Lucent Case free essay sample

3. How would you judge whether a firm is likely to face revenue recognition problems? Revenue recognition issues are the subjects of headlines in our daily newspapers, primarily because major corporations have recognized revenues that did not meet its revenue recognition rule. For businesses that use cash basis accounting, revenue recognition is a simple process; a sale equals revenue, but not for companies that use accrual basis accounting. The more complex the business, the more specialized the industry, the more difficult the decision becomes for that business as to when to recognize earnings. Revenue recognition is one of the areas where managers can exercise their accounting discretion to achieve certain objectives. By looking at some potential red flags we can see if the company has a revenue recognition problem. One of the red flags at Lucent Technologies, Inc. s unusual decrease in accounts receivable in relation to sales decrease. During 2000 fiscal year revenue decreased from $10, 256 to $8,713 to $4,939 in a second, third, and fourth quarters respectively (Exhibit 4 Consolidated Income Statement) compared to accounts receivables which also decreased but at a much slower pace from $10,573 to $10,101 to $9,558 in a second, third, and fourth quarters respectively in the same fiscal year (Exhibit 4 Consolidated Balance Sheet). We will write a custom essay sample on Lucent Case or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This shows that Lucent was channel stuffing its distribution channels to record the revenue is earlier periods than they would otherwise be recorded in. We can see this when Lucent recognized revenue on the sale of system that had not been completely shipped and have to lower their revenue by $28 million in the forth quarter of 2000 according to the case Revenue recognition problems in the communication equipment industry. Second red flag is increase in inventory in relation to decrease in sales.Decline in sales while a build-up in inventory is an indication that the demand for the firms product is slowing down, suggesting that the firm may cut prices to get rid of excess of inventory or inventory that is becoming obsolete as well as maintain its share of the market, all of which could result in a lower profit margins. Lucents revenue for the second, third, and fourth quarters respectively are $10, 256 to $8,713 to $4,939 (Exhibit 4 Consolidated Income Statement) and inventory in the same quarters are $5,321, $4,936, and $5,677 (Exhibit 4 Consolidated Balance Sheet).Due to rapid growth in the communication equipment industry from technological advances and intense competition according to the case Lucent failed to foresee the sudden switch to fiber-optic network and lost a their share of market to their competitors such as Nortel Networks, Inc. Third red flag is unexplained transactions that boost profits. A treatment of sale of medium- to long-term financing guarantees, which Lucent made to its customers, to financial institutions is one of them. While this arrangement may have sound business logic, it gave the management an ability to keep these loans of the balance sheet and understated its liabilities thus overstating its equity. Meanwhile, the company continued to extend credit to customers, according to the case $1. 6 billion extension of credit was finalized in agreement with a customer in addition to $1. 8 that was already extended. Thus increasing accounts receivable that reflects on allowance for bad debt that the company underestimated and had to increase it by $252 million in the last quarter of 2000.Looking at the financial statements and the disclosers, we can see if the company is likely to face revenue recognition problems. Some of the problems may come from poor management and miscommunication between the department, which might not be discovered right away, some may come from management bias and distortions. In either case the company will have to go through revenue recognition adjustments and restatements to reflect true economics of a company.

jan vermeer an artemisia gentilschi Essays - Mistress And Maid

jan vermeer an artemisia gentilschi Jan Vermeer and Artemisia Gentileschi Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofemes and Jan Vermeer's Mistress and Maid are alike in many ways but different at the same time. In both paintings it looks like the two women are both trying to hide something from someone. Gentileschi's piece shows that the two women are trying to hide the same thing but in Vermeer's the maid looks like she is hiding something from the mistress and the mistress may be hiding something from the maid. In Vermeer's painting it look like they are planning to do something secretively. However, in Gentileschi piece they have already done the deed and seems like they are about to get caught. The use of light is similar in the pictures and creates a lot of shadowing in the pictures. The shadowing creates more drama in the pictures and makes the picture more intense. Vermeer's painting the woman in at table has a really surprised look on her face because she wasn't expecting the maid to come in with the letter. The look on her face, half written letter, and the fallen pencil are all evidence of this. Gentileschi's art work it appears that the women had planned to kill this person for a while and that it was a well thought out plan not just a spur of the moment thing. The knife, bag, and the cloth that she has pressed against his head are all evidence that this was a planned attack.

Barbie Essays - Barbie, Mattel, Ken, Ruth Handler, Doll, BookBarbie

Barbie Since the beginning of time, toys have often been an indicator of the way a society behaves, and how they interact with their children. For example, in ancient Greece, artifacts recovered there testify that children were simply not given toys to play with as in the modern world. The cruel ritual of leaving a sick child on a hillside for dead, seems to indicate a lack of attention to the young (Lord 16). The same is true of today's society. As you can see with the number of toy stores in our society, we find toys of great value to our lives and enjoy giving them to children as gifts. Ask just about any young girl what she wants for Christmas and you'll undoubtedly get the same answer: ?A Barbie.? But what exactly has caused this baby boomer Barbie craze, and how did the entire world get so caught up in it? The answer lies in Ruth Handler's vision for the first children's adult doll. Mrs. Handler's eleven and one-half-inch chunk of plastic began causing problems even before it's public debut in 1959, yet has managed to become one of America's favorite dolls. Ruth Handler and her two young children, Barbara and Ken, were merely sightseeing in Lucerne, Switzerland, when Mrs. Handler first saw the doll she herself had been trying to create (Lord 29). In the window of a small gift shop was an eleven and one-half-inch tall plastic doll with a slender woman's body and a long blond ponytail. Her name was Lilli (?Bad Girl? 1). She had been created from a cartoon character in a West German tabloid similar to the National Inquirer (Lord 8). Dressed provocatively, and with a seductive look in her eye, Lilli had become a ?popular pornographic gag gift for men? (?Bad Girl? 1). Excited to see her long-time idea a reality, Mrs. Handler bought three of the dolls and hurried home to begin work on her own doll (?Bad Girl? 2). It was 1956, and within three years, Mattel Creations began marketing the ?teenage fashion model? as ?a new kind of doll from real life? (Tosa 30). The new doll, deemed ?Barbie?, was named after her own daughter Barbara, who's many y ears of play with paper dolls had actually inspired her to begin designing the three-dimensional adult doll (Lord 30). Though Mrs. Handler's version of the doll was not as racy or alluring as Lilli, her imitation of the ?German streetwalker? would come back to haunt her many years later (?Bad Girl? 2). But for now, the Barbie doll would launch Ruth Handler and her company, ?Mattel Creations?, into what was soon to be a successful national corporation. In fact, the Barbie doll was so popular that three years after her release in 1959 Mattel was still filling orders from her first year (Long 17). It wasn't until the late 1960's that critics began ?comparing Barbie to a Playboy Bunny and calling her a corrupter of youth? (?Bad Girl? 3). One woman commented, ?She's an absurd representation of what a woman should be? (?Bad Girl? 3)-?and that's exactly what many others thought she was, too. With such impossible real-life measurements of 5'9? tall, 36?-18?-33? bust, waist, and hip (Benstock and Ferriss 35), it's easy to see why mothers across the country banned the doll from their homes and refused to let their impressionable young daughters be influenced by a piece of painted plastic (Bestock and Ferriss 35). Since dolls have often been responsible for teaching children what society deems important or beautiful, many concerned parents wondered why Mattel did not design a doll that taught more valuable lessons than dressing pretty and being dangerously skinny (Edut 19)? Who said a runway model was best suited for teaching a child what is beautiful anyway? ?According to a Mattel sp okesperson, a Kate Moss figure is better suited for today's fashions? (Edut 19), and that is one reason why Barbie must be so disproportional. Actually, another reason for Barbie's anorexic figure can be traced back long before Kate Moss and the fashion runway. Barbie was originally designed as a doll with a body one-sixth the size of a real person, who would wear clothes made from

4 ways your job can impact your health

4 ways your job can impact your health It’s one thing to dislike your job, but it’s another if it’s making you sick. If you’ve been feeling physically and mentally worn down lately and can’t seem to shake it, maybe it’s time to take a hard look at your work life to see if it’s the cause of your health issues. Of course you have to go to work, but recognizing where problems exist and making even small changes can start to put you on the road to wellness. Are you sedentary all day?According to a study done by the American Heart Association (AHA), even if you fit exercise into your life, sitting all day every day can negate the health benefits you’ve gained. The solution? Move even more- as much as you can. Make sure to get up and walk around every hour or so. Walk to the kitchen for water once an hour. Take an office lap every other hour. Get up and get your blood flowing whenever possible.Does your commute stress you out?If you’re spending a ton of time getting to and from work, it’s likely taking a toll on your life attitude. One study done in the United Kingdom earlier this year found people with long commutes are more likely to suffer from depression and work-related stress. If your commute is longer than 10 miles by car or 30 minutes by bus or subway, then it might be negatively impacting your life. You can’t help where your office is located, but do everything you can to make the travel time as restful and enjoyable as possible: try downloading a fun podcast or listening to music that will start your day off right.Are you way overworked?If all your waking hours are spent thinking about work or being at work, you’re likely neglecting all other aspects of your life. In fact, according to a recent study, if you work more than 39 hours a week, your mental and physical health will start to decline. Even if you’re on your couch in pajamas, if you’re logged in and constantly monitoring your work emails the n you’re not getting proper rest. Dedicated time to focus on yourself, your friends, and your family is crucial to maintaining balance- at some point, you need to be able to shut things off and not be at work.Are you surrounded  by germs? (You are.)Did you know that your keyboard, mouse, mousepad, and even I.D. badge are all germ factories? Scary but true: your keyboard in 20,000 times dirtier than a toilet seat. And then there are all the hands you shake and doorknobs or faucets you turn in the course of a day. You’re in an enclosed space with tens or hundreds of people every day- start carrying around that hand sanitizer. And if your office is open plan? It might encourage more collaboration, but it also encourages sharing whatever bug is going around. You might find you’re getting sick more and more often, just by coming to work. Take your vitamins, keep your space clean, and get fresh air when you can throughout the day.Notice a theme here? If you take mom ents out of your day to make sure you are taking care of yourself, your overall health will start to improve.

Participant Observation (Business Research Method) Essay

Participant Observation (Business Research Method) - Essay Example 2006, p. 342). Participant observer is basically carrying out a naturalistic approach to conducting research and it seems to be a commitment that attempts to adopt the perspectives of studies shared in the day to day experiences. Participant observation has been described as an ongoing and intensive observing, listening and speaking with some explanations (Ely, 1991, p. 42). Many researchers use participant observation as an umbrella term for all qualitative data gathering and data handling. Participant observation includes going out or staying out in search for qualitative data gathering, and thus the observer may learn a new language in order to express the experiences about the lives of people that the researcher comes to know. With this type of research approach, the researcher is prompted to be immersing himself in a specific culture and also learning how he can get rid of the same immersion so that he will be able to intellectualize what he has seen and heard. He will express them in writing, speaking to others and will try to convince others (Bernard, p. 2006, p. 344). Participant observation is therefore more likely to be a fieldwork, but all fieldworks are in contrary not participant observation. ... sanctioned and socially approved answers for a survey research to provide socially desirable responses to describe oneself in terms judged as desirable and to present one-self favorably (Craighead and Nemeroff, 2002, p. 1557). Social desirability affects the accuracy of data to be gathered. It is mainly influenced by the way questions are prepared or asked. Many of survey research questions are more likely to create chances of social desirability so that respondents answer questions in a pre-made answer formats. Engel and Schutt (2005, p. 234) stressed that social desirability effects are more likely to occur when discussing issues that are of controversial in nature or when researcher expresses a view that is not popular or not widely accepted. When survey researcher or interviewer asks the participants with certain ready-made questions, especially when the questions have highly desirable answers, respondents feel conflicts between a desire to conform to the definition of good respo ndent behaviour and a desire to respond and appear to the interviewer to be in a socially desirable category. In surveys with pre-made multiple choice questions, social desirability is more likely to occur among the respondents. Operational Definition An operational definition, in the context of data collection and research, is an obvious, brief, complete and careful description of a measure. Social scientist uses operational definition as a measure to explain various conceptual terms (Sprague, Stuart and Bodary, 2008, p. 205). As different types of data were gathered, operational definition is very fundamental. The operational definition is a significant one in a situation at which the decision is to be taken about something regarding whether it is correct or not, or something having the

A Humorous Experience Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

A Humorous Experience - Essay Example The place was essentially a ghost town, which made this the perfect setting for the following story, which is a little bit scary for someone who is in a foreign country by oneself, off on her own, doing her own thing-and unfortunately not being smart enough to stay with the group. Let me preface this by saying that originally, what happened was not a very humorous experience. Getting lost in a foreign country is not fun. I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach for most of the experience because I was terrified of being left behind by my group in France. Running around not knowing where you're going is not fun. Knowing that you've made mistakes is not fun. Having that 'lost' feeling is not fun. Having to ask strangers for directions is not fun. Looking back, however, it seems very funny. First, I will tell it how the story happened. There were a group of about thirty of us-about half of us were American high school students, and the other half were Spanish high school host students. We were eating lunch on the beach that we had brought from home, and I told the group (I'm paraphrasing here), "Yeah, well, I'm going to head off now by myself." I told them this in no uncertain terms. No one seemed to think this odd. After all, Biarritz was a little town; it wasn't very large; how could I get lost I must preface this story... Seven Streets is basically is a shopping district of seven streets horizontally lined up next to each other. I had run out of money, which was back then the Spanish peseta and not yet the Euro. I had to ask the people at the store to hold the postcards for me while I ran to the local bank on Siete Calles. When I got to the bank, somehow I was able to jump the line. I don't know if it was because they were feeling sorry for my plight of being in a terrible hurry or what it was, but I asked some elderly Spanish ladies to translate for me so I could get some Spanish pesetas quickly, in order to get back to the store in order to pay for the postcards faster. Meanwhile, I was late in getting back to our meeting place at the church in the center of town and everyone feared the worst for me since I had not gotten back on time-when in reality I was just buying about 100 or so postcards that were on sale! I promised not to be late again and that was that. Well, little did I know that I would again find myself in another pickle. This time was really not much different. After I had told the Spanish students "So long" at lunch and had gone along on my merry way, I found myself going to various stores in Biarritz, because really this place was quite interesting. They had all sorts of different knick-knacks that were fun to look at, and it really was quite a charming little town. It was the kind of place you could get lost in. That was the key word. The kind of town you could get lost in. Unfortunately, I was going to be one of those people in a few minutes. I found myself finally at a French confectionary and candy store investigating all the different kinds of sweets that this particular place

The role of propaganda for the functioning and survival of human Essay

The role of propaganda for the functioning and survival of human society - Essay Example The paper tells that McKenzie in his book â€Å"Propaganda and Empire† has highlighted the extreme importance of the 19th century ideological constructs. He has suggested that the durability of the term has assisted the development of hurdles in the economic progress of the UK during the 20th century. This aspect has become an important part of debates in the post colonial period. While investigating and evaluating the foundation of such ideologies, McKenzie examined children’s literature, school text books exhibitions, radio, films and theater. He concluded that as a consequence of imperial propaganda, the middle classes were able to achieve economic advantages under the garb of idealistic processes. In this process, morality was substituted by mercenary motives and enhanced adventure and romance for military and political aggressions. Thus, it became a significant change of past imperialist urges that matched the revised concepts of colonial settings. Across the entir e middle ages till the modern period, there has been immense reliance on propaganda and no society has refrained from it. For instance the constant conflicts amongst the monarchy and parliament in Britain has been a historic struggle whereby propaganda has always been used. Propaganda has been used as a weapon in the American independence movement, while it was also liberally used during the French Revolution. The maximum use of propaganda was made during the First World War, and both communists and fascists were aggressively involved in revolutionary propaganda after the war ended. After having captured power, both sections attempted to grab territories that extended further than their national boundaries, through the use of propaganda. In the modern world, man’s creativity has perfected means of communication that extends the impact of ideas and information in quickly spreading the required appeals. Nevertheless, the technological developments can be constructively used for the creation of peace and international welfare. However, leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler chose to use this medium for inhuman and selfish objectives and thereby created a negative picture of propaganda in the modern world (Herman and Chomsky, 1988). The development of politics in the modern world has stimulated the impacts of propaganda and is now considered an essential element of political campaigns in democratic systems. Propaganda now appears to be an essential part of the democratic process because the candidates seeking nominations are expected to appeal to the voting constituencies through strong promises and planned programs. After being elected, politicians have to appeal to the electorate for their opinion on suitability and dependability of their efforts and policies. It thus becomes necessary for political parties to engage in propaganda to justify and explain their course of action to the public. During peace time, democratic governments mostly engage in propagan da in making people aware of the available services and in creating popular support for themselves. Recent developments such as globalization have expanded the scope of propaganda because under circumstances of mass consumption and mass production, propaganda techniques have transformed in creating involvement of different entities such as employees, consumers, interest groups and the public at large (Farrell and Smith, 1967). Hate propaganda creates harm to people by negatively impacting their dignity and feeling of self worth. In addition, it harms society as a whole as it obliterates social accord and leads to discriminatory practices and violence, thereby leading to the creation of a hostile atmosphere amongst those that are besieged in the same society. Hate propaganda works in dehumanizing people in the