Category: Essays

Comprehensive Analysis of a Fortune 500 Company

For this Individual Project you will analyze publicly available information about a Fortune 500 Company and develop an assessment of the corporate strategy and its ability to increase competitive advantage.

This assignment requires you to obtain and analyze information at the company, industry and market levels using various databases and reports found in the AIU library, such as Hoovers and Dun & Bradstreet, in addition to at least eight (8) professional or academic peer –reviewed articles.

Your analysis should include an in-depth review of the Company’s most recent SEC Form-10k Annual Report and Form DEF-14A Proxy Statement. These SEC filings can be found at the SEC Edgar Database located at the URL http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html . Pay particular attention to the Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) sections of the SEC Form 10-K and the DEF-14A Proxy statement. Direct competitors are identified in the “Comparator Group” section of the DEF-14A Proxy Statement. ) These SEC filings also contain information relative to external and industry analysis that will be helpful in your assessment of the Company’s strategy and competitive position.

A thorough analysis requires evaluation of various external stakeholders:

Competitors Competitors
Industry
Vendors
Customers
Governmental entities
Communities

Internal stakeholders that should be considered in the analysis include:

Shareholders
Board of Directors
Management
Employees

A comprehensive SWOT analysis should be performed relative to the Company’s ability to improve its competitive advantage.

The comprehensive analysis should include both qualitative and quantitative elements, leveraging information available in SEC Filings, business databases, and peer-reviewed articles.

Your work should demonstrate your ability to:

Apply critical thinking skills to analyze business situations.
Apply principles of quantitative and qualitative research to business cases.
Describe the opportunities provided by technology for businesses.
Appropriately use effective communication techniques.
Apply the standard of APA style to all research and writing tasks.

You will prepare a report presenting the findings of your comprehensive analysis examining the Company’s corporate strategy and its ability to increase competitive advantage. The written report will have a body length of 10-12 pages excluding title, abstract, references and appendices. Quotation limits should be Not more than 10% of the body of the paper can be quotations, all of which must be properly attributed in APA format.

NOTE: Article collections (scholarly databases) may be accessed in the Library. Suggestions are:

ABI Inform Global
Academic Search Premier
Business Source Premie

Write a report on a research topic of your choice. The report must analyse original data that you gathered from your own survey. The survey can be designed and conducted in groups, but the data analysis and report writing is an individual task where collaboration will be considered as academic impropriety.
Parts of the data analysis will be either actually done or demonstrated in seminars to verify the originality of your work.
Word count: 1,500 – 2,000 words in core text excluding tables and diagrams.

Conditions:
You must make use of all the following data types in your analysis.
Categorical
Numerical: Discrete
Numerical: Continuous
Your data analysis must test hypotheses and include:
Describing a group (or several groups)
Inference about one group
Comparing two (or more) groups
Analysing the relationship between two groups
Aim at using all four tasks for combinations of numerical and categorical data.
Organise and visualise your data and results clearly, using tables and figures as appropriate.
Explain your findings clearly.
Draw conclusions from your findings. This may include recommendations where appropriate, depending on your topic.
All statistical workings (Excel or SPSS output) must be shown in the appendix and in class. Failure to do either will trigger a viva voce.

Report Structure:
Introduction
Explain the use of your survey, justify why it is interesting to do.
State your overall research question(s) / objective(s).
State and shortly justify your hypotheses (min. four)
Note: There is no literature review required in this coursework. In later research reports, your literature review would come here, after your introduction, and provide the basis for your hypotheses.
Data and Research Methods
Explain the metrics of your survey – sampling method, sample size, etc.
Limitations (either here or under 4.)
Findings
Test your hypotheses and provide your findings here.
Summarise your findings in a professional way. Lengthy tables should be appended.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Front matters include:
Title page
Table of contents, automatically created with your word processor’s index function
Lists of tables and figures, automatically created with your word processor’s index function
End matters include:
List of references (Harvard style)
Appendix

Marking Criteria:
Justification of topic
Relevance of research questions / objectives
Relevance of hypotheses
Accuracy of hypotheses
Justification of hypotheses
Accuracy and explanation of research methods
Awareness of limitations
Appropriate use of data for hypothesis testing
Amount of data analysis
Spread of data analysis techniques
Accuracy of data analysis
Appropriate use of statistical software for data analysis
Relevance of findings
Accuracy of findings
Relevance of conclusions
Accuracy of conclusions
Presentation of data
Overall presentation of report
Use of word processor functions
Clarity and completeness of appendix

5.Words That Reflect You: Choose one song, poem, or quote (from any text) that represents your own ethos as you leave this course. Please make sure you name the author and cite the text! Questions to consider as you choose this: What will define your time at Northeastern? What values mean the most to you? How do you want me to remember you? (10 points)

Design a schedule for an interview, on a criminological topic of your choice. Structure your assignment as follows:
1: Explain your choice of research subject and topic. Outline what you would hope to learn from the interview (200 words approximately).
2: The interview schedule in a format of your choice (500 words maximum).
3: A reflection on your interview schedule (300 words approximately). You must refer to the research literature on interviewing/focus groups.

No plagiarism will be accepted!!  The length requirement is 10-12 pages.  The assignment must follow APA 6th edition formatting which includes an abstract and reference page in addition to the 10-12 pages already mentioned.

 

Select a publicly traded company using the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) EDGAR System at http://sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html and submit to the instructor for approval. Please note that each student must research a different company. Once the instructor has approved the company selection, obtain the Annual Report (Form 10K) and Proxy Statement (Form DEF 14A) of the company for the immediate past fiscal year. Review these documents in addition to Earnings Releases and other financial information available on the company’s Investor Relations website to evaluate the following items.

Independent Auditor’s Report

• Based on the selected public traded company, what type of auditor’s report was issued on the financial statements.
• What kind of evidence the auditors found that indicated the company did not follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

Audit Committee

• Identify members of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors, its functions, and number of meetings held.
• Determine if the composition of this committee satisfies Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) requirements in terms of independence and accounting knowledge.
• Review the audit committee report and discuss Committee actions. Determine how these actions ensure the integrity of the audited financial statements.

Independent Registered Public Accountants

• Identify the company’s independent registered public accounting firm.
• Determine how long this firm has served as the external auditors.
• Determine other services, if any, provided to or on behalf of the company.
• Determine fees paid to this firm by type of service provided.
• Discuss changes in or disagreements with the accountants on accounting and financial disclosures, if any.

Reports of the Independent Registered Public Accountants

• Review the report of the independent registered public accounting firm on internal controls. Determine if the report and its contents meet the criteria established in Internal Control – Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) and the PCAOB.
• Review the report of the independent registered public accounting firm on the audited financial statements. Determine what type of opinion was issued and whether the work performed meets the criteria of COSO and the PCAOB, in addition to GAAP and GAAS.

Prepare a 10-12 page research paper (excluding title page, abstract, references page, and appendices containing financial analysis) in APA format that presents the findings of your analysis of the company’s SEC filings. Your paper should also discuss the following:

• The type of auditor’s report that was issued.
• What kind of evidence the auditors found which indicated the company did not follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
• Roles, responsibilities, and objectives of internal and external auditors.
• Types and assessment of audit and Internal control risks.
• Ethical standards in auditing and the implications of unethical behavior.
• Internal control system, its role in a business and its significance in the auditing process.
• Use of computer assisted auditing techniques.
• GAAS, GAAP, PCAOB, and COSO requirements for audits of publicly traded companies.

In addition to the SEC Forms, a minimum of five (5) peer-reviewed academic or professional references must be used in the paper.

View this animation of anaerobic respiration, or fermentation.

Now view these animations on aerobic respiration – an overview; and cellular respiration.

Compare and contrast these reactions.

What initial reaction occurs in both anaerobic and aerobic respiration?

What type of molecule enters glycolysis?

Write the equation for glycolysis.  What is oxidized?  What is reduced?  Where do the electrons go?

List the main processes associated with aerobic cellular respiration.  What molecule enters the Kreb cycle? What is the byproduct of the Krebs cycle? Where do the electrons go?  What is oxidized? What is reduced?  What is the purpose of NADH and FADH2?  Write the oxidized and the reduced form of each.

Which process makes more ATP: anaerobic or aerobic respiration?  Why? Explain oxidation phosphorylation of ATP.
Which type of respiration do humans use?  Where do the steps of each process occur in the human body?  Which type of respiration is more efficient?

Write the general equation for aerobic respiration.  Indicate which chemicals are oxidized and reduced.
Are carbohydrates the only sources of fuel that can enter cellular respiration? (HINT:  Think of the other macromolecules and look at Topic 19: Fats and digestion and Topic 23: Proteins and amino acid break down to read more about these components of metabolism).  Demonstrate the conversions that other fuel sources must go through in order to enter cellular respiration.  Insert diagrams if it helps you explain the process.
Assignment Expectations
Organize this assignment using subtitles related to the content for each question.  Answer each question under the subtitle using complete sentences that relate back to the question.  Be sure to include a references section at the end of your assignment that lists the sources that you were required to read and any additional resources you used to research your answers.

Please watch (do not just read it) and listen to novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Ted Talk The Danger of a Single Story: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story. She ends her speech with this thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise. What does she mean by this, and how can you apply this to your own reading in ENGW 1111? What is her speechs argument, and how her own use of two words in particular (nkali and secondly) connect to: (1) the overall theme of our class and (2) your chosen human rights topic from paper 3?

The overall theme of this class was words, and the use of words in different texts.

My chosen human rights topic in paper 3, was the refugee crisis in Syria, and the US government not wanting to allow refugees in as they feel they are a threat to the nation.

Reading and Writing About Films: A How To Guide
J467-J567 Documenting War Fall 2015
Professor Daniel Miller

Viewing, Reading and Taking Notes on Films: Viewing a film is what you do when you watch it through, take it in, and think about it. Reading the film is what you do when you watch it and take notes as reminders and indicators of structures, stories, characters, Aboutnesses (see below), voices, historical and material contexts, and language and aesthetics of film arts. Reading films also requires multiple screenings of the films and analysis of specific shots, scenes and sequences of the films.

Facts, Story, Characters, Aboutnesses, Voices, Take-Aways, Structures, Moments, Forms

Story Topic Facts/Exposition: (Surface Level (Denotative) facts–Who, What, Why, Where, When): Documentary and Dramatic films are based on factual in the real world or factual in the fictional world events, characters, places, times, etc. Those factual events provide the roadmap to what the story is and is about. Start with the facts.

Stories (connotative deeper meaning stories–Drama, Character, Struggle, Transformation, Accomplishment, Relationships): Documentary films have stories that contain conflict, change, and dramatic Arcs.

Characters: Documentary films and stories have, and rely upon, strong, representative, empathetic and identifiable characters.

ABOUTNESSES: WHAT IS THE STORY ABOUT FOR YOU? Simply put—The most important question for the viewer is “what is this story about for you?”

Voices: Look for and identify the voices (speakers and presenters of evidence) in the film that tell the most important stories (Aboutnesses) of the films to you. Who speaks? Who tells the story? Who do you trust? Choose who the central voice is in the film and you will come to know something about your self and the author and the principal voices of the film and subject because all of your sensibilities determined your list and hierarchy of names. This is the discursive process in which the author’s presentation through his point of view and your “reading” through your point of view create the meanings of the film.

Aesthetics (Style, Form) Shots, Sound, and Editing:

Image/The Shot: The Visual Expression Of The Story

Sound: The Aural Expression Of The Story
Voice, Nat Sound, Music, Effects (SFX)

Editing: The Selection And Juxtaposition Of The Story (Sound And Image):

Structures (Beginnings, Middles, Ends and Scenes, Sequences, and Chapters): Documentary films have structures with identifiable beginnings, middles and ends and “chapter” sequences.

Key Scenes/ Moments: All films have great moments or key scenes that we react to and that make us think and react and feel.

Takeaway(s): Takeaway is the industry-wide essential story element defined as one thing that a viewer remembers, thinks about, and takes with them long after the film experience is over. If a film or story has two or more takeaways it is often deemed successful.

Forms, Documentary and Dramatic Forms of the Film: There are three basic documentary forms including I. Documentary: IA. Cinéma Vérité Direct (Observational), IB. Cinéma Vérité Catalyst (Participatory), IC. String-of-Interview Compilation Film, ID. Combination of Cinéma Vérité and String-of-Interview Compilation film, and II: Dramatic Forms: Classic Hollywood Continuity Editing Film and Variations. Another variation worth noting especially in the age of Vice is the Investigative form in combination with those above.

* Notes on Writing about Film and Locating Story and Film Facts: The Facts of the Story and Films are available to you in many places thanks to the Internet and the explosion in media availability and media interest. Encyclopedias or Internet Web equivalents are equipped for that. Documentary films are equipped for something deeper, resonant and meaningful. However the factual information of a film or book or any other deeper level media are essential to know, identify and master in your writing and a requirement of writing in this course. The facts are the–who, what, why and where of the films. If you refer, for instance, to a character in the film, especially, in a documentary film, by general description rather than name then you demean the character and the process. If you leave out a date or get a date wrong, then you take the content and meaning out of true context, and risk removing the film or events from their historical contexts. Get the name of a town in Poland wrong and you have likewise demeaned perhaps the entire history of a culture that is intimately tied to that town and its destruction. IMDB and Film Home Pages are great online places to get the facts. thought, experience of the film and story that you carry with you from the experience. It also leaves you sad, puzzled, happy, clear, satisfied, enriched, disappointed, or transformed.