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Case analysis assignment. Please submit the assignment by clicking on this weeks content folder. A turnitin submission link will appear. Total page length is 2 pages, double spaced. Times New Roman 12 font, 1 in margins. Read the following case in the book : Fords Global Platform Strategy . Pg 624 in ebook (Pls see list of contents in other versions for the Ford case in the book. The title would be the same.) Answer the following questions and refer to concepts from the text in your answers: 1. What strategy was Ford pursuing for competing internationally, (prior to Alan Mulally’s arrival). 2. What changed at Ford after Alan Mulally? 3. Should Ford continue with the global platform strategy or make 

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Human Resources Management

12-point font, Times New Roman, 1-inch margins on all sides, double-spacing. 

Use at least two (2) quality academic resources in this assignment. You may reference any information from the class textbook, chapters 1-8 in your answers and discussions. Format: APA version 7.

Class textbook: Human Resources Management. Author: Valentine; Meglich; Mathis; Jackson. Publisher: Pearson. Edition: 16th. ISBN: 978-0357033852

Write a 2-page paper to discuss the following: 

1. Some Americans identify themselves as being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. While EEOC contends that sexual orientation and gender identity fall under the category of “sex” and are protected by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As a HR manager you may encounter these groups who identify as such and since there are court rulings that conflict as to whether they can be legally protected; such as offering benefits to same sex spouses; giving employees paid time off for those who are undergoing gender transition surgery and therapy, and the use of gender neutral bathrooms, where individuals choose bathrooms based on their gender identity. How do you keep in step with the situations and challenges above as a HR manager? 

Identity Profile

This assignment is a reflection and analysis of your personal racial, ethnic, and cultural identity. For this assignment, you will write a paper of 4–5 pages (excluding the cover page and references list).

You are expected to complete the following:

• Describe your own race, ethnicity, cultural influences, traditions, beliefs, and values:
  • Support your description of your identity with at least three peer-reviewed journal articles published in the last 5 years that discuss racial identity development, ethnic identity development, or cultural identity development. Use the Capella Library and search for three peer-reviewed journal articles related to the identity you describe. (For example, key word search for Latino and identity model or Hispanic and cultural identity development models.)
• Identify and discuss factors that influenced how you view yourself (background, experiences, cultural traditions, parental and family relationship, education, and workplace):
  • Support your description of factors that influenced your view of self with findings from your Internet search in Unit 1.
• Consider and analyze how the two domains above have affected your interactions with others, paying particular attention to culture and diversity issues and cultural competence:
  • Support your analysis with a summary of findings from Universal Ethnic Identity Scale (UEIS) in Unit 1 and the self-assessment in Unit 3.
• Compare and contrast your analysis of Universal Ethnic Identity Scale (UEIS) and self-assessment with one of the following additional assessments:
  • Everyday Multicultural Competencies/Revised Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy.
  • Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Tool.

Assignment Requirements

• Times New Roman, 12-point, and double-spaced.
• Include a cover page, page numbers, and a running head.
• It is acceptable to write in the first person for this assignment.
• Cite at least three sources.
• Use the current APA style and formatting, particularly for citations and references.

Resources

• Identity Profile Scoring Guide.
• Capella University Library.
• Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Tool.
• Everyday Multicultural Competencies/Revised Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy.
• The Writing Center.
• APA Style and Format.

 Topic: Brand Mantra 

Organizations are increasingly concerned with sustainability and corporate social responsibility – whether for business, legal, or values-based reasons. The HR function is uniquely positioned to assist in both developing and implementing a sustainability strategy.

Go to The Guardian’s Corporate Social Responsibility page and select a video or article from the list provided. If possible, avoid selecting videos or articles already chosen and discussed by classmates. After viewing the video or reading the article you have selected, provide a summary of it and a response to the following discussion prompts:

• Explain how the organization in the video or article demonstrates corporate social responsibility.
• Explain HR’s role in formulating corporate values and developing an overall business sustainability strategy.
• Identify examples of sustainable HR practices that support a culture of corporate social responsibility.

Use this week’s lecture as a basis for your post. Reference the source and cite the textbook in your original post. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts.

Realtor and about this

 Find a popular press article that discusses a union and management strike or contract negotiation in your discipline or field of interest (be sure to include the link to the article as you will be expected to upload it). Identify what topic(s) or issue(s) is/are being debated and determine if that issue is a mandatory or voluntary issue. 

Part 1 Ethical Challenge
Ford Motor Company Responds to Ethical Challenges

Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford, an inventor and entrepreneur, on June 16, 1903, in Detroit, Michigan. The Model-T became one of the most popular vehicles because it was inexpensive. During this era, he opened a factory in Canada, making the

company a global transportation leader. His moving assembly line for manufacturing was to revolutionize the auto industry.

In July 1919, the Ford family bought out all nonfamily shareholders, making them the sole owners of the company. Ever since, all Ford Company Chairmen/CEOs have been direct descendants of Henry Ford. It is the fifth largest family-owned business in the world. Today, Ford remains one the world’s top automobile companies. In 1927, Chevrolet surpassed Ford in the number of cars sold, and a rivalry continued for the next 100 years. The Ford Focus was the world’s bestselling automobile in 2013.

The Ford Company mission also known as the vision statement is “People working together as a lean, global enterprise to make people’s lives better through automotive and

mobility leadership.” Today, Bill Ford is Executive Chairman; under his leadership, the company was named the Best Global Green Brand among all companies in the world in 2014, and one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for the eighth year in a row in March 2017.

In 2017, Mark Fields was forced out as CEO, after a 40 percent drop in share price over the past three years. Chairman Bill Ford immediately appointed Jim Hackett to replace him. Prior to this appointment, Hackett served as Chairman of the Ford Smart Mobility LLC subsidiary. Hackett’s growth strategy is to take the carmaker from conventional production to new kinds of vehicles and new advanced manufacturing processes that include ridesharing and

autonomous vehicles. His strategy is to move from a traditional car company to a more flexible and technologically advanced mobility company.

Hackett’s management strategy is to cut costs, focus on trucks and SUVs, and move some manufacturing, including the Ford Focus, to China. Ford will cut internal combustion

engine spending by one-third while moving these resources toward electrical technology with a goal to add 13 new electric cars by 2020. Ford has pledged to redesign its factories and add 3D printing, robotics, and virtual reality tools to speed up design for development and production of all product offerings.

Ford will explore emerging markets as they seek new ways to address urban congestion and park and ride desires of the driving public. Recently, the company acquired Chariot, a crowdsourced shuttle service, and opened the company’s Smart Mobility Innovation Office in London, which will target near-term development of smart mobility technologies while focusing on the specific requirements of European cities. Hackett plans to push Internet connectivity and promises that 100 percent of new U.S. vehicles will have the capability. It will include Wi-Fi

technology that is critical for driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles. Ford’s biggest competitors are Tesla, Google, and Uber.

Henry Ford said “there is a most intimate connection between decency and good business.” The company has a strong code of conduct; it is published in the Ford Code of Conduct Handbook. It focuses on ethical risk, provides guidance on how to recognize and deal with ethical issues, and provides policies and methods to report unethical conduct and to help create a culture of accountability and honesty. It also provides an online reporting system as well as questions and answers.

The handbook covers the workplace environment; gifts, favors, and conflicts of interest, use of company assets and data safeguarding integrity of financial records; product quality; safety and environmental matters; intellectual property; working with the governments political activities; competition and antitrust laws; and international business practices. The

Ford Code of Conduct Handbook provides a list of items employees are forbidden to accept: gifts from those who do business or wish to do business with Ford (unless under a $50.00 value), including cash, discounts on products (unless offered to the whole company), and tickets that do not meet entertainment requirements. The company has strict guidelines on international business and maintains strict oversight over its global operations and provides an online global ethics training program for employees, written in 13 languages.

Even with a strict Code of Conduct, Ford has encountered problems through the years. In 1970–1980 while sales of the Ford Pinto were high, design issues arose regarding placement of the gas tank behind the rear axle instead above it. Bolts were added, which increased the likelihood of a puncture in the tank and causing a fire. In 1977, the flaws were made public in a

Mother Jones article criticizing Ford’s decision-making process for the product. The flawed design cost Ford Motor Company $125 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

The verdict remains controversial even after many appeals as Ford maintained the Pinto was safe and only involved in 1.9 percent of fatal accidents and less than half were the result of rear-end collisions. A California Court of Appeals upheld the original verdict although the amount of punitive damages was reduced to $3.5 million. Ford was found by the jury to be negligent. Later Ford engineers indicated that management was not made aware of the design problems because of a company culture of firing the bearers of bad news. Ford’s reputation

was significantly impacted when the jury viewed Ford was more interested in saving money at the expense of society.

Another embarrassing Ford ethics issue involved Firestone/Bridgestone tire company in 1998. A State Farm Insurance investigator studied claims and discovered tire tread failure with

the Firestone tires, which was then reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Almost 84 percent of the tire retread issues were found on Ford vehicles that were manufactured at the Decatur, Illinois, plant. Further investigation revealed the plant did not have adequate air conditioning which directly impacted the adhesive properties of the tire. Old equipment combined with temperature-control problems led to the safety issues. The Ford Explorer recommended a lower tire pressure, and many felt it contributed to the Ford Explorer rollover problems and tire tread failure. Firestone issued a tire recall, and Ford implemented a tire replacement program that affected 1.3 million tires. Each company blamed the other for the problems that ultimately severed the long-term business relationship the two companies had.

Ford was criticized for lack of due diligence and should have had more quality control over their vehicles. Ford also failed to acknowledge to the public that they had identical problems with the Ford Explorer in foreign countries. This resulted in their stock price decline, loss of consumer faith, and ultimately cost the company more than $1.3 billion.

Sustaining Sustainability—Ford Motor Company has made a commitment to sustainability; they created the Sustainable Work Force that focuses on strategic hiring, training, protection, safety, and health care. Ford has a policy for safeguarding human rights and working conditions as they seek to be a good corporate citizen. They also encourage their

suppliers to develop and enforce similar polices for their own suppliers and subcontractors. Sustainability creates an opportunity for engagement, collaboration, and innovation. Ford has created an employee wellness and well-being program and expanded benefits beyond the traditional ones, including increased paid leave time.

The company is a strong supporter of employee diversity and education. An employee program called Ford Interfaith Network was created to help employees learn about and respect different religious beliefs and customs. Every year, Ford holds a National Day of Prayer at its world headquarters and invites employees of all faiths, ethnicities, and religion to participate. The company also created GLOBE to support a safe and supportive work environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered employees. Employees are encouraged to participate in health risk appraisals and health promotion programs.

Community Sustainability—Ford employees gave 204,000 volunteer hours in 2016 working in poverty areas. The Ford Global Day of Caring volunteers engage in building projects in communities through the world. Ford Community Day is a fair for the public that introduces

the customer to their product line. Local Ford dealerships sponsor major events and initiatives. The Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (Ford PAS) is an academic program that has students, teachers, and community leaders providing free tutoring to participants. In 2016, Ford provided $32.8 million to support Community Life, $18.4 million for education, and $7.7 million for driving safety programs.

The Environmental Sustainability Program for Climate Change addresses ethical business practices, product carbon footprint and fuel economy, customer satisfaction, product quality and safety, supply chain management, assessment, capacity building and performance, and

government regulations. Ford was named to CDP’s Water A List for corporate water stewardship for the second year in a row. Ford’s Value Chain includes product design that addresses the impacts at every stage of the automotive life cycle, from use of natural resources and materials to product quality and safety. Ford tries to use sustainable materials throughout

the manufacturing process. They also hold their suppliers and subcontractors to the same standards they adhere to.

Conclusion—Ford today has operations in more than 100 countries and works to maintain the core values of improving performance while addressing social, economic, and environmental challenges while living in compliance within the Ford Code of Conduct Handbook. There will always be new ethical issues, and Ford will need to continue to access risks and respond to new challenges.

Question:

How has Ford made ethics an important part of its culture?

Read the scenario below. Then draft a 3–4 page business memorandum to Linda Hoff, Stanford’s CFO. In your memo, codify your findings and interpretations from the horizontal and vertical analyses and the level of alignment between the company’s fiscal management and its strategic direction. Include an Excel spreadsheet as an attachment to the memo. In this memo you will:

1. Review the year-over-year variances contained in the audited Stanford balance sheets and income statements, which are contained within the provided Week 5 Assignment Spreadsheet [XLSX] for fiscal years 2015 through 2018. You’ll be expected to pay particular attention to the negative variances (color coded in “red”) that you believe to be potentially the most impactful to Stanford.
2. Speculate as to the reasons for the negative variances.
3. Examine the common size balance sheets and income statements looking for abnormally low or high ratios based on what you know about the line item and what you observe in the data for the other fiscal years.
4. Look for patterns in the line items over time (2015 through 2018) and identify any unusual findings that may need to be examined further.
5. Make a judgement regarding the alignment of the organization’s fiscal management with its strategic direction of the firm. Fiscal management is based on your horizontal and vertical analyses. The strategic direction is based on the vision, mission, and strategic priorities of Stanford.

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to familiarize you with financial statements, the need to align the financials with the strategic direction of the firm, and the process of performing a horizontal and vertical analysis of a company’s balance sheets and income statements.

The Scenario

You’re a Healthcare Administration Fellow at the prestigious Stanford Healthcare. You have been rotating through the various departments over the past 9 months and now you have the honor of working under the mentorship of Linda Hoff, Chief Financial Officer.

Stanford Medicine includes Stanford Healthcare, Stanford Children’s Hospital, and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. This organization uses an integrated approach to strategic planning, which incorporates jointly agreed upon strategic priorities from its various entities. It also ensures a high degree of congruency in strategic focus by each entity. Before outlining the strategic priorities for Stanford Medicine, it is important to take note that a firm’s directional strategy is comprised on three separate yet interwoven components: vision, mission, and goals (or, in this case, priorities). Armed with this knowledge, you have taken the necessary step and located and familiarized yourself with the vision, mission, and priorities of Stanford Medicine. Below is what you found. When examining a company’s financials, it is prudent to keep the directional strategy of the company in mind. After all, in order to advance many strategic priorities, which include fulfilling the mission and positioning the organization to achieve it vision for the future, it will require proper management of the firm’s scarce resources. Failure to properly manage the financial performance of the organization can compromise the company’s ability to maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Our Vision

Precision Health: Predict. Prevent. Cure. Precisely.

We will heal humanity through science and compassion by leading the biomedical revolution in Precision Health.

Our Mission

Improving Human Health through Discovery and Care.

Through innovative discovery and the translation of new knowledge, Stanford Medicine improves human health locally and globally. We serve our community by providing outstanding and compassionate care. We inspire and prepare the future leaders of science and medicine.

Strategic Priorities

A collaborative endeavor involving the entire community, the Stanford Medicine Integrated Strategic Planning process yielded a framework that is human centered and discovery led, focused on three overarching priorities for our enterprise.

By enhancing our strengths and achieving our goals in these priority areas, we will amplify our preeminence and remain uniquely positioned to lead the biomedical revolution in Precision Health, ensuring our continued ability to guide health care through significant global changes.

Value Focused

• Provide a highly personalized patient experience.
• Ensure a seamless Stanford Medicine experience.

Digitally Driven

• Amplify the impact of Stanford innovation globally.
• Deliver human-centered, high-tech, high-touch care and revolutionize biomedical discovery.
• Lead in population health and data science.

Uniquely Stanford

• Accelerate discovery in and knowledge of human biology.
• Discovered here, used everywhere: advance fundamental human knowledge, translational medicine, and global health.
• Ensure preeminence across all of our mission areas.

Variance Analyses

Normally, managers are expected to examine positive and negative variances, and then speculate as to possible explanations for the observed variances. Following this initial assessment, managers would be expected to dig deeper into those variances of greatest concern to the organization in order to uncover the actual causes for the variances, and then implement necessary corrective actions. Digging into all variances would be costly and, quite frankly, a misuse of one’s time and energy. The CFO has asked you to conduct a variance analysis of the company’s consolidated balance sheets and income statements for fiscal years 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, which you began. You have determined the variances for each account (line item) captured in the financials. Now that this first step has been accomplished, the CFO would like for you to pay particular attention to the negative variances contained in the spreadsheet; and focus more specifically on those variances you believe to be potentially the most impactful to Stanford.

Once you’ve completed your variance analysis over time, which is referred to as a horizontal analysis, you are ready to create a common size balance sheet and income statement of each of the 4 fiscal years (2015 through 2018). You prepared the common sized financials, which are captured in your spreadsheet. Now, it is time to perform a vertical and horizontal analysis of these common size financials. The common size balance sheet allows you to see each asset relative to total assets, as well as each liability and net asset (in the case of non-profit organizations) relative to total liabilities and net assets. In a common size income statement, each line item is expressed as a percentage of total revenue or sales. Common sizing balance sheets and income statements allows firms to compare against one another even though they may be of different sizes. It also allows a firm to benchmark its financial performance against comparative groups. In this case, there isn’t any comparative data to benchmark against; however, you can examine the ratios in each fiscal year and look to see if anything looks abnormally low or high based on what you know about the line item and what you observe in the data for the other fiscal years (vertical analysis). You can also look for patterns in the line items over time (2015 through 2018) and point out any unusual findings that may need to be examined further (horizontal analysis). In finance, it isn’t uncommon for the organization to establish interim goals and targets for certain line items in the financials. The firm can compare its actual performance against the established goals and targets.

Financial Management and Strategic Direction

Once you’ve completed your horizontal and vertical analyses of the financial statements, you should be able to get a sense of how well management has managed the financial resources of the company in support of its strategic direction. In business, the strategic direction should be evident in its vision and mission statements and strategic priorities. The strategic priorities should help support the company’s mission, and the mission should help advance the firm’s vision for the future. Failure to effectively manage the company’s financial resources can seriously compromise the firm’s ability to fulfill its mission and subsequently the vision.

Business Memorandum to CFO

Using the analysis that you performed on Stanford Healthcare and trends that you identified, write a business memorandum to the CFO. In your memo, codify your findings and interpretations, and make a judgment regarding the alignment of the organization’s fiscal management with its strategic direction of the firm. Attach your analysis in an Excel spreadsheet as an attachment to the memo. Your analysis and trends identified should take into account any feedback that you received from your professor and/or peers.

Helpful hints: Negative variance is not always a bad thing. For example, you might see a slight increase in the operating costs; however, if you achieved a positive variance in the total operating revenue that outpaced the increase in operating costs, then that may be perceived as a positive outcome. Remember, you need to spend money to make money. We just want to make certain that operating costs/expenses don’t outpace the growth in operating revenues. Also keep in mind that some variances are useful in explaining other variances even if these variances are associated with different financial statements. For example, you may see an increase in operating costs, which is a negative variance, but an increase in current assets, which is a positive variance. Furthermore, you should look for patterns over time. This can reveal both positive and negative trends that may provide insight into the variances you discovered. For example, you may have noticed that a certain expense has continued growth over the past 3 years (negative variance); however, the rate of growth year-over-year has been declining. It could be that Stanford has implemented some cost cutting measures that are showing signs of working.

The specific learning outcome associated with this assignment is:

• Audit financial statements and expenditures for alignment with organizational strategic priorities.