Boston Chicken Case Essay Example for Free

Boston Chicken Case Essay Boston Chicken implemented a franchising strategy that differed from most other franchising companies at the time. Boston Chicken focused its expansion through franchising the company through large regional developers rather than selling store franchises to a large number of small franchisees. In that, an established network of 22 regional franchises that targeted their operations in the 60 largest U.S. metropolitan markets and in order to do so, the franchisee would have been an independent experienced businessman with vast financial resources and would be responsible for opening 50 – 100 stored in the region. Boston Chicken focused on widespread continuous expansion of its operations to become to developed across the board food chain. Scouting for real estate assured the highest standards for developing properties and was critical to the company’s future success. To assist in future growth of the franchises, Boston Chicken implemented a communications infrastructure, which provided a supporting link for communication between its networks of stores. In addition in efforts to improve operating efficiency, the company locked in low rates from its suppliers and developed flagship stores, which did most of the initial food preparation which inadvertently reduced employee training costs. Many of these regional developers were given a revolving credit line to help support expansion. This type of financing came with credit risk while the franchises average revenue from operations were not sufficient enough to cover the expenses which raises doubt for the repayment of such loans. 2. The accounting policy of reporting the franchise fees from Boston Chicken’s area developers as revenue seemed most controversial. These franchise fees, which accounted for more than 50% of total revenue, did not represent revenues from operations. Also, the source of most of the ranchise fees came from the financing provided by Boston Chicken, the franchiser, where the money coming in was the same money that was going out. This overstated earnings of the company. Since the debentures can be converted into shares of common stock, most of the revenue from franchise fees should have been deferred. Reporting revenues that included these franchise fees his the fact the most of the franchised stores were operating at a loss, which provided a false impression to investors. While Boston Chicken, the franchiser reported a net income from operations of $24,611 in 1994, if they excluded the income provided by franchise fees, they company-operated stores would have been operating at a loss, which would have been a more accurate picture for the company’s operations and its question of having a profitable future. 3. Boston Chicken, the franchiser, reports revenue based on franchise fees (includes royalties, initial franchise development costs, interest income from area developer financing, lease income, software fees, and other related franchise fees), and company operated stores. The revenue reported on the income statement does not reflect the operating income or losses generated by the area developers, with most of these area developers operating at a loss. Since the franchiser provides financing to the area developers, it seems that consolidation of the financial statements would provide vital information to the users of the financial statements especially since the repayment of loans relies heavily on the profitability of the franchisees. Basically, Boston Chicken was not reporting the results of operations from its area developers because Boston Chicken did not have an equity position in these firms; rather their stake in these franchises was reported as debt financing. In doing so, Boston Chicken did not have to report the losses that were incurred in these operations. By manipulating the financial statements, the company gave a false impression on its future prospects of the company, allowing them to more freely raise capital through the issuance of common stock, and inadvertently inflating tock prices.

in a few days :: essays research papers

In a Few Days†¦ A year has past and now we stand on the brink of returning to a world where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything, yet nothing being the same. In a few days we will reluctantly give our hugs and, fighting the tears, say good-bye to the people who were once just names on a sheet of paper, to return to people that we hugged and fought the tears the say good-bye to before we ever left. We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends. We will go back to the places we came from and go back to the same things we did last summer and every summer before. We will come into town on that same familiar road, and even though it has been nine months, it will only seem like yesterday. As you walk into your old bedroom, every emotion will pass through you as you reflect on the way that your life has changed and the person you have become. You suddenly realize that the things that were most important to you a year ago does not seem to matter so much anymore, and the things you hold highest now, no one at home will completely understand. Who will you call first? Where are you going to work? Who will be partying with you on Saturday night? What has everyone been up to? Who from college will you keep in touch with? How long before you actually start missing people barging in without calling or knocking? Who will go with you to Dunkin Donuts at 5 a.m., if you get the urge? Who will go clubbing with you after hours? How long until you adjust to sleeping in a room by yourself, or how long before you realize that you best friends are not in the bed next to your room? Then you realize how much things have changed, you realize that the hardest part of college is balancing the two completely different worlds you live in, trying desperately to hold onto everything all the while trying to figure out what you have to leave behind. In the matter of one day’s time, we will leave our world of living with our best friends, walking across campus to eat at the UC, instant messenger being on 24/7, 8:00 a.m. classes (well, not for you), and perpetual procrastination, to a world that will seem foreign to us despite the fact that we have lived in it for nineteen years.

Affirmitive Action: Reverse Discrimination

Baker 1 Jennifer Baker Reverse Discrimination Even though slavery has not been a part of America for over a century now, racial discrimination still exists in various parts of our culture. A controversial policy known as affirmative action was introduced in the 1960’s to try and promote racial equality in society. Affirmative action is supposed to give minorities an equal chance in life by requiring minority employment, promotions, college acceptance, etc. At first this sounds like a perfect solution to racial discrimination, but in reality it is discrimination in reverse.The term â€Å"affirmative action† was first used back in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy in an executive order designed to encourage racially mixed work forces. He stated that contractors should â€Å"take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin. † (Affirmative Action) Then in 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed which prohibited employment discrimination based on race or sex. The Civil Rights activists continued to argue that minorities weren’t going to be able to compete with the more qualified applicants after having suffered discrimination for so long.So in 1969 President Nixon made it a federal policy that a certain percentage of minorities must be hired in the workplace. Quickly affirmative Baker 2 action changed from being a policy that ensured equal opportunity to being one that gave unfair advantages to minorities. Affirmative action has remained controversial throughout the years, finding itself in and out of the courts. One of the most famous cases was Fullilove vs. Klutznick, which took place in 1980. The ruling stated that setting aside 10 percent of the hiring for minorities was constitutional.Fortunately in 1996 proposition 209 was passed in California which ended affirmative action throughout the state. This was definitely a breakthrough, but the effects of affirmative acti on still linger. Many businesses and corporations still give preference to minorities even if they are less qualified. Employers fear that lawsuits will be filed stating that applicants were turned down because of their race. Renowned author and political activist Nathan Glazer, has been against affirmative action since its beginning. Glazer believes that the olicy became controversial when it went beyond the ideas of the Civil Rights Act and started requiring employers to hire or promote a certain number of minority applicants or employees. In order to make sure that affirmative action was taking place, federal courts started enforcing â€Å"quotas† or â€Å"goals† for specific numbers of minority hiring. If these were met, lawsuits based on racial discrimination would be less valid. Says Glazer, â€Å"Affirmative action has become a matter of setting statistical goals or quotas by race for employment†¦ the expectations of color blindness that wasBaker 3 paramou nt in the 1960’s has been replaced by a rigid frame of numerical requirements. †(Glazer, 6) Those who oppose quotas and goals are said to be opposers of the Civil Rights Act, even though the affirmative action of today is not what the Civil Rights Act embodied. Glazer compares the misinterpretation of the Civil Rights Act to the desegregation of schools. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. The idea of racially integrated schools, like racially integrated workplaces, is an excellent one.However, the desegregation of schools has made busing a necessity. Busing, although not in use today, is when students are transferred to another school for purposes of racial integration. It is costly to run all the buses and the commuting is hard on the students. Those opposing busing are said to agree with the segregation of schools. (Glazer, 10) The desegregation of schools was also mentioned in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Initially this s eemed a fair proposal, but just as affirmative action became detrimental in the workplaces, integrating minorities in schools turned into numerical requirements.Can you imagine busing programs being used across the United States today? The scary truth is that once one of these ideas is adopted in one city, any other city can then follow suit. For example, if Santa Cruz County were granted the right to require a 15 percent Hispanic student enrollment in all high schools within the county lines, any other city could also put this idea into practice based on precedent. The assignment of students Baker 4 based on race would cause an endless stream of angry parents. Fortunately busing is in the past, but affirmative action still has its claws in the school system.A few weeks ago I was watching a 60 Minutes segment about a white girl who had filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan claiming that they did not accept her because of her race. She had graduated from high school with a high GPA and had done everything in her power to become qualified for acceptance, yet she was denied admission. Further research showed that the University of Michigan does in fact admit students based on race. When reading applications, they award points according to criteria. For example, if one writes a good essay he is awarded 1 point and if he is a minority he is awarded 20 points.Something is askew. Is being a minority is 20 times more important than one’s scholarly achievements? The University’s argument is that students learn better in a racially diverse environment. UC Davis is another example. In 1988 only 40 percent of Davis’ freshman class had been accepted solely on the basis of merit. While whites or Asian-Americans needed at least a 3. 7 GPA in high school to be accepted, most minority applicants were accepted even though they met much lower standards. Sixty-six percent of the whites graduated while only twenty-seven percent of blacks did.Even as recently as 1997 one was more likely to get accepted into UCLA if he were black or Hispanic than if he were white. The minority students had both lower GPA’s and test scores. There were 5000 applicants for 200 seats which meant that some qualified students were rejected to make way for less Baker 5 qualified minorities. (Chances of Admission) This does not sound like an equal society. In 1995 the University of California system voted to end all affirmative action in admissions. When the changes took effect in 1998, minority enrollment went down drastically.This seems prejudicial, but in reality it is fair and allows competition between the best, regardless of race. Everyone has an equal opportunity to receive an education. Public schools are free and it is mandatory that children attend them. Any student can take full advantage of their first 12 years of education and earn the GPA that will gain them admission into a college. If a student is born into a poor family there a re scholarships and student loans available. Malcom X is a perfect example of someone choosing to rise up and get an education.Early in his life he made very unwise choices and ended up a pimp. When he was caught and thrown in jail he decided to begin educating himself. All he had was a dictionary but he used that dictionary and copied down every page. He went from being an illiterate street pimp to a very influential political leader. Affirmative action wasn’t around in Malcom’s time, but today everybody knows about it or has at least heard the term used. The first time I heard about affirmative action was when my brother first started working at Ralph’s supermarket.There was a black woman working there who was very slow and unproductive. One day my brother asked a fellow employee why the lady didn’t lose her job and he said, â€Å"She’s here for affirmative action reasons. † It turned out that whenever the lady was scheduled for a shift, a nother Baker 6 worker was also scheduled just to make up for the inefficiency of the black lady. My brother’s boss feared a lawsuit if he fired her. This is ridiculous! It is a costly arrangement and unfair to the lady hired just to take up slack for someone else’s laziness.The policy of affirmative action basically states that in order to have an integrated society with equal opportunities for all races, minorities must be given an advantage to make up for their disadvantages. This means that less qualified applicants are getting hired and that students who do not meet the requirements for college admission are being accepted while qualified students are being turned away, all based on race. The Constitution bans the exclusion of minorities from anything based on color, therefore it is unconstitutional to exclude whites based on the same principles. The lesson of great decisions of the Supreme Court and the lesson of contemporary history have been the same for at leas t a generation: discrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, inherently wrong, and destructive of democratic society. †(Gross, 1) Affirmative action is asking us to overlook all that we’ve learned and even fought for. Since affirmative action is such a hot topic and it affects our country as a whole, it’s important to know how the presidential candidates view this subject. Vice President Al Gore tends to favor the policy while Governor George Bush disagrees with it.Gore’s idea is â€Å"mend it, don’t end it. †(Al Gore) He says that affirmative action has done a lot for women and minorities over the years and that to get rid of it would be a waste. He has yet Baker 7 to provide a way to fix it. Bush argues against quotas and goals and proposes an alternative to this policy, one he has used in Texas. He terms his system of ideas and policies â€Å"affirmative access†. (George Bush) His idea leans more toward s the original thinking of the Civil Rights Act and promoting equal opportunity. An example is that the top 10 percent of each high school’s graduates be automatically accepted into the college of their choice.Supposedly the idea has been effective over the past couple of years in Texas. Both candidates have good points. Affirmative action has helped reduce minorities’ and women’s suffering prejudices in the workplace and in school, but on the other hand it has been taken to the extreme and the prejudices have been turned around. We need to get back to the heart of what the original affirmative action intended. Racial prejudices need to be eliminated completely. We are all the same on the inside. There is no reason to consider outward appearances.Employers and colleges only need to look at the applicants’ qualifications when determining who will be hired or accepted. Affirmative action could also use a face-lift, like the name change Bush suggested. When the term â€Å"affirmative action† is used, it is looked upon negatively and is associated with discrimination. A law that requires the acceptance of the most qualified would allow competition of the best and eliminate the issues of minority prejudices. If no regard is given to race, as Kennedy intended, then only the most qualified applicant will be accepted. This is fair. Baker 8Affirmative action has, in a way, become unfair to minorities. What is going to make them strive to be the best by working hard to get that promotion or studying hard to get those grades if they know they have an easy in? It has become an insult to minorities. Affirmative action is basically saying that they are not as smart or as qualified to be in good schools or in good jobs. It is saying that they need special help to get jobs and into colleges. It is a mockery. I know so many smart minority people who will transfer into better colleges than I and I’m as white as they come!I sat next to a girl this semester who was so intelligent and had the most amazing style of writing. She was a mix of Indian and black. We must not insult these people by suggesting that we must compensate for their â€Å"inferiority† to make everyone equal in the eyes of the law. We were all created equal, and anyone, black, white, or any other race, can choose to set higher goals and achieve them just as Malcom X did. The old affirmative action is outdated. The premise that minorities should be given an advantage to make up for their disadvantages is ridiculous and irrelevant.Most of the minorities coming into the work force were born after the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and therefore have not suffered disadvantages in school or the workplace. If anything, they have reaped the benefits of affirmative action. California and Texas, as well as a few other states, have begun to take major steps in eliminating affirmative action. It is a start but it needs to spread. We are all equal and absolutely no regard should be given to Baker 9 race in education or employment. It is time to end the old affirmative action. We need a policy that eliminates the issue of race completely.

Functional Math Skills That Support Independence

Functional math skills are those skills that students need to live independently in the community, care for themselves, and make choices about their lives. Functional skills make it possible for students with disabilities to make choices about where they will live, how they will make money, what they will do with money, and what they will do with their spare time. To do these things, they need to be able to count money, tell time, read a bus schedule, follow directions at work, and know-how to check and balance a bank account. Functional Math Skills Before students can understand numbers and numeration, they have to understand one-to-one correspondence. As they count, they need to be able to match each item or items to a corresponding number and understand that the number represents a matching or a corresponding number of items. One-to-one correspondence will also be helpful in such household tasks as setting the table and matching socks. Other functional skills include: Number recognition: This includes recognizing and being able to write the 10 digits, and then recognizing place value: ones, tens, and hundreds.Skip counting: Skip counting by 5s and 10s to 100 is important for understanding time (such as five-minute increments on an analog clock) and money. Teachers can use a hundreds chart or on a number line to demonstrate skip counting.Operations: Its vital for students to have a grasp of addition and subtraction. At a later point, if your students have an understanding of these two operations, it may be possible to introduce multiplication and division. Students with special needs may not be able to develop the ability to do the math operations themselves independently, but they can learn how the operations are used in order to use a calculator to do calculations, like balancing a bank statement or paying bills. Time Time as a functional skill involves both understanding the importance of time—such as not staying up all night or not missing appointments because they dont leave enough time to get ready—and telling time on analog and digital clocks to get to school, work, or even the bus on time. Understanding time requires comprehending that seconds are fast, minutes almost as fast, and hours much longer. Students with disabilities, especially significant cognitive or developmental disabilities, may have behavioral outbursts because they are stuck on preferred activities, and dont realize they will miss lunch. For them, building an understanding of time may involve a visual clock, like a Time Timer, or a picture schedule. These tools help give students a sense of control over their schedule and an understanding of what happens and when during their school or even home day. Parents may also benefit from having visual schedules at home. For children with autism spectrum disorders, it can help avoid long periods of self-stimulatory (stimming) behavior, which may actually undermine progress they are making at school. Teachers can also pair telling time with understanding the concept of time, for example, that 6 a.m. is when you get up and 6 p.m. is when you eat dinner. Once students can tell the time to the hour and half-hour, they can progress to skip counting by fives and telling time to the nearest five-minute interval. A geared clock, such as a Judy clock—where the hour hand moves when the minute hand goes around—helps students understand that both hands move together. Money Money, as a functional math skill, has several levels of skill: Recognizing money: pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.Counting money: first in single denominations and later mixed coinsUnderstand the value of money: budgets, wages, and paying bills Measurement Learning measurement for students with special needs should involve length and volume. A student should be able to use a ruler and even perhaps a tape measure for length and recognize inches, half and quarter inches, as well as feet or yards. If a student has an aptitude for carpentry or graphic arts, the ability to measure length or size will be helpful. Students should also learn volume measurements, such as cups, quarts, and gallons. This skill is useful for filling tubs, cooking, and following directions. When cooking is part of a functional curriculum, a knowledge of measures of volume will be helpful. Students should be able to choose what they will cook, and find and read recipes. Familiarity with measuring volume will help students who want to pursue work in culinary arts, such as a kitchen assistant.