday due date.
Read and respond to at least four (4) other student postings by the Sunday due date.

Grading Criteria:

Content Knowledge & Structure (15 points): All of the requested components are completed as assigned; content is on topic and related to managerial finance, critical thinking is clearly demonstrated (few, if any, direct quotations from the source in the paper); scholarly research is demonstrated; topics and concepts gained from the assigned reading and/or from research is evident.
Critical Thinking (15 points): Demonstrates substantial critical thinking about topics and solid interpretation of materials and reflection.
Clarity & Effective Communication (15 points): Communication is clear, concise, and well presented; scholarly writing is demonstrated; grammar, sentence structure, writing in third person, and word choice is used correctly.
Integration of Knowledge & Articles (15 points): Articles used are current and relevant (preferably published within last five (5) years and MUST be from peer-reviewed journal article publications. At least four (4) peer-reviewed journal articles are examined and analyzed in the paper.
Presentation & Writing Mechanics (30 points): Cover page, headings, in-text citations, page citations (page number citations required for specific information such as dates, years, list of items from article, names, numbers, statistics, and other specific information), and references are properly formatted.
Responses to Other Students (10 points): Substantive responses provided to a minimum of four (4) other students. Responses must provide substantive and meaningful discussion of the content of the other student’s paper and provide comments on the topic; responses must be one (1) to two (2) paragraphs long with a minimum of three sentences per paragraph.

University of The Cumberlands

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 14
Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 14Assigned Readings:Chapter 15. Project TerminationInitial Postings: Read and reflect on the assigned readings for the week. Then post what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding in each assigned textbook chapter.Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook should be a source listed in your reference section and cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion.Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:
1. Several years ago, the U.S. Congress canceled funding for the development of a battery-powered electric vehicle. Do you think that was a good decision? Can you imagine what the pros and cons were?
2. Assume that you are working for a computer manufacturer as a software engineer and that you are told abruptly that your project will be canceled within 4 weeks. List the questions that you would have for management. After absorbing the shock, what would you do?
3. [Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!] [Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA review]Submitting the Initial Posting:Your initial posting should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST. Response to Other Student Postings: Respond substantively to the post of at least two peers, by Friday, 11:59 p.m. EST. A peer response such as “I agree with her,” or “I liked what he said about that” or similar comments are not considered substantive and will not be counted for course credit.[Continue the discussion through Sunday,11:59 p.m. EST by highlighting differences between your postings and your colleagues’ postings. Provide additional insights or alternative perspectives]Evaluation of posts and responses: Your initial posts and peer responses will be evaluated on the basis of the kind of critical thinking and engagement displayed. The grading rubric evaluates the content based on seven areas:Content Knowledge & Structure, Critical Thinking, Clarity & Effective Communication, Integration of Knowledge & Articles, Presentation, Writing Mechanics, and Response to Other Students.
Activity 14 – Research Project
The journal indicated below describes a national project. Based on the journal, and on your understanding of the project, answer the questions below:DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0000332 Journal title: “1976 Montreal Olympics: Case Study of Project Management Failure”#QuestionPoints1Was it an internal or external project? Provide rationale. 1.252Identify at least 10 major stakeholders for the project.1.253What were the needs or expectation of each stakeholder?1.254Identify and describe at least 5 most important resources used in the project.1.255What was the alternative approach for the project (i.e. if the stadium had not been built, what else could have been done to ensure the olympics still occurred)?1.256Based on (5) above, was building the stadium at this location and at this time the best approach to have been chosen? Provide rationale using PV, NPV, IRR, B/C. [1 page]57Provide two Level 3 Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) for this project. These two should be the intial (or planned) and final (or actual) WBS. Explain the difference [2 pages]2.58Based on (7), was there an evidence of scope creep in the project? Provide rationale.1.259Create one network diagram for the project using the final WBS in (7) above [1 page]7.510Use the Level 2 tasks in the final WBS to create one GANTT chart for the project. [1 page]7.511Use the initial and final WBS to create two high-level budgets for the project. These two should be the initial and final budgets. Explain the difference. [2 pages]7.512Using the risk sources, describe three major (broad) categories of risks in the project.1.513Using a table, list at least ten individual risks ranked by severity, and also link each of them to one of the categories in (12) above [1 page]7.514For each risk in (13) above, describe at least one thing that was done, or could have been done to mitigate that risk.1.2515Was there adequate quality management processes in place (including quality planning, quality assurance and quality control)? Provide rationale. 116Was there adequate outsourcing in the project? Provide rationale.1.2517The journal title indicates this project was a failure. Do you agree? Provide rationale. 1.2518If anyone in your group was appointed the project manager for this project, what would you have done differently to make this project successful?1.2519Describe at least five major lessons that can be learned from this project.1.2520Other – Abstract, Introduction, Conclusion (one paragraph each)2.521Other – Effective APA (Times New Roman, font size 12, double-spaced, in-text citations, grammar, reference list, etc)2.522Other Considerations1.25 TOTAL60Side note from instructor:
1. Your response should be between 5 -10 pages only, including all auxilliary pages such as Title page, Reference page and Table of Content.
2. This research project requires you to tie together the key components of project management.

University of the Cumberlands

The movie can be rented on YouTube for $3.99. Below is the link…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZDLAaDYos

For this assignment, as we watch the movie, you will be required to address the following questions and answer them.

Submitted through SafeAssign for originality, scores must be below 25%.
Follow APA formatting guidelines (i.e. include a reference page) Do not allow your margins to be reduced by utilizing bullet point margins. This will lead to point deductions. Only Pinto textbook needs to be cited; do not worry about citing the movie.

Question #1 (1 full page)

Have a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications
Have defined start and end dates
Have funding limits, if applicable
Consume human and nonhuman resources, such as money, people, equipment
Are multifunctional (i.e., cut across several functional lines)

How does this definition fit the movie personalities and events versus just operations management?

Question #2 (3 pages or 1 page each process)

Select 3 of the project management processes below. For each of the 3 you must

1) provide a brief description of each process,

2) describe how Mark Watney or one of the project teams manages this process, and

3) provide a specific example of the management of this process from the movie and why this is a good example.

Perform Integrated Change Control

Validate and Control Scope

Control Schedule

Control Costs

Control Quality

Control Resources

Monitor Communications

Monitor Risks

Control Procurements

Manage Stakeholder Engagement

Question #3 (1 full page)

Do you think Mark Watney is a champion? Why or why not?

University of the Cumberlands

please find the attached document which has student posts.please reply to each student discussion.

Residency Project

Discuss the project and it’s required components:

Please ensure to review the basics from chapters 1-3 and relate these basic concepts to the predictive analytics components from part two (Chapters 4-7) in your text by:

Selecting a project in a company (this can be a made-up project but must be realistic). Note the current industry, name of the organization, and note how it’s currently functioning today.

Then select a key area of predictive analytics (from chapters 4-7) to implement in the organization. You must indicate:

Why the predictive analytic component is going to be implemented by noting the problem that you are trying to solve, noting how your team will solve the problem with the selected method (this must be a thorough in-depth analysis), and also present your findings using a power point presentation.

Note any Big Data Challenges or other technology or cultural challenges you may face and how you will mitigate these challenges in your presentation.

Prelim:

Break up the class into teams

Before the class ends for the night they should prepare a 1-page outline noting the following information:

The project they are selecting

The company and industry they are focusing on and related rationale

The overview of how the company is functioning today and the problem the team is trying to solve (at least high-level)

The chapter method they are focusing on – Chapter 4-7 and why they have selected this area to focus on

Delivery:

Friday we will start the basic research and create the high-level outline.

Prepare a 1-page outline noting the following information:

The project they are selecting

The company and industry they are focusing on and related rationale

The overview of how the company is functioning today and the problem the team is trying to solve (at least high-level)

The chapter method they are focusing on – Chapter 4-7 and why they have selected this area to focus on

Saturday the team will work on the paper and should have a timeline for how they are going to tackle the work

Sunday the paper will be finalized and the presentation will be completed.

https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fucumberlands.box.com%2Fs%2F9nc89oqsavthkigg65ka87jmzr3ahdzv/browse/105741955682

Prepare a 1-page outline noting the following information:

The project they are selecting

The company and industry they are focusing on and related rationale

The overview of how the company is functioning today and the problem the team is trying to solve (at least high-level)

The chapter method they are focusing on – Chapter 4-7 and why they have selected this area to focus on

Go through all those chapters. But you just need to work on one of them.–so selectt one

https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fucumberlands.box.com%2Fs%2F9nc89oqsavthkigg65ka87jmzr3ahdzv/browse/105741955682this link has textbook– refer 11th edition one

University of The Cumberlands

I’m working on a management multi-part question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Discussion Forum Week 7

Provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:

1) What are push, pull and interactive communication methods? Give an example of a time you have used each method. Why did you choose the method you did based on the circumstances?

2) What are the three formats of constructing a WBS? Compare the strengths and weaknesses of the three formats.

Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!

Submitting the Initial Posting: Your initial post should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST.

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 7

Reflection and Discussion Forum Week 7
Assigned Readings:Chapter 15: Communication PlanningChapter 16: Risk Management PlanningInitial Postings: Read and reflect on the assigned readings for the week. Then post what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding in each assigned textbook chapter.Your initial post should be based upon the assigned reading for the week, so the textbook should be a source listed in your reference section and cited within the body of the text. Other sources are not required but feel free to use them if they aid in your discussion.Also, provide a graduate-level response to each of the following questions:
1. What are some of the common challenges encountered when communicating with project stakeholders?
2. What are common risk-response strategies for both threats and opportunities throughout a project?
[Your post must be substantive and demonstrate insight gained from the course material. Postings must be in the student’s own words – do not provide quotes!] [Your initial post should be at least 450+ words and in APA format (including Times New Roman with font size 12 and double spaced). Post the actual body of your paper in the discussion thread then attach a Word version of the paper for APA review]Submitting the Initial Posting:Your initial posting should be completed by Thursday, 11:59 p.m. EST. Response to Other Student Postings: Respond substantively to the post of at least two peers, by Friday, 11:59 p.m. EST. A peer response such as “I agree with her,” or “I liked what he said about that” or similar comments are not considered substantive and will not be counted for course credit.[Continue the discussion through Sunday,11:59 p.m. EST by highlighting differences between your postings and your colleagues’ postings. Provide additional insights or alternative perspectives]Evaluation of posts and responses: Your initial posts and peer responses will be evaluated on the basis of the kind of critical thinking and engagement displayed. The grading rubric evaluates the content based on seven areas:Content Knowledge & Structure, Critical Thinking, Clarity & Effective Communication, Integration of Knowledge & Articles, Presentation, Writing Mechanics, and Response to Other Students.
Problem Set #7

1. Describe the general processes that should be followed in managing risks throughout a project. Be sure to include the general sequence in which these processes are carried out.2. Prepare a sample risk register for a project to put humans on Mars (four or five risks).3. What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative risk analysis? Which one is always done? Why is the other one not always done for every project?

University of The Cumberlands

D-Assignment 1

Discuss the challenges that incident handlers face in identifying incidents when resources have been moved to a cloud environment.

Follow up your discussion with a recent article discussing a company who has begun utilizing a cloud environment and what challenges they may face. Make sure to cite the article.

Explain, define, or analyze the topic in detail of about 300 words.
Share an applicable personal experience
Provide an outside source (for example, an article from the UC Library) that applies to the topic, along with additional information about the topic or the source (please cite properly in APA 7)
Make an argument concerning the topic

Assignment 2

When law enforcement becomes involved, the need may arise to freeze systems as part of the evidence. There is also the likelihood that the incident will become known publicly. Do you think these issues play a significant part in the decision to involve law enforcement? Why or why not? Can you name some situations in which you believe that large organizations have decided not to involve law enforcement?

Your paper should meet the following requirements:

Be approximately four to six pages in length, not including the required cover page and reference page.
Follow APA7 guidelines. Your paper should include an introduction, a body with fully developed content, and a conclusion.
Support your answers with the readings from the course and at least two scholarly journal articles to support your positions, claims, and observations, in addition to your textbook. The UC Library is a great place to find resources.
Be clearly and well-written, concise, and logical, using excellent grammar and style techniques. You are being graded in part on the quality of your writing.

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ETC – Assignment 3

Contingency Planning

Contingency planning is a risk mitigation process for developing back-up plans in anticipation of events (scenarios) that might disrupt ‘business as usual’. Business continuity planning is an expanded version of contingency planning that typically encompasses a more comprehensive and extended response plan for getting back to ‘business as usual’. In a well-formatted, highly-detailed research paper, address the need to contingency planning, ensuring to address the following items:

(1) Benefits of scenario events/planning.
(2) Questions to consider when implementing scenario planning.
(3) The common types of scenario planning.

University of the Cumberlands

Start with the partial model in the file attached. Marvel Pence, CEO of Marvel’s Renovations, a custom building and repair company, is preparing documentation for a line of credit request from his commercial banker. Among the required documents is a detailed sales forecast for parts of 2020 and 2021:

Sales

Labor and Raw Materials

May, 2020

$75,000

$80,000

June, 2020

$115,000

$75,000

July, 2020

$145,000

$105,000

August, 2020

$125,000

$85,000

September, 2020

$120,000

$65,000

October, 2020

$95,000

$70,000

November, 2020

$75,000

$30,000

December, 2020

$55,000

$35,000

January, 2021

$45,000

N/A

Estimates obtained from the credit and collection department are as follows: collections within the month of sale, 20%; collections during the month following the sale, 60%; collections the second month following the sale, 25%. Payments for labor and raw materials are typically made during the month following the one in which these costs were incurred. Total costs for labor and raw materials are estimated for each month as shown in the table. General and administrative salaries will amount to approximately $25,000 a month; lease payments under long-term lease contracts will be $7,000 a month; depreciation charges will be $8,000 a month; miscellaneous expenses will be $5,000 a month; income tax payments of $30,000 will be due in both August and December; and a progress payment of $95,000 on a new office suite must be paid in October. Cash on hand on July 1 will amount to $70,000, and a minimum cash balance of $30,000 will be maintained throughout the cash budget period.

a. Prepare a monthly cash budget for the last 6 months of 2020.

b. Prepare an estimate of the required financing (or excess funds)—that is, the amount of money Marvel’s Renovations will need to borrow (or will have available to invest)—for each month during that period.

c. If its customers began to pay late, this would slow down collections and thus increase the required loan amount. Also, if sales dropped off, this would have an effect on the required loan amount. Perform a sensitivity analysis that shows the effects of these two factors on the maximum loan requirement.

University of The Cumberlands

Problem Set #6