Author: chris

Decision Making with Managerial Accounting

Due to varying business characteristics, the managerial accounting techniques applied in each business may differ. For example, a business in the start-up phase may rely heavily upon budgeting and capital investment techniques; whereas, a business in the mature/maintaining phase may rely heavily upon cost management and quality control. Ultimately, the techniques used by management should assist the business in achieving its short-term and long-term goals through effective decision-making.

For your Final Paper, you will analyze the role of managerial accounting in two parts. Part I will provide a general overview of managerial accounting. Part II will provide examples of how managerial accounting theories and principles are applied in the business world. You may find it helpful to reflect upon your own professional experiences for examples.

Part I (three to four double-spaced pages, excluding the title and reference pages)

Present the following:

Define managerial accounting
Describe the role of managerial accounting and the management accountant in a business or organization
Describes ethical issues/concerns for the management accountant
Describes at least three managerial accounting techniques available and their application within a business or organization

Siemens’ Simple Structure

There is perhaps no tougher task for an executive than to restructure a European organization. Ask former Siemens CEO Klaus Kleinfeld.

Siemens, with 77 billion euros in revenue in 2008, some 427,000 employees, and branches in 190 countries, is one of the largest electronics companies in the world. Although the company has long been respected for its engineering prowess, it’s also derided for its sluggishness and mechanistic structure. So when Kleinfeld took over as CEO, he sought to restructure the company along the lines of what Jack Welch did at General Electric. He has tried to make the structure less bureaucratic so decisions are made more quickly. He spun off underperforming businesses. And he simplified the company’s structure.

Kleinfeld’s efforts drew angry protests from employee groups, with constant picket lines outside his corporate offices. One of the challenges of transforming European organizations is the customary active participation of employees in executive decisions. Half the seats on the Siemens’ board of directors are allocated to labor representatives. Not surprisingly, the labor groups did not react positively to Kleinfeld’s GE-like restructuring efforts. In his efforts to speed those efforts, labor groups alleged, Kleinfeld secretly bankrolled a business-friendly workers’ group to try to undermine Germany’s main industrial union.

Due to this and other allegations, Kleinfeld was forced out in June 2007 and replaced by Peter Löscher. Löscher has found the same tensions between inertia and the need for restructuring. Only a month after becoming CEO, Löscher was faced with a decision whether to spin off the firm’s underperforming 10 billion-euro auto parts unit, VDO. He had to weigh the forces for stability, which want to protect worker interests, against US-style pressures for financial performance. One of VDO’s possible buyers is a US company, TRW, the controlling interest of which is held by Blackstone, a US private equity firm. German labor representatives have derided such private equity firms as “locusts.” When Löscher decided to sell VDO to German tire giant Continental Corporation, Continental promptly began to downsize and restructure the unit’s operations.

Löscher has continued to restructure Siemens. In mid-2008, he announced elimination of nearly 17,000 jobs worldwide. He also announced plans to consolidate more business units and reorganize the company’s operations geographically. “The speed at which business is changing worldwide has increased considerably, and we’re orienting Siemens accordingly,” Löscher said.

Since the switch from Kleinfeld to Löscher, Siemens has experienced its ups and downs. Since 2008, its stock price has fallen 26 percent on the European stock exchange and is down 31 percent on the New York Stock Exchange. That is better than some competitors, such as France’s Alcatel-Lucent (down 83 percent) and General Electric (down 69 percent), and worse than others, such as IBM (up 8 percent) and the Swiss/Swedish conglomerate ABB (down 15 percent).

Though Löscher’s restructuring efforts have generated far less controversy than Kleinfeld’s, that doesn’t mean they went over well with all constituents. Of the 2008 job cuts, Werner Neugebauer, regional director for a union representing many Siemens employees, said, “The planned job cuts are incomprehensible nor acceptable for these reasons, and in this extent, completely exaggerated.”

When asked by a reporter whether the cuts would be controversial, Löscher retorted, “I couldn’t care less how it’s portrayed.” He paused a moment, then added, “Maybe that’s the wrong term. I do care.”

Based on the above reading and the knowledge gained from your assigned readings, respond to the following questions:

What do Kleinfeld’s efforts at Siemens tell you about the difficulties of restructuring organizations?
Why do you think Löscher’s restructuring decisions have generated less controversy than did Kleinfeld’s?
Assume a colleague read this case and concluded “This case proves restructuring efforts do not improve a company’s financial performance.” How would you respond to this statement?
Do you think a CEO who decides to restructure or downsize a company takes the well-being of employees into account? Should he or she do so? Why or why not?
What were the forces for change?
What were the restraining forces? How would you overcome them?
Use Kotter’s Eight-Step Plan for implementing change and explain how you would implement this change at Siemens. Be sure to include any organizational development tools that you might use (Davidson, 2008; Esterl & Crawford, 2007; Ewing, 2007; Frey, 2008 ).

Business admin

It has been said, “We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.”(Samuel Smiles, 19th C Scottish author and reformer. ‘Self-Culture: facilities and Difficulties’, Self-Help (1856), Ch 11)

The successful implementation of change through the use of Project Management has become vital to most businesses and organizations to the point if an organization fails to keep up with the pace of change it can have catastrophic results to all the organization’s stakeholders. Take some time to review current events and identify a scenario where an organization’s attempt to implement change failed and the consequences of that failure. For example, perhaps a business attempted to implement a new product, or use a new technology and was not able to successfully implement the change, or a governmental agency that failed to deliver on a service.

Describe in detail what the organization attempted to implement and the impact this failure caused to the various stakeholders in the scenario.

As part of your reply post to another student offer detailed suggestions as to what could have been done to prevent or minimize the failure of this implementation.

Select one of these cases and address the following questions in your paper:

Analyze the part the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) plays in health care information systems acquisition.
Address the major concerns, and provide alternatives to alleviate these concerns.
Analyze whether or not value was added to health care information systems through acquisition.
Analyze how the system might advance or devalue patient care delivery.
Explain whether or not the current system can or should be maintained.
Explain what the literature states about this type of implementation/acquisition.
Explain who the gatekeeper(s) are in this type of acquisition.
Describe how cost is impacted with this system.
Describe the initial reaction to the system implementation/acquisition.
Describe whether or not the quality implementation/acquisition impacts your chosen topic for your Final Proposal and Final Presentation. This response needs to be one paragraph in length.

Based on your research and readings, compile a 7-to 8-page Microsoft Word that includes answers to the following questions:

What were the characteristics of your chosen leaders?
What were the factors that contributed to each individual rising to the role of leader?
What was each selected leader’s leadership style? Support your position with credible references with respect to the style, and include an accurate biography and depiction of historical events.
Did the leaders’ leadership style shifted or evolved with time or the acquisition of power? Why?
What tools did the leaders utilized to promote their influence and vision?
What were each leader’s contingency and situational leadership capabilities? Explain and support with examples where he or she demonstrated those leadership capabilities.
What was the power base of the selected leaders? What characteristics or traits allowed each individual to assume the position of leadership power?
What role did the leaders assumed in resolving conflict? What was each leader’s apparent conflict resolution style?
What was each leader’s iconic situation that gained him or her recognition as a leader?
Did the environment and time lend to each leader’s rise or recognition? Why?
Reflecting on leadership theory and style, would you consider certain traits and characteristics to be timeless? Why or why not?
Why did others adopt or invest in them as individuals and leaders?

For a healthcare organization to be politically viable they must have influential stakeholders. In that, the stakeholders must understand limitations and be able to adopt accordingly. In a minimum of 250 words, discuss the following:

Highlight and present one key player/stakeholder (i.e., federal, state, or local) in political health policy in your state.
Choose two state/local/federal healthcare organizations. Then, compare and contrast their political viability in terms of one/more of their health polic(ies).
Apply the “method for analyzing political feasibility” as defined in Chapter 10 of your textbook to define your key player’s viability.

Human Resources: Performance appraisal

The performance appraisal process is intended to measures the degree to which an employee accomplishes work requirements. The majority of the management and HR professionals in U.S. organizations believe in the value of providing regular individual performance appraisals. DO THEY REALLY?

How often do you receive a performance appraisal or discuss your performance with your manager? Discuss the positive and/or negative experiences you have had when receiving performance appraisals. What opportunities for improvement existed?

If you have limited experience with performance evaluations, conduct research on the topic and share your opinion.

What is a code of conduct? What is its role within an organization?

What is the biggest challenge posed by egoism?

Summarize the influences of diversity within a workplace.

Discussion: Family Systems in Social Work Practice

Families are as unique as the individuals who form them. While you may utilize the same or similar techniques, while working with family systems (through the steps in the GIM and related practice skills), it is also important to recognize that each family has its own unique needs and experiences in the world. The empowerment perspective states that an essential aspect of working with individuals and families is to address their feelings of powerlessness and oppression. Empowerment is a process; and one part of that process is to gain an awareness of the oppressive structures evident in our society. Oppression, in the form of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, can impact a family’s quality of life and ability to thrive. Empowerment practice includes discussing potential societal barriers that may have contributed to the family’s concerns.

For this Discussion, review this week’s Resources. Select a diverse family system, such as a family with differences in sexual orientation, a family with differences in race or ethnicity, or a family with members who are managing a disability. Then, consider potential barriers they might encounter in society. Finally, think about how a social worker might address one of these barriers on an individual, family, organizational, group, or community level.

Post by Day 4 a brief description of the diverse family system you selected. Then explain a potential barrier they might encounter in society. Finally, explain one skill a social worker might use to address this barrier on an individual, family, organizational, group, or community level.

Crime and justice are subjects that are frequently presented on television. Primetime television shows, soap operas, music videos, and cartoons often portray images of crime and criminal justice in a sensational manner or one of negativity. The pictures of police brutality and mistrust of law officials is prevalent because of the reality of cases that exist, especially in an era where information can be dispersed quickly and immediately via technology.

For this assignment, please list and discuss at least 6 television shows that you have seen that depict the police, courts, and correctional components of the criminal justice system (2 television shows for each component: law enforcement, judiciary, and corrections; for a total of 6 shows). If you prefer, you can use movies, radio, print media, or any combination of them, but there must be 2 examples that you must use to depict each of the 3 components of the criminal justice system for a total of 6 illustrations.

You must provide academic or real-life criminal justice samples to support and enhance your answers for each question. You must also cite sources in APA style, including a References page.

How do these shows or events present each component?
Are the images positive or negative concerning criminal justice professionals? Why?
What stages of the criminal justice process are depicted in these programs? Why do you think the focus is on these stages?
Do you think these images are fair representations of criminal justice? Why or why not? Are the shows realistic with current-day criminal justice activities? Why or why not?