...ANALYZING MANAGERIAL DECISIONS: Structuring Compensation Plans Parkleigh Pharmacy is a small department store in Rochester, NY, specializing in upscale, expensive personal accessories (e.g., sunglasses, beauty aids, leather goods) and home decorations (e.g., crystal, china, table lamps). Kaufmann's is a large department store chain, based in Pennsylvania, with several stores in the Rochester area. Kaufmann's carries a broader range of products and caters more to middle-income consumers. Salespeople at Parkleigh are paid a straight hourly wage (i.e., no sales commissions). In addition, they are entitled to a 30 percent discount on anything they buy at the store. By contrast, salespeople at Kaufmann's are paid an hourly wage (lower than the hourly wage paid at Parkleigh) plus a commission of 5 percent on sales they make. They receive no discount on products they buy at Kaufmann's. Why do you think the compensation plans differ at the two firms? In particular, why do you think Kaufmann's pays commissions to salespeople, while Parkleigh does not? Why does Parkleigh offer employees discounts on purchases, while Kaufmann's does not? One of the reasons for having different compensation plans could be that Parkleigh does not operate under the philosophy that sales incentives drive sales but instead high customer service and friendly staff drives sales especially when selling to higher end customers. Parkleigh may offer the employee discount because they may have the philosophy that...
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...schemes can help alleviate the agency problem in publicly traded companies. To understand adequately the landscape of executive compensation, however, one must recognize that the design of compensation arrangements is also partly a product of this same agency problem. Alternative Approaches to Executive Compensation Our focus in this paper is on publicly traded companies without a controlling shareholder. When ownership and management are separated in this way, managers might have substantial power. This recognition goes back, of course, to Berle and Means (1932, p. 139) who observed that top corporate executives, “while in office, have almost complete discretion in management.” Since Jensen and Meckling (1976), the problem of managerial power and discretion has been analyzed in modern finance as an “agency problem.” Managers may use their discretion to benefit themselves personally in a variety y Lucian Arye Bebchuk is the William J. Friedman Professor of Law, Economics and Finance, Harvard Law School, and Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jesse M. Fried is a Professor of Law at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California. Their e-mail addresses are ͗bebchuk@law.havard.edu͘ and ͗friedj@law.berkeley.edu͘, respectively. 72 Journal of...
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...Chapter 13, 14,18,19,20 information manager The manager responsible for the activities needed to generate, analyze, and disseminate infor- mation that a company needs to make good decisions. information management An internal operation that arranges the firm’s informa- tion resources to support business per- formance and outcomes. data Raw facts and figures. information A meaningful, useful inter- pretation of data. Data Versus Information Although business people often complain that they receive too much infor- mation, they usually mean that they get too much data—raw facts and fig- ures. Information is usefully interpreted data (see Figure 13.1). Consider the following data: ■ Fifty million tubes of toothpaste were sold last year. ■ The birth rate is rising slowly. ■ Forty-four million tubes of toothpaste were sold the year before last. ■ Advertising for toothpaste increased 23 percent last year. ■ A major dentists’ group recently came out in favour of brushing three times a day. information system (IS) An organized method of transforming data into informa- tion that can be used for decision making. electronic information technolo- gies (EIT) IS applications based on telecommunications technologies. by performing two functions: 1. Providing coordination and communication within the firm 2. Speeding up transactions with other firms Six of the most widely used innovations in today’s digital business sys- tems are as follows: fax machine A machine that...
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...Corporate Finance, 9/e Stephen A. Ross, Massachussetts Institute of Technology Randolph W. Westerfield, University of Southern California Jeffrey F. Jaffe, University of Pennsylvania ISBN: 0073382337 Copyright year: 2010 Table of Contents PART I: Overview 1 Introduction to Corporate Finance 1 1.1 | What Is Corporate Finance? | 1 | | The Balance Sheet Model of the Firm | 1 | | The Financial Manager | 3 | 1.2 | The Corporate Firm | 4 | | The Sole Proprietorship | 4 | | The Partnership | 4 | | The Corporation | 5 | | A Corporation by Another Name . . . | 7 | 1.3 | The Importance of Cash Flows | 7 | 1.4 | The Goal of Financial Management | 10 | | Possible Goals | 11 | | The Goal of Financial Management | 11 | | A More General Goal | 12 | 1.5 | The Agency Problem and Control of the Corporation | 13 | | Agency Relationships | 13 | | Management Goals | 14 | | Do Managers Act in the Stockholders' Interests? | 14 | | Stakeholders | 15 | 1.6 | Regulation | 16 | | The Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 | 16 | | Sarbanes-Oxley | 17 | | Summary and Conclusions | 18 | | Concept Questions | 18 | | S&P Problems | 19 | 2 Financial Statements and Cash Flow 20 2.1 | The Balance Sheet | 20 | | Liquidity | 21 | | Debt versus Equity | 22 | | Value versus Cost | 22 | 2.2 | The Income Statement | 23 | | Generally Accepted Accounting Principles | 24 | | Noncash Items | 25...
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...FISCAL INCENTIVES, THE COST OF CAPITAL AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN PAKISTAN: A NEO-CLASSICAL APPROACH Submitted by ZAHIR SHAH Assistant professor, Government College of Commerce Mansehra, N.W.F.P A research paper submitted to Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) to be presented in the Annual Conference 2003. FISCAL INCENTIVES, THE COST OF CAPITAL AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN PAKISTAN: A NEO-CLASSICAL APPROACH1 By ZAHIR SHAH• Abstract This paper analyses the attractiveness of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Pakistan with special emphasis on the cost of capital element in effecting the rate of return and the internal cash flow for investment of the investing firms. Using the Jorgenson’s Neo-classical Investment Model the cost of capital is computed after considering the taxation policy and the treatment of invested capital. The paper elaborated fiscal provisions and their implications on the investment environment specifically available to foreign investors in Pakistan. The computed results show consistent and influencing impact of the cost of capital on FDI inflows. The objective of the study is to explore the a realistic and in depth investigation of the tax concessions and the response of investors. The paper argues that fiscal incentives are more appropriate in attracting FDI as these have no direct drain over public resources and are increase the after tax return by availing the tax holidays and depreciation allowances. 1. Introduction ...
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...CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Corporate Finance Compensation of corporate executives in the United States continues to be a hot-button issue. It is widely viewed that CEO pay has grown to exorbitant levels (at least in some cases). In response, in April 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Say on Pay” bill. The bill requires corporations to allow a nonbinding shareholder vote on executive pay. (Note that because the bill applies to corporations, it does not give voters a “say on pay” for U.S. Representatives.) Specifically, the measure allows shareholders to approve or disapprove a company’s executive compensation plan. Because the vote is nonbinding, it does not permit shareholders to veto a compensation package and does not place limits on executive pay. Some companies had actually already begun initiatives to allow shareholders a say on pay before Congress got involved. On May 5, 2008, Aflac, the insurance company with the well-known “spokesduck,” held the first shareholder vote on executive pay in the United States. Understanding how a corporation sets executive pay, and the role of shareholders in that process, takes us into issues involving the corporate form of organization, corporate goals, and corporate control, all of which we cover in this chapter. 1.1 What Is Corporate Finance? Suppose you decide to start a firm to make tennis balls. To do this you hire managers to buy raw materials, and you assemble a workforce that will produce and...
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...of working capital management for the SMEs and for the bigger companies with an accompanying aim to examine whether net trade cycle can efficiently substitute for cash conversion cycle as a measure of working capital management. The research is conducted for the period of 2002-2010 by using pooled panel analysis with annual data. The findings suggest that an increase in both the cash conversion cycle and the net trade cycle improves firm performance in terms of both the operating income and the stock market return for SMEs where as for bigger companies a decrease in cash conversion cycle and net trade cycle is associated with enhanced profitability. Besides, the findings also imply that managers can use net trade cycle instead of cash conversion cycle confidentially. Keywords: cash conversion cycle, net trade cycle, firm performance, SMEs, emerging economies, panel data 1. Introduction The corporate finance literature has traditionally focused on the study of long-term financial decisions such as investments, capital structure, dividends etc. whereas current assets are important components of total assets and need to be carefully analyzed as well (Nazir and Afza, 2009). The investment firms make in short-term assets, and the resources used...
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...Chapter 12 Enhancing Decision Making LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you will be able to answer the following questions: 1. What are the different types of decisions and how does the decision-making process work? 2. How do information systems support the activities of managers and management decision making? 3. How do decision-support systems (DSS) differ from MIS and how do they provide value to the business? 4. How do executive support systems (ESS) help senior managers make better decisions? 5. What is the role of information systems in helping people working in a group make decisions more efficiently? CHAPTER OUTLINE 12.1 DECISION MAKING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS Business Value of Improved Decision Making Types of Decisions The Decision-Making Process Managers and Decision Making in the Real World 12.2 SYSTEMS FOR DECISION SUPPORT Management Information Systems (MIS) Decision-Support Systems (DSS) Data Visualization and Geographic Information Systems Web-Based Customer Decision-Support Systems Group Decision-Support Systems (GDSS) 12.3 EXECUTIVE SUPPORT SYSTEMS (ESS) AND THE BALANCED SCORECARD FRAMEWORK The Role of Executive Support Systems in the Firm Business Value of Executive Support Systems 12.4 HANDS-ON MIS PROJECTS Management Decision Problems Improving Decision Making: Using Pivot Tables to Analyze Sales Data Improving Decision Making: Using a Web-Based DSS for Retirement Planning LEARNING TRACK MODULE Building and Using Pivot Tables Interactive...
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...DETERMINANTS OF CEO COMPENSATION: EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIAN BANKING INDUSTRY CHONG KOK CHIEK (AC082799) MUHAMMAD AZWAN BIN MOHD ARIFFIN (AC082868) SITI SUHANNA BINTI ABDUL GHANI (AC083010) BACHELOR OF ACCOUNTING (HONS.) COLLEGE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND ACCOUNTING UNIVERSITI TENAGA NASIONAL 2012 DECLARATION We hereby declare that this project is our original work except for quotations and citations which have been duly acknowledged and that it has not been previously and/or concurrently submitted for any other degree at Universiti Tenaga Nasional and/or other institutions. CHONG KOK CHIEK AC 082799 MUHAMMAD AZWAN MOHD ARIFFIN AC 082868 SITI SUHANNA ABDUL GHANI AC 083010 Date of submission: 13th August 2012 i ACKNOWLEGDEMENT We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our project supervisor, Mr. Wan Mohammad Taufik bin Wan Abdullah, lecturer of Department of Accounting of Universiti Tenaga Nasional, for his valuable advices and continuous guidance throughout the research process. Mr. Taufik spent a lot of time enlightening us on various issues, giving us a comprehensive view in the academic aspect via our meetings within his busy working schedule. It is our pleasure to have him as our project supervisor. Without his unconditional support and care, our project could not be finished effectively. He let us try different approaches with confidence in the process, assisting us to solve a lot of problems especially at the time when we did...
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...for developing “innovative” new financial investment vehicles and for taking risks to earn themselves and their firms a lot of money. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which included restrictions on executive pay designed to discourage executives from taking “unnecessary and exces-sive risks.” In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, entitled “How Business Schools Have Failed Business,” the former director of corporate finance policy at the United States Treasury wrote that “misaligned incentive programs are at the core of what brought our financial system to its knees.” 7 He says that we “should ask how many of the business schools attended by America’s CEOs and directors educate their students about the best way to design managerial compensation systems.” How people are paid affects their behaviors at work, which affect an organization’s success. 8 For most employers, compensation is a major part of total cost, and often it is the single largest part of operating cost. These two facts together mean that well- designed compensation systems can help an organization achieve and sustain...
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...OF MANAGEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE/ACADEMIC DECISION-MAKING IN INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA by Carlos A. Valero Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION in Educational Administration APPROVED: ______________________ Don G. Creamer, Chairman __________________________________ ____________________________ Karl T. Hereford _________________________ Stephen R. Parson January, 1997 Blacksburg, Virginia David J. Parks ____________________ John W. Dickey APPLICATIONS OF QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE TECHNIQUES OF MANAGEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE/ACADEMIC DECISION-MAKING IN INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA by Carlos A. Valero Educational Administration Don G. Creamer, Chair Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the status and extent to which administrators of colleges and universities in the state of Virginia apply qualitative and quantitative techniques of management in planning, directing, reporting, and controlling activities for enhancing their administrative and academic decision-making capability. The study was directed to the top and operative organizational levels in two categories of administrators (nonacademic and academic) to determine the types of managerial techniques used, degrees of familiarity with these techniques, frequency of use, managerial benefits and constraints, and individual...
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... Introduction In the past decade, China has seen a lot of both positive and negative factors influence its food consumption and its society as a whole. Three main socio-economic factors are identified by the previous literature. Urbanization has been growing fast, more than 50% of the population lived in urban areas and it is expected to reach 75% by 2035. Moreover, the average income has been continuously rising and contributes to the growth of the middle upper class granting an easier access to goods. Finally, the demand or the need for imported goods rocketed, fueled by the recurring food scandals. (Gale, Hansen, Jewison, 2014) This evolution largely contributed in turning the Chinese food market, now the largest in the world, into a very attractive potential market for foreign companies, however, this paper will show that, despite useful, these information are highly insufficient to establish an efficient and adapted marketing strategy in China. It is essential to understand the decision process involved in consumption and shopping behavior in order to best compete in the market place (Brennan, 2015) thanks to an adapted and comprehensive marketing strategy....
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...COURSE AND SUBJECT GUIDE POSTGRADUATE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS 2010 The information contained in this Course and Subject Guide: • • is current only at the date it is published and Melbourne Business School is under no obligation to update the information or correct any inaccuracy which may become apparent at a later date; and is not intended to provide or make recommendation on which you should rely. Melbourne Business School reserves the right to change course content, lecturers, course time, examination procedures and other course details. To the extent permitted by law, Melbourne Business School specifically excludes any liability for any error or inaccuracy in, or omissions from, the information in this Guide and any loss or damage which you or any person may suffer. Last updated: 12 March 2010 1 2 MELBOURNE BUSINESS SCHOOL 2010 ACADEMIC CALENDAR ___________________________________________________________________ TERM 1 Thursday Monday Tuesday 14 January 18 January 26 January Orientation Evening – Weekend Mode and Standard Part Time World of Management Weekend Mode and Part Time (until Friday 22 January) Australia Day Academic School Holiday Carlton Campus on Sunday operations Monday Thursday Friday Monday Thursday Friday Friday Thursday Friday Sunday 9 February 18 February 26 February 8 March 18 March 19 March 2 April 15 April 16 April 25 April Commencement Term 1 Teaching (standard 12-week format subjects) Weekend Mode – Module 1a (until...
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...Instructor’s Manual Fundamentals of Financial Management twelfth edition James C. Van Horne John M. Wachowicz JR. ISBN 0 273 68514 7 Pearson Education Limited 2005 Lecturers adopting the main text are permitted to photocopy the book as required. © Pearson Education Limited 2005 Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England and Associated Companies throughout the world Visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearsoned.co.uk Previous editions published under the Prentice-Hall imprint Twelfth edition published under the Financial Times Prentice Hall imprint 2005 © 2001, 1998 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. © Pearson Education Limited 2005 The rights of James C. Van Horne and John M. Wachowicz JR. to be identified as authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. ISBN: 0 273 68514 7 All rights reserved. Permission is hereby given for the material in this publication to be reproduced for OHP transparencies and student handouts, without express permission of the Publishers, for educational purposes only. In all other cases, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road...
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...Instructor’s Manual Fundamentals of Financial Management twelfth edition James C. Van Horne John M. Wachowicz JR. ISBN 0 273 68514 7 Pearson Education Limited 2005 Lecturers adopting the main text are permitted to photocopy the book as required. © Pearson Education Limited 2005 Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England and Associated Companies throughout the world Visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearsoned.co.uk Previous editions published under the Prentice-Hall imprint Twelfth edition published under the Financial Times Prentice Hall imprint 2005 © 2001, 1998 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. © Pearson Education Limited 2005 The rights of James C. Van Horne and John M. Wachowicz JR. to be identified as authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. ISBN: 0 273 68514 7 All rights reserved. Permission is hereby given for the material in this publication to be reproduced for OHP transparencies and student handouts, without express permission of the Publishers, for educational purposes only. In all other cases, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road...
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