The Crucial Role of Corporate Governance in Fostering Ethical Leadership and Decision-Making

ESSAY SAMPLE

In today’s complex business landscape, ethical leadership and decision-making are paramount for organizational success. This is where the significance of strong corporate governance comes into play. It acts as the bedrock upon which ethical conduct and responsible decision-making are built, ensuring transparency, accountability, and adherence to ethical principles.

One of the primary ways corporate governance fosters ethical leadership is by setting the tone at the top. Leaders who embody integrity and demonstrate a commitment to ethical behavior serve as role models for the entire organization. This includes establishing a clear and comprehensive code of ethics that outlines expected conduct, addresses potential conflicts of interest, and guides decision-making processes. By having a well-defined ethical framework, employees have a clear understanding of what constitutes ethical behavior and are empowered to make ethical choices.

Furthermore, good corporate governance promotes transparency and accountability. This involves ensuring transparent financial reporting, regular communication with stakeholders, and timely disclosure of material information. This fosters trust and confidence among stakeholders, holding management accountable for their actions. Additionally, independent oversight through boards of directors with external members provides an objective perspective, raising concerns about potential ethical lapses and ensuring adherence to established policies.

Finally, a robust corporate governance framework prioritizes risk management and compliance. This involves actively identifying and mitigating potential ethical risks within the organization’s operations, such as those associated with corruption, bribery, environmental damage, and labor rights violations. Additionally, implementing comprehensive compliance programs ensures adherence to relevant laws, regulations, and ethical standards. This includes training employees on ethical conduct and establishing mechanisms for reporting and addressing ethical concerns.

By prioritizing these elements of good corporate governance, organizations cultivate an environment that fosters ethical leadership and decision-making. This leads to several key benefits:

  • Enhanced Reputation: Ethical conduct builds trust with stakeholders, leading to a positive brand image and increased public confidence.
  • Reduced Risk of Misconduct: Strong governance frameworks minimize the potential for unethical behavior and associated legal or reputational damage.
  • Sustainable Growth: Operating ethically fosters long-term success by attracting and retaining talent, building strong relationships with stakeholders, and ensuring responsible business practices.

In conclusion, corporate governance is not merely a set of rules and regulations; it is the foundation for ethical leadership and decision-making within organizations. By prioritizing transparency, accountability, and adherence to ethical principles, companies can build trust, mitigate risk, and achieve sustainable growth, ultimately contributing to a more ethical and responsible business landscape.

The Ethics of Whistleblowing: Balancing Loyalty and Integrity in the Workplace

Whistleblowing, the act of exposing wrongdoing within an organization, presents a complex ethical dilemma. It often involves a conflict between loyalty to one’s employer and the moral obligation to uphold integrity and protect the public good.

On one hand, loyalty to an employer is expected from employees. This includes maintaining confidentiality and adhering to internal policies. However, when faced with knowledge of illegal, unethical, or harmful practices, loyalty should not supersede the ethical responsibility to expose such wrongdoing. Whistleblowing can prevent significant harm to individuals, the environment, or society at large.

Therefore, whistleblowing can be considered an act of ethical courage and integrity. It serves as a critical safeguard against organizational misconduct, preventing the perpetuation of harmful practices and holding organizations accountable. Whistleblowers often act as catalysts for positive change, prompting investigations, legal action, and ultimately, the rectification of wrongdoing.

However, the decision to blow the whistle can be fraught with personal risk. Whistleblowers often face retaliation from their employers, including job loss, ostracization, or even legal repercussions. This creates a significant ethical dilemma, forcing individuals to weigh their loyalty to their employer against the potential personal consequences of exposing wrongdoing.

Therefore, it is crucial to have strong legal protections for whistleblowers. These protections should ensure the confidentiality of their identity, prevent retaliation, and provide access to legal support. This encourages individuals to come forward without fear of retribution, fostering a culture of transparency and accountability within organizations.

Balancing loyalty and integrity in the context of whistleblowing requires careful consideration. While loyalty to an employer is expected, it should not overshadow the ethical imperative to expose wrongdoing. Robust legal protections for whistleblowers are essential to ensure they can fulfill their ethical responsibility without fear of personal harm. Ultimately, whistleblowing serves as a crucial mechanism for upholding ethical standards and safeguarding the public good.

References:

The Federal Reserve’s Role in Monetary Policy and Economic Stability

The Federal Reserve: Orchestrating Economic Stability Through Monetary Policy

The Federal Reserve, often referred to as the Fed, plays a pivotal role in maintaining economic stability in the United States. This essay explores the Fed’s core functions in monetary policy and their impact on achieving a healthy and balanced economy.

The Fed’s primary tools for influencing the economy are interest rates, bank reserves, and open market operations. By setting the federal funds rate, the interest rate at which banks lend reserves to each other, the Fed influences borrowing costs throughout the economy. Lowering rates encourages borrowing and investment, while raising rates has the opposite effect. This allows the Fed to stimulate economic activity during downturns and curb inflation during periods of rapid growth [Federal Reserve Board].

The Fed also manages the amount of reserves banks hold. Higher reserve requirements limit banks’ ability to lend, while lower requirements allow them to lend more freely. This tool complements the federal funds rate in influencing the money supply and credit availability.

Open market operations are another key instrument. The Fed buys and sells government securities in the open market. Purchasing securities injects money into the economy, while selling them reduces the money supply. This allows the Fed to fine-tune the level of liquidity and influence interest rates.

By wielding these tools, the Fed pursues a dual mandate: achieving maximum employment and maintaining stable prices. Low unemployment promotes economic growth and financial security, while stable prices prevent inflation, which erodes purchasing power. The Fed navigates this delicate balance by adjusting monetary policy to foster a sustainable economic environment.

However, the Fed’s actions are not without limitations. Monetary policy can take time to affect the real economy, and external factors like global events can complicate the Fed’s ability to achieve its goals. Additionally, some argue that the Fed’s focus on inflation can come at the expense of promoting full employment, particularly during downturns.

In conclusion, the Federal Reserve serves as the conductor of the US economy. Through its monetary policy tools, the Fed strives to maintain maximum employment and stable prices. While challenges exist, the Fed’s role in fostering a healthy and balanced economic environment remains crucial.

Reference

Federal Reserve Board. (n.d.). Monetary Policy. [https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy.htm](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy.htm)

Analyzing the Impact of Student Loan Debt on US Economy and Financial Wellbeing

The Burdened Borrowers: Student Loan Debt’s Impact on US Economy and Financial Wellbeing

The stratospheric rise of student loan debt in the United States has become a pressing economic and social concern. This essay analyzes the multifaceted impact of this debt burden on both the US economy and the financial wellbeing of borrowers.

One key concern lies in the dampening effect student loan debt has on economic growth. Debt-laden graduates are often forced to delay major life milestones like homeownership and starting families. This reduces overall consumer spending, a critical driver of economic activity [White House Council of Economic Advisers]. Additionally, the fear of crippling debt discourages some individuals from pursuing higher education altogether, potentially limiting the US workforce’s access to skilled labor.

Furthermore, student loan debt significantly hinders the financial wellbeing of borrowers. Large monthly payments force graduates to prioritize debt repayment over saving for retirement or emergencies. This creates a cycle of financial insecurity, limiting opportunities for wealth creation and exacerbating income inequality. Studies also link student loan debt to increased stress and anxiety, negatively impacting mental and physical health [Federal Reserve Board].

However, the impact of student loan debt is not uniform. Borrowers with degrees in high-earning fields may be better equipped to manage their debt compared to those with degrees in fields with lower earning potential. Additionally, racial and socioeconomic disparities contribute to the burden, with minority students often facing higher debt levels and difficulty securing well-paying jobs after graduation.

Addressing the student loan crisis requires a multi-pronged approach. Policy solutions might include tuition reduction initiatives, income-driven repayment plans, and loan forgiveness programs for specific professions. Additionally, promoting financial literacy among students can equip them with better decision-making skills when navigating the complexities of student loans.

In conclusion, student loan debt casts a long shadow on the US economy and the financial wellbeing of borrowers. It dampens economic growth, hinders wealth creation, and contributes to financial stress. As we move forward, innovative solutions are needed to alleviate this burden and ensure a more equitable and prosperous future for all.

References

Federal Reserve Board. (2023, August 21). Non-Completion, Student Debt, and Financial Well-Being: Evidence from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking [https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/non-completion-student-debt-and-financial-well-being-20230821.html](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/non-completion-student-debt-and-financial-well-being-20230821.html)

White House Council of Economic Advisers. (2024, April 8). The Economics of Administration Action on Student Debt [https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/04/08/the-economics-of-administration-action-on-student-debt/](https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/04/08/the-economics-of-administration-action-on-student-debt/)

 

FAQ

1. The Economic Ripple Effects of Student Loan Debt in America

2. How Student Loan Debt is Holding Back the US Economy

3. The True Cost of Student Loan Debt: A Deep Dive Analysis

4. Student Loan Debt Crisis: A Comprehensive Look at the Financial Impact

5. Breaking Down the Numbers: The Economic Consequences of Student Loan Debt

6. From Graduation to Debt: The Long-Term Effects of Student Loans on Financial Wellbeing

7. The Domino Effect of Student Loan Debt on Borrowers and the Economy

8. A Closer Look at the Relationship Between Student Loan Debt and Economic Growth

9. The Burden of Student Loan Debt: How It’s Weighing Down Americans’ Financial Futures

10. Student Loan Debt and Its Impact on Wealth Inequality: A Critical Examination

How to Embrace the Future of Fintech in Traditional Financial Services

ESSAY-SAMPLE

Fintech, the convergence of finance and technology, is rapidly reshaping the financial services landscape. By leveraging innovation, fintech companies are disrupting traditional models and driving financial inclusion. This essay explores the transformative potential of fintech and its impact on the future of finance.

One key disruption lies in the realm of access. Traditional financial institutions often require high barriers to entry, leaving unbanked and underbanked populations excluded. Fintech, however, leverages mobile technology and digital platforms to provide financial services to previously underserved segments. Mobile wallets and digital payments empower individuals with limited access to traditional banking to participate in the financial system. This fosters financial inclusion, promoting economic growth and stability.

Beyond access, fintech offers a more convenient and personalized financial experience. From robo-advisors offering automated investment management to peer-to-peer lending platforms facilitating faster and more accessible credit, fintech caters to evolving customer needs. Additionally, big data analytics allows for tailored financial products and services, enhancing customer experience and engagement.

However, the rise of fintech also presents challenges. Regulatory frameworks need to adapt to keep pace with rapid innovation, ensuring consumer protection and financial stability. Data security is another critical concern, as fintech solutions often involve sensitive financial information.

The future of finance lies in collaboration. Traditional institutions are likely to adopt and integrate fintech solutions, creating a hybrid ecosystem. Regulatory frameworks must evolve to promote responsible innovation while mitigating risks. This collaborative approach will be crucial for unlocking the full potential of fintech in shaping a more inclusive and efficient financial future.

**References**

Beck, T., Demirguc-Kunt, A., & Klapper, L. (2007). Financial inclusion and poverty reduction. Policy Research Working Paper, WPS4008, World Bank.

Congressional Research Service. (2020). Fintech: Issues, risks, and regulatory landscape [Report No. R46232].

Lee, I.-S., & Shin, Y. (2017). Fintech: Issues, opportunities and challenges for financial inclusion. Sustainability, 9(6), 1006.

MGT 430 SLU Google Case Study Analysis

Description

Integrate the core values of Saint Leo University that you believe should apply to this issue.

Case Studies guidelines: Each case study will include issues/questions to address. The cases are intended for students to take a comprehensive look at the current event topics as related to business and society. Students should explore the issue using the text as well as personal, intellectual, academic references, and/or experiences, thus applying their knowledge to these cases. Where sources are used, proper notation must be included. Responses to each assigned question in all assigned case studies should be in paragraph form, be double-spaced, and be between 250-300 words in.

St Leo Core Values: Core Values: The SLU core values of responsible stewardship, excellence, and integrity will be emphasized in this course. Responsible Stewardship: Our Creator blesses us with an abundance of resources. We foster a spirit of service to employ our resources to university and community development. We must be resourceful. We must optimize and apply all of the resources of our community to fulfill Saint Leo University’s mission and goals. Excellence: Saint Leo University is an educational enterprise. All of us, individually and collectively, work hard to ensure that our students develop the character, learn the skills, and assimilate the knowledge essential to become morally responsible leaders. The success of our University depends upon a conscientious commitment to our mission, vision, and goals. Integrity: The commitment of Saint Leo University to excellence demands that its members live its mission and deliver on its promise. The faculty, staff, and students pledge to be honest, just, and consistent in word and deed.

CASE- Google and the Right to Be Forgotten

In 2009, Mario Costeja Gonzalez, a self-employed attorney living in a small town outside Madrid, Spain, casually “googled” himself and was startled by what came up on his computer screen. Prominently displayed in the search results was a brief legal notice that had appeared more than a decade earlier in a local newspaper, La Vanguardia, which listed property seized and being auctioned by a government agency for nonpayments of debts. Among the properties was a home jointly owned by Costeja and his wife.

Costeja immediately realized that this information could damage his reputation as an attorney. Equally troubling, the information was no longer factual. He had paid his debt nearly a decade earlier. Abanlex, Costeja’s small law firm, depended on the Internet to gain much of its new business, which was often generated by a Google search. Potential clients might choose not to hire him, based on the old auction notice, he reflected. His mind then turned to the possible effects of this kind of information on other people’s livelihoods. “There are people who cannot get a job because of content that is irrelevant,” he thought.1 “I support freedom of expression and I do not defend censorship. [However, I decided] to fight for the right to request the deletion of data that violates the honor, dignity and reputation of individuals.”2

The next week, Costeja wrote to La Vanguardia and requested that it remove the article about his debt notice, because it had had been fully resolved a number of years earlier and reference to it now was therefore entirely irrelevant.3 In doing so, he was making use of his rights under Spain’s strong data protection policies, which recognized the protection and integrity of personal data as a constitutional right under Section 18 of the nation’s Data Protection Act.4 In response, the newspaper informed him that it had recently uploaded to the Internet all its past archives, dating back to 1881, to allow them to be searched by the public. It also noted that the auction notice had originally been publicly posted in order to secure as many bidders as possible. The newspaper refused Costeja’s request, stating that the information was obtained from public records and had thus been published lawfully.5

To be sure, the real problem for Costeja was not that the notice had appeared in La Vanguardia’s digital library, but that it had shown up in the results of the most widely used search engine in the world, Google, where potential clients might use it to judge his character.6 Following this reasoning, Costeja then wrote to Google Spain, the firm’s Spanish affiliate, only to be told that the parent company, Google Inc., was the entity responsible for the development of search results.7 Costeja was taken aback by this development. “The resources Google has at their disposal aren’t like those of any other citizens,” he reflected.8 Costeja felt he would be at a disadvantage in a lawsuit against an industry giant like Google.

In March 2010, after his unsuccessful attempts with the newspaper and Google Spain, Costeja turned to Spain’s Data Protection Agency (SDPA), the government agency responsible for enforcing the Data Protection Act. “Google in Spain asked me to address myself to its headquarters in the U.S., but I found it too far and difficult to launch a complaint in the U.S., so I went to the agency in Spain to ask for their assistance. They said I was right, and the case went to court,” he explained.9 In a legal filing, Costeja requested, first, that the agency issue an administrative order requiring La Vanguardia either to remove or alter the pages in question (so that his personal data no longer appeared) or to use certain tools made available by search engines in order to shield the data from view. Second, he requested that the agency require that Google Spain or Google Inc. remove or conceal his personal data so that it no longer appeared in the search results and in the links to La Vanguardia. Costeja stated that his debt had been fully resolved.10

With these steps, a small-town Spanish lawyer had drawn one of the world’s richest and best-known companies, Google, into a debate over the right to be forgotten.

Google, Inc.

Google Inc. was a technology company that built products and provides services to organize information. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Mountain View, CA, Google’s mission was to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. It employed more than 55,000 people and had revenues of $45 billion. The company also had 70 offices in more than 40 countries.

The company’s main product, Google Search, provided information online in response to a user’s search. Google’s other well-known products provided additional services. For example, Google Now provided information to users when they needed it, and its Product Listing Ads offered product image, price, and merchant information. The company also provided AdWords, an auction-based advertising program and AdSense, which enabled websites that were part of the Google network to deliver ads. Google Display was a display advertising network; DoubleClick Ad Exchange was a marketplace for the trading display ad space; and YouTube offered video, interactive, and other ad formats.

Search Technology

In its core business, Google conducted searches in three stages: crawling and indexing, applying algorithms, and fighting spam.

Crawlers, programs that browsed the web to create an index of data, looked at web pages and followed links on those pages. They then moved from link to link and brought data about those web pages back to Google’s servers. Google would then use this information to create an index to know exactly how to retrieve information for its users. Algorithms were the computer processes and formulas that took users’ questions and turned them into answers. At the most basic level, Google’s algorithms looked up the user’s search terms in the index to find the most appropriate pages. For a typical query, thousands, if not millions, of web pages might have helpful information. Google’s algorithms relied on more than 200 unique signals or “clues” that made it possible to guess what an individual was really looking for. These signals included the terms on websites, the freshness of content, the region, and the page rank of the web page.11 Lastly, the company fought spam through a combination of computer algorithms and manual review. Spam sites attempted to game their way to the top of search results by repeating keywords, buying links that passed Google’s Page Rank process, or putting invisible text on the screen. Google scouted out and removed spam because it could make legitimate websites harder to find. While much of this process was automated, Google did maintain teams whose job was to review sites manually.

Policy on Information Removal

Google’s policy on the general removal of information was the following:

Upon request, we’ll remove personal information from search results if we believe it could make you susceptible to specific harm, such as identity theft or financial fraud. This includes sensitive government ID numbers like U.S. Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers and images of signatures. We generally don’t process removals of national ID numbers from official government websites because in those cases we consider the information to be public. We sometimes refuse requests if we believe someone is attempting to abuse these policies to remove other information from our results.1

Apart from this general policy, Google Inc. also removed content or features from its search results for legal reasons. For example, in the United States, the company would remove content with valid notification from the copyright holder under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which was administered by the U.S. Copyright Office. The DCMA provided recourse for owners of copyrighted materials who believed that their rights under copyright law had been infringed upon on the Internet.14 Under the notice and takedown procedure of the law, a copyright owner could notify the service provider, such as Google, requesting that a website or portion of a website be removed or blocked. If, upon receiving proper notification, the service provider promptly did so, it would be exempt from monetary liability.

Google regularly received such requests from copyright holders and those that represented them, such as the Walt Disney Company and the Recording Industry Association page 483of America. Google produced and made public a list of the domain portions of URLs that had been the subject of a request for removal, and noted which ones had been removed. As of July 2015, it had removed more than 600,000 URLs out of more than 2.4 million requests.

Likewise, content on local versions of Google was also removed when required by national laws. For example, content that glorified the Nazi party was illegal in Germany, and content that insulted religion was illegal in India.16 The respective governments, via a court order or a routine request as described above, typically made these requests. Google reviewed these requests to determine if any content should be removed because it violated a specific country’s law.

When Google removed content from search results for legal reasons, it first displayed a notification that the content had been removed and then reported the removal to www.chillingeffects.org, a website established by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and several law schools. This website, which later changed its name to lumendatabase.org, collected and analyzed legal complaints and requests for removal of a broad set of online materials. It was designed to help Internet users know their rights and understand the law. Researchers could use the data to study the prevalence of legal threats and the source of content removals. This database also allowed the public to search for specific takedown notifications.17

Google removed content quickly. Its average processing time across all copyright infringement removal requests submitted via its website was approximately 6 hours. Different factors influenced the processing time, including the method of delivery, language, and completeness of the information submitted.

The Right to Be Forgotten

The right to be forgotten can be understood as peoples’ right to request that information be removed from the Internet or other repositories because it violated their privacy or was no longer relevant. This right assumed greater prominence in the digital era, when people began finding it increasingly difficult to escape information that had accumulated over many years, resulting in expressions such as “the net never forgets,” “everything is in the cloud,” “reputation bankruptcy,” and “online reputation.”18 According to Jeffrey Rosen, professor of law at George Washington University, the intellectual roots of the right to be forgotten could be found in French law, “which recognizes le droit à l’oubli—or the ‘right of oblivion’—a right that allows a convicted criminal who has served his time and been rehabilitated to object to the publication of the facts of his conviction and incarceration.”19

Although the right to be forgotten was rooted in expunging criminal records, the rise of the Internet had given the concept a new, more complex meaning. Search engines enabled users to access information on just about any topic with considerable ease. The ease with which information could be shared, stored, and retrieved through online search raised issues of both privacy and freedom of expression. On the one hand, when opening a bank account, joining a social networking website, or booking a flight online, a consumer would voluntarily disclose vital personal information such as name, address, and credit card numbers. Consumers were often unsure of what happened to their data and were concerned that it might fall into the wrong hands—that is, that their privacy would be violated.

On the other hand, by facilitating the retrieval of information, search engines enhanced individuals’ freedom to receive and impart information. Any interference with search engine activities could therefore pose a threat to the effective enjoyment of these rights.20 As Van Alsenoy, a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Law and Information Communication Technology, argued, “In a world where search engines are used as the main tool to find relevant content online, any governmental interference in the provisioning of these services presents a substantial risk that requires close scrutiny.

Europe

Since the 1990s, both the European Union and its member states (such as Spain) had enacted laws that addressed the right to privacy and, by extension, the right to be forgotten.

A fundamental right of individuals to protect their data was introduced in the EU’s original data protection law, passed in 1995. Specifically, the European Data Protection Directive 95/46 defined the appropriate scope of national laws relating to personal data and the processing of those data. According to Article 3(1), Directive 95/46 applied “to the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automatic means, and to the processing otherwise than by automatic means of personal data which form part of a filing system or are intended to form part of a filing system.”22 Article 2(b) of the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46 defined the processing of personal data as

any operation or set of operations which is performed upon personal data, whether or not by automatic means, such as collection, recording, organization, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, blocking, erasure or destruction.

Individual countries within the European Union also enacted their own laws, which were sometimes stronger than those of the EU. For example, in Spain, the protection of data was a constitutional right. The Spanish Constitution recognized the right to personal privacy, secrecy of communications, and the protection of personal data. These rights were protected through the Data Protection Act (the “Act”), passed in 1999, which incorporated the 1995 European Directive on data protection, and was enforced by the Spanish Data Protection Agency (SDPA). Created in 1993, this agency was relatively inactive until the passing of the Act, which gave it more powers and a mandate to enforce privacy rules in a wide range of situations.23

The Spanish agency exercised its powers broadly. For example, in 2013, it fined telecom firm Telefonica SA €20,000 for twice listing an individual’s phone number in local phone books without the individual’s prior consent. In 2008, the agency fined a marketing company €600 for using “recommend this to a friend” icons on websites, saying that senders of recommendation e-mails had to first request the recipient’s permission. The agency had also successfully required anyone using security cameras to clearly mark their presence with a recognizable icon. Supporters of this move have highlighted the importance of transparency in protecting one’s privacy.24

Over time, however, differences in the way that each EU country interpreted privacy rights led to an uneven level of protection for personal data, depending on where an page 485individual lived or bought goods and services. This led the European high court to take a second look, in 2013, at the original law.25 A European Commission memo at that time noted that the right “is about empowering individuals, not about erasing past events or restricting freedom of the press.”26 The changes were intended to give citizens more control over their personal data, making it easier to access and improve the quality of information they received about what happened to their data once they decided to share it. An unanswered question, however, was the latitude given to national courts and regulators across Europe to set the parameters by which these requests could be made.

The United States

U.S. courts had taken a very different approach to privacy and to the right to be forgotten. A few U.S. laws recognized the right to be forgotten; the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970, for example, gave individuals the right to delete certain negative information about their credit—such as late payments, tax liens, or judgments—seven years from the date of the delinquency. But, for the most part, fundamental differences in legal philosophy made this right less likely to become widely supported in the United States. In an article published in the Atlantic in May 2014, Matt Ford suggested that in the U.S. context, one person’s right to be forgotten logically imposed a responsibility to forget upon someone else, a notion that was alien to American law. The First Amendment to the Constitution barred the government from interfering with free speech. Law professor Rosen argued that the First Amendment would make a right to be forgotten virtually impossible, not only to create but to enforce. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that penalizing a newspaper for publishing truthful, lawfully obtained information from the public record was unconstitutional

The Lawsuit and Court Decision

The main focus of Costeja’s complaint before Spanish Data Protection Agency (SDPA) was his request that La Vanguardia remove the debt notice from its archives. In doing so, he was claiming his constitutional right to protect the integrity of his personal data. Costeja’s request had two parts: that (1) La Vanguardia be required either to remove or alter the pages in question or to use certain tools made available by search engines in order to protect the data and (2) that Google Spain or Google Inc. be required to remove or conceal the personal data relating to him so that the data no longer appeared in search results.

In July 2010, two months after Costeja’s original request, the SDPA ordered Google Spain and Google Inc. to take “all reasonable steps to remove the disputed personal data from its index and preclude further access,” upholding that part of the complaint.29 However, the SDPA rejected Costeja’s complaint as it related to La Vanguardia, because it considered that the publication by it of the information in question was legally justified.

A year later, Google filed an appeal against the decision by the SDPA before the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid, Spain’s highest national court. In March 2012, this court referred the case to the European Court of Justice, the EU’s high court, for a preliminary ruling.31

In their briefs, Google Spain and Google Inc.’s argument hinged on the meaning of “personal data” and “crawling.” Crawling, as noted above, was the use of software programs to find multiple websites that responded to requests for information online.32 These programs were configured to look for information on the Internet, according to a set of criteria that told them where to go and when.33 Once the relevant web pages had been copied and collected, their content was analyzed and indexed.34 Google compared its search engine index to an index at the back of a textbook, in that it included information about words and their locations.35

Specifically, Google argued before the European Court of Justice that because it crawled and indexed websites “indiscriminately” (that is, without a deliberate intent to process personal data as such), no processing of personal data within the meaning of Article 2 (b) of the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46 actually took place. This absence of intent, the company argued, clearly distinguished Google’s activities as a search engine provider from the processing of personal data as interpreted by the Court.

Google’s other main argument was that the publisher of the information should be the sole controller of data, not the search engine. After all, its attorneys argued, Google’s intervention was purely accessory in nature; it was merely making information published by others more readily accessible. If a publisher, for whatever reason, decided to remove certain information from its website, this information would (eventually) be removed from Google’s index and would no longer appear in its search results. As a result, Google’s counsel argued, the role of a search engine should be thought of as an “intermediary.”

In May 2014, the European Court of Justice ruled against Google. The court found the Internet search provider was responsible for the processing of personal data that appeared on web pages published by third parties. It further required Google to remove links returned in search results based on an individual’s name when those results were deemed to be “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive.” At the heart of the court’s logic was the process that Google used to produce its search results. The official ruling explained the court’s rationale:

The Court points out in this context that processing of personal data carried out by such an operator enables any Internet user, when he makes a search on the basis of an individual’s name, to obtain, through the list of results, a structured overview of the information relating to that individual on the internet. The Court observes, furthermore, that this information potentially concerns a vast number of aspects of his private life and that, without the search engine, the information could not have been interconnected or could have been only with great difficulty.

In essence, the Court ruled that an activity, “whether or not by automatic means” could be considered to be the “processing of personal data” within the meaning of Article 2(b), even page 487if no intention to process such data existed.37 The court’s ruling applied to any search engine operators that had a branch or a subsidiary in any of the 28 member states of the EU.

Costeja’s lawyer, Joaquín Muñoz, was pleased with the ruling. “When you search for something in Google, they don’t scour the entire Internet for you and then give you a result. They’ve stored links, organized them, and they show them based on a criteria they’ve decided upon.”39 As for Costeja, he expressed satisfaction with the result of his four-year legal crusade. Speaking of the court’s decision, he said, “I think this is the correct move. You have to provide a path for communication between the user and the search engine. Now that communication can take place.

Google’s Application of the Ruling

For its part, Google—although disappointed with the ruling—set about complying with it. Soon after the court decision, it removed Costeja’s disputed information from its search results. But, the company also took mre general action.

The Court’s decision recognized Google as a data controller, or the operator of the search engine and the party responsible for its data. As such, the court said, Google was required to police its links and put into place a mechanism to address individual concerns. Accordingly, shortly after the ruling was announced, Google set up an online form for users (from the European Union only) to request the right to be forgotten. The company website stated that each request would be evaluated individually and that Google would attempt to “balance the privacy rights of the individual with the public’s interest to know and the right to distribute information.”41 Once an individual had filled out the form, he or she received a confirmation. Each request was assessed on a case-by-case basis. Occasionally, Google would ask for more information from the individual. Once Google had made its decision, it notified the individual by e-mail, providing a brief explanation if the decision was against removal. If so, the individual could request that a local data protection authority review Google’s decision.

In evaluating a request, Google looked at whether the results included outdated or inaccurate information about the individual. It also weighed whether or not the information was of public interest. For example, Google generally retained the information if it related to financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or a government official’s public conduct.42

At the same time, Google invited eight independent experts to form an advisory council expressly to “advise it on performing the balancing act between an individual’s right to privacy and the public’s interest in access to information.”43 The committee included three professors (two of law and one of ethics), a newspaper editorial director, a former government page 488official, and three privacy and freedom of speech experts (including one from the United Nations). Google’s CEO and chief legal officer served as conveners. The committee’s job was to provide recommendations to Google on how to best implement the EU court’s ruling.

The majority recommendation of the advisory council, published on February 6, 2015, was that the right to be forgotten ruling should apply only within the 28 countries in the European Union.44 As a practical matter, this meant that Google was only required to apply removals to European domains, such as Google.fr or Google.co.uk, but not Google.com, even when accessed in Europe. Although over 95 percent of all queries originating in Europe used European domains, users could still access information that had been removed via the Google.com site.

The report also explained that once the information was removed, it was still available at the source site (e.g., the newspaper article about Costeja in La Vanguardia). Removal meant merely that its accessibility to the general public was reduced because searches for that information would not return a link to the source site. A person could still find the information, since only the link to the information had been removed, not the information itself.

The advisory council also recommended a set of criteria Google should use in assessing requests by individuals to “delist” their information (that is, to remove certain links in search results based on queries for that individual’s name). How should the operator of the search engine best balance the privacy and data protection rights of the subject with the interest of the general public in having access to the information? The authors of the report felt that whether the data subject experienced harm from such accessibility to the information was relevant to this balancing test. Following this reasoning, they identified four primary criteria for evaluating delisting requests:

  • First, what was the data subject’s role in public life? Did the individuals have a clear role in public life (CEOs, politicians, sports stars)? If so, this would weigh against delisting.
  • Second, what type of information was involved? Information that would normally be considered private (such as financial information, details of a person’s sex life, or identification numbers) would weigh toward delisting. Information that would normally be considered to be in the public interest (such as data relevant to political discourse, citizen engagement, or governance) would normally weigh against delisting.
  • Third, what was the source of the information? Here, the report suggested that journalistic writing or government publications would normally not be delisted.
  • Finally, the report considered the effect of time, given that as circumstances change, the relevance of information might fade. Thus, the passage of time might favor delisting.

The advisory council also considered procedures and recommended that Google adopt an easily accessible and easy-to-understand form for data subjects to use in submitting their requests.

The recommendations of the advisory council were not unanimous. Jimmy Wales, the cofounder of Wikipedia and one of the eight group members, appended a dissenting comment to the report. “I completely oppose the legal situation in which a commercial company is forced to become the judge of our most fundamental rights of expression and privacy, without allowing any appropriate procedure for appeal by publishers whose work in being suppressed,” Mr. Wales wrote. “The recommendations to Google contained in this report are deeply flawed due to the law itself being deeply flawed.

Strayer University Difficult Conversations Discussion

Description

Please respond to the two discussion responses below using in-text citation and using a reference list. Keep each response separate. I have included the initial discussion question for you. Please be in-depth with the responses.

Initial Discussion Question

Difficult Conversations

Scenario: The performance of your top employee has recently slipped. You had a conversation with the employee to address it. The employee improved for a period of time, but slipped again. Now, your boss has noticed, which questions your leadership. You do not want to terminate this employee because you know the value of this person and their work, and you trust and respect this employee. However, you are starting to look bad.

It is time to take action, so you schedule a meeting with the employee.

Part One: Considering the course materials for this week, discuss your strategy for the meeting, including:

  • What you will do to make your point clear and candid during the conversation.
  • How you will remove your own personal emotion from the conversation while still maintaining empathy and trust with the employee.
  • What techniques you will employ to build effective working relationships, and why you would choose these techniques.
  • Part Two: Write a brief dialogue recording the conversation between you and this employee that demonstrates your use of the strategies outlined above. Include at least 4 interchanges between you and them.

    Response 1

    Mika Beckley

    Part One:

    Pulling a subordinate aside can sometimes be an intimidating task for some, especially if he/she is one of your top performers. Those motivated self-starters of your team need minimal supervision. I believe it has to be remembered though, that they are human and no one can run at 110% all day, every day. If it is not common to see this individual, it’s important to get them into a comfortable, private setting. Establish rapport and be clear and concise about why you are having a one-on-one with them. Woods stated, “The individual tends to ramble, unable to focus on the main point of the conversation.” (1). It is vital to get to the point and ensure it is clearly understood by the receiving party. Allow them to ask questions or repeat in their own words what was just conveyed to them. Once they are aware of their performance, empathy should be injected deeper into this conversation. This is because if it is not normal behavior, it is possible there may be something occurring in their personal life that is affecting them.

    I’ve had situations where my top performers had fallen below standard and because I had built a trusting relationship with them, they were comfortable opening up to me as to why their work quality was suffering. One specific example was one of my Airmen who was an award winner, top performer, live and bubbly individual who started showing up to work late, not being present at work meetings, looking exhausted, and just not himself. After pulling him to the side in a private setting, he divulged his wife was in the process of divorcing him and the result was his sleepless nights and now stressful life of a broken household with two small children. I always say, be kind because you never know what someone is going through or what inside battles they are fighting. The majority of the time, they just need to be heard. Week 2 Lecture Notes stated, “Properly listening to someone requires more than the mere acknowledgment and it takes practice. You should absorb what they say, while gleaning new information and finding ways to relate to them.” (2) While it is important to relate to them, removing your emotions from the situation is important so that any advice given is given from a subjective standpoint instead of an emotional one. While I agree, that being able to relate in some form or manner can humanize the experience and cause your subordinate to gain deeper trust in you, the point of the conversation is to not only guide them back to the right path but most importantly receive the help they need to do so.

    Techniques that I will employ to build effective relationships are to listen more and talk less. Ross stated, “Presence can be somewhat passive, but empathy requires you to actively listen and hear what is going on for someone else.” I’ve learned that true leadership involves listening and truly knowing your people. It will be easier to tell when they have off days and can get ahead of situations like the example I stated earlier. It’s easier to lead when you can look at a person and know that they aren’t themselves and sometimes it’s a simple venting session that can steer them back on the right track. Being in the military is a 24/7 job, so it is important my subordinate’s quality of life is taken into account. A person cannot be fully present at work to complete their mission if their mind is stressed elsewhere. Johnson stated, “Show that you are an approachable and pleasant person to interact with by smiling honestly and with your whole face, not just your mouth.” (4)

    Part Two:

    Me: Hey John, how are you doing today? (Uses inviting warm (not creepy) smile). How has your family been doing? How’s work today? I’d like to talk to you for a bit if you wouldn’t mind following me to my office.

    John/Employee: Hey boss. I’m okay today. I found out my grandma is sick and has been battling it for a while now. There is a possibility to fly home before things get really bad or to say my last goodbyes. I feel like I haven’t been able to focus at work because of it. I’m really close to her and I’ve been losing sleep and my appetite.

    Me: John, I’m really sorry to hear about your grandmother. I pulled you aside because it’s been noticed that the quality of your work has been suffering lately. I had talked to you about it previously and you were doing okay for a little and then reverted back. You are usually a top performer so I can see why you are struggling. I can understand that losing a family member can be devastating and I will ensure that you get the time off you need to get through this. There is no point in being here if you aren’t present and your mental health is the I’d like to let you know that I am here for you if you need to talk and I ask that you, please come to me if you experiencing a life stressor that will not only cause your work to suffer but also that is affecting your mental health. We have resources that can assist you. Is there anything else going on that I need to be aware of to better help you? What are your plans to get home?

    John: Thank you for being supportive. I plan on getting with my family to find the best time to fly out and I will let you know the details. I have nothing else significantly affecting my life but my grandmother’s deteriorating health has been weighing on me so it’s nice to be seen and heard. I will ensure to keep you in the loop of anything in the future. Thank you for being there.

    Response 2

    Catherine McGuire

    This week‘s discussion prompt and related hypothetical scenario affords us multiple opportunities for expressing our acquired knowledge of leadership, interpersonal relations, the value of empathy, and applying constructive, motivating pressure. We are also challenged to demonstrate the specifics of this week’s lessons by incorporating them into our responses. In my opinion, this is no small task, but as JWMI students, we should be ready.

    Empathy is a vital component of leadership, so much so that to be without it diminishes one’s ability to properly function as the decision-making motivator of an organizational body or team. Serving as the elemental fabric which connects both personal and professional relationships, empathy and social skills are social intelligence, which comprises the interpersonal portion of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1). Placing this in motion, manifesting empathy looks like listening more and talking less, the intentional practice of mindfulness and focus upon others, and active curiosity (Ross, 2). Empathy can be learned and perfected over time, increasing one’s leadership skills.

    Jack Welch’s 4th Rule for Leadership guides us to establish trusting relationships with others by being candid, transparent, keeping promises, and giving full credit to others for their accomplishments (Welch, 3). Trusting, candid relationships serve as a platform for spring boarding action towards a mission. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, testifies that empathy has allowed him to build a culture of trust which supersedes the politics and fears which run rampant within a business environment and ushers in speed, which delivers results (JWI505, 4). These strategies directly relate to the manner in which we successfully conduct integral interpersonal discussions, most importantly, difficult conversations.

    Our discussion prompt asks us to discuss our strategy for a meeting with a valuable employee who has exhibited a patterned instability and decline in their performance at work. In a conversation to address their behavior, we must address the following points:

  • What we will do to make a clear and candid point during the conversation
  • How we will remove personal emotion while still maintaining empathy and trust
  • What techniques we should employ to build effective working relationships and why
  • I’ve previously addressed the value of candor in forging trusting relationships, the likes of which every leader should endeavor to build. Empathy greases the works into a team member or employee’s favor, paving the way for taking the edge off of tense discussions. If a leader has competently established a healthy relationship with the team member in question using these foundational elements, then subtracting personal emotion from a conversation will not feel like a cold, robotic encounter from the employee’s perspective. Regarding the hypothetical scenario, the leader should:

  • Incorporate polite candor into the discussion in the same manner as they have built a rapport with the employee
  • Make clear points within the discussion by avoiding extensive trivial chatter and emphasizing the two or three main takeaways from the encounter
  • Kindly explain why you’ve called for a meeting and briefly explain the predicament in which your employee’s behavior places you
  • Avoid personal, emotive words besides that of “I empathize” and “I care” and focus on action words that reinforce redirected behaviors, all while maintaining soft eye contact
  • Spend no more than 50% of your time within the meeting disciplining your employee and listen to their feedback
  • Avoid insulting words or gestures and refrain from enforcing belittling reprimands and disciplinary actions
  • Be sure not to ramble on, engage in a “deer in the headlights” staring contest, and ask the right questions, such as “Do you think there’s a connection between your demanding schedule and your inability to complete projects at the workplace?” (Woods, 5)
  • Incorporate the leadership techniques outlined within Jack Welch’s 8 Rules for Leadership (3)
  • A brief dialogue recording the conversation between myself, the leader, and my employee who has exhibited patterned instability and a decline in their work performance

    Me: Hi, Jim. I wanted to take a few minutes of your time to reflect upon and redirect your priorities here at ACME Inc. It’s been a while since we’ve had a candid, informal review, and there are a few issues at hand which compel me to sit down with you.

    Jim: Hi, Catherine. Ok. Are we going to talk now?

    Me: Now’s a good time as any. I certainly don’t want the dam to break with accumulation; I know I’m being somewhat nebulous, but first, I wanted to ask how you’re doing.

    Jim: Great.

    Me: Well, great.

    Jim: ……

    Me: *chuckling* Look, I don’t want to have a deer-in-the-headlights conversation with you. I don’t want to talk at you, I want to talk to you. I have you on my team because I’ve seen what you can do, and, frankly, I’ve never seen anyone add the flair and personality to their work the way you do. My bosses, however, don’t see it that way. They afford me the autonomy to occupy a position on my team with anyone I choose, as long as that employee remains productive according to their standards. So really, now, it’s just you and me chatting. Tell me, what’s going on at home?

    Jim: My son is growing up too soon! He’s in the third grade already and keeps me busy as his chauffeur to karate and basketball practice. Sandy has her hands full with the baby and claims to want to lose the baby weight, but she’s breastfeeding, so she says she’s not hungry during the day but always sends me out for a late-night sandwich or Chinese food because she’s hungry but doesn’t want to pay $15 extra for DoorDash. And I’m really trying to keep my MBA on track, so instead of painting the garage on my days off, I’m glued to the computer; I’d really rather be going to the gym for a quality workout instead of doing either of those things, but somehow, at the end of the day, I’m content. I guess this is where my ADD comes in handy because I’m doing a little bit of everything on the daily.

    Me: I would agree, except that I need to be sure that the quality of your work doesn’t suffer from it. Did you know that people with ADD tend to be more creative and humorous?

    Jim: Really?

    Me: Yes, really. And a plethora of other endearing things. Let me tell you what I need from you; I need you to log the inventory after every shift without error.

    Jim: That’s always been my duty, and I’m sorry if I haven’t been diligent in doing it every day.

    Me: So you see what I’m referring to? That’s a relief; it saves me from having to retrain you to do your job. I get the feeling that you know most of what I need to say to you about your recent job performance, because I know that you know how to do your job. Jim, can I ask you a question?

    Jim: Uh, yeah. Yes.

    Me: Do you think that your full plate, so to speak, is preventing you from doing your job to your best ability? Do you think you’re spread too thin? I ask this because I want you to help me reach a mutually beneficial solution.

    Jim: Well, in all honesty, I am spread thin, but the baby is sleeping through the night now, and I’ve decided to take the next semester off so that life won’t be as intense for a while.

    Me: Great. Here’s what I’m thinking, I can either write down a list of necessary processes which you’ll complete by the end of every shift and text me when they’re done – I’ll handle the accountability texts with discretion, because I’m not aiming to micromanage you in front of other team members – or you can consider reducing your workload to 30 hours per week. I’ll hire a part-time entry-level employee or two and pay them roughly half of your hourly wage. I want you to take some time to consider these options, and I want you to feel that you have a say in how things are changing at ACME Inc. I want you to sleep on it, so I’ll be checking in with you tomorrow morning so that you can voice your decision. Does that sound fair?

    Jim: I think so. I definitely have a lot of thinking to do.

    Me: Yes, think about it, and if you have any questions in the morning, we’ll discuss those details. For now, I want to go home with the task of steering your role within this company in the right direction. There’s nothing else that I need to know for now. Is there anything you’d like to add?

    Jim: No, Catherine, I’m good.

    Me: Great. Say “hi” to Sandy and the kids for me. Goodnight.

    AMU Online Sales During Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sale Excel Project

    Description

    In this project, you will work with sales data from Top’t Corn, a popcorn company with an online store, multiple food trucks, and two retail stores. You will begin by copying the sales data for one of the retail stores from another workbook. Next, you will insert a new worksheet and enter sales data for the four food truck locations, formatting the data, and calculating totals. You will create a pie chart ton this project, you will work with sales data from Top’t Corn, a popcorn company with an online store, multiple food trucks, and two retail stores. You will begin by copying the sales data for one of the retail stores from another workbook. Next, you will insert a new worksheet and enter sales data for the four food truck locations, formatting the data, and calculating totals. You will create a pie chart to represent the total units sold by location and a column chart to represent sales by popcorn type. You will format the charts, and then set up the worksheet for printing. Next, you help Top’t Corn calculate payments for a loan and decide whether or not the purchase is a good idea. Working with the daily sales data for one of the brick-and-mortar stores, you will apply conditional formatting to find the top 10 sales dates. Y ou will also calculate the sales for each date, and the average, minimum, and maximum sales. You will use Goal Seek to find the appropriate price to reach a higher daily average sales goal. You will use VLOOKUP to look up sales data for a specific date. Finally, you will work with their online sales data to format it as an Excel table and apply sorting and filtering. You will create a PivotTable and a PivotChart from a copy of the online sales data to summarize the sales.

    Skills needed to complete this project: 

    Open a workbook

    Copy a worksheet to another workbook

    • Close a workbook
    • Insert a worksheet
    • Name a worksheet
    • Move a worksheet
    • Enter text
    • Enter numbers
    • Edit text
    • Autofit a column
    • Apply a cell style
    • Add cell shading
    • Change font color
    • Merge and center text across cells
    • Apply bold formatting
    • Apply number formatting
    • Enter a SUM function
    • Copy formula using AutoFill
    • Insert a pie chart
    • Apply a chart Quick Layout
    • Move a chart
    • Insert a column chart
    • Switch the row/column in a column chart
    • Change the chart title
    • Apply a chart Quick Style
    • Show chart data labels
    • Preview how a worksheet will look when printed
    • Change worksheet orientation
    • Change the print margins
    • Scale a worksheet for printing
    • Change the color of a worksheet tab
    • Apply a column width
    • Calculate a loan payment with PMT
    • Enter a simple formula using multiplication
    • Enter a simple formula using subtraction
    • Add cell borders
    • Create a formula referencing cells in another worksheet
    • Enter an AVERAGE function
    • Use the IF function
    • Hide a worksheet
    • Apply date formats
    • Apply Top Ten conditional formatting
    • Use an absolute reference in a formula
    • Name a range of cells
    • Use a named range in a formula
    • Use the MIN function in a formula
    • Use the MAX function in a formula
    • Wrap text
    • Analyze data with Goal Seek
    • Use the VLOOKUP function in a formula
    • Convert data into a table
    • Apply a table Quick Style
    • Use the table Total row
    • Sort data in a table
    • Filter data in a table
    • Create a PivotTable
    • Create a PivotChart
    • Unhide a worksheet
    • Important: Download the resource files needed for this project from the Resources link. If the files download in a zipped folder, make sure to extract the files after downloading the resources zipped folder. Visit the SIMnet instant help for step-by-step instruction.
    • Open the start file EX2019-Capstone-Level3.
      Note: If the workbook opens in Protected View, click the Enable Editing button in the Message Bar at the top of the worksheet so you can modify it

    The file will be renamed automatically to include your name. Change the project file name if directed to do so by your instructor, and save it 

    Copy the OldTownStore worksheet from the OldTownSales workbook (downloaded from the Resources link) to the capstone project. 

    Open the Excel file OldTownSales

    Copy the worksheet OldTownStore. In the Move or Copy dialog, be sure to check the Create a copy check box and select your capstone project Excel file from the To book drop-down list. Make the correct selection to ensure the copied worksheet will appear at the end after the TysonsStore2018 worksheet in your capstone workbook.

    1. Close the OldTownSales workbook when you have successfully copied the OldTownStore worksheet to the capstone workbook.

    Before continuing, verify that you are working in the capstone project that you downloaded and not the OldTownSalesworkbook that you downloaded from the Resources link. 

    Insert a new worksheet and rename it: MobileSales

    If necessary, move the MobileSales worksheet so it appears first in the workbook.

    1. In the MobileSales worksheet, enter the text and sales data as shown in the table below. Check your work carefully. 

    A

    B

    1. C

    D

    1. E

    1

    Top’t Corn Mobile Sales (July)

    2

    1. Truck Location

    3

    Farragut Square

    GW

    1. Georgetown

    K Street

    4

    Old Bay

    1. 2500

    800

    600

    900

    1. 5

    Truffle

    3200

    600

    1. 1200

    1500

    6

    1. Sea Salt and Caramel

    4200

    1500

    1400

    1200

    Still working with the MobileSales worksheet, format the data as follows: 

    Apply the Title cell style to cell A1.

    Apply the Purple fill color to cell A1. Use the first color at the right in the row of Standard colors.

    Apply the White, Background 1 font color to cell A1. Use the first color at the left in the first row of Theme colors.

    Merge and center the worksheet title across cells A1:E1. 

    Apply the Heading 2 cell style to cell B2.

    Merge and center cells B2:E2. 

    Bold cells B3:E3.

    Apply the Accounting Number Format with 0 digits after the decimal to cells B4:E6.

    AutoFit columns A:E.

    In the MobileSales worksheet, calculate total sales for each of the truck locations. 

    Enter the word Total in cell A7. 

    Enter a SUM function in cell B7 to calculate the total of cells B4:B6. 

    Use AutoFill to copy the formula to cells C7:E7.

    Apply the Total cell style to cells A7:E7.

    In the MobileSales worksheet, insert a pie chart (2-D Pie) to show the Old Bay sales for the month by location. Each piece of the pie should represent the Old Bay sales for a single location.
    Note: You must complete this step correctly in order to receive points for completing the next step. Check your work carefully.

    Working with the pie chart you just created, modify the pie chart as follows: 

    Apply the Layout 6 Quick Layout. 

    Move the chart so it appears below the sales data.

    In the MobileSales worksheet insert a clustered column chart (2-D Column) to show the sales for each type of popcorn for each location. Do not include the totals.
    Note: You must complete this step correctly in order to receive points for completing the next step. Check your work carefully.

    Working with the column chart you just created, modify the column chart as follows:

    If necessary, modify the chart so each location is represented by a data series and the popcorn types are listed along the x axis. 

    Change the chart title to: July Sales by Popcorn Type

    Apply the Style 5 chart Quick Style.

    Display the chart data labels using the Outside End option. 

    If necessary, move the chart so it is next to the pie chart and the top of the charts are aligned. 

    Preview how the MobileSales worksheet will look when printed, and then apply print settings to print the worksheet on a single page. Hint: If you have one of the charts selected, deselect it before previewing the worksheet. Preview the worksheet again when you are finished to check your work. 

    Change the orientation so the page is wider than it is tall. 

    Change the margins to the preset narrow option.

    Change the printing scale so all columns will print on a single page. 

    Top’t Corn is considering a new truck purchase. Calculate the monthly loan payments and total cost
    of the loan. 

    Insert a new worksheet between the MobileSales sheet and the OnlineSales sheets.

    Name the new worksheet: TruckLoan

    Change the color of the TruckLoan worksheet tab to Orange. Use the third color from the left in the row of Standard colors. 

    Enter the loan terms in the TruckLoan worksheet as shown below. 

    A

    B

    1

    Price

    55000

    2

    Interest (annual)

    3%

    3

    Loan term (in months)

    24

    4

    Monthly payment

    AutoFit column A.

    Set the width of column B to 16.

    Apply the Currency number format to cell B1. Display two digits after the decimal.

    Enter a formula using the PMT function in cell B4. Be sure to use a negative value for the
    Pv argument.

    In cell A6, type: Total payments

    In cell B6, enter a formula to calculate the total paid over the life of the loan (the monthly payment amount * the number of payments). Use cell references. 

    In cell A7, type: Interest paid

    In cell B7, enter a formula to calculate the total interest paid over the life of the loan (the total payments – the original price of the truck). Use cell references. 

    Apply borders using the Thick Outside Borders option around cells A6:B7.

    In cell A9, type: Average sales

    In cell B9, enter a formula to calculate the average sales per month for the truck locations. Hint: Use cells B7:E7 from the MobileSales worksheet as the function argument.

    Apply the Currency number format to cell B9. Display two digits after the decimal.

    In cell A10, type: Buy new truck?

    In cell B10, enter a formula using the IF function to display Yes if the monthly payment for the truck loan is less than the average sales per month for the current trucks. Display
    No if it is not. 

    This workbook includes two worksheets for data from the Tysons store. You should only be working with the latest data from 2019. 

    Hide the TysonsStore2018 worksheet.

    Complete the following steps in the TysonsStore2019 worksheet:

    Select cells A2:A32, and apply the Short Date date format.

    Find the top ten sales items for the month. Select cells B2:D32 and use conditional formatting to apply a green fill with dark green text to the top 10 values.

    In cell F2, enter a formula to calculate the daily total in dollars. Multiply the value in the Daily Total (# Sold) column by the current price per box in cell K1. Use an absolute reference where appropriate and copy the formula to cells F3:F32.

    In cell G2, enter a formula using the IF function to determine whether the daily sales goal in cell K2 was met. Display yes if the value in the Daily Total ($) column is greater than or equal to the daily sales goal. Display no if it is not. Use an absolute reference where appropriate and copy the formula to cells G3:G32.

    Create a named range DailyTotals for cells F2:F32. 

    In cell K3, enter a formula using the named range DailyTotals to calculate the average daily
    sales in dollars. 

    In cell K4, enter a formula using the named range DailyTotals to find the lowest daily sales
    in dollars.

    In cell K5, enter a formula using the named range DailyTotals to find the highest daily sales
    in dollars.

    Wrap the text in cell J7. 

    Use Goal Seek to find the new price per box (cell K8) to reach a new daily average sales goal of $3,000 in cell K7. Accept the solution found by Goal Seek. 

    Modify cell K8 to show two places after the decimal. 

    Create a named range SalesData for cells A2:G32. 

    In cell K10, enter 8/19/2019 as the lookup date.

    In cell K11, enter a formula using VLOOKUP to display whether or not the sales goal was met for the date listed in cell K10. Use the named range SalesData for the Table_array argument. The formula should return the value in the Sales Goal Met?column (column 7 in the data array) only when there is an exact match.

    Make a copy of the OnlineSales worksheet and name it PivotData. The PivotData worksheet should be the last worksheet in the workbook.

    Go to the OnlineSales worksheet and format the sales data as a table using the table style
    Aqua, Table Style Light 9.

    Continue working with the table on the OnlineSales worksheet and display the table Total row. 

    Display the total for the Quantity column.

    Remove the count from the State column.

    Continue working with the table on the OnlineSales worksheet and sort the data alphabetically by values in the Item column.

    Continue working with the table on the OnlineSales worksheet and filter the table to show only rows where the value in the Statecolumn is MD.

    Create a PivotTable using the data in cells A3:D120 from the data in the PivotData worksheet. The PivotTable should appear on its own worksheet. Use values from the Item column as the rows and the sum of values in the Quantity column as the values.

    Name the PivotTable worksheet: PivotTable It should be located to the left of the PivotData worksheet.

    Insert a PivotChart on the PivotTable worksheet. Use a pie chart to represent the total quantity
    for each item. If necessary, move the PivotChart to the right of the PivotTable so it does not cover the data.

    This workbook includes a hidden worksheet with online sales data from the 2018 buy one get one free sale. 

    Unhide the BOGOSale2018 worksheet.

    Save and close the workbook.

    Upload and save your project file.

    Submit project for grading.

    represent the total units sold by location and a column chart to represent sales by popcorn type. You will format the charts, and then set up the worksheet for printing. Next, you help Top’t Corn calculate payments for a loan and decide whether or not the purchase is a good idea. Working with the daily sales data for one of the brick-and-mortar stores, you will apply conditional formatting to find the top 10 sales dates. Y ou will also calculate the sales for each date, and the average, minimum, and maximum sales. You will use Goal Seek to find the appropriate price to reach a higher daily average sales goal. You will use VLOOKUP to look up sales data for a specific date. Finally, you will work with their online sales data to format it as an Excel table and apply sorting and filtering. You will create a PivotTable and a PivotChart from a copy of the online sales data to summarize the sales.

    Skills needed to complete this project: 

    Open a workbook

    Copy a worksheet to another workbook

    Close a workbook

    Insert a worksheet

    Name a worksheet

    Move a worksheet

    Enter text

    Enter numbers

    1. Edit text

    Autofit a column

    Apply a cell style

    1. Add cell shading

    Change font color

    Merge and center text across cells

    1. Apply bold formatting

    Apply number formatting

    Enter a SUM function

    1. Copy formula using AutoFill

    Insert a pie chart

    Apply a chart Quick Layout

    1. Move a chart

    Insert a column chart

    Switch the row/column in a column chart

    1. Change the chart title

    Apply a chart Quick Style

    Show chart data labels

    1. Preview how a worksheet will look when printed

    Change worksheet orientation

    Change the print margins

    1. Scale a worksheet for printing

    Change the color of a worksheet tab

    Apply a column width

    1. Calculate a loan payment with PMT

    Enter a simple formula using multiplication

    Enter a simple formula using subtraction

    1. Add cell borders

    Create a formula referencing cells in another worksheet

    Enter an AVERAGE function

    1. Use the IF function

    Hide a worksheet

    Apply date formats

    1. Apply Top Ten conditional formatting

    Use an absolute reference in a formula

    Name a range of cells

    Use a named range in a formula

    1. Use the MIN function in a formula

    Use the MAX function in a formula

    Wrap text

    1. Analyze data with Goal Seek

    Use the VLOOKUP function in a formula

    Convert data into a table

    1. Apply a table Quick Style

    Use the table Total row

    Sort data in a table

    1. Filter data in a table

    Create a PivotTable

    Create a PivotChart

    Unhide a worksheet

    Important: Download the resource files needed for this project from the Resources link. If the files download in a zipped folder, make sure to extract the files after downloading the resources zipped folder. Visit the SIMnet instant help for step-by-step instruction.

    Open the start file EX2019-Capstone-Level3.
    Note: If the workbook opens in Protected View, click the Enable Editing button in the Message Bar at the top of the worksheet so you can modify it

    1. The file will be renamed automatically to include your name. Change the project file name if directed to do so by your instructor, and save it 

    Copy the OldTownStore worksheet from the OldTownSales workbook (downloaded from the Resources link) to the capstone project. 

    1. Open the Excel file OldTownSales

    Copy the worksheet OldTownStore. In the Move or Copy dialog, be sure to check the Create a copy check box and select your capstone project Excel file from the To book drop-down list. Make the correct selection to ensure the copied worksheet will appear at the end after the TysonsStore2018 worksheet in your capstone workbook.

    Close the OldTownSales workbook when you have successfully copied the OldTownStore worksheet to the capstone workbook.

    1. Before continuing, verify that you are working in the capstone project that you downloaded and not the OldTownSalesworkbook that you downloaded from the Resources link. 

    Insert a new worksheet and rename it: MobileSales

    If necessary, move the MobileSales worksheet so it appears first in the workbook.

    1. In the MobileSales worksheet, enter the text and sales data as shown in the table below. Check your work carefully. 

    A

    B

    C

    D

    1. E

    1

    1. Top’t Corn Mobile Sales (July)

    2

    Truck Location

    1. 3

    Farragut Square

    GW

    Georgetown

    1. K Street

    4

    Old Bay

    1. 2500

    800

    600

    1. 900

    5

    Truffle

    1. 3200

    600

    1200

    1500

    1. 6

    Sea Salt and Caramel

    4200

    1. 1500

    1400

    1200

    1. Still working with the MobileSales worksheet, format the data as follows: 

    Apply the Title cell style to cell A1.

    Apply the Purple fill color to cell A1. Use the first color at the right in the row of Standard colors.

    1. Apply the White, Background 1 font color to cell A1. Use the first color at the left in the first row of Theme colors.

    Merge and center the worksheet title across cells A1:E1. 

    Apply the Heading 2 cell style to cell B2.

    1. Merge and center cells B2:E2. 

    Bold cells B3:E3.

    Apply the Accounting Number Format with 0 digits after the decimal to cells B4:E6.

    AutoFit columns A:E.

    In the MobileSales worksheet, calculate total sales for each of the truck locations. 

    1. Enter the word Total in cell A7. 

    Enter a SUM function in cell B7 to calculate the total of cells B4:B6. 

    Use AutoFill to copy the formula to cells C7:E7.

    Apply the Total cell style to cells A7:E7.

    1. In the MobileSales worksheet, insert a pie chart (2-D Pie) to show the Old Bay sales for the month by location. Each piece of the pie should represent the Old Bay sales for a single location.
      Note: You must complete this step correctly in order to receive points for completing the next step. Check your work carefully.

    Working with the pie chart you just created, modify the pie chart as follows: 

    Apply the Layout 6 Quick Layout. 

    Move the chart so it appears below the sales data.

    1. In the MobileSales worksheet insert a clustered column chart (2-D Column) to show the sales for each type of popcorn for each location. Do not include the totals.
      Note: You must complete this step correctly in order to receive points for completing the next step. Check your work carefully.

    Working with the column chart you just created, modify the column chart as follows:

    If necessary, modify the chart so each location is represented by a data series and the popcorn types are listed along the x axis. 

    Change the chart title to: July Sales by Popcorn Type

    Apply the Style 5 chart Quick Style.

    Display the chart data labels using the Outside End option. 

    If necessary, move the chart so it is next to the pie chart and the top of the charts are aligned. 

    Preview how the MobileSales worksheet will look when printed, and then apply print settings to print the worksheet on a single page. Hint: If you have one of the charts selected, deselect it before previewing the worksheet. Preview the worksheet again when you are finished to check your work. 

    Change the orientation so the page is wider than it is tall. 

    Change the margins to the preset narrow option.

    Change the printing scale so all columns will print on a single page. 

    Top’t Corn is considering a new truck purchase. Calculate the monthly loan payments and total cost
    of the loan. 

    Insert a new worksheet between the MobileSales sheet and the OnlineSales sheets.

    Name the new worksheet: TruckLoan

    Change the color of the TruckLoan worksheet tab to Orange. Use the third color from the left in the row of Standard colors. 

    Enter the loan terms in the TruckLoan worksheet as shown below. 

    A

    B

    1

    Price

    55000

    2

    Interest (annual)

    3%

    3

    Loan term (in months)

    24

    4

    Monthly payment

    AutoFit column A.

    Set the width of column B to 16.

    Apply the Currency number format to cell B1. Display two digits after the decimal.

    Enter a formula using the PMT function in cell B4. Be sure to use a negative value for the
    Pv argument.

    In cell A6, type: Total payments

    In cell B6, enter a formula to calculate the total paid over the life of the loan (the monthly payment amount * the number of payments). Use cell references. 

    In cell A7, type: Interest paid

    In cell B7, enter a formula to calculate the total interest paid over the life of the loan (the total payments – the original price of the truck). Use cell references. 

    Apply borders using the Thick Outside Borders option around cells A6:B7.

    In cell A9, type: Average sales

    In cell B9, enter a formula to calculate the average sales per month for the truck locations. Hint: Use cells B7:E7 from the MobileSales worksheet as the function argument.

    Apply the Currency number format to cell B9. Display two digits after the decimal.

    In cell A10, type: Buy new truck?

    In cell B10, enter a formula using the IF function to display Yes if the monthly payment for the truck loan is less than the average sales per month for the current trucks. Display
    No if it is not. 

    This workbook includes two worksheets for data from the Tysons store. You should only be working with the latest data from 2019. 

    Hide the TysonsStore2018 worksheet.

    Complete the following steps in the TysonsStore2019 worksheet:

    Select cells A2:A32, and apply the Short Date date format.

    1. Find the top ten sales items for the month. Select cells B2:D32 and use conditional formatting to apply a green fill with dark green text to the top 10 values.

    In cell F2, enter a formula to calculate the daily total in dollars. Multiply the value in the Daily Total (# Sold) column by the current price per box in cell K1. Use an absolute reference where appropriate and copy the formula to cells F3:F32.

    In cell G2, enter a formula using the IF function to determine whether the daily sales goal in cell K2 was met. Display yes if the value in the Daily Total ($) column is greater than or equal to the daily sales goal. Display no if it is not. Use an absolute reference where appropriate and copy the formula to cells G3:G32.

    1. Create a named range DailyTotals for cells F2:F32. 

    In cell K3, enter a formula using the named range DailyTotals to calculate the average daily
    sales in dollars. 

    In cell K4, enter a formula using the named range DailyTotals to find the lowest daily sales
    in dollars.

    1. In cell K5, enter a formula using the named range DailyTotals to find the highest daily sales
      in dollars.

    Wrap the text in cell J7. 

    Use Goal Seek to find the new price per box (cell K8) to reach a new daily average sales goal of $3,000 in cell K7. Accept the solution found by Goal Seek. 

    1. Modify cell K8 to show two places after the decimal. 

    Create a named range SalesData for cells A2:G32. 

    In cell K10, enter 8/19/2019 as the lookup date.

    In cell K11, enter a formula using VLOOKUP to display whether or not the sales goal was met for the date listed in cell K10. Use the named range SalesData for the Table_array argument. The formula should return the value in the Sales Goal Met?column (column 7 in the data array) only when there is an exact match.

    Make a copy of the OnlineSales worksheet and name it PivotData. The PivotData worksheet should be the last worksheet in the workbook.

    1. Go to the OnlineSales worksheet and format the sales data as a table using the table style
      Aqua, Table Style Light 9.

    Continue working with the table on the OnlineSales worksheet and display the table Total row. 

    Display the total for the Quantity column.

    Remove the count from the State column.

    1. Continue working with the table on the OnlineSales worksheet and sort the data alphabetically by values in the Item column.

    Continue working with the table on the OnlineSales worksheet and filter the table to show only rows where the value in the Statecolumn is MD.

    Create a PivotTable using the data in cells A3:D120 from the data in the PivotData worksheet. The PivotTable should appear on its own worksheet. Use values from the Item column as the rows and the sum of values in the Quantity column as the values.

    1. Name the PivotTable worksheet: PivotTable It should be located to the left of the PivotData worksheet.

    Insert a PivotChart on the PivotTable worksheet. Use a pie chart to represent the total quantity
    for each item. If necessary, move the PivotChart to the right of the PivotTable so it does not cover the data.

    This workbook includes a hidden worksheet with online sales data from the 2018 buy one get one free sale. 

    Unhide the BOGOSale2018 worksheet.

    1. Save and close the workbook.

    Norfolk State University COVID 19 Vaccines Discussions Replies

    Description

    Discussion #1-

    As the United States and other wealthy nations paid drug companies for stockpiles of COVID-19 vaccines lower income countries, who were fighting the same pandemic, were left in an anxious state. In 2020 Moderna announced that they would not enforce its intellectual property during the COVID-19 pandemic.   According to Kubasek (2020), “The laws of intellectual property protect property that is primarily the result of mental creativity rather than physical efforts” (p. 163).  Moderna’s decision to not enforce its patents was meant to “encourage low- and middle-income countries that couldn’t afford to purchase billions of doses of the vaccine to develop their own versions of the shot using less expensive resources” (Park, 2022).  But could others outside of Moderna actually make the vaccine?  As wealthier countries vaccinated the masses and poor countries remained without vaccines for even the elderly and immunocompromised, vaccine inequity was on full display.  A response to ending vaccine inequity began in July 2021 with the creation of the World Health Organization’s Initiative for Vaccine Research.  Scientists and researchers at Afrigen, a South African biotech company, were tasked with learning the technology and generating vaccines for human trials (Park, 2022). “The idea behind the hub was to bring scientists with expertise in the mRNA vaccine-making process together to share their knowledge with colleagues in other low- and middle-income countries who might not have access to such information” (Park, 2022).  Although Moderna did not enforce its patent, it did not agree to transfer its technology for making the vaccine.  Moderna’s patents play a small role in the innovation process, the value is in the knowledge capital (Boldrin & Levine, 2021). Afrigen was tasked with reverse engineering the vaccine, starting from nothing to formulate the RNA and create the delivery system for the viral genetic material in lipid nanoparticles. “That made the process take longer and delayed having safe and effective locally produced vaccines available for countries in Africa and other parts of the world” (Park, 2022).   As Moderna was applauded for not enforcing its patents during the pandemic, corporate leadership should have elevated their assistance by providing the scientists, researchers and technology to actually help the lower income countries develop their own vaccines.

    Last month Moderna announced it will extend its patent waiver but only for lower-income countries.  There are 92 lower- and middle-income countries that will be included in this waiver while the remaining countries will be required to work with Moderna on license agreements for Moderna patented related technology (Gardner, 2022).   In higher-income countries Moderna has indicated that vaccine supply is a non-issue and “licensing its COVID-19 intellectual property is appropriate for drug makers who want to make use of its mRNA technology” (Gardner, 2022). Moderna intends for license fees to provide advancements in research and development of new vaccines (Gardner, 2022).  Moderna’s announcement has received backlash from public health officials.  Moderna originally stated that it would not enforce its patents during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The pandemic has not yet been declared over by the World Health Organization who has concerns that Moderna’s recent change could affect their vaccine research hubs in South Africa, Brazil and Argentina (Gardner, 2022).   

    Leaders in the pharmaceutical companies should be working together to help end vaccine inequity in underdeveloped countries.  As a leader, I would be providing funds and scientists to assist the established and future World Health Organizations vaccine hubs.  I would want my organization to be a global resource and put people over profits. “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (New International Version, Holy Bible, 2011, 2 Corinthian 9:7).

    References

    Boldrin, M., & Levine, D. (2021). Reforming patent law: the case of COVID-19. Cato Journal, 41(3), 773-784. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.36009/CJ.41.3.15.

    Gardner, J. (2022). Moderna extends patent waiver for COVID vaccine, but only for lower-income countries. HR Dive, http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%…

    Kubasek, N. K., Browne, M. N., Barkacs, L., Herron, D., & Dhooge, L. (2020). Biblical worldview edition of dynamic business law (2nd ed.). N. J. Kippenhan (Ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education.

    Discussion #2-

    The coronavirus pandemic brought out the best, worst and in some cases creative sides of everyone and big pharmaceutically CEOs were no exception. This era has seen pharmaceutical companies partner with governments, non-profit organizations, and even competitors for the betterment of society; we have seen creative allocating of vaccines to ensure low income countries have an opportunity to purchase vaccines; but we have also seen large profitable companies accept taxpayer dollars with huge returns (Moderna accepted $483 million in US government funding and expects to bring in $18.5 billion) and no plans to share their vaccine IP (D’Eminio, 2021; Rowland et al., 2021; Taylor & Parker, 2021). Which of these approaches’ best cares for all stakeholders or is there another option?

    If I were the CEO of one of the pharmaceutical companies faced with this incredibly challenging scenario, I would take a radical (almost) unheard-of stance . . . Before we get to the radical stance let’s consider what investors in today’s world are looking for and if/how this idea can be successful.

    Historically environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues have been secondary concerns for investors, but this view has changed, and investors now favor social impact organizations in their portfolios (Eccles & Svetlana, 2020). Eccles & Svetlana interviewed 70 executives from global investment institutions with 43 of the 70 stating “that ESG is now a priority . . . and that corporations will soon be held accountable by shareholders for their ESG performance” (Eccles & Svetlana, 2020, para. 2). Understanding the importance of ESG on an organization’s sustainability should not only be a priority for investors but also all corporate executives.

    Not only have investors said ESG is important to them, but studies prove organizations are more likely to succeed financially when taking a positive social stance. Berbegal-Mirabent et al. concludes that firms with mission statements that clearly considers the customers and product/service offerings along with stating social intentions are more likely to have greater economic performance (Berbegal-Mirabent, 2021).

    With this information it is clear I will take a giving-socially responsible approach. The bible tells us over and over the importance of caring for the poor. In the Old Testament Deuteronomy 24 and 25 tells us not to forget where we come from, reminding the Israelites they were slaves in Egypt before the Lord redeemed them and commanding them to treat the poor fairly and generously (Deuteronomy 24:18-22, NIV Life Application Study Bible, 2011). In the New Testament Paul wrote a letter to his companion Timothy providing direction for leadership. 1 Timothy 6:18 – “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share” (1 Timothy 6:18, NIV Life Application Study Bible, 2011). The NIV commentary reminds us with great riches comes great responsibility and goes on to say, “Use your money to do good. Be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share” (NIV Life Application Study Bible, 2011, p. 2039). This biblical insight encourages me that my radical stance is the right one.

    For this stance to work, I must have developed the right environment inside and outside of your organization. This environment starts with the foundation. An organizations’ missions statement forms its’ foundation. “Mission statements are a strategic tool that can provide a company with a purpose of being, a being that communicates the core of the business to internal and external stakeholders” (Berbegal-Mirabent et al., 2021, p. 705). Creating a mission statement that clearly communicates a balanced approach between profit and social intent will ensure all parties understand the organizations expectations around both areas. By including social intentions in your mission statement, you are not only telling investors what you plan to do, you are also telling them what they want to hear (you are an organization that prioritizes ESG).

    Once I have set the expectations with internal and external stakeholders and I am presented with an opportunity to make a social impact, no one will be surprised by the radical decision to lead the organization through this pandemic donating all proceeds from the Coronavirus vaccine. This decision will allow me to openly partner and share any IP related information around the vaccine with non-profits, competitors, and governments always prioritizing and ensuring the safety of production and distribution. How does this care for all stakeholders?

    Investors and shareholders – Investors and shareholders care about an organizations social impact and prioritize it when making investment decisions (Eccles & Svetlana, 2020).

    Employees – Refinitiv Perspectives published a report finding “A higher [ESG] score indicates more positive workplace sentiment and happier employees” (Refinitiv Perspectives, 2021, para. 5).

    Consumers – “83% of consumers think companies should be actively shaping ESG best practices” (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2021, para. 1).

    Does this still sound crazy? Consider that my company has brought large profits to its shareholders year after year developing and selling drugs and will continue these same profits in the future. I am choosing to not profit of this one unexpected global epidemic that was not forecasted (or budgeted) and will not change any other creations or sales. Finally, this same decision was successfully executed the during the pandemic by Wells Fargo & Co. Wells Fargo participated in the Payroll Protection Program and pledged to donate all proceeds toward helping small businesses recover from the pandemic, these proceeds ended up being over $400 million (Moise, 2020). Wells Fargo’s successful navigation of such a strong social stance, along with research proving these types of decisions can be made without financial harm to the organization, making the employee happier, and this is what investors want gives me the confidence needed to proceed with this decision.

    References

    Berbegal-Mirabent Jasmina, Mas-Machuca, M., & Guix, P. (2021). Impact of mission statement components on social enterprises’ performance. Review of Managerial Science, 15(3), 705-724. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11846-019-00355-2

    D’Eminio, F. (2021, October 11). Moderna has no plans to share its COVID-19 vaccine recipe. AP. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-techology-business-inited-nations-europe-d4aff7ddb273194b312354a57c244ce6

    Eccles, R., & Svetlana, K. (2020, November 24). Shareholders are getting serious about sustainability. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/05/the-investor-revolution

    Moise, I. (2020, July 9). Wells Fargo pledges $400 million in support of small business after PPP payout. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavi…

    PricewaterhouseCoopers. (2021). 2021 consumer intelligence series survey on ESG. PwC. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/libr…

    Refinitiv Perspectives. (2021, May 4). ESG analysis: Happier employees predict higher stock prices. Refinitiv Perspectives. https://www.refinitiv.com/perspectives/future-of-i…

    Rowland, C., Rauhala, E., & Berger, M. (2021, March 20). Drug companies defend vaccine monopolies in face of global outcry. The Washington Post. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A655745537/BIC?u=vic_liberty&sid=summon&xid=4321e4f8

    Liberty University Operations Management Discussion

    Description

    You are required to write 2 separate substantive replies to the 2 discussion threads below. Each reply must be a minimum of 300 words and include at least 4 scholarly resources.

    Acceptable sources include the textbook, the Bible, outside scholarly articles, etc.

    Substantive replies, in contrast to perfunctory replies, add value to the discussion, enhance learning, and contain references to any new concepts or ideas presented.

    The following suggestions will aid you in successfully composing substantive responses:
    – Compare/contrast the findings of others with your research.
    – Compare how the findings of others relate/add to the concepts learned in the required
    readings.
    – Share additional knowledge regarding the key topic that relates to the thread

    – All citations and references must be in current 7th edition APA format (see attached)

    DISCUSSION THREAD 1 (JD)

    Discussion Board: Balanced Scorecard

    Key Concept Explanation

    Robert Kaplan and David Norton first introduced the concept of the balanced scorecard in 1992. They conducted a year-long research project with 12 companies to develop the balanced scorecard, which gives managers a balanced presentation of both financial and operational measures of success (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). The balanced scorecard considers four perspectives on success. The perspectives are an internal business perspective, an innovation and learning perspective, a customer perspective, and a financial perspective. In my position in the military, I am not setting out to achieve financial goals. I oversee 5 other people with a specific operational function. Therefore, I chose to research the balanced scorecard in order to learn more about operational measures of success versus purely financial objectives.

    Comparison

    The balanced scorecard uses operational measures of success instead of antiquated methods that only measured financial objectives. It has been used as a tool to help organizations transform their business strategy into applicable performance measures to monitor business success (Meredith & Shafer, 2019). One of the keys to developing the balanced scorecard is creating a strategy map linking the causes and effects of strategy actions. There has been some debate over the years if those cause-and-effect relationships actually exist between the operational measures of the balanced scorecard method. In their research, Kober and Northcott (2020) established statistical evidence that cause-and-effect relationships do, in fact, exist in the balanced scorecard in the public sector.

    The balanced scorecard tool has been widely adopted across businesses, industry, government, and non-profit organizations around the world. Some organizations have applied a balanced scorecard approach and expanded it to include a corporate social responsibility aspect (Hansen & Schaltegger, 2016). The balanced scorecard specializes in translating organizational strategy into actions that can be measured with key performance indicators (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2020). The balanced scorecard uses a diversified set of indicators to reflect the strategy of the organization. Clearly defining a balanced set of objectives helps the business to meet the needs and expectations of the relevant stakeholders (Quesado et al, 2018). Some organizations have used cascading balanced scorecards to refine the organization-level scorecard for use at the team and even individual level (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2020).

    Article Summary

    Robert Kaplan and David Norton wrote the definitive work that introduced the balanced scorecard in the 1992, and later revised it in 1996, in their article “The Balanced Scorecard-Measures That Drive Performance.” Kaplan and Norton assert that simply tracking financial accounting measures can be misleading when pursuing continuous improvement and innovation. In today’s modern business environment, businesses must track operational objectives as well in order to maintain a competitive edge in the market. Instead of just tracking return on investment or earnings per share, companies should track things like cycle times and defect rates. The balanced scorecard incorporates a financial perspective, as well as an internal business perspective, and innovation and learning perspective, and a customer perspective. This balanced scorecard can give management a succinct, overview of the organization’s total performance by focusing on a small group of the most critical metrics. Another advantage of the balanced scorecard method is that it prevents information overload by focusing on a small set of critical metrics. At the same time, the balanced scorecard causes top management executives to view the success of the business through various operational measures beyond just finances. Considering the customer perspective causes the organization to have to think about what kinds of metrics the customer cares about. The internal business perspective causes the organization to consider what they must excel at to meet customer expectations (Kaplan & Norton, 1992).

    Biblical Integration

    1st Peter 5:8 says to “be sober minded; be watchful” (New International Version, 2011). And that is the goal of the balanced scorecard: to be watchful over the success of an organization. Being sober minded is to think clearly about the objectives of the organization and a balanced scorecard is one tool that can help with that.

    Proverbs 25:11 tells us, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (New International Version, 2011). This verse is about clear communication, and the balanced scorecard clarifies and communicates the goals of the organization by translating the mission into actions.

    “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans” Proverbs 16:3 (New International Version, 2011). Whatever business endeavor one undertakes, it should be committed to the Lord and one should work as if working for the Lord and not for men.

    Application

    The balanced scorecard is more applicable than ever before. It arose out of a need for a better way to measure organizational success beyond financial measures as stakeholder needs became more diversified and customers became more informed than ever before. According to a recent global study, the balanced scorecard was ranked 5th of the top ten most widely used management tools in the world (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2020). It is used by more than half of all major companies in the U.S. Europe and Asia. The balanced scorecard tool is growing in other areas such as Africa and the middle east as well.

    DISCUSSION THREAD 2 (JB)

    Discussion Board: Project Life Cycle

    Key Concept

    There are many types of projects that can be undertaken in business. These projects have many different forms and scales. In order to better study project life cycles, it is easier to break them into a few common categories. Meredith and Shafer (2019) describe the stretched S and exponential project life cycles. The stretched S model is very common and shows a slow start during planning, which slowly picks up speed and then tapers off at the end as resources begin to be directed elsewhere. The exponential form, however, sees basically no return until the project is completed. It is critical to understand where in the project lifecycle output will be produced so as not to misunderstand performance compared to resources invested.

    Comparison

    There are many things to consider when studying the life cycle of a project. Measham et al. (2019) focus on the impact that supply chain can have on managing the project life cycle. A delay in the delivery of one component could delay the project output. That could make it appear that the project is no longer successful. It is important to remember, however, that the relationship between the percentage of inputs used and the percentage of output created is rarely linear. If one input component is missing for a time, other parts of production could still be continuing, allowing a sharp increase in production when that final input is received. Of course, this type of flexibility is dependent on the project at hand. This is why it is important for managers to understand their project life cycle, so they can tell the difference between a shuffling of steps and an actual impact to production. Galli (2020) describes just how important this understanding can be by pointing out that these projects are one of the key driving factors of the world economy. Conversely, the economic environment can impact the project as costs of supplies vary as does the demand for the product. It is critical, therefore, for managers to forecast these changes and time their projects accordingly. This type of planning can be quite involved. Zheng et al. (2021) lay out some of the many variables that can impact managing a project life cycle and it is a very complex issue.

    Article Summary

    Cha and Maytorena-Sanchez (2019) raise some very good points about the effective management of project life cycles. In the stretched S model, it is likely that managerial inputs will be mor necessary during the project initiation and project termination phases. These are the times when plans are being drawn up and decisions are being made about where resources should be allocated. Compare this with the project implementation phase, which hopefully can just be monitored and not require as much hands-on management. An effective manager will realize this difference in demand for attention during the project life cycle. This is important because many managers will have multiple projects at one time. It is important to prioritize and deconflict these projects so that each can be given the attention that it requires. This concept applies not only to managerial attention, but to other resources as well. For exponential projects, it may be more difficult for a manager to oversee multiple projects. This is because exponential projects require a more constant level of attention throughout the process. Furthermore, Cha and Maytorena-Sanchez (2019) define project management competences that can help to identify what type of oversight is required during which phase of the lifecycle. For some companies, it may be beneficial to have different leadership on projects during different life cycle phases according to what that leader’s strengths are.

    Biblical Integration

    Life cycle management is all about planning and understanding deviations from that plan. Proverbs 21:5 teaches, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty” (English Standard Version). Luke 14:28 says, “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it” (ESV). It is also important to realize that, no matter how much planning and preparation is done, it is still important to trust in the Lord. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (ESV).

    Application

    Planning a life cycle of a project has many benefits. One of the main things is to understand the relationship between resources used and output produced. I have spent a great deal of time and money working on my MBA, and yet I have nothing tangible to show for it. If I expected to have eighty percent of the benefit because I have put in eighty percent of the time and effort, this endeavor would be deemed a failure and I would have to quit. Instead, I recognize that grad school is an exponential life cycle and only after completing one hundred percent of the work will the benefit of a degree be realized.