Financial Reporting - International Accounting Standards Essay

Financial Reporting - International Accounting Standards - Essay Example The essay "Financial Reporting - International Accounting Standards" analyses the challenges faced in establishing International Financial Reporting Standard, the characteristics of the Framework and International Financial Reporting Standard for small and medium entities. Challenges A financial reporting system should focus on the needs of all capital providers and not just for a class of people. International Accounting Standards Board was set up with the sole mission to develop, in the public interest, a single set of high quality, understandable and international financing reporting standards for general purpose financial statement. International Accounting Standards Board had it fair share of challenges to accomplish its mission. Let us analyse the challenges faced by International Accounting Standards Board below: National Financial Environment: Every country follows a certain set of accounting standards based on its local financial environment. Therefore developing an accounting standard which suits individual country specific needs is a very challenging task. International Convergence: The difference between the national accounting standards and International Financial Reporting Standard is minimal and it lies mostly because of the differential treatment of specific transactions. Hence the issue of international convergence comes in which tries to state whether the gap between the national standard and international accounting standard can be bridged and converged and adopted by countries. Government rules and regulations: Country specific rules and regulations have a bearing on the way the financial information is produced. Let us take for example, a country have the minimum tax rates and with lots of other perks to the companies. In this case a company incorporated in this country because of favorable tax regime will not try to malign its financial reports. Similarly, tax heavens (Tax Heaven) such as Mauritius, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, etc. attract more investment from companies to save tax. Many countries have double taxation because of weak tax reforms but some countries have robust taxation policies which are transparent. International Financial Reporting Standard therefore needs to factor in such issues. Social and Cultural issues: Islamic countries follow Islamic financing, which are very much different from the other national standards. Therefore, International Financial Reporting Standard, whose role is to portray the correct picture of the financial stature of the company, may find hard to make a strong foot hold in such countries. Islam financing, does not allow companies to earn high profits due to which these companies try and manipulate the accounts accordingly (Mohammed Ibrahim). International Financial Reporting Standard being an initiative of the western countries may not be acceptable in this Islam driven countries. Update the International Standards on Regular Intervals: The national accounting standards are always updated to factor in and control various lags in the standards on a time to time basis. International Accounting Standards Board similarly also have to deliver on the same lines. The challenge here is that it is very complex and they have to do it on a global scale. Therefore this requires time, respective field experts and funds. Every time they update a standard based on practical issues, they need to convey it to the countries and they in turn

UnitedHealth Group Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

UnitedHealth Group - Assignment Example The paper tells that through its sub-branches, the UnitedHealth group serves about 70 million individuals across the United States. In 2011, the company had net earnings of $5.142billion. UnitedHealth Group is the mother of United Healthcare founded in 1977 as unites healthcare cooperation. The firm has two foundations, namely, the United Healthcare Children Foundation and the United Healthcare Foundation that were announced in 1999. The foundations are heavily involved in providing information that helps in decision-making within the US that promote better health outcomes and healthy populations, like in their partnership with the America’s Health Rankings. In addition, the foundations are involved in supporting activities that sponsor quality health care for the less fortunate through collaborations with other counterpart organizations. United Healthcare, through its human resource department, maintains a sustainable working environment. The department, through collaboration s with outside occupational health service providers, conducts an annual assessment of the workforce management activities. The United Healthcare foundations, through their human resource department, conduct research on workers’ welfare, patient facilities, and conducts workforce analyses. The firm analyzes its databases, and the physician supply and demand models to understand current issues and forecast future possible outcomes ascribed to the delivery of healthcare.

Critically examine a period of strategic change for an organisation of Essay

Critically examine a period of strategic change for an organisation of your own choice. Outline the triggers for change and the - Essay Example 7 Triggers to this change †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 8 2- Product Differentiation as a strategic change †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 8 Triggers to this change †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 9 3- Retail-marketing/ Own-store retailing as a strategic change †¦ 10 Triggers to this change †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 11 Significant organizational issues facing the managers in strategic change .. 12 Conclusion†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 13 References †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã ¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 14 Introduction In the light of large-scale changes facing the world around the business, organizations require to undergo strategic changes and strategic re-orientations. Both the external and internal environments of a business face tremendous changes day by day, mainly due to technological advances, varying customer requirements, differences in marketing trends etc, and in order the business to survive in this challenging environment, it is highly important that business must be accustomed with the environments through the strategic change possible. For management, there are quite a large number of strategies to help the business achieve its specific or common goals. Out of these strategies, change itself is a strategy as it is, though a challenge to get it successfully implemented, an opportunity for the business. Apple Inc with the leadership of Steve Jobs has emerged to be an organization that prospered a number of strategic changes l ike retail-marketing, innovative product design, product differentiation etc. This piece of research paper is an attempt to address the strategic change from both literature perspectives as well as empirical evidences from Apple’s strategic change. This paper outlines how Apple Inc has managed strategic change at various situations and how it could successfully implemented changes like launching of its retail-marketing. Apple Inc: An overview Apple Inc, one of the most successful technology companies of today, has been established by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak in early 1970. It’s startup story itself is amazingly interesting as it is closely linked to one-off hobby machine that an outstanding talented electronic wiz, Steve Jobs, made for himself and this has later become the core of the most successful companies of today (O'Grady 2008, p. 1). Apple Inc is a multinational company, headquartered in California, that designs, develops, and markets personal computers, servers, communication devices like cell-phones, portable music digital players and related accessories (Datamonitor 2010). The company has always been thriving on innovation and continuous changes. It ignited personal computer revolution in early 1990s with the development of Apple- II. The company thus went through a number of strategic changes in production, technology, marketing, innovation and so on. It later reinvented the personal computer within the next few years by the development of Macintosh. Macintosh and its another development called iMac gave the company deeply routed brand loyalty (Kerin, Hartley and Berkowitz, 2005, p. 395). In recent years, Apple found hidden marketing opportunities, that were until then explored by none, for digital music players, music software, iPhone, 3G iPhone etc and revolutionized its markets through effective distribution with

Critical analysis Twelfth Night Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Critical analysis Twelfth Night - Essay Example Although categorized as a romantic comedy, relating the story of a pair of twins washed up separately upon the same shore, each thinking the other is dead, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night provides a great deal of this kind of social commentary as the two youths become involved with nobles they meet in their journey back together. By analyzing a single scene of this play, one can begin to understand how Shakespeare managed to convey social position and degree of intelligence in such a way that calls into question the prevailing social assumptions of his time. The scene is divided by the arrivals of two of the characters to Olivia’s house that quickly demonstrate the difference of social classes existent in England at the time. At the opening of the scene, Feste, the house jester, returns after an unexplained absence and finds it necessary to charm his way back into his mistress’ good graces. According to Richard Holinshed, â€Å"These men are profitable to none; for, if their condition be well perused, they are enemies to their masters, to their friends, and to themselves† (1580). Thus, his behavior seems to suit his station as in attempting to ease his way back into the household, he distracts the other characters from pursuing his personal activities by making jokes until the scene is interrupted by the arrival of Viola, disguised as the servant Cesario, delivering a message of love from Duke Orsino for the noblewoman Olivia. The conversation between Olivia and Cesario sparks an immediate and intense interest from Olivia, who recognizes Viola belongs to her own upper class. In both halves of this scene, language variety reveals social class as well as sincerity of intention within the characters portrayed. Feste changes his language style depending upon whom he is speaking with, making it possible for him to switch from one class to another simply by changing his means of communicating. As he speaks

Stylistic analysis and history in art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Stylistic analysis and history in art - Essay Example Legon claims, â€Å"The Egyptian canon of art was metrological founded through the system of horizontal guidelines that established the canonical forms† (Legon Web). The most appealing nature of the image that looks Egyptian to me is the choice of colour. The colours used in the image are a true reflection of Egyptian artwork. â€Å"Cannon of art† refers to classification of art by early historians. This early classification still has its influence in the naming of today’s art. In the topic "Discrimination in the Arts in America," â€Å"Cannon of art† is present. The early historians in America supported hierarchies of race due to the alleged evidence from the book of Genesis chapter nine in the bible. Noah blessed his son, Shem who covered him of his nakedness when he was drunk and cursed Canaan, Japheth was blessed to expand. Christian fundamentalists believed in the three races, White representing Japheth who was to expand to other nations. They justified slavery of Africans on this and believed that the whites should take the highest positions that existed. The cannon of art for Americans had a background of racism, which many art historians represented in their work. They did this via colour since the three different races had three distinct colours; white, yellow, and black. My choice of a retablo is the painting of Virgin Mary by Frida Kahlo made in Mexico. Like most of the retablos made during the 18th century, the Virgin Mary retablo was made in honour of the Catholic saints (Castro-Sethness 21-23). Virgin Mary is one of the most honoured spiritual personalities in the Catholic Church in prehistoric times and even at present. The most important learning from the Virgin Mary retablo is that the people who existed in the period in which the retablo was made had a significant connection to the church (Nolan 15-20). Most notably, they valued the saints and therefore, preferred preserving their images in form

Kant's ethical theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Kant's ethical theory - Essay Example Immanuel Kant is the founder of Critical Philosophy, and he is also the Father of Modern Philosophy. By applying the Critical Method to the study of Pure Reason, Practical Reason and Judgement, Kant endeavored himself to the knowledge of Man. His findings provide a wide spectrum of implications in order to establish the frameworks of Absolute Empiricism,Absolute Rationalism and Absolute Idealism In the realm of any ethical theory, there are some standpoints that can be taken, so an ethical system could be Deontological, Teleological, Consequentialist, Relativism/Subjectivism, and Virtue Based Theories. Kant’s ethical theory is purely based on duty, so it is deontological. The uniqueness and originality of his ethical theory springs from the application of the concept of Categorical Imperatives (unconditional) instead of Hypothetical Imperatives (condicional) as the philosophers before Kant used to build their ethical theories, especially in the case of Thomas Aquinas. The Cate gorical Imperatives demand to be universalizable in order to be accepted as valid guidelines for action. The concepts of autonomy and heteronomy along with the principle of treating human beings as ends in themselves, not as means, give rise to valid conclusions about respect for human dignity, freedom in every ethical choice, and the eventual state of peace that can be accomplished with such an ethical system. It lacks the presence of Unconditional Love as Kant tried by all means not to deal with the conflicts that arise out of building an ethical theory based on emotions. But Unconditional Love is much more than an emotion as it can be considered to be a Categorical Principle. 2. Defining how Kant distinguishes between autonomy and heteronomy. Autonomy is the freedom of choice without any external determination, and Kant established that it is necessary for a human act to be considered moral in itself. Heteronomy is the external determination of human acts (for example, God or a motivation based on any kind of reward or punishement) so heteronomy interferes with the freedom of choice of the individual taking away from the agent the capacity of using his/her reason as a whole human being according to the Law of Nature to act in a moral way. The implications of this standpoint about morality are summed up as follows: "If our actions are pre-determined and we merely bounce around like snooker-balls, we cannot be described as free and morality doesn't apply to us. Kant could not prove that we are free - rather, he presumed that we could act morally, and for this to be the case we must be free. He also thought that it followed that there must be a God and life after death, otherwise morality would make no sense." (RSRevision.Com, 2006). 3. Explaining Kant's formulation of the "categorical imperative." A categorical imperative is an unconditional motivation to act morally as a free agent. This concept is very useful from a practical viewpoint since actions guided by a categorical imperative are free from speculations or dogmatic interpretations. That way our actions are morally correct, and they are good in themselves since they are valid for everybody according to the universalization process explained by Kant. Those actions spring from the good will of man since the main motivation is a strong sense of duty. Some of the formulations of the categorical imperative are the following: "Act only on that maxim (intention) whereby at the same time you can will that it shall become a universal law" () "Always act to treat humanity, whether in yourself or in others, as an end in itself, never merely as a means." (Philosopher.Org, no date). 4. Explaining how adherence to the categorical imperative provides for autonomous ethical choice. Whenever we are faced with conflictive choices the categorical i

The Tin Drum Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Tin Drum - Term Paper Example This shows Alfred a Nazi character, but it also shows that he is weak, under the influence of his wife, and not an absolutely fanatical Nazi. Hitler and Beethoven represent the cultural tensions in the family which in turn result in the young Oskar’s somewhat confused understanding of the power struggles that are going on. Oskar describes Alfred’s fondness for the visual image that the Nazi uniform presents, but the description also shows how uncomfortable it was to wear, since the strap of the cap â€Å"scraped his chin† (p. 116) and he had to get wet in the rain because he refused to use an umbrella. (p. 116) Alfred goes out to Sunday demonstrations but apart from that, there is very little change in his activities, since he still cooks, and washes up in the home as he did before. Section b. As far as we can tell from Oskar’s rather biased narrative, Alfred did not really have much of a career as a Nazi Party member. Oskar describes his motivation for jo ining the party as a natural tendency to conform to his surroundings: â€Å"he always had to wave when other people were waving, to shout, laugh and clap when other people were shouting, laughing and clapping.† (p. 152) His membership is described as â€Å"quite unnecessary, brought no benefits, and just wasted his Sunday mornings† (p. 152) and so it is obvious that Oskar trivializes and mocks Alfred’s status there. Even when Oskar mentions Alfred’s promotion, he does it in an off-hand manner: â€Å" Like all unusual happenings, his promotion was the occasion for a family skat game.† (p. 115) This is echoed later in connection with a drinking session when Alfred is grieving over the death of Agnes beneath the portrait of the Fuhrer: â€Å"the teetotaling Fuhrer was silent, because Matzerath, a drunken little unit leader, was unworthy of Providence† (p. 185). These disparaging comments show that Matzerath filled a very low rank and was of ver y little importance in the Nazi regime. Section c. The Nazi rally on a summer day in 1935 was a planned set piece which was intended to whip up support from the faithful. The way that Oskar describes it, however, subverts the intentions of the stage and the rows of flag bearing people. It is set up so that people go to a rostrum to look up in awe at the spectacle before them. Everything is regimented in straight lines, and yet the advice of Mr Bebra urges Oscar to be aware of the hidden mechanisms of power that operates during these rallies: â€Å"Always take care to be sitting on the rostrum and never to be standing out in front of it.† (p. 114) Oskar views the rostrum from behind it, which shows the mechanisms which orchestrate the event, or from underneath, where he can disrupt it without being seen. Dramatic displays like â€Å"torchlight processions and parades past rostrums† (p. 115) may look impressive from the perspective of a spectator, but the depiction in Th e Tin Drum suggests that the whole thing is a sham, and that it is better either to be fully in favour of it, and on the rostrum, or to utterly oppose it. Going with the flow, like Matzerath, is seen to be the worst option. Section d. There is a lot of symbolism in Oskar’s account of the death of Alfred Matzerath. Clearly the party membership pin that