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Regardless of which industry(s) businesses operate in, it could be said that they are all in the business of financial management. A business could become unviable and close to shutting its doors if it loses control over its financial state. There are many companies that fell into this category, such as Enron, Blockbuster, British Home Stores (BHS), Woolworth, Comet, Kmart, Compaq, Northern Rock, Lehman Brothers, and countless others not as prominent as these. Managers can better avert this fate by analyzing companies’ financial practices resulting from the decisions made given their current processes, as well as by making the most appropriate and ethical financial decisions based on the evidence available. In this Discussion, you will examine the practices and culture of an organization in regard to financial management and how those aspects impacted the organization’s success.
Note: For this Discussion and for the Discussions throughout this course, you will be asked to refer to personal and professional experiences, as well as use examples from your research. In doing so, it is important to remove any personal biases that you may have about organizations you discuss and instead focus on the areas of financial management. For example, you may have disliked a previous employer, but that should not prevent you from extracting important financial lessons from them, whether the lessons are good or bad. Or, if you admire a company or business leader that you plan to research, be careful not to allow your preconceived ideas about them sway your observations. Aim to focus on the financials, allowing the numbers to speak for themselves.
Additionally, as noted in the Course Introduction, the Business Skill for Good for this course is evidence-based decision making, and therefore you are encouraged to keep this in mind as you discuss organizations and their financial situations. You may not always have access to real financial information due to it being proprietary or undisclosed, but you should aim to use as much evidence as possible to justify your assertions in the Discussions for this course.
RESOURCES
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
To prepare for this Discussion:
- Consider a company where you have worked (or one with which you are familiar) that demonstrated solid or poor financial practices. Be prepared to discuss the company, as well as provide some details on how the financial practices were demonstrated.
BY DAY 3
Post an analysis of the impact of an organization’s financial management practices on its success.
- Briefly describe the organization you selected. Note: When using specific examples from your professional experience, be sure to disguise the names of any individuals or organizations and/or any proprietary or sensitive information.
- Identify the practices within that organization that reflect good financial management (or a lack thereof).
- Describe the aspects of the organization’s culture that support those financial practices (whether good or bad).
- Examine how the organization’s financial management practices have impacted its overall success. Be sure to include at least one specific example of how the company was successful.
Refer to the Week 1 Discussion Rubric for specific grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use this grading rubric to assess your work.
Important Note About Discussion Rubrics: In the peer-to-peer engagement section of the Discussion, the focus of your posts and responses should be to promote quality interaction with your colleagues and Instructor, to further the dialogue on the particular topic, to deepen your mutual understanding of concepts, and to draw out new ideas. Although you are encouraged to provide support for ideas you bring in from other sources, which is appropriate for discourse within a master’s-level classroom, emphasis is placed on the quality of the engagement as noted in the Discussion rubrics, with 40% of your score based on your level of engagement in the ongoing conversation with your colleagues.
Read some of your colleagues’ postings.
BY DAY 5
Respond to two or more of your colleagues’ posts in one or more of the following ways:
- Ask a question about the organization your colleague described regarding the practices that reflected good or poor financial management or the culture that supported those practices.
- Relate your colleague’s experience of how the culture supported the financial practices to an experience that you may have had or that you have researched.
Return to this Discussion in a few days to read the responses to your initial posting. Note what you have learned or any insights you have gained as a result of the comments your colleagues made.
