Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Checklist For Evaluating Internal Controls Essay Example for Free

Checklist For Evaluating Internal Controls Essay For publicly traded companies, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires an audit of internal controls. The purpose of an internal control evaluation is to evaluate risk, which offers auditors a basis for audit planning and provides useful information to management (Sox Law, 2006). Auditors typically use the five basic components of internal control to approve the entire system. According to Louwers, Ramsay, Sinason, and Strawser (2007) the five components to internal controls include control environment, risk assessment, control activities, monitoring, and information and communication. Control environment involves the tone of the organization and includes â€Å"the integrity, ethical values, and competence of the companys people† (Louwers, Ramsay, Sinason, Strawser, 2007). Risk assessment involves a thorough assessment which â€Å"identify(s) risks, estimate their significance and likelihood, and consider how to manage the risks† (Louwers, Ramsay, Sinason, Strawser, 2007). Control activities involve specific actions which help ensure that management’s goals and projections are met. Monitoring involves the continuous assessment of internal controls. Information and communication relates to the efficiency and reliability of information and communication regarding how the information is presented and communicated to users. Internal controls protect the financial information and operations of a business. The development and implementation of these controls are typically the responsibility of the business owners. Internal or external audits may be used to gauge the efficiency of internal controls. This audit generally takes place following a standard process of risk measurement regarding the business operations and financial information. The measurement data is most effectively determined by using an internal control checklist. Checklist Phase One: Understand and Document the Client’s Internal Control Obtaining an Understanding Control Environment Evaluation Risk Assessment Evaluation Information and Communication Assessment Phase Two: Assess the Control Risk Phase Three: Test Controls and Review Control Risk Reassess Controls Direction of the Test of Controls Reassess the Control Risk

Monday, January 20, 2020

Essay --

The Organizational Structure of Nike Nike is the number one innovator in the world in athletic footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories. This worldwide company operates in an extremely different organizational structure than other companies, such as Reebok and Adidas. Nike operates tremendous marketing strategies and develops inventive designs to inspire athletes around the world. This company is one of the largest suppliers in the world in athletic footwear and apparel, main producer of sports equipment, and making Nike the most valuable brand among sports companies. The task for Nike is to join diversity and inclusion to encourage ideas and innovation. Around the world, this company is a popular brand. Organizational Structure Nike is made up as a matrix organizational structure, which consist of several specialists and some individuals report to at a minimum of two managers. In the company, the staff informs to a crew of managers who dispatches the development report to the manager of the department. Each product within the company includes of it is own section and has its own department who performs independently of the CEO. The managers and employees of Nike decide concerning design and manufacture while the department managers concentrate mainly on ethical issues. In addition, the managers are completely accountable for the employees. While operating a matrix structure, Nike makes choices and responds quicker than any other department. Unlike Nike, Microsoft uses a divisional structure because it offers various separations within the company that functions almost as their own separate entities. However, this does not mean that they do not collaborate on projects or cross reference with each other. The divisi... ...ials to make their products rather than using materials that carries hazardous materials. There widespread of products help expand the company all around the world, and inspire the world with great performance and design. Conclusion Nevertheless, Nike is an extremely diverse company with outstanding organizational structure, impressive marketing strategy, and innovative products. The organizational structure of the Nike Corporation helped them become a leading innovator for the world with creative apparels and shoes. Their intelligent marketing strategies assist them in advertising their products to motive their customers and sell them. Their innovative product motivates customers with great performance footwear and quality designs to take on any obstacles. The Nike Corporation discovers various ways to improve their organizational structure to inspire the world.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Philippine Noon Time Shows Essay

For over a decade now, noontime TV shows have captivated the Filipino public, colloquially known asâ€Å"the masa†. These shows run for 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, usually from around 2 to 4 o clock pm. Their immense popularity is shown by the long lines of people that wait outside the studio hours before the program starts. All of them, hoping to get a chance to participate in the festivities which include playing games, singing, and dancing. Millions more watch through their television. All this translates into high TV ratings, eventually generating billions in revenue for the producers and executives. The host himself earns around 1 to 2 million pesos everyday. The audience mostly consists of people from the D and E demographics. Butch Stuart in his article â€Å"Mr Willie† describes them as â€Å"those who come from near or far away, many with borrowed transportation money, coming from all walks of masa life. Some of the groups that he mentioned were featured in these shows include: farmers, fishermen, GROs, bus drivers, people with missing teeth, people with special talents, single mothers, gay, graduates who failed their licensing exams, girls who can dance, boys who can sing, bibingka vendors, and, even, young girls with great looking legs.† Overseas Filipino Workers are also given special mention in the show. Those present in the audience see it as a welcome home celebration, or a way to re-immerse themselves in the Filipino culture. A euphoric upbeat atmosphere underpins the event. Mr Stuart describes it as â€Å"120 minutes of mindless choreographed entertainment – games, dancing, singing and laughter with ample opportunities for ogling†. These events don’t require any complex thinking from the participants. They were designed to be visceral and to conjure a response of raw emotion. Girls in scantily clad outfits are the ones who facilitate the celebration. They serve two purposes in the event. Firstly to captivate and attract through their revealing outfits. But they also carry out logistical tasks like accompanying audience members to the stage and dancing the tunes for everyone to mimic. The host ensures that all elements of the show are put together. To keep everything lively, his dialogue must always be fast paced. At times he gives off the impression of a cheerleader – always rousing the audience into states of excitement. He will always crack jokes left and right, and will never miss any opportunity even it means making fun of himself. For the show to be successful, the host must understand the sensibilities of the majority lower class audience. The interactive environment can only exist if he can connect with the â€Å"masa’s† humor. In Philippine society, no one has been more successful in doing this than Willie Revillame. A household name in television, he has amassed a massive amount of wealth from his noon time shows Wowowee in ABS CBN and later on, Willing willie on TV 5. Noon time shows rely on the D and E classes as their target audience. When criticism is mounted against these shows, producers are quick to respond that these journalists do not understand the plight of the poor. Some argue that these shows give the poor false hope. They line up for months waiting to be called on stage. Waiting to tell their life story. Waiting to play for a million pesos with house and lot. But the reality is that most of those who line up for the show never even make it to the studio. RESEARCH QUESTION: We would like to find out why Filipinos from the class D end E brackets are captivated with these noon time shows. It is the poor’s endorsement that sustains them. Companies who want to reach out to this consumer market donate lump sums of money for their products to be advertised on air. They know that the millions of impoverished families watching these shows will see their products. But the poor do more than just endorse. Often they peg their aspirations and dreams to the show itself. Watch any full show and you are sure to come across someone sobbing on air, talking about how his dream was to meet Willie in person. To answer the question of why the poor are so captivated, we will need to address more specific inquiries. Media for instance, is never a neutral medium. It has the capacity to shape public perception through its different portrayals of reality. After acknowledging that the poor are interested in these shows, we will look into what techniques and strategies these shows use to sustain that interest. It is easy to understand that someone who stumbles across ABSCBN may be mesmerized by the glitz and glamour of the wowowee show girls. But how do the producers maintain that interest for long periods of time when the programs in these shows tend to be repetitive? Further inquiries may also be raised concerning how we perceive and understand poverty as a social ill. Subconsciously or not, these shows frame this issue in a biased way. Critics are quick to pounce on Willie Revillame for taking advantage of the poor. In return, he retaliates by calling them apathetic and claiming that he truly empathizes with them. Both assertions are possibly right. These shows may be both half empty and full. But perhaps a better way to resolve this conflict is to look into the assumptions about poverty that these shows espouse. Even more questions can be raised regarding the link between poverty and gender in Philippine society. We question how structures of patriarchy are reinforced and reflected in the arrangments of these shows. Willie Revillame is notorious for using blatantly sexist language. In one account by Butch Stuart, Willie comments on the obesity of a middle aged woman who came up to hug him by saying, â€Å"Mas masarap yapusin ang mga dalaga†. But the epitome of this sexism is seen in the dancing girls that liven the show. Mr Butch Stuart describes them as if they were tools to tingle one’s sensations: â€Å"Tall, Pretty, Scantily Clad,Jiggling their cleavage breasts, bending, grinding and humping their loins, the tassels and trimmings of their skimpy covers swaying with their dancing, as they blow kisses, seamlessly sequing from program segments to ads, teasing men to the edge of one particular cardinal sin†. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: The group will use Marxist analysis to understand the dynamics that exist between the audience and the TV producers in these noon time shows. The paper on Marxism and method talks about the central scientific goals of Marxist analysis. The first of these is to provide a well founded and logically derived description of the central institutional feature of a market based economic system. The second goal is to historicize and to determine how these features came to exist. The last is to determine the social implications of these arrangments. We like this kind of theoretical framework for its rigid empiricism. Many frameworks start from the universal towards the particular. That is to say they start with an established principle and then go on trying to rationalize the real world to try to fit that picture. In contrast, Marxist analysis begins from the ground up. It first takes a look at what is observable like the relationships of people across the social strata, the relationships of people to capital, or the relationships of people to instiutions which did not exist apriori, but instead have a historical basis to them. After making repeated observations, Marxist analysis will then see if recurring patterns, outcomes, and courses of action exist. Only then will a theory be produced to account for these similarities. The Marxist approach is a scientific one. As Daniel little writes that Marxist analysis explain real world phenomena in terms of underlying causal conditions rather than crude associations among observable va riables. This process of analysis is significant in our research in that it requires us to look at the tangible motivations of those watching these noon time TV shows. It is no mere coincidence or stroke of luck that these shows continue to remain prominent. There are financial incentives that make thousands of people skip their work just to watch them live. There are also practical ways to explain why the poor would rather sing and dance away their problems to the tune of â€Å"boom tarat tarat†. Finally, it is an undeniable fact that the elites- namely the business tycoons, the tv executives, the celebrity personalities and everyone else on the upper echelons of the media industry, continue to benefit from a capitalist system that produces massive amounts of inequality. The mode of production, in this instance the noon time tv shows that generate the income, will cease to exist if there were no poor people to delude. We will also use the Gramscian concept of hegemony to describe the process in which the poor are made to passively accept their positions of status. Hegemony, is the process with which the dominant class projects and reinforces its ideologies through the use of cultural institutions. Chandler states that this represents not only political and economic control, but also the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’. Gramsci would find the institution of the family to be repressive. By belonging into the family unit, we are socialized into aspiring for specific life goals. One of this is to be productive citizens ing specialized skill sets that can be used to earn profit. We see this as obvious. However, the fulfillment of this goal ensures the preservation of our inequitable social structure. The family and educational system ensures that when one profit minded factory owner dies, another one takes its place. DEFINITION OF TERMS: Marxism Marxism is defined as the political, economic, and social principles and policies advocated by Marx; especially : a theory and practice of socialism including the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, the class struggle, and dictatorship of the proletariat until the establishment of a classless society. A body of doctrine developed by Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, by Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. It originally consisted of three related ideas: a philosophical anthropology, a theory of history, and an economic and political program. Rational Choice Theory Rational choice theory is defined as An economic principle that assumes that individuals always make prudent and logical decisions that provide them with the greatest benefit or satisfaction and that are in their highest self-interest. Noon Time Variety Show Variety shows are defined as Theatrical entertainment consisting of successive unrelated acts, such as songs, dances, and comedy skits. In the context of this paper they are performed using the medium of the television. SCOPE AND LIMITATION: Our study will focus solely on Noon time TV programs in the Philippines. Other countries have their own formats for variety shows. These will not be covered by this paper. Our goal is to understand poverty particularly in the Filipino context. Therefore our analysis will focus more on the cultural nuances of Filipino society reflected in local variety shows. We will also not consider other reality TV shows that do not fall under the category of a variety show. That is, an event consisting of successive acts of singing, dancing and, games. The reason for this is that differences in show arrangements will make it difficult to conduct a consistent analytical approach for all reality tv across the board. For instance, Marxists themes of class inequality to an extent are less evident in weight lost shows such as the biggest loser than they are in wowowee. The selection of participants for both these shows are also markedly different making it difficult to conduct a unified analysis of the demographics. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY: METHOD AND METHO http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marxism http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/367344/Marxism http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rational-choice-theory.asp#axzz2JCDDzjcx

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Four Things That Set Americans Apart and Why They Matter

The results are in. We now have sociological data about the values, beliefs, and attitudes that make Americans unique when compared with people from other nations—especially those from other rich nations. The Pew Research Centers 2014 Global Attitudes Survey found that Americans have a stronger belief in the power of the individual. Compared to residents of other nations, Americans are more likely to believe that hard work will lead to success. Americans also tend to be much more optimistic and religious than people in other rich nations. What Makes Americans Unique? Sociological data from the Pew Research Center suggests that Americans differ from residents of other nations in their individualism and their belief in hard work to get ahead. Moreover, compared to other wealthy nations, Americans are also more religious and optimistic. Lets dig into these data, consider why Americans differ so greatly from others, and figure out what it all means from a sociological perspective. A Stronger Belief in the Power of the Individual Pew found, after surveying people in 44 nations around the world, that  Americans believe, far more than others, that we control our own success in life. Others around the world are far more likely to believe that forces outside ones control determine the level of ones success. Pew determined this by asking people whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: Success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control. While the global median was 38 percent  of respondents disagreeing with the statement, more than half of Americans—57 percent—disagreed with it. This means that most Americans believe that success is determined by ourselves, rather than outside forces. Pew suggests that this finding means that Americans stand out on individualism, which makes sense. This result signals that we believe more in the power of ourselves as individuals to shape our own life than we believe that outside forces shape us. The majority of Americans believe that success is up to us, which means we believe in the promise and possibility of success. This belief is, in essence, the American Dream: a dream rooted in the belief in the power of the individual. However, this common belief runs counter to what we social scientists know to be true: a litany of social and economic forces surround us from birth, and they shape, to a large degree, what happens in our lives, and whether we achieve success in normative terms (i.e. economic success). This does not mean that individuals do not have power, choice, or free will. We do, and within sociology, we refer to this as agency.  But we, as individuals, also exist within a society composed of social relationships with other people, groups, institutions, and communities, and they and their norms exert social force on us. So the paths, options, and outcomes from which we choose, and how we make those choices, are influenced greatly by the social, cultural, economic, and political circumstances that surround us. That Old Pull Yourself up by Your Bootstraps Mantra Connected to this belief in the power of the individual, Americans are also more likely to believe that it is very important to work hard to get ahead in life. Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe this, whereas just 60 percent do in the United Kingdom, and 49 percent do in Germany. The global mean is 50 percent, so residents of other nations also believe this too—just not to the same extent as Americans. A sociological perspective suggests that theres circular logic at work here. Success stories—widely popular in all forms of media—are typically framed as narratives of hard work, determination, struggle, and perseverance. This fuels the belief that one must work hard to get ahead in life, which perhaps fuels hard work, but it certainly does not fuel economic success for the vast majority of the population. This myth also fails to account for the fact that most people do work hard, but do not get ahead, and that even the concept of getting ahead means that others must by necessity fall behind. So the logic can, by design, only work for some, and they are a small minority. The Most Optimistic Among Rich Nations Interestingly, the U.S. is also far more optimistic than other rich nations, with 41 percent saying they were having a particularly good day. No other rich nations even came close. Second to the U.S. was the U.K., where just 27 percent—thats less than a third—felt the same way. It makes sense that people who believe in the power of themselves as individuals to achieve success by hard work and determination would also show this kind of optimism. If you see your days as full of promise for future success, then it follows that you would consider them good days. In the U.S. we  also receive and perpetuate the message, quite consistently, that positive thinking is a necessary component of achieving success. No doubt, theres some truth to that. If you dont believe that something is possible, whether its a personal or professional goal or dream, then how will you ever achieve it? But, as author Barbara Ehrenreich has observed, there are significant downsides to this uniquely American optimism. In her 2009 book  Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America, Ehrenreich suggests that positive thinking can ultimately harm us personally, and as a society. As one summary of the book explains,  On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out negative thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster [i.e. the subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis]. Part of the problem with positive thinking, per Ehrenreich, is that when it becomes a mandatory attitude, it disallows for the acknowledgement of fear, and of criticism. Ultimately, Ehrenreich argues, positive thinking, as an ideology, fosters acceptance of an unequal and highly troubled status quo, because we use it to convince ourselves that we as individuals are to blame for what is hard in life, and that we can change our situation if we just have the right attitude about it. This kind of ideological manipulation is what Italian activist and writer Antonio Gramsci referred to as cultural hegemony, achieving rule through the ideological manufacture of consent. When you believe that thinking positively will solve your problems, you are unlikely to challenge the things that may be causing your trouble. Relatedly, late sociologist C. Wright Mills would look on this trend as fundamentally anti-sociological, because the essence of having a sociological imagination, or thinking like a sociologist, is being able to see the connections between personal troubles and public issues. As Ehrenreich sees it, American optimism stands in the way of the kind of critical thinking that is necessary to fight inequalities and to keep society in check.  The alternative to rampant optimism, she suggests, is not pessimism—it is realism. An Unusual Combination of National Wealth and Religiosity The 2014 Global Values Survey reaffirmed another well-established trend: the richer a nation is, in terms of GDP per capita, the less religious is its population. Around the world, the poorest nations have the highest levels of religiosity, and the wealthiest nations, like  Britain, Germany, Canada, and Australia, the lowest. Those four nations  are all clustered around a $40,000 GDP per capita, and approximately 20 percent of the population claims that religion is an important part of their life.  Conversely, the poorest nations, including Pakistan, Senegal, Kenya, and the Philippines, among others, are the most religious, with nearly all members of their populations claiming religion as an important part of their lives.   This is why it is unusual that in the U.S., the nation with the highest GDP per capita among those measured, more than half of the adult population says that religion is an important part of their lives. Thats a 30 percentage point difference over other rich nations, and puts us on par with nations that have a per capita GDP of less than $20,000. This difference between the U.S. and other rich nations seems to be connected to another—that  Americans are also far more likely to say that belief in God is a prerequisite for morality. In other rich nations like Australia and France this figure is far lower (23 and 15 percent respectively), where most people do not conflate theism with morality. These final findings about religion, when combined with the first two, demonstrate the legacy of early American Protestantism. Founding father of sociology, Max Weber, wrote about this in his famous book  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber observed that in early American society, belief in God and religiosity were expressed in large part through dedicating oneself to a secular calling, or profession. Followers of Protestantism at the time were instructed by religious leaders to dedicate themselves to their calling and work hard in their earthly life in order enjoy heavenly glory in the afterlife. Over time, the universal acceptance and practice of the Protestant religion specifically waned in the U.S., but belief in hard work and the power of the individual to forge their own success remained. However, religiosity, or at least the appearance of it, remains strong in the U.S., and is perhaps connected to the three other values highlighted here, as each are form s of faith in their own right. The Trouble with American Values While all of the values described here are considered virtues in the U.S., and, indeed, can foster positive outcomes, there are significant drawbacks to the prominence of them in our society. The belief in the power of the individual, in the importance of hard work, and optimism function more as myths than they do as actual recipes for success, and what these myths obscure is a society cleaved by crippling inequalities along lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality, among other things. They do this obscuring work by encouraging us to see and think as individuals, rather than as members of communities or parts of a greater whole. Doing so prevents us from fully grasping the larger forces and patterns that organize society and shape our lives, which is to say, doing so discourages us from seeing and understanding systemic inequalities. This is how these values maintain an unequal status quo. If we want to live in a just and equal society, we have to challenge the dominance of these values and the prominent roles they play in our lives, and take instead a healthy dose of realistic social critique.