Wednesday, January 29, 2020

New Enterprise Group Essay Example for Free

New Enterprise Group Essay Bob Chen came from the oriental culture. He was born in Hong Kong. He came to Canada to study and was eventually given the opportunity to work in one of the largest public accounting firms in Canada, James-Williams. As most Orientals, he was quiet and soft-spoken. He was not a straightforward person. He does not readily utter his exact opinions about a situation or a person. This courteous behavior of his had also apparently concealed most of his views about career and work. David Shorter, though not indicated in the case study, possesses the characteristics of a person hailed from or has a great grasp of the Canadian or Western culture. Being the Practice Manager of the New Enterprise Group at James-Williams for the past four years, he had undoubtedly been successful in handling many Canadian constituents under his management. Chen and Shorter had different approaches to management. Shorter believed that for an employee like Chen who has great potential, he has to take things step by step. Chen had expressed his desire to be a tax consultant and thus would like to receive tasks heading toward that direction. Shorter, however, explained that he still needs to do another year of auditing work to make him a more effective tax consultant. He also wanted to take advantage of Chen’s oriental background and would like to use him as linkage to attract Hong Kong clients. Aside from the shortage of senior auditors for that year, a longer auditing experience would help him better understand business problems which would be essential to his desired specialization. Chen, however, was insistent with his career plans. Shorter attempted a compromise by offering him an all-expense-paid tax training program as long as he agrees to spend another year in auditing. Chen rejected the offer and still pushed to be assigned to a tax partner. Shorter finally gave in and assigned Chen to Joe Silverman but Chen has to do some auditing still during his first year with Silverman. Chen, unlike Shorter, was not convinced in taking his career step-by-step. He thought another year of auditing work would only delay him from his desire to be a tax consultant. He was not agreeable to Shorter’s statement that to be an effective tax consultant, he would need to have ample experience as a senior auditor. He, however, had understood Shorter’s visions of attracting Hong Kong clients to the New Enterprise Group. Being able to speak in Chinese and familiar with their culture, he would be able to win their trust easily. But this, unfortunately, was not what he had planned to do in his career. Chen’s performance after his meeting with Shorter was not very satisfactory. It was an act of professional discourtesy not to express directly if he had accepted or rejected the audit task for Softdisk Computer Company. Personality-wise, he may be known not to be very vocal with his opinions or feelings. But professionally, this is very detrimental. Softdisk is one of the important clients of the New Enterprise Group. Important clients should be handled with much care as their trust and confidence to the accounting firm is what retains them as clients. Mike Mcleod who brought up the auditing project went through the proper channels to determine the senior auditor who was available and capable of doing the job. Chen was the only one available in September and October. According to Silverman, there were no tax work lined up for him yet and the job Mcleod was offering would also touch on some tax issues which would be a good experience for him. Chen had not been explicit in expressing his hesitation with the project. He nevertheless attended the physical inventory conducted by the client. This risked the relationship with the client even more. Softdisk had Chinese origins and upon finding out that Chen would be auditing for them, they were very pleased. Once Chen withdraws from this project and declares that he did not want to do the audit in the first place, the New Enterprise Group will be placed in a bad light. Worse, Softdisk may withdraw themselves as a regular client. Shorter, who was also responsible in attracting and maintaining clients, would not find this very acceptable. He would give a failing evaluation to Chen for his professionalism. One of the factors to this evaluation would be his hesitation to the project which had no supporting grounds. First of all, as per task scheduling, he was available during the auditing period for Softdisk. He had also agreed to still perform auditing tasks though he had been assigned already to a tax partner. Other factors would be his being quiet with his hesitations and showing up to the client despite his uncertainties. Losing Softdisk as a client would be a big blow to Shorter and to the New Enterprise Group. The bad image may also eventually reflect to James-Williams as a company which was regarded as one of the most respected accounting firms in Canada. Chen’s behavior and the misunderstanding that transpired between him and his colleagues may also be reflective of a cross-cultural conflict. Individuals with oriental upbringing like Chen are not straightforward people like most Canadians or Westerners. They usually choose to be quiet out of courtesy or being polite to the other party. Being in a foreign land also makes them sensitive to racial discrimination issues. It is possible that Chen may have also perceived Shorter’s recommendation to take one more year in auditing as an underestimation of his capability to move forward as a tax consultant, reason enough for him to be insistent to be placed in a tax assignment. Chen’s colleagues who may not have understood how Oriental people do and perceive things may have taken this behavior against Chen. They may have also overlooked other factors while pushing Chen to take the project. For example, Chen may be by nature a very serious worker that when he accepts a particular project, he does not accept any project unless he is sure that he can finish it to its end and with good quality at that. Chen mentioned that he was currently working with the audit for a film company. This was, according to him, the reason for his hesitation with Softdisk as he did not want to leave his current project unfinished or to jeopardize it. And because he was not so vocal about his opinions and feelings, his colleagues had interpreted this as a deliberate rejection to projects and being very picky about them. Understanding the working styles, career perceptions, cultural norms and behaviors is a major challenge for managers who have subordinates coming from different cultural origins. There may already be barriers primarily in communication. Interaction may be difficult between a native of the country and a foreigner who educated himself to understand and speak the native language. Meanings may be different and may become the usual cause of misinterpretation or misunderstanding between colleagues. It is also unavoidable for some foreigners to manifest their own culture and beliefs when they communicate or work with others. There are some cultures which always exhibit themselves as dominant and aggressive. Some are quiet and not very vocal about their opinions and feelings like Chen. Others also appear very defensive when in front of individuals from other cultures especially there had been a history of discrimination against them. Because of some inherent beliefs, culture also affects one’s confidence in decisions made by the company. The subordinate may register agreement or display quiet hesitation to the decision. Without proper communication channels, opinion differences may lead to loss of confidence to the company or interest to work. For these cultural differences that may eventually evolve to office conflict, managers have to be very careful when communicating, giving out statements and mandating decisions to their subordinates. Statements and decisions should be seen as based from actual facts, from democratic discussions and not from subjective, biased ideas. It is also recommended for managers to learn something about the cultural backgrounds of their subordinates. A manager should always be a step ahead of his subordinates. He should be aware of their thinking processes, goals and working styles. With this knowledge, he can also implement appropriate techniques to motivate them and to criticize them when necessary. Not everybody in the company may perceive a colleague from a different cultural background as an equal. It is then the responsibility of the manager to mandate cultural equality in the office. He may create policies like for any display of cultural discrimination would mean an evaluation of unprofessionalism. Proper communication is a very crucial factor in resolving cross-cultural conflict. Professionally, managers and subordinates may adjust with each other so they can together meet certain goals. As in the case of Chen and his colleagues, misunderstanding may have been avoided if the communication lines had remained open. Chen would have vocalized his hesitancy to the Softdisk project before it came to the point of putting the relationship with the client at risk. Mcleod and Silverman would have been able to make some adjustments as well in due time. Similarly, Chen would have retained his professional stature in the company and not find himself unworthy in his position in the New Enterprise Group.

Monday, January 20, 2020

Allergies and Allergic Reactions Essay -- Food Allergies

Healthy humans have two types of immune systems that protect the body from invading pathogens that cause diseases. The Innate Immunity is the first barrier of protection. It is similar to a force field. Its primary purpose is to destroy any pathogen that tries to enter the epidermis cells (the skin cells) and the mucosa (mucus secreting cells found in the GI tract, respiratory tract, urogenital tract and eyes. If the first defense does not work, the adaptive immunity steps in to eradicate the invading microbe. Yet, sometimes the body reacts to harmless agents as if they were pathogens. Every day, more adults develop allergies to things in their environment. Exposure to such things as pollen, grass, mold and pet dander1 can lead to mild or harmful reactions. Other allergens can cause tingling in the throat and mouth, and in many cases severe reaction that lead to death. 2 In the last couple of decades, 75 to 100 percent of asthma and 150 percent atopy have reported.4 17.7 million adul ts and 7.1 million were diagnosed with allergies and hay fever.5 There are no known reasons why people developed hypersensitivity to certain agents, yet, many adults are developing allergies later in life. Statistically, children are the ones who develop allergies the most. About 3.9 percent of children have allergies, whereas 2% of adults have it. 6 Then, why are adults becoming more and more susceptible to this affliction? One possible reason is foods and every day household products are making people sick. Could it be that constant exposure to known hypoallergenic agents are causing allergic reactions to develop in adults who have never displayed any allergic reactions in their lifetime? To understand why the sudden affliction of allergies is occu... ...alian adults: A multi-centre study. Int Arch Allergy Immunol. 2009;150(3):271-7. 4 . Isolauri E, Huurre A, Salminen S, Impivaara O. The allergy epidemic extends beyond the past few decades. Clin Exp Allergy. 2004 07;34(7):1007-10. 5. CDC [Internet]. Allergies and Hay Fever. Atlanta, Georgia: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/allergies.htm [Date accessed 2011, November 18] 6. CDC [Internet]. "Food Allergies - DASH/HealthyYouth." Atlanta, Georgia: : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.. 26 Apr. 2011. http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/foodallergies [Date accessed 2011, November 18] 7. Laurià ¨re M, Pecquet C, Bouchez-Mahiout I, Snà ©garoff J, Bayrou O, Raison-Peyron N, et al. Hydrolysed wheat proteins present in cosmetics can induce immediate hypersensitivities. Contact Dermatitis. 2006 05;54(5):283-9.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Cash Basis vs. Accrual Basis Accounting Essay

Accrual accounting doesn’t just focus on cash flows, instead, it also reflects other resources that are provided and consumed by business operations during a period. This method measures resources provided by business operations by revenue. The measure of resources used to earn revenues is expenses. The difference between revenues and expenses is net income/loss. Accrual basis net income provides a better measure of performance because it attempts to measure the resource inflows and outflows generated by operations during the reporting period, which may not provide the same amount of cash inflows and outflows. Accruals involve transactions where the cash outflow or inflow takes place in a period after the expense or revenue recognition. â€Å"Selling on credit and projects that provide revenue streams over a long period of time affect the company’s financial condition at the point of the transaction. Therefore, it makes sense that such events should also be reflected on the financial statements during the same reporting period that these transactions occur†. (Investopedia, 2013). While cash basis is the difference between cash receipts and cash disbursements from providing goods and services. For cash basis accounting, a transaction happens only when money is exchanged. â€Å"Revenues are reported on the income statement when cash is received from the customers. Expenses are reported on the income statement when cash is paid out. This is one of the problems with cash basis accounting because adjusting entries help ensure that all revenues earned in a period are recognized in that same period, regardless of when cash is received†. (Averkamp, 2004). For accrual basis accounting, â€Å"revenues are recorded on the income statement when they are earned, which more often than not occurs before cash is received. Expenses are recorded on the income statement in the period when they occur/expire which is often in a different period from when the payment is made. This method of accounting provides a better picture of the company’s profits during an accounting period because the income statement will report all of the revenues actually earned during the period and all of the expenses incurred in order to earn the revenues. This method also helps because it reports all the assets that were earned are reported and all the liabilities that were incurred are reported†. (Averkamp, 2004).

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Starbucks and Business Ethics - 1569 Words

Starbucks and Business Ethics Different businesses have different ways of advertising their products and contributing to the outside world. Starbucks being amongst these different businesses has an unethical way of marketing its goods. Their advertisements are very broad and manipulative to their customers. Starbucks follows business ethics, which is what makes marketing and global contribution circulate. They also give businesses different objectives they follow to be more fair and truthful to their consumers and workers. Starbucks, on the other hand, uses different strategies to reach its objectives while making unethical actions. Manipulations of consumer education, fair-trade, and advertisements can lead Starbucks to make unethical†¦show more content†¦Also, their thought of helping others might not be solely for good reasons; there are some parts of their work that makes their contributions somewhat ethical. Likewise, Jefferson in his document Declaration of Independence might agree with the idea of giving the workers their rights as they need it as he said, †¦Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness(95). In this case the workers are given their rights as works. They are also provided with great living conditions that they could pursue their happiness. On the other hand, what Jefferson might not agree with would be the idea of taking profit off of farmers that are working harder on the job than the whole Starbucks industry. Without these workers, there wouldn t be customer demand, and without customer demand there wouldn t be Starbucks. There are also two kinds of fair trade different businesses can be involved in; one is stakeholder-driven and the other shareholder-driven. The stakeholder-driven fair trade, as explained by Fridell, runs its business behavior by the drive of consumer decisions (83). 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