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Q1) Most businesses strive to grow in size, gaining sales and market share. Firms can expand
internally, externally (via mergers), or diversify into complementary industries. Managerial
leadership abilities are becoming more important as firms grow in size, complexity, and
responsibility. For example, Zappos, Medium, and Buffer have embraced flat organizational
structure. But these experiments don’t always work. After adopting a self-management
model in 2014, Buffer’s team struggled to adapt. Employees felt overwhelmed by their new
freedom and felt lost without expectations and accountability.

Q2) The Hawthorne Studies helped develop and recognize that people’s work performance
is influenced by social issues and job satisfaction. Intangible motivators, such as meeting
individuals’ need to belong to a group and be included in decision-making and work, were
found to be more essential in enhancing employee productivity rather than physical
motivators, such as monetary incentives and pleasant working conditions. It was also proven
that productivity rises when managers show an interest in their employees and make
decisions based on their natural requirements and psychological make up. Learning and
adopting from this, many organizations were able to continually evolve their management
and still do up to this day.

Q3) An agency problem exists in any connection when one person is expected to act in the
best interest of another. As a result of a problem with incentives and the presence of
discretion in task fulfillment, the agency has a dilemma. For example, If an employee is given
an incentive to operate in a way that is not in the best interests of the employer, the
employee may be persuaded to do so. But agency problems can potentially be mitigated by
motivating an agent to behave in the best interest of the principal. For example,
performance-based compensation, the danger of fire, or possibility of a takeover can
encourage a management to behave in the best interest of the company’s shareholders.

Q6) Markup pricing which is another name for cost-plus pricing is a form of pricing which a
fixed percentage is added to the cost of producing one unit of a product. This pricing
technique considers only the unit cost and ignores rival prices. As a result, it is not
necessarily the ideal fit for many firms because it ignores external issues such as
competition. Cost-plus pricing is relevant and can be used when there is a variation of
products being sold and different markup percentages can be applied to each product. It is
also relevant for organizations that are pursuing a cost-leadership strategy as cost-plus
pricing can be used as part of the organization’s value proposition, for example sharing its
pricing policy with the public and gaining the consumer’s trust with this transparency.

Q8) VRIO framework is a technique for analyzing a company’s internal resources and skills to
see if they may provide a long-term competitive advantage. VRIO stands for value, rarity,
imitability, and organization. Value is when a resource or capability allows a company to
take advantages of opportunities or avoid hazards in the environment. If a resource does
not allow a company to avoid dangers or capitalize on opportunities, it does not improve
the company’s competitive position. Rare resources are those that can only be obtained by
one or a few companies. Rare and valuable resources provide a competitive advantage for a
limited time. Competitive parity, on the other hand, occurs when a large number of
companies share a resource or use a capability in a similar way.
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Section B
Q1) In terms of equality of opportunity SWKB is not performing very well as a society in
which those born into lower economic class have drastically different prospects than those
born into a higher economic class. This results in varied resources at their disposal which
influences their access to the necessary credentials. Which could also be reason why not
many BAME students are applying. In terms of equality of outcome, the performance is not
well either, as a pattern can be seen of students with unusual surnames not being able to
move in the next stage of the recruitment process.

Q2) SWKB can improve their marketing in terms of using the marketing mix such as
advertising, sales promotions, personal selling, and public relations. Advertising, for example
in the newspaper, can help reach a large and diversified number of potential candidates
while providing confidence and legitimacy in the information. Important questions that the
company could ask is when the best time would be to recruit graduates or which marketing
channels are the most effective. A crucial way would also to apply for search engine
registration as it is the primary method that students would use to find work. SWKB must
ensure that their website is constructed such that it would appear on the first page of an
engine search. Building links with other websites is also another way that the company
could expand their reach while improving their ranking on a search engine.
In terms of place, which is informing potential students about the job application and then
persuading them to apply for it. Location is very important when trying to reach students
and pique their interests, such as social media websites as many have argued the internet is
a global reach as it is available 24 hours a day, seven days per week.

Q3) The first way unconscious bias could be affecting the recruitment process would be the
screening of CVs as students might be judged based on their skin tone and not allowed the
opportunity to move forward to the next stage. The second part would be the selection
process of admitting BAME students into the organization. And lastly would be the unusual
surnames of students that could dissuade interviewers from picking them. Studies show that
wording in job descriptions play a big part in discouraging woman from applying to certain
roles, and maybe the same could be said for BAME students. So, an action would be to
rework the job descriptions and be able to draw from a bigger pool of applicants and a
higher percentage of BAME students. Another good solution would be to bring more
diversity into the hiring decision, that way students with unusual names are still able to get
a fair shot and not be discriminated. Lastly, SWKB could find out what biases are most likely
to affect its company and teach its co-workers how to be aware of these problems. The
company can also make the necessary adjustments to ensure that biases is considered when
making decisions in those areas.
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Section C
Q1) “Management Accounting is concerned with accounting information that is useful to
management.” (R.N. Anthony) Managerial accounting is a type of accounting that gives
financial information to a company’s managers and decision-makers. Managerial
accounting, such as weekly budgets or daily budgeting, is used to assist managers in making
decisions that improve effectiveness and efficiency of the organization’s operations.
Managerial accounting frequently includes revenue, sales, operating expenses, and cost
controls, among other components of a company’s financial outcomes. The purpose and
objectives of management accounting is to allow the management to maximize on profit
and minimize losses, while its primary goal is to offer information to managers for use in
planning, regulating operations and making decisions. There are three high-level area where
managerial accounting is often used to improve a company’s internal financial KPIs, which
are planning, forecasting, and budgeting. Planning entails deciding ahead of time what
should be done. It aids in the control of ineffective planning and gives economic and statistic
data that can be used to create objectives and develop future policies.
Managerial accounting is also used to conduct cost-benefit analysis for new projects and to
generate ongoing reporting for ongoing projects. These initiatives may necessitate
considerable financial or capital outlays as well as new debt to finance them. As a result,
managerial accounting is essential for ensuring that these projects are completed on time
and on budget while being profitable. Another importance that management accounting
brings is performance tracking. Executive management can use managerial accounting to
measure and track performance and make real time decisions. Measuring performance
against estimates and budgets help a company stay competitive by avoiding costly overruns.

Management accounting is critical in an organization as it helps in the development or an

Q2) The Job Characteristics Model can assist an organization in making their jobs more
diversified, challenging, and motivating. Employees that are happy and engaged are more
productive but keeping them that way has proven to be challenging for HR practitioners and
managers. The model consists of five items, skill variety, task identity, task significance,
autonomy, and feedback. A work that is dull and has repetitive tasks does not allow the
person to develop a variety of skills. While a worker who alternates tasks is likely to be
happier in his employment. A person’s intrinsic drive will benefit from having varied duties,
more responsibility, and more independence. For task identity, employees frequently place
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a higher emphasis on completing the entire process than on individual tasks. They would
feel more engaged in their work and feel more accountable as a result of this work cycle.
This allows them to work on a whole bunch of duties because they would have a clear
beginning and end. Task significance is the degree to which a person’s job has a significant
impact on the lives of others, this can take the form of medical, financial, psychological, etc.
It is critical for an employee to feel that their work is worthwhile which then helps motivate
them. Autonomy refers to an employer’s ability to operate autonomously within a job. The
ability to plan one’s workday and establish new procedures that must be followed boosts
one’s sense of responsibility, which in turn boosts motivation. Feedback is also very
important as people would like to know that their recent performance has been noticed and
can have a positive effect on them, yet again boosting motivation. All these crucial steps can
help you change the way you do your job and redefine them, while forcing you to use more
of your skills where the works feels less dull and repetitive. In turn, it makes the job feel
more enjoyable and inspiring and employees highly motivated and productive, while having
a healthy working environment. Some standard deigns to motivate workers would be using
incentives in order to motivate employees. But incentives are only effective if the individual
places a high value on the reward and in order for it to be motivating, the incentive must
also be attainable. Another theory would be Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, which is a
psychological theory that defines the categories or requirements that a person must satisfy
first before moving on to more complex needs. But one of the major problems with it is that
it can’t be objectively evaluated as there’s no way to know how satisfied one level of need
must be before moving to the next level. And lastly another theory would be Expectancy
Theory, which is where a person will behave or act in a given way because they are driven to
choose a specific activity over others based on the expected outcome of the conduct. But
one of its biggest strengths is also its major flaw. The notion is intrinsically rational if that
employee acts solely in their own self-interest and desires such as money. However, the
approach ignores the potential that other variables may motivate an employee.