Business

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoDI1V-WCPA&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wg0MERlpW4&feature=youtu.be After watching these two videos please answer the questions below: Now imagine that a coworker tells you about a marijuana industry ETF (or mutual fund) they are really excited about investing in because they think the marijuana industry is going to grow a lot over the coming decade. In fact, they believe this so strongly that they have put one-half of their retirement investments into this particular ETF/mutual fund.  What would your response be to this? Do you think this is a good idea? Is your coworker likely to earn outsized returns based on the growth in this area of the economy?

Locate any report or periodical article that contains at least two different graphical representations of data or use one of the supplied articles. Interpret the graphs and present your findings in a brief PowerPoint presentation (6 slides). You may choose to explain the points in your 5-8 minute presentation with a recorded voice-over or include detailed presenter’s notes in the PowerPoint slides. Business administrators and managers are often called upon to interpret data that analysts have provided to them. This requires an understanding of the data sources (when, where, and how data is collected; formatted or stored; and used), as well as what that data looks like and how it can be summarized. In this first assessment, you are asked to locate any report or periodical article used in a business context of interest to you that contains at least two different graphical representations of data. You will interpret the graphical data representations and present your findings in a brief PowerPoint deck, as if you were presenting during a company meeting. Scenario: You are an analyst in a business. You may choose a real or fictional business of interest. Any business that has practical meaning for you is an appropriate choice for this assessment. You have been given you a report containing some graphs and charts and must interpret and explain two of them at a department meeting. You have been invited to be one of many presenters at a departmental meeting that employees of all levels will attend. You have been allotted 5–8 minutes, and the purpose of your speech is to explain the two charts or tables that your analyst has given you. Instructions: Select two graphical representations of data, such as pie charts, bar charts, scatter plots and trend lines, or tables. You may use published articles, annual report graphics from publicly traded companies, or any published business report. A list of appropriate articles has been compiled for this assessment. You may select one of the articles from the list in Resources or find your own article that meets the criteria. If you cannot find any published data graphics, you may create them.  Identify the business context, such as an online store, a brick-and-mortar business, year-end review, product kickoff, recently merged or new IPO company, or a family-owned business. This company background information should help explain why the data is relevant.  Interpret your chosen data representation in the context of the business situation. The following are typical questions an analyst would use to interpret the data: What is being measured (the variables)? What are the relationships among the variables? What are the trends in the data? How can the data be applied in the business context? Create an effective 6-slide PowerPoint presentation that could be presented at a departmental meeting. An effective PowerPoint presentation for this purpose typically includes: 1 title slide, APA formatted. 1 introduction slide explaining the business context. 1 slide for each of the two graphics in your report. You may insert or paste the charts and include an appropriate citation (2 total slides for this portion of the presentation). Explain the meaning of each graphical data representation. 1 conclusion slide in which you explain how the data may affect the business context or how each graph may be applied in your business context to inform decision making. 1 slide with APA-formatted references, including the source of each graph. Prepare a short speech that presents your analysis so that it is relevant to people of all levels of the company.

Change Agents in the Change Management Process (110 points One of the most fascinating components of the change management process is the change agent. The change agent, who can be a leader, manager, employee, consultant, or customer, is a person who is often at the center of the change management process and performs several critical functions in the overall process. Address the following regarding change agents: Define the concept of a change agent, including the traits and characteristics that best represent a change agent in today’s organization. Discuss the role of a change agent in the change management process (e.g., formal or informal role, position of authority or power, etc.). Assess how a change agent can influence the generation, direction, success, or failure of a change initiative. Finally, assess any challenges a change agent may have in the change process (e.g., not agreeing with the change, management not truthfully sharing the repercussions of the change, etc.) and how these challenges should be addressed.

The Project Procurement Management Subsidiary Plan The Procurement Management Plan should be defined to a level of detail to clearly identify the necessary steps and responsibilities for procurement from the beginning to the end of a project.  The project manager must ensure that the plan facilitates the successful completion of the project and does not become a burden of and in itself to manage.  The project manager will work with the project team, the enterprise procurement department, the finance division, suppliers, vendors, and other stakeholders (as appropriate) to manage the procurement process and activities. Note: Introduction and Purpose section of the subsidiary must be used to explain, in your words, the purpose of the respective project management subsidiary plan.  This will be an opportunity for you to explain your understanding of each of respective knowledge domain.

QuickBooks Desktop records revenue when an invoice is generated even though cash has not been received. Is this an acceptable practice? Why or why not?

PLEASE USE the offered links as reference and make a reference page as well. This weeks topic looks at how the Coronavirus is impacting the labor markets in both the US and Europe. This not only impacts potential internship and job prospects, but could also impact things like salary levels. Please read the articles below, and please provide up to a one page response (double spaced) to the questions below. https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2020/2020-job-trends (Links to an external site.) (You can also reference the provided recruiting trends for MSU students–while it won’t map on perfectly with data from the University of Nebraska, it does provide a relevant comparison group: https://ceri.msu.edu/_assets/pdfs/Recruiting-Trends-2020-21-report.pdf) (Links to an external site.) https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/23/coronavirus-reshaping-job-market-431383 (Links to an external site.)  https://www.forbes.com/sites/gadlevanon/2020/10/19/the-top-10-pandemic-job-market-trends/?sh=3aa08f2a610b (Links to an external site.)  1. What impact is the Coronavirus (and 2020 in general) having on the Labor Market for your industry? 2. How might these changes in the labor market in your industry impact pay levels? Internship opportunities?

Your company is a dynamic organization that depends on using standard project management techniques as prescribed by PMBOK in managing series of projects to keep its IT infrastructure in alignment with its business goals.  Your company has decided to use the earned value management (EVM) technique to monitor and control projects. In a report of 2–3 pages, complete the following: Define the concepts of cost variance and schedule variance. Demonstrate your understanding of EVM by using appropriate examples to illustrate the schedule performance index (SPI). Analyze how knowledge of the SPI will help you as a project manager in controlling the project and ensuring that it is completed within the scheduled target. Complete your paper and reference sources using APA style.

l  Selects one FOREIGN country/region (from American perspective) and its currency (note some countries have dollarized so do not have their own currencies) to work on the project.  (If you have interest to work on two countries and currencies, then ideally you please pick one key currency and one less popular currency. Less developed countries and regions have unique business and investment opportunities. It will be interesting and rewarding to gain knowledge of their currencies, economies, financial markets and business environment). l  Short summary, bulletin points, table and chart together with brief description preferred. Do NOT copy and paste. l  Please indicate information sources for each question of the project.   1.   Economic Overview and Globalization, Currency Regime (30 points) 1)     Please provide a brief introduction of the country/region, its economic development and globalization in particular. Bulletin points and short paragraph preferred, less than one page. (10 points) 2)     What is the currency regime of this country/region, referring to the 4 categories and 10 classifications of IMF? Please indicate the source of information. (5 points). What is the immediate past currency system? (5 points) 3)     Please describe the definition and requirement of this regime, particularly what determines the rate and its change, and the responsibility of the country authorities. (10 points)   2.   Balance of Payment. Table and chart together with brief description preferred. Do NOT copy and paste. (30 points) 1) Find the most recent year BOP statistics: (20 points) a)     Current account: Goods import, export and balance, Service import, export, and balance, Total current account balance. b)     Capital account balance and financial account balance. c)     Official Reserves. 2)     The most recent 10-year BOP situation on: (10 points) Current account and, Combined current, capital account and financial account.   3.   Currency Rate and Change. (40 points) 1)     Basic currency information – official name, abbreviation, symbol, and countries /regions using the currency. (6 points) 2)     Exchange rate to US dollar at two time points – the beginning of last year and this year. Please provide and indicate both the direct quote and indirect rate. (8 points)               3)     The direction and magnitude of change in exchange rate (which currency appreciated/revaluated or depreciated/devaluated from beginning to the end of last year, and by what percentage?) Please show formula and calculation. (20 points) 4)     The exchange rate change in the past 10 years. (6 points)     4.   Relative PPP and Forward/Future Rate (40 points) 1)     Find the inflation rates of US and the foreign country/region last year. (10 points) 2)     Use information above and the information from question 3.3 to test relative purchase power parity – compare the direction and magnitude of the rate change with the inflation rate difference. (20 points) 3)     Find the most recent one-month or three-month forward rate or future rate. Please indicate the source of information. (10 points)

MoneyBall: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. “The one constant through all the years…has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again.” In 1980, Billy Beane forfeited a football and baseball scholarship to Stanford University to sign with the New York Mets. Along with Darrell Strawberry, he had been one of two players the Mets had selected in the first round of the major league draft. Beane had inordinate athletic talent and the “look” of an exceptional physical specimen. A decade later, however, he sported a dismal.219 batting average and felt it was wiser to halt his career and become a scout for the Oakland A’s. By 1997, he had ascended to the position of the team’s general manager. In so doing, he was prepared to conduct an experiment in sabermetrics—a real-life test of Bill James’s new paradigm. What would happen if the team’s decisions were based on scientific data? This experiment was prompted by four factors. First, ironically, his own personal “insider” experience in baseball revealed how wrong insider knowledge could be. He looked like the prototypical outfielder and wowed the scouts with his sheer athleticism. But, as Beane understood, the hidden reality was that he could not hit very well. Second, when he joined the Athletics, the general manager was Sandy Alderson, a Harvard law school graduate who had never played baseball but who was an advocate of Bill James. He provided Beane with access to the sabermetrics’ paradigm. Third, not wed to the traditional insider paradigm, Beane became enamored with the possibilities that inhered in actuarial decision making. It might give him an edge when competing against other teams. Fourth, the Oakland A’s were financially strapped. With a limited budget, Beane would have to win without the luxury of high-priced players. Unless he drafted well and traded for bargains, his team would be consigned to the lower echelon of the American League. Beane’s success in using evidence-based baseball is wonderfully chronicled in Michael Lewis’s Moneyball. Dismantling the Athletics’ reigning organizational culture that reflected the traditional insider paradigm, he insisted on making player personnel decisions based on meaningful statistics that could be shown to predict success in the major leagues (such as on-base-percentage). In so doing, he compiled a team that enjoyed a high level of success. As Table 1 shows, within two years the A’s had a winning record. Then, from 2000 until 2006, the team averaged nearly 95 wins a year. Over the same period, the powerful New York Yankees averaged only two wins more. Michael Lewis’s book, Moneyball, documents the effective use of evidence-based practices by Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics. Lewis shows how Beane’s reliance on theoretically relevant statistics and on a scientific approach to baseball allowed him to achieve winning seasons despite being burdened by severe budget constraints. His approach spurred much antagonism in the baseball community because it challenged many long-standing, but ultimately unsupported, practices. In this context, Moneyball provides a useful conduit through which to assess why many correctional agencies are ineffective in the services they provide. In fact, the points of comparison between baseball and correctional practices are striking and warrant careful illumination. Although invaluable, these efforts do not address the reverse side of the coin: If certain programs have few effects, then what does work to reduce recidivism? Again, strides in this direction have been taken, but mostly by a limited and aging group of scholars. The challenge ahead is thus for a new generation of managers to engage in knowledge construction—that is, to use evidence to design the processes of total quality management. Second, as information on what works continues to mount—as it is now doing—knowledge dissemination will have to occur. Sometimes called “technology transfer,” there are minimal conduits for sharing detailed knowledge on how best to assess and reform offenders. In many cases, the difficulty is not practitioners’ receptivity to knowledge but their inability to secure training in evidence-based practices. Third, knowledge fidelity will be a continuing concern. Even when evidence-based practices are developed and shared, it will be difficult to ensure that programs are implemented and sustained with integrity. Limited resources, an absence of follow-up training, shifting staff, a changing political environment—these and a range of other factors can result in corners being cut and treatments being robbed of their capacity to transform the wayward. It must be an important point of emphasis in the time ahead. Despite these hurdles to surmount, the emergence of evidence-based corrections is an uplifting development. Michael Lewis’s Moneyball illuminated the power of evidence to achieve wonders in difficult circumstances. It thus created excitement and the chance for new vistas in a sport rich in, but also burdened by, its traditions. To be sure, a statistical, data-driven approach is not a panacea. But as in baseball, this paradigm does offer a formidable and still largely untapped strategy for transforming the correctional landscape. In so doing, advocates of evidence-based corrections have the potential to improve offenders’ lives and to enhance public safety. This is a worthy adventure to join. Baseball is life. Assignment: After Reading the BOOK (not just watching the movie….), think about baseball, the American past-time, as a constant, how can it be that it has changed? Many organizations with a strong sense of tradition and history find it difficult to innovate and adapt to changing times. As a manager you are required to initiate, innovate, and impact change! Construct a paper that answers each of the questions below (not a Q&A!) but a paper that incorporates the answers the questions into a logical and complete paper .  Your answers should include specific references to events in the book and relate these events to the readings assigned and the topics we’ve discussed in the course thus far (using specific references to readings).  This is not a Q&A session!!!!! This is not a book summary!!!! This is a full fledged paper!!! If you simply give me a numbered answer to the questions – you will fail this assignment. You must use outside resources, opinions, examples from the book, etc. Use proper APA6.0 citations for your sources. Please do not scout the internet (like Course Hero…) and find a pre-fab answer, I want your opinion. Guide topics for you to explore (this is not a Q&A list – it is by no means a COMPLETE listing of what the assignment should include – these are just “food for thought” and some guided directions for you) What is the central issue that the Oakland A’s organization is facing? What is happening in the organization’s external environment?  What needs to change? (characterize both evolutionary and revolutionary changes) The “paradox of planned organizational change” – changes are often planned in a linear fashion (step 1, step 2…) when in fact change is very nonlinear. What were some of the interim “messy” consequences of Billy Bean’s planned changes that created additional challenges for him? Resistance is a big factor that can derail organizational changes. Describe three different instances of resistance to change Billy Bean encountered (one each: Blind, Political & Ideological).  Did Billy Bean successfully overcome the resistance?  If yes, how?  If not, why not? Analyze Billy Bean’s leadership strategy as it relates to facilitating organizational change. Use concepts from both the novel and textbook to help you analyze Bean’s leadership characteristics & style and how those played a role in managing the organizational change (noting pre-launch, launch, implementation and sustaining change phases). Do you have to succeed at something in order to accomplish real organizational changes?  Why/why not?  Justify your answer with examples/facts from the book. Use the theories from Moneyball, and tell us how your management style will or will not be affected and why.

This is for a Federal Government (GOVT 2305) class. Must use at least 10 scholarly sources. Must be arranged chronologically (before, within, after). Include both the bad and good side of the government in the 2008 financial crisis.  Must be at least 8 pages, excluding the references page.  Please keep in mind, do not simply describe the happenings in the financial crisis. Rather, talk about the government policies and actions of that time that could be reasons for the financial crisis, what government policies and actions were made or altered during the financial crisis and their effects, what government policies or actions did the government take afterwards and what effect they and and are still having on us today. I have attached a sample writing uploaded by the professor.