Background Report

(GMC)

Now that you have learned about the basic concepts and the need for marketing in today’s changing environment, select an existing publically owned company for which you would like to use as the basis for your research throughout this course.

View the link Public Companies for a comprehensive list of publicly traded companies.

The assignments throughout the course will focus on the application of different marketing principles and concepts to a company you choose.

This will entail mapping the company’s business operations to the requirements of the different assignments, finding advertisements on the company’s products, and searching for any recent press releases, so it is recommended that you gain an in-depth knowledge of the operations of the company you have selected.

Over the span of the course, you will gather information from a number of probable sources. Some of the sources may include, but are not limited to, the Internet, public libraries, business magazines, newspapers, the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, annual reports, consultant/industry analyst reports, databases, Department of Commerce publications, Temple and other university libraries, trade and academic journals, Moody’s, Value Line, etc.

You may be surprised and overwhelmed by the volume of information that is available for many topics, though you may have to do some “detective work” to locate them.

You may find Web sites such as Hoovers.com and Lexis-Nexis extremely helpful.

Select a publically owned company and develop a three- to four-page background report on the company.

Your report will contain background information on your selected organization and their product or service offerings.

Be sure to include:

1. A description of the organization and their current products and/or services.

1. The company locations, both national and international, in which the organization operates.

1. A thorough historical background summation of the company, including when it first began operations.

1. On the company’s Web site you should be able to access the company’s financial records shared with their investors. This may be located in the annual report section of their Web site. Discuss your overall impression of the company’s financial status based on your observation of their financial records.

1. Be sure to include the company’s mission statement along with your interpretation of what that mission statement tells you about the company and its concern for its employees and for its customers.

Apply current APA standards for writing style to your work.

Use the following file-naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M1_A3.doc. For example, if your name is John Smith, your document will be named SmithJ_M1_A3.doc.

The steps in the accounting cycle are listed in random order below.

List the steps in proper sequence, assuming no worksheet is prepared, by placing numbers 1–9.

(a)		Prepare a trial balance.
(b)		Journalize the transactions.
(c)		Journalize and post closing entries.
(d)		Prepare financial statements.
(e)		Journalize and post adjusting entries.
(f)		Post to ledger accounts.
(g)		Prepare a post-closing trial balance.
(h)		Prepare an adjusted trial balance.
(i)		Analyze business transactions.

Journal: Positive Social Change—An Evolving Perspective

As explored in the first week of this course, there is not one single definition for terms like social responsibility and social change. They are complex concepts determined by multiple factors. You may now recognize some of the key contributing factors that lead to social responsibility in action. Has your initial understanding of social responsibility and social change evolved through your work in this course?

In this last Journal Assignment, you reflect on how this course influences your overall understanding and approach to positive social change.

To prepare for this Assignment:

• Review Walden University’s General Education Learning Outcome: “Change” in the Syllabus. Consider how the General Education DEEP-C model contributed to your ability to discover and evaluate ideas from different perspectives, and is instrumental in your progress toward achieving personal goals and effecting positive social change.

• Revisit definitions of social responsibility shared in the Week 1 Discussion in light of all the information you have considered throughout this course.
• Read Chapters 11 and 12 in the Loeb (2010) course text.

• Reflect on the exercise in collective action represented by the Group Project. Think about the benefits collective action offers for accomplishing the goals of the Group Project.

The Assignment:

Write a 3- to 4-paragraph journal entry in which you briefly analyze the value of collective action in working toward social change.

• Describe how your perspective has evolved or changed through this course and how you believe it will continue to evolve after the course.
• How has this experience influenced your ability to create positive social change beyond the term of this course?

Procreation and Ethical Dilemmas in Health Care

• From the scenario, examine the concept of health care ethics, and ascertain the fundamental way in which such concepts apply to procreation-related issues. Speculate on the major ramifications of using moral principles to make decisions concerning such issues

• Consider the concept of ethics in health care predicated on ethical theories and moral theories, and explore the connection of such ethics with ethics committee decision making. Rationalize the primary concerns of conception, wrongful birth, and abortion from the perspective of health care professionals who must make these decisions

The U.S. has long been seen by many around the world as a bastion of freedom and liberty. But what does this mean? How can individual choice be promoted and protected when members of society have different views of how things should be organized and how their own interests can be preserved? The interests of an individual in his or her own freedom and liberty to act must be balanced against the interests of society as a whole, and sometimes these interests collide. Societies need to have laws to promote order. The larger, more diverse, and more complex a society is, the more regulated that society must be. At the same time, people have differing opinions about what choices should be allowed on many controversial subjects, about what the government itself should be allowed to do, and about whose interests should prevail.

Assignment Guidelines

• Address the following in 3–4 pages:
  1. With respect to the making, enforcement, and interpretation of laws, what are the roles of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. government?
  2. Who does what? In other words, are these roles really separate and distinct, or are there ways in which these roles overlap?
  3. As society changes, how does this impact the making and interpretation of laws?
  4. What are your conclusions about the need to balance individual choice and liberty with the needs of U.S. society as a whole? Incorporate an example of a law or an issue or area of particular interest to you. Ideas could include: civil rights, domestic and/or child abuse, or detention of suspected terrorists.
• To illustrate your position on these questions, refer to your text, the supplemental course materials, or pertinent outside sources (library, Web, other resources) to support your responses. You may choose a law or policy that you are interested in to illustrate your conclusions.
• Be sure to reference all sources using APA style.