Scenario: BizCon, a consulting firm, has just completed its first year of operations. The company’s sales growth was explosive. To encourage clients to hire its services, BizCon offered 180-day financing – meaning its largest customers do not pay for nearly 6 months. Because BizCon is a new company, its equipment suppliers insist on being paid cash on delivery. Also, it had to pay up front for 2 years of insurance. At the end of the year, BizCon owed employees for one full month of salaries, but due to a cash shortfall, it promised to pay them the first week of next year.

As the senior accountant, the Chief Financial Officer has asked you to prepare a memo to be sent to management notifying them of the delayed wage payments.

Prepare the memo in a maximum 700 words including the following information to better outline the situation:

• Explain how cash and accrual accounting differs for each of the events listed in the above scenario and describe the proper accrual accounting.
• Assess how at the end of the year, BizCon reported a favorable net income, yet the company’s management is concerned because the company is very short of cash. Explain to management how BizCon could have positive net income and yet run out of cash.

Chapter 12 presented the approach Intuit uses to measure the effectiveness of their ERM, and chapter 15 presented the process the City of Edmonton employed to develop and deploy their ERM. You are an ERM consultant, retained by Intuit to re-implement their ERM. They have decided to start over and develop a new ERM for their current organization. Would you recommend that the base their new ERM on PM² Risk Scorecard or ISO 31000? Explain why you would choose one over the other. You must use at least 2 paragraphs (of you own words) to justify your answer.

To complete this assignment, you must do the following:

A) Create a new thread. As indicated above, assume that you are an ERM consultant, retained by Intuit to re-implement their ERM. They have decided to start over and develop a new ERM for their current organization. Would you recommend that the base their new ERM on PM² Risk Scorecard or ISO 31000? Explain why you would choose one over the other. You must use at least 2 paragraphs (of you own words) to justify your answer.

NOTE: These discussions should be informal discussions, NOT research papers. If you MUST directly quote a resource, then cite it properly. However, I would much rather simply read your words.

One of the biggest complaints among managers is the huge amount of time they have to spend in meetings. Ideally the purpose of meetings is to put everyone’s heads together to solve a problem or make a decision. But far too often they can lead to unproductive, time-wasting conversations and even conflict.

For this assignment, think about some recent meetings you’ve attended where a significant decision had to be made. Think carefully about how some of the problems regarding group decision making that were discussed in the background readings apply to what you’ve experienced. Then write a 2- to 3-page paper addressing the following issues:

1. Are all voices equally heard, or are some people afraid to speak up? Are participants in the meeting afraid to contradict senior management?
2. Is time spent at the meetings productive, or is a lot of time wasted?
3. Are the decisions that are made solid ones? Or do they suffer from problems mentioned in the background materials such as groupthink?
4. Are ideas expressed at meetings creative and original, or are original ideas discouraged?
5. Based on what you’ve described in Questions 1–4 above, what kind of group decision-making process would you recommend be used in meetings you attend? Base your answer on readings from the background materials such as Sims (2002).

One of the biggest complaints among managers is the huge amount of time they have to spend in meetings. Ideally the purpose of meetings is to put everyone’s heads together to solve a problem or make a decision. But far too often they can lead to unproductive, time-wasting conversations and even conflict.

For this assignment, think about some recent meetings you’ve attended where a significant decision had to be made. Think carefully about how some of the problems regarding group decision making that were discussed in the background readings apply to what you’ve experienced. Then write a 2- to 3-page paper addressing the following issues:

1. Are all voices equally heard, or are some people afraid to speak up? Are participants in the meeting afraid to contradict senior management?
2. Is time spent at the meetings productive, or is a lot of time wasted?
3. Are the decisions that are made solid ones? Or do they suffer from problems mentioned in the background materials such as groupthink?
4. Are ideas expressed at meetings creative and original, or are original ideas discouraged?
5. Based on what you’ve described in Questions 1–4 above, what kind of group decision-making process would you recommend be used in meetings you attend? Base your answer on readings from the background materials such as Sims (2002).

We’ve all had experiences where we have been frustrated by a decision that our supervisor made. You have probably blamed this decision on your boss being “closed-minded,” “stubborn,” or “pigheaded.” But after reading the background materials you should be able to more precisely examine and define the precise decision-making biases or pitfalls that your supervisor made.

For this assignment, think of three bad decisions that your current or past supervisors made. For each decision, explain what bias discussed in the background materials likely led to this bad decision. You must use biases specifically discussed in Bolland and Fletcher (2012); Kourdi (2003); or Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa (2008). For each of the three decisions, include:

A) A brief description of the decision and why you think it was a bad one

B) What kind of bias you think lead to this decision, and why

C) A reference to one of the background readings from this module

Finally, conclude your paper with a discussion about which of the three readings from the background materials would be most useful for your supervisor to read in order to help make better decisions and avoid biases. Explain why you think this reading would be more useful than the other two readings.

The paper should be 2–3 pages in length.