Companies and Corporate ocial Responsibility
A Change in the External Environment Forcing a Company to Make Changes in the Way it Functions

Example: Rising Healthcare Costs, Rising enior Population and Deepening Complexity of Medicare Part D lead to AARP/Walgreens Team to Assist enior Citizens

The "Association of American Retired Persons" (AARP) was established to assist senior citizens with their needs, including medical issues (Novelli, 2009), while Walgreens, Co. (Walgreens) is a pharmaceutical giant with quarterly sales in excess of $16 billion, more than 60% of which is from prescription sales (pain, 2010). Over a course of decades, the senior population of the U.. significantly increased: between the 2000 U.. Census and the 2010 U.. Census, the country's population of persons aged 65 and older "increased 15.1% to 40.3 million, or 13% of the population" (enior Journal, 2011). Meanwhile, there was a dramatic increase in U.. healthcare costs: "Expenditures in the United tates on…...

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Senior Journal. (2011, May 27). Nation's Population Aging as Senior Citizen Ranks Boom with Boomers; Males Increasing. Retrieved from Senior Journal.com: http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/SeniorStats/2011/20110527-NationsPopulationAging.htm

Spain, W. (2010, March 23). Walgreen Profit Rises on Margin, Prescriptions. Retrieved from Market Watch Web site:  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/walgreen-profit-rises-on-margins-prescriptions-2010-03-23 

Walgreens Co. (2011). Flu Shot Program | Community | Social Responsibility | Walgreens. Retrieved from Walgreens Co. Web site:  http://www.walgreens.com/topic/sr/sr_giving_back_flu_shot.jsp

Companies Assessment
Finance is one of the most important parts of the business operations of any entity. Financial Management has a great strategic role to play in the future of any firm and it is the financial management and strategies that are in turn implicated on all other departments of the entity. The firm's financial management precisely deals with how the allocation of scarce resources will be done throughout the business. In large organizations it can be very complex and tricky and there are various factors that might impact a firm's financial decision. There is no single rule of how finances would be allocated in a firm and thus it varies according to the nature of business operations. It however is mostly fixated on the objective of generating increasing returns to scale as a final result. The backbone of the financial management of any company, big or small lies in the…...

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References

Bierman, H. (2003). The capital budgeting decision. USA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Bragg, S. (2007). Business ratios and formulas: a comprehensive guide. NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons.

Megginson, W. & Smart, S. (2008). Introduction to Corporate Finance. USA: Cengage Learning.

Alexander, C. (2008). Market risk analysis: practical financial econometrics. USA: John Wiley & Sons.

Conversely, children may beg not to go to higher-end restaurants, and refuse to eat, but a discounted children's meal will provide a financial compromise for parents dragging small children with small appetites to restaurants when the parents either cannot find someone to mind the child or wish to introduce the child to the experience of fine dining at an early age.
Children have smaller and often cheaper appetites, thus justifying the discounted child's menu at most restaurants, and so do senior citizens. Senior citizens are also often on a fixed income, and must watch every penny, and would be unlikely to dine out (or go to the movies) without receiving a discount. Also, because they are often retired, seniors tend to eat earlier, thus making the creation of an inexpensive, smaller portioned 'Early Bird' menu at many restaurants attractive for both seniors and restaurants. The restaurants get additional foot traffic…...

Companies at particular risk are those with a high learning curve when the employees have little incentive to stay with the company. Companies should collect data so they know the training costs for employees, the true cost and productivity for these employees. They need to know why productive employees leave the company. Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) can tailor the job search precisely for the company and reduce employee turnover. Research has identified specific factors that lead to rapid employee turnover, which include jobs that require a lot of training but that don't provide much opportunity for advancement, especially when accompanied by a long learning curve and long period (six months) before the employee is fully productive, accompanied by high turnover rate.

By analyzing the job life cycle for such jobs, management can identify problem areas in the job life cycle and develop solutions that will increase employee satisfaction as well as…...

The burning of fossil fuels affects the environment, leading to air pollution, global warming, severe climate changes, and health problems such as asthma. Alternative sources of energy may be more expensive or more difficult to obtain, but the negatives seem to pale in comparison to this generation's responsibility to ensure livable conditions on Earth for future generations.
Given the rocketing prices of gasoline and the prospect that oil and gas resources will be depleted within the foreseeable future, the search for alternative energy sources is indeed becoming an increasingly desperate enterprise (Woloski, 2005). In the meantime, companies competing in the oil and gas industry have enormous sums already invested -- and much more planned -- in a global infrastructure that will not be easily replaced and it is therefore vitally important that effective and timely strategies be developed that can make the most of these resources while the supply of…...

Companies Do Enough for Society by Simply Adding to the Economy or Should usinesses Also Attempt to be Socially Responsible
This work in writing will consider the pros and cons of businesses being socially responsible in society. Towards this end, this study will examine the literature in this area of inquiry.

Defining Socially Responsible ehavior

Socially responsible behavior on the part of a business is defined as the business's "obligation to maximize its potential impact and minimize its negative impact on society." (McGraw-Hill, nd, p.39) Kokemuller (2008) states that one of the "foundational elements of CSR [corporate social responsibility] is that it cause companies to reason beyond basic ethics to consider the benefits of active involvement in communities." (p.1)

Pros and Cons of Corporate Social Responsibility

One stated pro-of corporate social responsibility is that it motivates employees. The premise of the company obligation to this group of stakeholders in relation to compliance with corporate…...

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Bibliography

Berrone, Pascual (2008) Pros and Cons of Rewarding Social Responsibility at the Top. University of Navarra. Occasional Paper June 2008. Retrieved from:  http://www.iese.edu/research/pdfs/OP-0153-E.pdf 

Business Ethics and Social Responsibility -- Chapter 2 (nd) McGraw and Hill. Retrieved from:  http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0073511722/620358/ferrell7e_chapter2.pdf 

Coombs, JE and Gilley, KM (2005) Stakeholder Management as a Predictor of CEO Compensation. Main Effects and Interactions with Financial Performance. Strategic Management Journal, 26.

Kokemuller, Neil (2008) Pros and Cons of Corporate Social Reasonability. Money, E-How. Retrieved from: http://www.ehow.com/info_7806753_pros-cons-corporate-social-responsibility.html

companies I talked about in Phase 1 was Costco. The big thing in this and other reports is that there are tradeoffs, but they are not necessarily ethical tradeoffs. Ethical dilemmas must have tradeoffs that are mutually exclusive and where the agent is thereby forced to do something wrong -- this is an established concept in philosophy (McConnell, 2010). Thus, in theory, the business must choose between sustainability and profit, if we assume Friedman's agency argument (1970). The problem is that this is a false dilemma, because sustainability and CS are concepts that the firm is free to define itself. Any given scenario is set, and might create a dilemma, but the firm overall in its activities faces no such dilemma -- this is an important distinction.
The way business approaches the concepts of sustainability and corporate responsibility is to frame the "dilemma" as a question for a mutually beneficial…...

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References

Costco Wholesale Sustainability 2012. Retrieved February 7, 2014 from http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTcyMjQ2fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1

Friedman, M. (1970). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. New York Times Magazine. Retrieved February 7, 2014 from  http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html 

McConnell, T. (2010). Moral dilemmas. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved February 7, 2014 from  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-dilemmas/ 

Slaper, T. & Hall, T. (2011). The triple bottom line: What is it and how does it work? Indiana Business Review. Retrieved February 7, 2014 from  http://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/ibr/2011/spring/article2.html

Companies HD
Threats for Harley Davidson

Opportunities for HD in global market

HD and Lehman Trikes

Harley Davidson (HD) is heavy motorcycle company that manufactures and markets motorcycles above the capacity of 700 CC of engine capacity. HD is an American company and is a world leader in heavy motorcycle industry. Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the company reported having annual revenue of $5.3 billion in 2011 (Harley Davidson, 2011). Gradually, the number of competitors in the industry has increased with Japanese, European, and Chinese manufacturers gaining foothold in American market. Since the domestic market share is increasingly under threat from international competitors like Suzuki, Honda, and Ducati, the company must assess the external threats to leverage its internal strengths to benefit from the opportunities.

Threats for Harley Davidson

There are several threats in the external environment of HD that may impact the business of the company in medium to long-term. The threats being presented by…...

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References

Harley Davidson. (2011). HD Financial News. Retrieved from: http://investor.harley-davidson.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=87981&p=irol-newsarticle&ID=1651657

Looney, D.C. (2011). LEHMAN TRIKES: A STORY WITHIN A STORY. Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, 17(7).

McBee, R.D. (2011). Harley-Davidson's Future (Abroad). International Journal of Motorcycle Studies, 7(2).

companies implement a knowledge management system?
The way that Nestle implemented a knowledge management system was to create a platform that everyone had access to. This was accomplished by working in conjunction with SAP. These changes started out by focusing on select divisions and introducing them to all employees. The basic idea was that they could begin using the various applications on a regular basis to increase communication and collaboration. At first, this project did have a number of positive benefits. However, there were a series of different bugs that had to be worked out. This led to the redesign of the system and improvements within the different application. Once this took place, is when Nestle was able to have effective communication and collaboration. ("On Demand usiness," 2005)

As far as Pella is concerned, they worked in association with Oracle to create a knowledge management system that was easily accessible and…...

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Bibliography

On Demand Business. (2005). IBM.

Pella Controls Costs. (2005). Pella. Retrieved from:  http://www.pella.com 

Holt, N. (2005). Nestle UK. IK Magazine. Retrieved from:  http://www.ikmagazine.com/xq/asp/sid.0/articleid.97B5531E-139F-438A-AA9B-F8B8998B85A4/eTitle.Case_study_Nestle_UK/qx/display.htm

companies, Andrews, Baldwin, Chesty, Digby, Erie and Ferris. They vary in terms of overall sales, return on assets, market share, and productivity as well as their utilization shares, and S&P ratings (variable, with none in the A or top range). Andrews is the base business model, with sales of $327 m and a profit in the last fiscal year of $46.3 m, or about 14.2%. In general, if we use an overall rating system, we find that the ranking of the organizations in terms of profitability overall may be expressed as:
Company

Sales

Profit

% Profit

Market

Millions

Millions

Share

Erie

Andrews

Chester

Baldwin

Digby

Ferris

Erie shows the largest profit as a percentage of sales, but Andrews is the clear market leader, with 21% market share and only slightly below .7% Erie in terms of profit percentage in relation to sales. In addition, Andrews has $131m more in profit, or about 65% more than Erie.

Stock Prices

The market is only confident for Andrews (BB),…...

Companies Good Management
Prevailing thought holds that companies should utilize their human resources to create and maintain a competitive advantage. Fortunately, business leaders have finally universally acknowledged that employees are not disposable and contribute substantially to the bottom line when held in regard and treated with respect. The fact that human capital has become the greatest source for competitive advantages when once it was financial resources and then technological resources has been substantiated in various studies. Essentially, no matter what other resources one uses, technology for example, the competition can always buy the same or better technology. They cannot however, have the exact same people. Therefore, focusing on making one's team the best in the businesses is a good business practice, because doing so allows one to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Now the question becomes: how does one use this human capital to create a competitive advantage? The answer lies…...

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References

Brown, E. (2007, November 1). Competitive advantage- The human capital approach.

Retrieved December 13, 2011 from Eric D. Brown website:  http://ericbrown.com/competitive-advantage-the-human-capital-approach.htm 

Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. (2011). Is your management style effective? Retrieved

from  http://www.dandb.com/credit-resources/human-resources-management/ways-to-effectively-manage/

Theoretical Framework

The balancing of social media data for optimizing the customer experience online vs. its use for advertising and selling, including the reselling of the data to other companies anchor the two continuums of the ethical spectrum. For the continuum to stay in balance there must be collaboration and disclosure of just what the data is being used for and how its success is being measured over time. An equilibrium model or framework emerges from this analysis that defines how the use of social media data needs to be managed not just from an execution standpoint but also from a governance perspective as well. For any social network to retain and grow trust the equilibrium of the model must be preserved or their credibility will be lost. Figure 1 shows the proposed Social Media Data Equilibrium Model.

Figure 1: Social Media Data Equilibrium Model

Research Methodology

A multi-phased methodology will be used for…...

This is a major part of the total "tax gap," the amount of unpaid taxes owed by individuals, corporations, and other organizations, which is estimated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to be $345 billion.
Tax havens have been used by American businesses for many years, and many commercial banks have successfully prevented legislation to stop tax haven activities (Francis, 2008). This is primarily because banks make money by placing private financial accounts in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. This has been an increasing trend over the past few decades.

There is growing international pressure to outlaw the secretive practices of tax havens as a key part of reforms to the world's battered financial system," said Mathiason and Stweart (2008). "Obama, whose approval will be key to any reform package over the next 12 months, was one of the signatories of the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, legislation…...

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Works Cited

Almeida, Aloisio. (April, 2004). Tax Havens: An Analysis of the OECD Work with Policy Recommendations. Ford School of Public Policy. Retrieved from the Internet at http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:J5uNj3XQ4rEJ:www.receita.fazenda.gov.br/Publico/estudotributarios/TrabAcademicos/Textos/AloisioTaxHavens.pdf+almeida+%22tax+havens%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us.

Desai, Mihir a., C. Fritz Foley and James R. Hines Jr. 2006b. The demand for tax haven operations. Journal of Public Economics 90, 513-531.

Hines, James R., Jr. 2005. Do tax havens flourish? In Tax Policy and the Economy, Vol. 19, ed.

Hines, James.(May 31, 2007). Tax Havens. University of Michigan: Product Number WP 2007-3.

" This particular demographic is looking towards the future and they want to make sure that the products that they purchase are not harmful to the environment.
The process of redesigning the packaging will be the responsibility of a special committee on packaging. The committee will be responsible researching and developing packaging that is biodegradable. In changing the manner in which packaging is designed, the company will realize many benefits. Firstly the company can be proud of the fact that it is reducing the amount of pollution in the environment which is beneficial to every living organism. The company also benefits because customers greatly appreciate businesses that make an effort to use environmentally friendly packaging. This appreciativeness can be seen in a phenomenon known as guilt free purchasing. This phenomenon occurs when companies offer products to consumers that are environmentally friendly. People purchase these products because they feel that they are…...

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Works Cited

Abdul-Muhmin, a.G. (2007) Explaining consumers' willingness to be environmentally friendly. International Journal of Consumer Studies 31-page 237 -- 247.

Biodegradable. (2009). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved September 15, 2009, from  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biodegradable

What social networks will need to do however is tread the line between keeping and growing user trust vs. monetizing their content. Trust within social networks and online communities have been studied for decades with the results showing transparency is critical for trust to continually be strengthened (eth, orcherding, Klein, 1994). There are several strategic directions that social networks could go with the data captured, yet by far the most valuable will be creating an entire suite of data sets deliverable through APIs (which were discussed earlier) to any company needing it for their SCRM systems. This data service model is a catalyst of growth for Salesforce.com, now a $1+ providers of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) CRM applications.
Analyzing the CRM Marketplace based on this study's Research

Even in periods of economic recession, companies continue to invest in CRM software and systems as they have proven to be solid contributors to revenue growth…...

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Bibliography

Andriole, S.. (2010). Business Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies. Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM, 53(12), 67.

Anthes, G. (2010). Topic Models vs. Unstructured Data. Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM, 53(12), 16.

Bai, X. (2011). Predicting consumer sentiments from online text. Decision Support Systems, 50(4), 732.

Beck, K.. (2011, January). Thundering into Social Media. Customer Relationship Management, 15(1), 37-38.

For a research paper on the significance of the pharmaceutical industry and the business aspects of that, you could consider: * Strategic management of the pharmaceutical companies. * The overall business model for pharmaceutical companies. * Problems that are facing the business aspect of the industry. * How changing laws are affecting the pharmaceutical business. There are others, of course, and you can also narrow down one of the options here to provide something more specific. Maybe pick a particular pharmaceutical company and do an analysis on how the health care law may affect it? Finding a topic that's narrow enough is key, so....

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Home Depot, like most big companies, carries a lot of debt. It can reduce debt by raising prices or paying lower wages, but those aren\'t going to work as long term solutions. To avoid shortchanging customers, which can really cause cash flow problems, Home Depot will need to reduce its spending in a way that doesn\'t affect customers. That can mean restructuring, refinancing, closing stores that are not profitable, lowering the salaries of top executives, and finding related ways to spend less while continuing to keep money coming in. Other stores have done this successfully. You may want to start....