Understanding Accounting Ledger (Debit / Credit) Entries

Financial Statement	Account Type	Normal Balance	To Increase	To Decrease
Balance Sheet	Assets	Debit	Debit	Credit
Balance Sheet	Liabilities	Credit	Credit	Debit
Balance Sheet	Equity	Credit	Credit	Debit
Income Statement	Revenue	Credit	Credit	Debit
Income Statement	Gains	Credit	Credit	Debit
Income Statement	Expenses	Debit	Debit	Credit
Income Statement	Losses	Debit	Debit	Credit

You Can Call Me Floyd

I’m saddened to hear of Mr. Floyd Fulton's passing in Paradise, CA on September 1st. He was my Yuba City High School electronics teacher for three of fours years that I took shop. He taught me about quality, important electronics stuff, and to try new things but NOT burn down the shop... He was also a good Christian example. A few months back, when I was trying to get Comcast to make their "comcastic" cable service work, I drew again (for what seemed like the thousandth time) from my electronics shop training. Mr. Fulton suffered a stroke several years ago. When I visited him in the nursing home, he said, "You can call me Floyd." I couldn't. I had too much respect for him. Many thanks to Ken and Patricia Atwood, who helped minister to Mr. Fulton all these years!

General Manager's Role in Information Technology Management

General Managers are today expected to take on the following roles with respect to Information Technology management:

• Knowledgeable and conversant in current information technology to engage MIS managers and other mid-level managers
• Help to initiate and design information systems, outsourcing and support
• Aware of how information technology benefits an organization
• Willing to invest in advanced information technology to help grow the business
• Able to draw daily information from software and systems to hold employees accountable
• Briefed on information already available in the organization
• Aware of ways in which the current system can be upgraded and expanded
• Need to know enough about information systems to train new employees to be productive users of information
• Able to understand how the organization's information systems add value to the customer

Survey Invitation for Consultants and Medical Professionals

Survey Invitation for Consultants and Medical Professionals

Please consider this invitation to participate in the online research survey.

As part of my Ph.D. program at TUI University I am conducting an organizational behavior study on impressions of competency in the workplace targeting medical and consulting professions. If you are a consultant, physician or nurse, your participation will help scholars and organizations to better understand the role of impressions of competency at work.

A link to this web-based survey is listed below. This survey is voluntary and you may exit it at any time. Your replies will be strictly confidential. This survey will last approximately 15 minutes.

Your time is valuable and in appreciation for your effort you will be offered a chance of winning a prize. At the end of the survey, you will have an opportunity to enter your email address into a drawing to win one out of two $100 American Express gift certificates.

If you have any questions or comments about this study, you may contact me at 1-917-239-4045, email jhaber@tuiu.edu, or reach Dr. Stephen Fitzgerald, the Dissertation Chair, at sfitzgerald@tuiu.edu with any questions. For more information about my research on impressions of competency, please visit www.impressionsOFcompetency.com

If you are a consultant, click here to enter the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=EKsL0JUjnso3mXUVy_2fmA2w_3d_3d

If you are a medical professional (e.g., nurse, technician) click here to enter the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=yuZ0ZQdeCDCkz0v_2fxZHXLA_3d_3d

If you are a physician, click here to enter the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=LuFGLYIb8ORqjSHJrubZew_3d_3d

Thank you,

Julita Haber
Doctoral Candidate,
College of Business Administration
TUI University
jhaber@tuiu.edu / www.tuiu.edu

How to Read Journal Articles in Eight "Easy" Steps

How to Read Journal Articles in Eight “Easy” Steps

by Dave Wagner (dvwgnr@gmail.com)

October 2005 (Revision 2)

As you work on assignments and consult outside resources, you will notice a broad range of opinions expressed toward the topics that you are researching. Try to use a critical eye toward practitioner-oriented and even scholarly articles. Here is a simple method for disassembling all research articles to ascertain their usefulness (Flaschner, 2003; Trochim, 2001):

1. Identify the article and scholarly journal in APA style. Why was this article written? What is the driving force or main purpose behind this article? Could the article best be classified as reporting, descriptive, explanatory, or predictive/causal?

2. In a nutshell, what is the article really about? What is the central hypothesis or main proposition that the author is trying to express/explore? Is the main hypothesis a measure of association or a measure of difference?

3. Construct Validity? Is there a flow of ideas from referenced, research literature toward the central hypothesis or main proposition of the article? Briefly explain it. (Contrast that ideal with armchair anecdotes and subjective opinion that may not apply beyond the current setting.) What references were quoted? How many? Are they scholarly or relevant to the subject?

4. More Construct Validity? In the instance of a cause and effect relationship being described (i.e., the reliance on advertising revenue causes online media businesses to fail), look for a description of how the cause (i.e., the independent variable) and the effect (i.e., the dependent variable) are being measured. What is the level of measurement (i.e., nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio)? What is the unit of analysis (i.e., individual, group, corporate, societal)? Do the units of analysis match between variables? Sometimes the article is only about how causes are related to other causes or effects are related to other effects. Try to ascertain how the proposed relationship in the hypothesis(es) was measured or could be measured.

5. External Validity? Look at the sample. Did the author look at a large sample, multiple cases or are the conclusions drawn from one specific instance or no sample at all. Having no sample does not make the author’s conclusion wrong but it does open the point to investigation. Could the sample be generalized to other samples, settings or populations? (e.g. If students were asked to rate the taste of soft drinks, does that apply to other consumers or not?)

6. Internal Validity? Examine the setting in which the data was collected. Observation. Review of documents. Survey. Experimentation. Personal interview. Did the data collection process make sense? Were there any data collected to support the author’s central hypothesis?

7. Conclusion Validity? (Or Statistical Conclusion Validity?) Was there any statistical or qualitative analysis of the information collected that would support the hypothesis? Identify the five steps of hypothesis testing as best you can. Identify the statistic. Are the statistical methods appropriate for the level of measurement of the data?

8. What are the implications of the research and the holes (i.e., opportunities) in the arguments that might lead to future research? Perhaps you can suggest some research to extend the article.

References

Flaschner, A. B. (2003). Touro University International RES610 Advanced Data Analysis Coursework.
Trochim, W. M. K. (2001). The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd. Ed., Cincinatti, OH: Atomic Dog Publishing.

Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme Video

Since this is an general MBA content blog, I thought you might enjoy watching the PBS Frontline video about the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme. I've introduced this video into several of the courses I teach as a springboard for discussions about accounting, information systems, and quantitative reasoning. This is an optional activity that takes about an hour. Students need high bandwidth Internet.

I ask students to try to identify what went wrong with "Wall Street" to allow Mr. Madoff to run such a fraudulent enterprise and evade detection for decades, including some of the following questions:

Did you notice that Madoff's investment firm had a fake information system that was used to produce simulated trades and client statements?

Who was to blame? Investors? Accountants? SEC Regulators? News Media? Mr. Madoff's Employees? Fund Managers? Who?

Do you see how helpless investors can be when even truthful information is reported by publicly-traded companies...?

Here is the link:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/madoff/

Accepting Proposals with Positive Contribution Margins

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as the common expressions goes, but is that true in all cases. It is common in small and medium-sized businesses to accept proposals from the sales force that offer positive contribution margin, regardless of other operational aspects. In effect, these orders cover variable costs and are at production / sales levels above break-even. That is, fixed costs are covered. However, it is possible to create problems by accepting all orders are above break-even, without thinking about the big picture. For example, the pricing strategy (such as a market penetration strategy) may set the quoted price far above the level of positive contribution. In this case, sales management and company management will want to be judicious with respect to the price they accept in the case of volume discounts. Why? It is possible that large quantity orders at higher prices (and therefore higher contribution margins) may be in the sales pipeline that will be far more profitable for the company. It is possible that excess capacity could be used fulfilling orders with lower profitability. Simply accepting orders priced above break-even does not maximize profitability without some careful sales management.