Day: February 5, 2020

examines five (5) environmental forces that have impacts on marketing decisions.  These forces are social, economic, technological, competitive, and regulatory forces.  

For this discussion, you are required to select two (2) of these forces and discuss how they my affect marketing strategy and operations, by following these steps: 

a. select two forces. (for example, I select “social force”)

b. Identify an example to illustrate this force. (for social force, my example would be consumer’s increasing awareness of sustainable consumption)

c. Explain how your example of the environmental force may affect marketing. (in my case, this awareness of sustainable consumption may lead to higher demand for products that promote sustainability, such as organic food or products that have sustainability claims.  As a result, companies may need to build into their strategic planning the element of sustainable process.)

Of course, your discussion need to be sufficiently detailed (more than my example) to make your point. 

Also, don’t forget, for all discussion boards, you are required to comment on at least two of your classmates’ posts. 

Financial Statements

Assignment Content

–Purpose of Assignment–

This activity helps students recognize the significant role accounting plays in providing financial information to management for decision making through the evaluation of financial statements. This experiential assignment requires students to use ratios to evaluate and analyze a companys liquidity, solvency, and profitability.

—Case—

Two-Rivers Inc. (TRI) manufactures a variety of consumer products. The company’s founders have run the company for thirty years and are now interested in retiring. Consequently, they are seeking a purchaser, and a group of investors is looking into the acquisition of TRI. To evaluate its financial stability, TRI was requested to provide its latest financial statements and selected financial ratios. 

The summary information provided by TRI Document presented below.

Use TRI’s summary information  in an attached document for financial data to complete assignmfinancialent and finacial statements. 

Required:

a. Calculate the select financial ratios for the fiscal year Year 2. (use MS word or excel but excel is more recommended)

b. Interpret what each of these financial ratios means in terms of TRI’s financial stability and operating efficiency. 

APA Format with:

In-Text Citations

Reference Page

Read below and answer question:  How does the painters’ job score on the core job characteristics before and after the changes were made? How can the positive impact of the job redesign be explained? 

250 words

The Hovey and Beard Company manufactures a variety of wooden toys, including animals, pull toys, and the like.1 The toys were manufactured by a transformation process that began in the wood room. There, toys were cut, sanded, and partially assembled. Then the toys were dipped into shellac and sent to the painting room.

In years past, the painting had been done by hand, with each employee working with a given toy until its painting was completed. The toys were predominantly painted with two colors, although a few required more colors. Now, in response to increased demand for the toys, the painting operation was changed so that the painters sat in a line by an endless chain of hooks. These hooks moved continuously in front of the painters and passed into a long horizontal oven. Each painter sat in a booth designed to carry away fumes and to backstop excess paint. The painters would take a toy from a nearby tray, position it in a jig inside the painting cubicle, spray on the color according to a pattern, and then hang the toy on a passing hook. The rate at which the hooks moved was calculated by the engineers so that each painter, when fully trained, could hang a painted toy on each hook before it passed beyond reach.

The painters were paid on a group bonus plan. Since the operation was new to them, they received a learning bonus that decreased by regular amounts each month. The learning bonus was scheduled to vanish in six months, by which time it was expected that they would be on their ownthat is, able to meet the production standard and earn a group bonus when they exceeded it.

By the second month of the training period, trouble developed. The painters learned more slowly than had been anticipated, and it began to look as though their production would stabilize far below what was planned. Many of the hooks were going by empty. The painters complained that the hooks moved too fast and that the engineer had set the rates wrong. A few painters quit and had to be replaced with new ones. This further aggravated the learning problem. The team spirit that the management had expected to develop through the group bonus was not in evidence except as an expression of what the engineers called resistance. One painter, whom the group regarded as its leader (and the management regarded as the ringleader), was outspoken in taking the complaints of the group to the supervisor. These complaints were that the job was messy, the hooks moved too fast, the incentive pay was not correctly calculated, and it was too hot working so close to the drying oven.

A consultant was hired to work with the supervisor. She recommended that the painters be brought together for a general discussion of the working conditions. Although hesitant, the supervisor agreed to this plan.

The first meeting was held immediately after the shift was over at 4:00 p.m. It was attended by all eight painters. They voiced the same complaints again: The hooks went by too fast, the job was too dirty, and the room was hot and poorly ventilated. For some reason, it was this last item that seemed to bother them most. The supervisor promised to discuss the problems of ventilation and temperature with the engineers, and a second meeting was scheduled. Over the next few days, the supervisor had several talks with the engineers. They, along with the plant superintendent, felt that this was really a trumped-up complaint and that the expense of corrective measures would be prohibitively high.

The supervisor came to the second meeting with some apprehension. The painters, however, did not seem to be much put out. Rather, they had a proposal of their own to make. They felt that if several large fans were set up to circulate the air around their feet, they would be much more comfortable. After some discussion, the supervisor agreed to pursue the idea. The supervisor and the consultant discussed the idea of fans with the superintendent. Three large propeller-type fans were purchased and installed.

The painters were jubilant. For several days the fans were moved about in various positions until they were placed to the satisfaction of the group. The painters seemed completely satisfied with the results, and the relations between them and the supervisor improved visibly.

The supervisor, after this encouraging episode, decided that further meetings might also prove profitable. The painters were asked if they would like to meet and discuss other aspects of the work situation. They were eager to do this. Another meeting was held, and the discussion quickly centered on the speed of the hooks. The painters maintained that the engineer had set them at an unreasonably fast speed and that they would never be able to fill enough of them to make a bonus.

The discussion reached a turning point when the group’s leader explained that it wasn’t that the painters couldn’t work fast enough to keep up with the hooks but that they couldn’t work at that pace all day long. The supervisor explored the point. The painters were unanimous in their opinion that they could keep up with the belt for short periods if they wanted. But they didn’t want to because, if they showed they could do this for short periods, then they would be expected to do it all day long. The meeting ended with an unprecedented request by the painters: Let us adjust the speed of the belt faster or slower depending on how we feel. The supervisor agreed to discuss this with the superintendent and the engineers.

The engineers reacted negatively to the suggestion. However, after several meetings it was granted that there was some latitude within which variations in the speed of the hooks would not affect the finished product. After considerable argument with the engineers, it was agreed to try out the painters’ idea.

With misgivings, the supervisor had a control with a dial marked Low, Medium, Fast installed at the booth of the group leader. The speed of the belt could now be adjusted anywhere between the lower and upper limits that the engineers had set.

The painters were delighted and spent many lunch hours deciding how the speed of the belt should be varied from hour to hour throughout the day. Within a week the pattern had settled down to one in which the first half hour of the shift was run on a medium speed (a dial setting slightly above the point marked Medium). The next two and a half hours were run at high speed, and the half hour before lunch and the half hour after lunch were run at low speed. The rest of the afternoon was run at high speed with the exception of the last forty-five minutes of the shift, which was run at medium.

The constant speed at which the engineers had originally set the belt was actually slightly below the Medium mark on the control dial; the average speed at which the painters were running the belt was on the high side of the dial. Few, if any, empty hooks entered the oven, and inspection showed no increase of rejects from the paint room.

Production increased, and within three weeks (some two months before the scheduled ending of the learning bonus) the painters were operating at 30 to 50 percent above the level that had been expected under the original arrangement. Naturally, their earnings were correspondingly higher than anticipated. They were collecting their base pay, earning a considerable piece-rate bonus, and still benefiting from the learning bonus. They were earning more now than many skilled workers in other parts of the plant.

Management was besieged by demands that the inequity between the earnings of the painters and those of other workers in the plant be rectified. With growing irritation between the superintendent and the supervisor, the engineers and supervisor, and the superintendent and engineers, the situation came to a head when the superintendent revoked the learning bonus and returned the painting operation to its original status: The hooks moved again at their constant, time-studied, designated speed. Production dropped again, and within a month all but two of the eight painters had quit. The supervisor stayed on for several months, but, feeling aggrieved, left for another job.

After reading the attached article,  your job is to provide a very brief summary, analysis, and evaluation. We can define these important concepts as follows:

• Summary- A formal, logical, consistent way of highlighting the main points.
  • Purpose:
    • In school – to quickly and accurately describe something you have read
    • In professional life – to provide a faster-to-read version of the material to other readers
    • In personal life – to reflect as accurately as possible on people, events, and one’s memories of them.
• Analysis- A taking apart of something to show its parts or pieces, often using a special system, theory, or set of theories.
  • Purpose:
    • In school – to think more about a subject and/or to apply the methods of an academic discipline to a specific text
    • In professional life – to apply a system or idea to a specific situation so that others understand how to use something
    • In personal life – to examine one’s own thoughts, actions, and motives logically and consistently from a variety of perspectives.
• Evaluation- A judgment of the value of a text to society or the quality of the way it is argued or organized.
  • Purpose:
    • In school – to show how well or poorly something has been done, or its effects on others beyond its main ideas
    • In professional life – to help decide who to hire, how well people are doing, and the quality and style of your own work
    • In personal life – to look not so much at the contents of one’s own thinking and acting, but rather at the quality and value of that thinking and acting.

Each response should be no less than 500 words and no more than 750 words. You should provide in-text citations (APA style) and a reference page (APA style).