Author: chris

Assuming that you are the controller for a publicly traded company, your CFO has asked you to prepare a presentation for the accounting department personnel and the public auditors about the importance of the SOX Act and the requirements and responsibilities that the Act establishes for the auditors in charge of an annual audit. After the presentation, the CFO wants all accounting personnel and public accounting auditors to understand the regulations and guidelines established by the SOX Act and also for you to provide recommendations as to how the Act’s principles can be improved to make American corporations more ethically responsible.

Prepare a Power Point presentation of at least 20 slides that includes the following:

• Assess the provision of the Sox Act that requires the establishment of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and the measures that public accounting firms are taking to ensure that they maintain their independence in all audit assignments, including the mechanisms they are establishing to ensure that the necessary independence and integrity are prevalent in all aspects of their relationship with their clients.
• Analyze how executives of corporate America have embraced the new regulations and requirements of the Sox Act while maintaining their purpose to produce a profit for investors and staying in compliance of the new rules in the industry. Explain what those new requirements are for the CEO and CFO of publicly traded companies.
• Describe your assessment of the responsibilities established for accounting personnel—including protection for whistle-blowers—and for the public accounting auditors.
• Determine how the responsibilities of the board of directors audit committee have changed due to the Sox Act in overseeing the financial reporting process and to hire and be in charge of the independent auditors.
• Provide recommended sanctions to be imposed on those who do not comply with the SOX Act provisions, and whether or not the sanctions should be stiffened or should include other personnel in the organization.

Researched sources should follow these guidelines:

• At least half of the researched sources should be from authoritative electronic sources related to the accounting field.
• The findings presented in the paper should be accurate renditions of the Sox Act, including citations and references.
• Follow APA guidelines when citing references.
• Include a reference slide.

Performance reviews can be a difficult experience for anyone to go through. In this assignment, you will recall a performance review or a performance-related discussion that you experienced at work. You will critically analyze that experience, focusing on the verbal communication, effective listening, and conflict resolution aspects of the experience.

Tasks:

For this assignment, you are to reflect on a time when you had a performance review or any sort of work-related performance discussion with your manager. Then, write a 5- to 6-page paper addressing the following items:

Describe your experience regarding the performance discussion.
Explain proven and effective ways to listen appropriately, resolve conflict, and negotiate. Support your response with sources from professional literature. Professional literature may include the Argosy University online library resources, relevant textbooks, peer-reviewed journal articles, and websites created by professional organizations, agencies, or institutions (.edu, .org, or .gov). You may find that the Lynda.Com “Having Difficult Conversations” course will be especially helpful as you prepare this assignment. The “Having Difficult Conversations” course is available in the AUO library holdings. The direct link was included earlier in this module on the Relationship Development lecture page.
Assess yourself on your effectiveness.
Assess yourself on your effectiveness in listening, conflict resolution, and negotiation.
Identify two to three areas of improvement in any category.
Create a plan for developing yourself in those areas. The plan may include:

Teaming with a classmate or mentor to help guide improvement
Creating a focus for improvement and an attainable goal
Identifying how the goal will be measured for success
Assessing success and reevaluating the goal

In this assignment, you will create a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation that exhibits the different organisms in your current biome.

Include the following in your presentation:

• Describe Your Own Environment

  Consider the natural environment or biome found in the geographic area where you currently live. For example, if you live in the Midwest, the natural biome for this area is the grassland. If you live in Alaska you are likely to live in either the tundra or the boreal forest. Describe the main features of the biome found in your geographic area. Include features such as the environment (moisture, temperature) and any topographic features that would influence the climate (mountains, large bodies of water, etc.).

• Identify Ten Organisms

  Make a list identifying at least ten organisms—at least five plants and five animals—that live in your biome, and describe how these organisms interact with one another. For example, is the relationship competitive or symbiotic?

• Describe Each Organism and its Environmental Needs

  In the speaker notes section in your presentation, briefly describe these ten organisms and the type of conditions—that is, moisture, warm temperatures, or a type of plant—they need in order to survive. Be sure to include the interactions between these organisms and the resources they need to survive. You may wish to use various tools available in Microsoft PowerPoint to visually depict these relationships.

• Hypothesis of a New Environment

  Consider a situation where the temperature of the climate was to increase by an average of ten degrees Celsius. Address the following:

  • How would these organisms survive if the temperature warmed up this much?
  • Would they stay or move to a more suitable environment?
  • Would a new species move in?
  • How would migratory species be impacted?
  • What would happen to your biome?

  Now, consider if your biome changes with the temperature shift. Address the following:

  • What types of plants and animals do you think would live there?
  • What will happen to the rarer species? Will they cease to exist?
  • Identify five plants and five animals that you feel would inhabit this warmer area.
  • Describe this new ecosystem and the new interactions that will most likely exist.
• Additional Topics to Include
  • How would environmental management practices change in your area?
  • Would this drastic shift in temperature impact culture and society in your area?
  • Would you still choose to live in this area after a drastic shift in temperature? Give reasons to support your answer.

Use pictures from the Internet to represent your chosen species, and give credit to these Web sites. Support your statements with 3–5 credible sources. Use the last slide of your presentation as a reference slide.

Develop a 10–15-slide presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint format. Apply APA standards to citation of sources

Evidence of the converging forces and forces of resistance that you studied this week can be observed in many educational settings. This week, take some time to make observations and talk with people in a school or in a work setting where people need to begin adopting 21^st century skills. Make a point of speaking with the early adopters who embrace 21^st century learning and are readily agreeable to needed changes. Find out what inspires them to change and to adopt new practices. Ask how they have helped to overcome resistance and how they deal with persistent resistance to change. Ask them to share attitudes and beliefs that may further inspire you to be more open to change. And search the larger learning organization for evidence of the new balance teaching and learning practices. During your observations and conversations, seek out ideas for your 21^st Century Resume and Portfolio project. Look for exemplary projects, processes, and products that might inspire you to develop an artifact for your portfolio.

Summarize your investigation. Describe the individuals you spoke with and share the insights you gained about the attitudes, beliefs, an educational approaches that facilitate the adoption of 21^st century skills and reduce the forces of resistance. Also, share some of the 21^st century skills artifact ideas that you are considering for your course project.

Identify and explain key developments in the “history” of terrorism. This is a very broad question, but you should respond “comprehensively, specifically, and in detail” (no minimum word length, but err on the comprehensive side) while including events, types of terrorism, tactics, and turning points (avoid simply listing events or only tactics, events, etc. – include “all” – events, types, tactics, and turning points). Note: A significant portion of you response should involve events, turning points, etc. prior to 1970 (including several hundred years ago).

Special Notes:

Ensure you follow the APA for your in-text citations and references (avoid just electronic links for references and make certain you have at least one in-text citation for each reference – and vice versa; and “if” you quote – not recommended, you must include a page or paragraph number in your in-text citation).

Presentation/Format: A superior exam will have clear and succinct headings (years, events, tactics, types of terrorism, and turning points) for organizational purposes. Those striving for 100% should follow this format.

A superior score will only be awarded to those that adhere to all the above with well-articulated responses (good grammar, word usage, etc) and incorporates research from class textbooks and external/outside sources. As a reminder, write in 3 to 7 sentence paragraphs (avoid long/short paragraphs). Introductions and conclusions are necessary for superior scores.

The purpose of this assignment is to explore how leadership is formally evaluated in different organizations.

In this assignment, examine and analyze the process used to evaluate leaders in a specific organization. Obtain a copy of a leadership performance appraisal form from an organization. To do so, contact an organization’s human resources department or conduct an Internet search.

Once you have obtained a sample form

-Provide a summary and overview of the form.

-Evaluate any gaps in the knowledge and skills assessed.

-Compare the form to the different techniques used to measure leadership effectiveness.

-Identify what the organization could do to improve the leadership evaluation process and make recommendations for improving the process.

Your paper should be three double spaced pages in length (excluding the title and reference pages). Your paper must be formatted according to APA style throughout the paper and with an reference page also, It must include at least four scholarly sources from a proquest database or internet but prefer proquest more.

1. How did the Love Canal incident influence the way we deal with toxic waste in America?

2. Do you think that the area around Love Canal should have been inhabited after the cleanup? Would you move

into such an area? Why, or why not?

3. What does the Blake family’s story indicate about the effectiveness of our hazardous waste regulations? What

more should be done to prevent situations like Hickory Woods?

4. Discuss your thoughts on how the health issues experienced by the Hickory Woods and Love Canal residents

should impact regulations. When public health impacts cannot be definitively linked to contamination, how should the government respond?

Your response to EACH question must be a minimum of 200 words, and EACH response should contain at least one intext

citation. You should include your references at the end of the document. Any sources used, including the textbook,

must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying APA citations.

As you have learned in this first unit, pollution is a worldwide issue that must be combatted. Read the scenarios provided below, and choose one to write about for your essay.

Option 1:

A consumer products company in a third-world country manufactures a cough medicine to be sold in the United States as an over-the-counter medicine in grocery stores and in pharmacies. At the manufacturing plant, the flavoring of the medicine is very volatile, and the smell permeates the plant. After the production run is completed, the mixing tanks are washed, and the contents are discharged into a trench that runs for a mile down to the local river. Filters used to remove any particles from the cough syrup are collected and discarded into a local trash pile located at the edge of the property.

Identify the various environmental compartments that will be impacted by this manufacturing facility.

If you were hired to be an environmental consultant at the facility, what would be your first steps in changing the manufacturing process (use the waste management hierarchy)?

Option 2:

A municipality is encouraging a furniture company to set up shop and to use local residents for their manufacturing operations. They have hired you as an advisor to identify the technology that the municipality should have in place to dispose of the non-hazardous waste that cannot be recycled or reused. There are two options: construct a new municipal landfill for the entire community or construct an incinerator. In these cases, the methane from the landfill will be burned to provide heat for the municipal buildings, or the heat from the combustion chamber of the incinerator will be used to provide heat the municipal buildings.

Identify adverse impacts to human health or the environment for each of the two technologies

Use the adverse effects you identified to make a recommendation to the city council.

Your response should be a minimum of one page in length, not including your title page and reference page. Any outside sources you choose to use should be scholarly sources. All sources used, including textbooks, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying APA citations.

The final graded assignment is an 8–10-page paper about the question: what is the good life? This assignment will be completed in four parts, so you may want to use section headers to organize your paper. This paper is somewhat cumulative, so you may need to review material from previous weeks to prepare for this essay. Remember to explain the theories you reference with supporting citations to the textbook and online lectures before contrasting them. You may want to use examples to illustrate your understanding of key ideas from each theory. Your paper should be formatted in APA style. Use this APA Citation Helper as a convenient reference for properly citing resources.

Address the following in your paper:

1. The Consequentialism Debate: Compare and contrast deontology and utilitarianism. Briefly discuss the differences between Bentham and Mill’s versions of utilitarianism. Discuss the political and ethical implications of utilitarianism.
2. Explain virtue ethics and care ethics and discuss how these approaches offer an alternative to the deontological and utilitarian focus on how we should act.
3. Explain the political and ethical dimension of existentialism and at least one other social philosophy that addresses discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity, gender, class, and/or sexual identity. The explanation of existentialism should discuss the following ideas: authenticity, ambiguity, freedom, anxiety, and bad faith.
4. Choose a social justice issue. A social justice issue is one that characterizes and critiques a given practice, policy/law, and/or situation as unfair, unjust, and/or unethical. For example, you might discuss a specific example of discrimination on the basis of gender/sex, race, sexual identity, ethnicity, or religious faith; economic injustice/wage inequality; taxation; or a violation of an asserted human right, such as the right to gun ownership, healthcare, education, or freedom from undue government interference. A good topic will make claims to both political/social justice and ethics. Analyze the issue and discuss how some of the theories explained in parts 1–3 might relate to the issue. You may need to do additional research on the issue in order to complete this part of the assignment.

Submit your assignment in the W5: Assignment 2 Dropbox by Week