Category: Essays

Assignment 3: Forced Ranking and Technology

In this assignment, you will prepare a presentation in which you recommend a forced ranking performance evaluation system to the Director of Human Resources of the organization examined in Assignment 3.

(Note: You may create and / or make all necessary assumptions needed for the completion of these assignments. In your original work, you may use aspects of existing processes from either your current or a former place of employment. However, you must remove any and all identifying information that would enable someone to discern the organization[s] that you have used.)

Prepare a ten to fifteen (10-15) slide PowerPoint presentation in which you:

1. Provide a title slide (as indicated in the format requirements below).

2. Develop a forced ranking performance evaluation system to improve the overall performance of the selected organization.

3. Prioritize the pros and cons with the greatest impact on the effectiveness of the forced ranking performance evaluation system. Provide a rationale for your response.

4. Suggest three (3) key implementation steps for the forced ranking performance evaluation system.

5. Propose three (3) ways in which the selected organization could use technology as an enabler for the forced ranking performance evaluation system.

6. Provide a summary slide which addresses key points of your paper.

7. Narrate each slide, using a microphone,

8. (YOU CAN USE NOTES IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO UTILIZE A MICROPHONE).

9. and indicate what you would say if you were actually presenting in front of an audience.

10. Use four (4) external sources to support your responses. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

· Format the PowerPoint presentation with headings on each slide and relevant graphics (photographs, graphs, clip art, etc.), ensuring that the presentation is visually appealing and readable from eighteen (18) feet away.

· Include a title slide containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The title slide is not included in the required slide length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

· Establish a forced ranking performance evaluation system.

· Research the uses of technology in the performance management process.

· Use technology and information resources to research issues in performance management.

· Write clearly and concisely about performance management using proper writing mechanics.

Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic / organization of the paper, and language and writing skills, using the rubric

Suppose that an increase in people’s expected inflation rate in the coming year would deduce their demand for money. How would a shock to the expected inflation affect output and the price level in the short run and in general equilibrium?

What is the difference between homogeneous-agent models and heterogeneous-agent models? Which do you think is more realistic? Which do you think are more difficult to work with because it is technically more complicated

For this project you select a Fortune 500 company of your choice and assess performance data via the SEC website EDGAR; here are the minimal requirements:

1. (PowerPoint ) Describe the company including their ticker symbol, fiscal year, major line(s) of business, history, financial projections for the future, and any affiliations currently existing. Good sources include Yahoo finance and EDGAR but you are free to use others as well.
2. (Excel and PowerPoint) Using the 10-K reports create an Excel spreadsheet (label 2 to indicate the sheet corresponds to question 2) with a column for Fiscal Years (i.e. 2014, 2013, etc.), Fiscal Year Sales.
3. (Excel and PowerPoint) Using the 10-Q reports create an Excel spreadsheet (label 3 to indicate the sheet corresponds to question 3) with a column for Quarters, (i.e. Q1-2015, Q2-2015, etc.) and Quarterly Sales. Complete a total of 40 quarters (10 years of data) with the last quarter of 2014 representing quarter 40. Since the 10-Q reports are not released for the 4th quarter of each year you will need to use the information from question 2 to derive 4th quarter data (e.g. if you find that for fiscal year 2012 ABC Inc. made 1.5 billion in sales and you calculate that the sum of quarters 1, 2, & 3 net income equals 1.2 billion, then it stands to reason that the 4th quarter net income must be 300 million).
4. (Excel and PowerPoint) Using Excel’s scatterplot function, estimate a linear trend equations [Y = α + β t] for Sales. Plot the time series data on the X-axis (Quarters from lowest to highest) and the sales on the Y- Axis (in millions of dollars). In the graph make sure to show the trend line and regression metrics (equation & R-squared). Using the equation forecast Sales for Q= 41 (Q1-2015).
5. (Excel and PowerPoint) Using Excel’s Data Analysis Regression function create a spreadsheet that provides the computer-generated statistical details (label 5 to indicate the sheet corresponds to question 5). The resulting coefficients should mirror those calculated in question 4 with the scatterplot. If they don’t then you may have reversed your dependent and independent variables so you will need to correct this before proceeding.
6. (PowerPoint) Summarize and explain your forecasted and statistical results (i.e. R Square, Coefficients, T-stat, P-value, and the 95% confidence interval).

Assume that you work for a large multinational telecommunications corporation in the U.S. that is considering establishing operations in another country. Select one country as the basis for exploring the possibility of starting a joint venture in that country. You are assigned by your supervisor to conduct a full country risk analysis for this country and the telecommunications industry in that country. You are to present your findings to the Board of Directors in the form of a risk analysis report.

Your supervisor has asked for you to divide your report into the following areas for analysis:

Economic Risk
Political Risk
Business Environment Risk
Currency Risk
Recommendations for proceeding and suggestion of two additional financial analysis methods which could be used to further support the decision.

You are to conduct a country/industry risk report, identifying as many factors as possible in the categories listed above for the analysis. Present your findings in a report of 10-12 pages.

In your report, you will make a recommendation to your supervisor as to whether or not the company should proceed with this venture. Suggest two additional financial analysis methods which should be explored further in analyzing the feasibility of starting the global joint venture. Explain your recommendations. The textbook suggests methods for doing a country analysis and there are several models that can be found on the Internet.

Use the following file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M5_A1.doc. For example, if your name is John Smith, your document will be named SmithJ_M5_A1.doc.

By Monday, December 7, 2015, deliver your final project to the M5: Assignment 1 Dropbox. Your facilitator will post the final projects in Doc Sharing.

Assignment 1 Grading Criteria
Maximum Points
Identified and analyzed the Economic Risks for this country as they relate to the industry and this venture.
48
Identified and analyzed the Political Risks for this country as they relate to the industry and this venture.
48
Identified and analyzed the Business Environment Risks for this country as they relate to the industry and this venture.
48
Identified and analyzed the Currency Risks for this country as they relate to the industry and this venture.
48
Recommendations as to whether the company should proceed and two additional financial methods which could be explored were accurate, feasible and well supported.
44

Written Components:

Organization (16)

usage and mechanics (16)

APA elements (24)

This assignment consists of three (4) sections: a written project plan, revised business requirements document, project plan PowerPoint presentation, and a finalized project plan. You must submit the four (4) sections as separate files for the completion of this assignment. Label each file name according to the section of the assignment it is written for. Additionally, you may create and / or assume all necessary assumptions needed for the completion of this assignment.

While taking all business and project parameters into consideration, make quality assumptions to support the following requirements.

Section 1: Written Project Plan

You are now in the final stage of the project plan development. All previous documentation should be combined into one document that will serve as the statement of work for the project. Your goal is to have the project approved by the executive team. The project plan should be very detailed, which is designed to accomplish the monumental task of implementation; however, the executive team is only interested in a 30-minute summation. Therefore, you also must create a compelling executive summary that is supported by your detail that convinces the executive team that they should move forward with your solution.

Develop a thirty to forty (30-40) page project plan in which you:

Write a five to ten (5-10) page executive summary that provides a high-level technical overview of your project in which you:
Describe the scope of the project and control measures.
Describe the goals and objectives of the project.
Include a high-level overview of all project deliverables.
Give a detailed, realistically estimated cost analysis of the entire project, including human capital.
Relate the value of the project plan solution to the competitive advantage that information technology will afford your organization.
Recommend solution providers who can assist with development and implementation.
Combine all previous documentation for Project Deliverables 1-5 in which you:
Provide all aspects of the information technology implementation into the project plan.
Revise the documentation based on feedback from the earlier evaluation of your deliverable.
Use at least five (5) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Section 1 of this assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
Include charts or diagrams created in MS Visio or Dia as an appendix of the project plan. All references to these diagrams must be included in the body of the project plan.

Section 2: Revised Business Requirements Document

Document all revisions made to the written project plan in the Document Control section of the business requirements document from Project Deliverable 2: Business Requirement. Note: This documentation must outline the revisions made to the previous deliverables required in Section 1: Written Project Plan.

Section 3: Project Plan PowerPoint Presentation

Additional to your detailed executive summary you must present your findings to the executive team and the venture capital group that along with the executive summary will convince the group that your solution is optimal.

Create a ten to fifteen (10-15) slide PowerPoint presentation in which you:

Illustrate the concepts from your executive summary in Section 1 of this assignment.
Create bulleted speaking notes for your presentation to the executive board in the Notes section of the PowerPoint. Note: You may create or assume any fictitious names, data, or scenarios that have not been established in this assignment for a realistic flow of communication.
Use a professional technically written style to graphically convey the information.

Section 4: Finalized Project Plan

Use Microsoft project to:

Finalize your project plan from Project Deliverable 5: Infrastructure and Security to include all necessary changes in assumptions, tasks, and / or subtasks.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

Develop information systems-related activities to maximize the business value within and outside the organization

Write an 8-10 page (double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins) that uses at least two primary sources to analyze an event or issue from American history since World War II. 

Historians rely on primary sources to construct a picture of the past. During the 20^th century, the number of primary sources became vast. While historians of the more distant past struggle to piece together the historical record, historians of recent America encounter more sources than they could possibly examine. 

Primary sources are sources created at the time of a particular event. (They are thus different from secondary sources, which include books and articles written about an event after the fact. Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham City Jail is a primary source about the Civil Rights movement; Taylor Branch’s book, Parting the Waters, is a secondary source.)

Primary sources include newspaper accounts, magazine articles, news footage, advertisements, movies, television broadcasts, government reports and documents, letters, diaries, literature, paintings, songs, and artifacts. If you are unsure about the difference between primary and secondary sources, you should discuss your sources with me. 

Locate at least two sources pertaining to your topic. These sources could be from a newspapers, magazines, letters, diaries, speeches, films, TV broadcasts, court cases, etc. Analyze your sources carefully, and consider the following issues: what can these sources tell us about their era? Who created them? For what audience were they intended? For what purpose? How do these sources add to or alter our understanding of American history? How do they confirm or change what you know about the topic from textbooks or other sources.

Historians depend on serendipity (read: dumb luck) and browsing (read: long, tedious hours of fruitless scrounging) to locate sources. I urge you to peruse the library for sources on your topic, since you never know what you may find. Another way to locate sources is to check the footnotes and bibliographies of books and other secondary sources on your subject. And, of course, I am happy to suggest sources as well. 

Some good journalistic sources include Life, Newsweek, Time, and The New York Times. Many American history websites contain excellent sources for doing recent American history.

Write a three to six (3-6) page paper in which you provide the following information below.

Operations Plan (1 – 2 pages)

Note: Remember to assign a dollar amount to each operational cost you find, as you will need these figures for your income statement and cash flow in Week 8.

Create an operations plan for your NAB company. Extract appropriate information from the NAB Company portfolio, where applicable. Other required items in the template should be filled in using your personal preferences.
Provide a rationale for the competitive advantages section using appropriate functional-level and business-level strategies to explain the competitive advantages.
Note: Much of the research pertaining to the hints provided here can be found in the NAB company portfolio.
Hints: Consider whether you will rent or buy your facilities or outsource production to an existing company.
Hints: One of your biggest expenses as a startup non-alcoholic beverage company will be transitioning from a small batch prototype of your beverage to production on a large scale. Research the equipment you will need (vats, refrigerators, burners, ovens, bottling equipment, and so on), whether you will rent or buy, how you will maintain and clean it, and so forth. Consider how you will ensure quality control. What capacity do you intend to reach?
Hints: Deliberate your inventory control. Where do your supplies come from and what is your turnaround time to produce your beverage once you have received an order?
Hints: Consider your distribution method. Refer back to your notes for the SWOT analysis assignment in Week 2 of class.
Hints: How will you stay abreast of new developments in your industry? What new products do you have in development now, in addition to your flagship product?
Describe your research and development activities and explain how they will contribute to the company.

Technology Plan (1 – 2 pages)

Create a technology plan for your NAB company | Technology Plan Preparation Form ). Extract appropriate information from the NAB Company portfolio, where applicable. Other required items in the template should be filled in using your personal preferences.
Provide a rationale for the personnel needs section by incorporating appropriate functional-level strategies.
Hints: Consider the type of technology your company will use to conduct the following activities: manage personnel; take, fulfill, and track orders; manage inventory; communicate with customers and provide customer service; and produce your beverage.

Management & Organization (1 – 2 pages)

Create a management plan for your NAB company. Extract appropriate information from the NAB Company portfolio, where applicable. Other required items in the template should be filled in using your personal preferences.
Outline your company’s management hierarchy. Note: Charts or diagrams must be imported / included in the MS Word document.
Provide a rationale for the management structure and style section by incorporating appropriate functional-level strategies.
Format your assignment according to these formatting requirements:
Cite the resources you have used to complete this exercise. Note: There is no minimum requirement for the number of resources used in the exercise.
Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

Create a plan to implement a firm’s strategy and manage the change from current operations.
Describe strategic planning techniques used to formulate alternative strategies designed to achieve stated business goals.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in strategic management.
Write clearly and concisely about strategic management using proper writing mechanics

Use your cloud9 account previously submitted to create a webpage for yourself named hw4.html. So you will need to create a new file hw4.html in your workspace.

Your webpage should have the following:

Define a valid html structure (doctype, html, head, title, and body)
A form whos method is “POST” and action is “http://imagine-it.org/processform.php”
Input box of type “text” named “customer”
Select named “size” containing options for “small”, “medium”, “large”
A fieldset that contains radio elements named “pizzaType” for values “round” and “square”
Another fieldset that contains checkbox elements named “pepperoni” and “greenPeppers”
A textarea named “note”
Labels as appropriate to reproduce the image below.

Check to make sure your webpage has the above!

Once your finished your webpage will look like this:

OR LIKE THIS

Which yours looks like will depend on whether you put in breaks
. Either is ok.

You will know that it works correctly if you fill out the form like this

The purpose of the Final Exam is to assess your understanding of the main statistical concepts covered in this course and to evaluate your ability to critically review a quantitative research article. The exam will consist of two parts: Part I includes three essay questions and Part II includes a research critique. All of your responses should be included in a single Word document for submission.

Please include the following general headings for each section of the written exam within your Word document:

Part I: Essay Questions

1. Essay 1

2. Essay 2

3. Essay 3

Part II: Research Study Critique

1. Introduction

2. Methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

Your complete Word document must include a title page with the following:

1. Student’s name

2. Course name and number

3. Instructor’s name

4. Date submitted

Part I: Essay Questions

There are three essay questions in this section. You must answer all three questions. The length of each essay should be one to two double-spaced pages (excluding title and reference pages). Use 12-point font and format your paper with regular 1-inch margins. Do not include the essay prompt in your document. It will not count toward the length requirement for your essays.

Essay 1

A group of researchers conducted an experiment to determine which vaccine is more effective for preventing getting the flu. They tested two different types of vaccines: a shot and a nasal spray. To test the effectiveness, 1000 participants were randomly selected with 500 people getting the shot and 500 the nasal spray. Of the 500 people were treated with the shot, 80 developed the flu and 420 did not. Of the people who were treated with the nasal spray, 120 people developed the flu and 380 did not. The level of significance was set at .05. The proportion of people who were treated with the shot who developed the flu = .16, and the proportion of the people who were treated with the nasal spray was .24. The calculated p value = .0008.

For this essay, describe the statistical approaches (e.g., identify the hypotheses and research methods) used in this excerpt from a research study. Interpret the statistical results and examine the limitations of the statistical methods. Finally, evaluate the research study as a whole and apply what you have learned about hypothesis testing and inferential statistics by discussing how you might conduct a follow-up study.

Your essay must address the following points:

Describe the research question for this experiment.
What were the null and alternative hypotheses?
Were the results of this test statistically significant?
If so, why were they significant?
Would the researchers reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis?
Do the results provide sufficient evidence to support the alternative hypothesis?
Was the sample appropriate for this study? Explain your answer.
What are some possible limitations to this study?
Discuss how you would conduct a follow up study to this one. Explain your answer.
Describe the difference between practical and statistical significance.

Essay 2

A researcher has investigated the relationship between IQ and grade point average (GPA) and found the correlation to be .75.

For this essay, critique the results and interpretation of a correlational study.

Evaluate the correlational result and identify the strength of the correlation.
Examine the assumptions and limitations of the possible connection between the researcher’s chosen variables.
Identify and describe other statistical tests that could be used to study this relationship.

Your essay response must address the following questions:

How strong is this correlation?
Is this a positive or negative correlation?
What does this correlation mean?
Does this correlation imply that individuals with high Intelligence Quotients (IQ) have high Grade Point Averages (GPA)?
Does this correlation provide evidence that high IQ causes GPA to go higher?
What other variables might be influencing this relationship?
What is the connection between correlation and causation?
What are some of the factors that affect the size of this correlation?
Is correlation a good test for predicting GPA?
If not, what statistical tests should a researcher use, and why?

Essay 3

A researcher has recorded the reaction times of 20 individuals on a memory assessment. The following table indicates the individual times:

2.2

4.7

7.3

4.1

9.5

15.2

4.3

9.5

2.7

3.1

9.2

2.9

8.2

7.6

3.5

2.5

9.3

4.8

8.5

8.1

In this essay, demonstrate your ability to organize data into meaningful sets, calculate basic descriptive statistics, interpret the results, and evaluate the effects of outliers and changes in the variables. You may use Excel, one of the many free online descriptive statistics calculators, or calculate the values by hand and/or with a calculator.

Next, separate the data into two groups of 10; one group will be the lower reaction times, and the second group will be the higher reaction times. Then, address the following points in your essay response:

Calculate the sum, mean, mode, median, standard deviation, range, skew, and kurtosis for each group.
How do the two groups differ?
Are there any outliers in either data group?
What effect does an outlier have on a sample?

Lastly, double each sample by repeating the same 10 data points in each group. You will have a total of 20 data points for each group. After completing this, address the following in your essay response:

Calculate the following for the new data groups: sum, mean, mode, median, standard deviation, range, skew, and kurtosis.
Did any of the values change?
How does sample size affect those values?

Part B: Research Study Critique

In this second portion of the Final Exam, you will identify and critically evaluate a quantitative research article based on a social science topic. Your selected article must include a research question(s) and/or hypothesis(es) and utilize statistical analyses covered in the course. The article must be peer-reviewed and published within the last 10 years.

In the body of your critique, describe the statistical approaches used, the variables included, the hypothesis(es) proposed, and the interpretation of the results. In your conclusion, suggest other statistical approaches that could have been used and, if appropriate, suggest alternative interpretations of the results. This process will allow you to apply the concepts learned throughout the course in the interpretation of actual scientific research. Your critique must include the following sections:

Introduction: This section will include a general introduction of the quantitative study from a peer-reviewed source published within the last 10 years. The research questions and/or hypothesis(es) as well as the purpose of the study should be clearly defined.
Methods: Describe and evaluate the procedures and methods of data collection, measures/instruments used, the participants and how they were selected, and the statistical techniques used.
Results: In this section describe and critique the results presented in the study.
Discussion: Discuss and evaluate the efficacy of the results presented in the study. Address, the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of the study, and suggest future research directions. Include additional forms of statistical analyses as part of the suggestions for future research.

The Research Study Critique:

Must be three to four double-spaced pages in length (excluding title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. Use 12-point font, with 1-inch margins.
Must use the sections and headings described above.
Must address the article with critical thought by examining, reflecting, and evaluating the article from an objective viewpoint and by using facts to support your argument. Refer to the Critical Thinking Community website for further assistance.
Must end with a conclusion that summarizes your critical evaluation.
Must use one quantitative research study from a peer-reviewed source that was published within the last 10 years.
Must properly cite the source article in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
Must include a separate reference page, formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.