Diploma Exam Thread July 2008OK, hier beginnt der Thread für diejenigen, die am 18. Juli 2008 antreten. Da ich meine E-Mail deaktiviert habe, bitte auch alle Fragen entweder direkt in diesem Thread posten bzw. mir über die ezboard Message-Funktion eine Nachricht schicken.
Der Prüfungsinhalt ist identisch mit dem Erstantritt (d.h. MARS-Studenten erhalten beim Report KEINE Marketingfragen, FIRST-Studenten KEINE Finanz/Accounting-Fragen). Nehmt als Übungsvorlagen für die Reports die Aufgabenstellungen, die schon im FH-Intranet hochgeladen wurden. Gutes Gelingen!
Re: report - Forest AG
In today’s business world it is very important to have a good business strategy, a really good business plan.
One big area in a company is the staff. Therefore, it is very important to motivate and to push the employees in a right way and in return the company will get more productivity and maybe, the market share will rise.
While some firms want to cut costs by reducing staff, others have to reduce it due to overstaffing. This report will focus on an Austrian paper producer company, Forest AG, which has to lay off 15 % of its group’s employees after it acquired a subsidiary in a hostile takeover.
The report is structured along the following lines. First, the report explains the two HR terms “replacement chart” and “contingent worker”. Next, the author gives a definition of the two incentive tools to improve productivity namely the “profit-sharing plan” and “gain-sharing plan”. Lastly, the author will describe the pie-chart with a solution of a downsizing strategy.
The following theoretical content is of relevance for the problem at hand, because the company has always to deal with hiring and firing. This includes a proper understanding of the terms “replacement chart” and “contingent worker”. According to Ebert/Griffin, replacement chart can be defined as a chart where you will find all managers with their skills and functions, where you can see how long this person will stay and who will be the best replacement for this position. In contrast, the contingent worker is a person who will be hired from outside the company. This can be an independent contractors, temporary employees, contract and leased worker.
In order to improve motivation and therefore productivity, a company like Forest AG should introduce incentive tools. The best tools of incentive programming plan are the “profit-sharing plan” and the “gain-sharing plan”. The profit-sharing plan is a benefit, in which the employees will be distributed by the company, when the company’s profits rise. The other opportunity is to introduce a gain-sharing plan where the workforce will be motivated itself. If costs can be reduced due to higher productivity, staff members would receive an incentive. This is a incentive which tries to stimulate the staff itself.
This pie chart is divided into eight segments. It shows that the majority of the staff falls in to the category of 30 to 50 aged people. The smallest sector of the chart shows the 65+ aged people. This segment is very small due to the fact that at this age, most employees have already retired. The segment of the 30-39 aged people is fairly large because many contingent workers are employed in this sector. The best suggestion to reduce staff is to make part of the contingent worker and all employees over 65 redundant. For this reason, the 65+ age group should receive a severance package in order to leave the company.
If Forest AG would follow this suggestion, the company could reduce its staff. One of the biggest drawback of lay offs could be a decreased level of motivation. In order to this, the company should improve its incentive tools to increase motivation and productivity, because it is proven that employees are more motivated at their work if they get special attention from the management.
To sum up, it can be said that Forster AG has to reduce its staff but it really has to pay special attention to the remaining employees in order not to lose their trust.
Re: report - Forest AGOriginal
In today’s business world it is very important to have a good business strategy, a really good business plan.
One big area in a company is the staff. Therefore, it is very important to motivate and to push the employees in a right way and in return the company will get more productivity and maybe, the market share will rise.
While some firms want to cut costs by reducing staff, others have to reduce it due to overstaffing. This report will focus on an Austrian paper producer company, Forest AG, which has to lay off 15 % of its group’s employees after it acquired a subsidiary in a hostile takeover.
The report is structured along the following lines. First, the report explains the two HR terms “replacement chart” and “contingent worker”. Next, the author gives a definition of the two incentive tools to improve productivity namely the “profit-sharing plan” and “gain-sharing plan”. Lastly, the author will describe the pie-chart with a solution of a downsizing strategy.
The following theoretical content is of relevance for the problem at hand, because the company has always to deal with hiring and firing. This includes a proper understanding of the terms “replacement chart” and “contingent worker”. According to Ebert/Griffin, replacement chart can be defined as a chart where you will find all managers with their skills and functions, where you can see how long this person will stay and who will be the best replacement for this position. In contrast, the contingent worker is a person who will be hired from outside the company. This can be an independent contractors, temporary employees, contract and leased worker.
In order to improve motivation and therefore productivity, a company like Forest AG should introduce incentive tools. The best tools of incentive programming plan are the “profit-sharing plan” and the “gain-sharing plan”. The profit-sharing plan is a benefit, in which the employees will be distributed by the company, when the company’s profits rise. The other opportunity is to introduce a gain-sharing plan where the workforce will be motivated itself. If costs can be reduced due to higher productivity, staff members would receive an incentive. This is a incentive which tries to stimulate the staff itself.
This pie chart is divided into eight segments. It shows that the majority of the staff falls in to the category of 30 to 50 aged people. The smallest sector of the chart shows the 65+ aged people. This segment is very small due to the fact that at this age, most employees have already retired. The segment of the 30-39 aged people is fairly large because many contingent workers are employed in this sector. The best suggestion to reduce staff is to make part of the contingent worker and all employees over 65 redundant. For this reason, the 65+ age group should receive a severance package in order to leave the company.
If Forest AG would follow this suggestion, the company could reduce its staff. One of the biggest drawback of lay offs could be a decreased level of motivation. In order to this, the company should improve its incentive tools to increase motivation and productivity, because it is proven that employees are more motivated at their work if they get special attention from the management.
To sum up, it can be said that Forster AG has to reduce its staff but it really has to pay special attention to the remaining employees in order not to lose their trust.
Korrektur
In today’s business world it is very important to have a good business strategy and an excellent business plan.
One significant fundament of a company is the staff. Therefore, it is very important to motivate ___ the employees in an appropriate way and in return, the company will gain more productivity and ___the market share might rise.
While some firms voluntarily want to cut costs by reducing staff, others are forced to downsize due to overstaffing. This report will focus on an Austrian paper producer company, Forest AG, which has to lay off 15 % of its group’s employees after it acquired a subsidiary in a hostile takeover.
The report is structured along the following lines. First, the report explains the two HR terms “replacement chart” and “contingent worker”. Next, the author gives a definition of the two incentive tools to improve productivity, namely the “profit-sharing plan” and “gain-sharing plan”. Lastly, the author will describe the pie-chart with a solution of a downsizing strategy.
The following theoretical content is of relevance for the problem at hand, because the company always has to deal with hiring and firing. This includes a proper understanding of the terms “replacement chart” and “contingent worker”. According to Ebert/Griffin, a replacement chart can be defined as a chart in which you will find all managers with their skills and functions, in which you can see how long this person will stay in his/her respective function and who will be the best replacement for this position. In contrast, the contingent worker is a person who is hired from outside the company. This can be an independent contractor, temporary employees or a contract or leased worker.
In order to improve motivation and therefore productivity, a company like Forest AG should introduce incentive tools. The best tools of the incentive program are the “profit-sharing plan” and the “gain-sharing plan”. The profit-sharing plan is a benefit in which profits above a predetermined level will be distributed among the employees ___ by the company___. The other opportunity is to introduce a gain-sharing plan where the workforce will motivate itself. If costs can be reduced due to higher productivity, staff members ___ receive an incentive. This is a incentive which tries to stimulate the staff itself.
This pie chart is divided into eight segments. It shows that the majority of the staff falls in to the category of 30 to 50 aged people. The smallest sector of the chart shows the 65+ group. This segment is very small due to the fact that at this age, most employees have already retired. The segment of the 30-39 year olds is fairly large because many contingent workers are employed in this sector. The best suggestion to reduce staff is to make part of the contingent workers and all employees over 65 redundant. For this reason, the 65+ age group should receive a severance package in order to leave the company.
If Forest AG would follow this suggestion, the company could reduce its staff. One of the biggest drawback of lay offs could be a decreased level of motivation. In order to combat this, the company should improve its incentive tools to increase motivation and productivity, because it is proven that employees are more motivated at their work if they get special attention from the management.
To sum up, it can be said that Forster AG has to reduce its staff but it really has to pay special attention to the remaining employees in order not to lose their trust.
Gefällt mir gut und wäre für mich ein solider 2er. Ich habe zwar einige Dinge verändert, es handelt sich aber dabei hauptsächlich um Stilfragen und nicht um Grammatikfehler. Weiter so!
1) "to have a good business strategy, a really good business plan.": Das einzige, was hier wirklich grammatikalisch falsch ist, ist das Fehlen eines "and" vor "a really" (und statt dem Komma). Wenn Du damit betonen wolltest, "eine gute Strategie, eine WIRKLICH gute Strategie", dann ginge das im Grunde schon - du müsstest dann aber das gleiche Wort beibehalten (d.h. "a good business strategy, a really good business strategy"). Statt "really good" ist zudem "excellent" schöner.
2) "and maybe, the market share will rise. "Das ist kein Fehler und ich würde nicht im Traum bei der Prüfung daran denken, Punkte abzuziehen. Ich habe nur deshalb auf " and the market share might rise" ausgebessert, weil "maybe" eine irre häufige Fehlerquelle in Stresssituationen ist. Wenn man sich einpaukt, "maybe" wirklich nur am Beginn eines Satzes zu verwenden und ansonsten immer "might", dann erspart man sich in Stresssituationen oft unnötige Fehler.
3)"the company has always to deal with": Das ist einer der großen Klassiker der österreichischen Grammatikfehlergeschichte. Es ist immer "... always has to..." und nie "... has always to...".
4) "the contingent worker is a person who will be hired from outside the company.": Hier passt "will be" nicht, weil es sich um eine immergültige Feststellung handelt (d.h. zu jeder Zeit) und da verwendet man den Present Simple.
5) "in which the employees will be distributed by the company,": Vorsicht- das würde bedeuten, dass die MITARBEITER verteilt werden, nicht der Zusatzgewinn ;-)
6) "If costs can be reduced due to higher productivity, staff members would receive an incentive.": Aus dem gleichen Grund wie bei (4) passt hier "would" nicht, sondern einfach Present Simple. Als Tipp: Wenn Du eine Definition anführst, dann checke immer nochmals nach, ob Du eine Aussage gibst, die immer gültig ist (bei "if/then"-Sätzen wird das beim "then"-Teil IMMER der Fall sein). Solche Situationen verlangen den Present Simple.
2.report
In today’s business world it is very important to know how to manage the company and to have an own specialized corporate culture.
The purpose of this report is to give you an overview of how to implement the ethical behaviours. In particular, it will look at how to occurring social responsibility and to avoid unfair pricing systems of Austrian telecommunications provider Plauder GmbH.
The report is structured along the following lines. First of all, it will give the explanation of “corporate social responsibility”. Following this, it will offer a short definition of “collusion” and “price gauging”. In conclusion, it will provide a suggestion for Plauder GmbH how to improve the ethical behaviour of its employees.
In order to find a solution for Plauder GmbH, it is necessary to understand the related theoretical fundament. This includes a proper understanding of the terms “corporate social responsibility” and unfair pricing systems like “collusion” and price gauging”. Corporate social responsibility can be defined as a business attempts to balance its commitments to relevant groups or individuals in its environment. These groups are called organizational stakeholders which have five main groups. These groups are customers, employees, inventors, suppliers and local commitments. Each of these groups has a stake of its performance in the company.
In context of unfair pricing, it is important to know what is “collusion” and “price gauging”. Collusion always exists when one or more companies have an illegal agreement to commit a wrongful price that means that the companies collaborate prices. The best example of such a pricing system happened at international pharmaceutical companies which collaborate prices for “Vitamine”. Similarly, price gauging is an unfair pricing system too but it works in another way. The retailers increase prices for their product even then, if it will exist a possible hurricane. Therefore, the retailers stock up prices for bottled water and for a barrel. This system can also be fined in term of oil prices because the oil prices rose after the 11th September 2001 or Iraq war 2003. This happened because the people cannot achieve everywhere the oil and for this reason the retailers trade with oil prices in an unfair and unethical way.
This leads to the question of how this theoretical information can be applied in the case of Plauder GmbH.
The old management focused on the unfair pricing system because at the beginning of telecommunication there do not exist many companies who provides telecommunication. This led to a collusion scandal of Plauder GmbH and to reorganize a new management board. The new management will focus on the business ethics of ethical and unethical behaviours by employees in the context of their jobs. Whatever, the management has to use a good offer combination and in that way to increase their market share.
To conclude, the suggestion mentioned above is admittedly not without certain drawbacks. Nevertheless, it seems to be the most appropriate way to increase market share, to motivate the stakeholders with implementation of business ethics and to ensure Plauder GmbH’s competitiveness.
Re: 2.reportOriginal
In today’s business world it is very important to know how to manage the company and to have an own specialized corporate culture.
The purpose of this report is to give you an overview of how to implement the ethical behaviours. In particular, it will look at how to occurring social responsibility and to avoid unfair pricing systems of Austrian telecommunications provider Plauder GmbH.
The report is structured along the following lines. First of all, it will give the explanation of “corporate social responsibility”. Following this, it will offer a short definition of “collusion” and “price gauging”. In conclusion, it will provide a suggestion for Plauder GmbH how to improve the ethical behaviour of its employees.
In order to find a solution for Plauder GmbH, it is necessary to understand the related theoretical fundament. This includes a proper understanding of the terms “corporate social responsibility” and unfair pricing systems like “collusion” and price gauging”. Corporate social responsibility can be defined as a business attempts to balance its commitments to relevant groups or individuals in its environment. These groups are called organizational stakeholders which have five main groups. These groups are customers, employees, inventors, suppliers and local commitments. Each of these groups has a stake of its performance in the company.
In context of unfair pricing, it is important to know what is “collusion” and “price gauging”. Collusion always exists when one or more companies have an illegal agreement to commit a wrongful price that means that the companies collaborate prices. The best example of such a pricing system happened at international pharmaceutical companies which collaborate prices for “Vitamine”. Similarly, price gauging is an unfair pricing system too but it works in another way. The retailers increase prices for their product even then, if it will exist a possible hurricane. Therefore, the retailers stock up prices for bottled water and for a barrel. This system can also be fined in term of oil prices because the oil prices rose after the 11th September 2001 or Iraq war 2003. This happened because the people cannot achieve everywhere the oil and for this reason the retailers trade with oil prices in an unfair and unethical way.
This leads to the question of how this theoretical information can be applied in the case of Plauder GmbH.
The old management focused on the unfair pricing system because at the beginning of telecommunication there do not exist many companies who provides telecommunication. This led to a collusion scandal of Plauder GmbH and to reorganize a new management board. The new management will focus on the business ethics of ethical and unethical behaviours by employees in the context of their jobs. Whatever, the management has to use a good offer combination and in that way to increase their market share.
To conclude, the suggestion mentioned above is admittedly not without certain drawbacks. Nevertheless, it seems to be the most appropriate way to increase market share, to motivate the stakeholders with implementation of business ethics and to ensure Plauder GmbH’s competitiveness.
Korrektur
In today’s business world, it is very important to know how to manage one's company and to have a separate, specialized corporate culture.
The purpose of this report is to give you an overview of how to implement ____ ethical behaviour. In particular, it will look at how to achieve social responsibility and to avoid the unfair pricing systems of Austrian telecommunications provider Plauder GmbH.
The report is structured along the following lines. First of all, it will give an explanation of “corporate social responsibility”. Following this, it will offer a short definition of “collusion” and “price gouging”. In conclusion, it will provide a suggestion for how Plauder GmbH could improve the ethical behaviour of its employees.
In order to find a solution for Plauder GmbH, it is necessary to understand the related theoretical fundament. This includes a proper understanding of the terms “corporate social responsibility” and of unfair pricing systems like “collusion” and price gouging”. Corporate social responsibility can be defined as a business'attempt to balance its commitments to relevant groups or individuals in its environment. These groups are called organizational stakeholders and are subdivided into five main groups. These groups are customers, employees, inventors, suppliers and local communities. Each of these groups has a stake in the performance of the company.
In context of unfair pricing, it is important to know what ___ “collusion” and “price gouging” are. Collusion always exists when one or more companies have an illegal agreement to commit a wrongful act. An example for this would be if companies collaborate on prices. The best example of such a pricing system involved international pharmaceutical companies which collaborated on prices for “Vitamine”. Similarly, price gouging is an unfair pricing system too, but it works in another way. The retailers increase prices for their product unreasonably in response to high consumer demand. An example for this would be a price increase in response to a hurricane. In such a case, the retailers might raise prices for bottled water ____. This method can also be applied to oil prices because the oil prices rose after the 11th of September 2001 or the Iraq War in 2003. This happened because the people couldn'taccess oil everywhere and for this reason, the retailers sold their oil for prices that were unfair and unethical ___.
This leads to the question of how this theoretical information can be applied in the case of Plauder GmbH.
The old management focused on the unfair pricing system because at the beginning of the telecommunication era, there were not ___ many companies that provided telecommunication services. This led to a collusion scandal involving Plauder GmbH and ultimately to ___ a new management board. The new management will focus on __ business ethics and on the ethical and unethical behaviourof employees in the context of their jobs. ___The management has to offer a good combination of incentivesin order to increase its market share.
To conclude, the suggestion mentioned above is admittedly not without certain drawbacks. Nevertheless, it seems to be the most appropriate way to increase market share, to motivate the stakeholders with implementation of business ethics and to ensure Plauder GmbH’s competitiveness.
Inhaltlich gefällt mir alles bis auf den Verbesserungsvorschlag. Erfinde bitte in so einem Fall konkrete Maßnahmen, um das Mitarbeiterverhalten zu verbessern (müssen nicht aus Griffin/Ebert stammen). Sprachlich gute Entwicklung:
1) "how to manage the company": entweder (wenn allgemein gemeint) "to manage a company" oder (wenn Besitz angezeigt werden soll) "how to manage one's company"
2) "an own specialized corporate culture": "an own" kommt auf Englisch so gut wie nie vor. Entweder "one's own" (bzw. "my own", "your own", usw.) oder für "eine eigene": "a separate"
3) "a suggestion for Plauder GmbH how to improve ": Gute Phrase, nur falsche Reihenfolge: "a suggestion for how X could INFINITIVE"
4) "has a stake of its": Hier bedeutet "stake"= "Interesse" und dann ist es immer "a stake IN..."
5) "collaborate": Im Regelfall kommt nach "collaborate" ein "ON"
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