Utilitarians argue that consequences are the primary basis for evaluating the morality of actions, are certain actions inherently wrong, regardless of the consequences – cite examples or reasons for your response.
You are a junior accountant with Factional Ltd, a large, publicly-listed company operating in the high-tech sector. Factional Ltd has recently appointed a new chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Magnus Bouche, who is due to take up his appointment very shortly. Last night, at the invitation of a friend, you attended a prestigious charity function which, coincidentally, was also attended by Mr Bouche. At one point during the night, you found yourself standing quite close to (but unobserved by) Mr Bouche and overheard a part of his conversation with friends, including his comment that the first thing he intended to do as CEO of Factional Ltd was to “take a bath”.
You are not sure of what it means to “take a bath”, but the conspiratorial tone of the conversation and the fact that one of Mr Bouche’s friends responded to the comment by asking about the likely impact on Factional Ltd’s share price, while another laughed and said something (which you couldn’t quite hear) about Mr Bouche’s put options in Factional Ltd shares, have aroused your suspicions.
This morning, you spoke confidentially to your supervisor in the accounting department of Factional Ltd, Ms Betta Golightly, telling her about the overheard conversation and asking her whether she knew what it meant to “take a bath”. She replied that she had heard of the Big Bath Hypothesis and knew that it related to earnings management, but confessed that she didn’t know about any likely capital markets impacts. She then asked you to conduct some research and prepare a report for her, outlining the following:
iii. Whether an “earnings bath” has implications for a firm’s share price
Your report will provide the basis for Ms Golightly’s decision on whether the matter should be brought to the attention of Factional Ltd’s audit committee (a sub-committee of Factional Ltd’s board of directors).
Memo to the marketing staff regarding the company’s introduction of a new diet supplement. identify the persuasive language and positioning needed to attract three different target audiences: Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Y-ers.
How would the marketing approach be different for each segmented audience? What communication channels would best reach each group?
CMIT 321 Executive Proposal Project
The purpose of this project is to evaluate the student’s ability to research and evaluate security testing software and present a proposal for review by executive team members. By completing the document the student will also gain practical knowledge of the security evaluation documentation and proposal writing process. The project will enable the student to identify and understand the required standards in practice, as well as the details that should be covered within a proposal.
Project Deliverable
Guidelines
Project Description
The purpose of project is to write an executive proposal for a fictitious company called Advanced Research. The goal of the proposal is to persuade the executive management team to approve purchase of security testing software that can benefit the company’s corporate network security by testing and identifying vulnerabilities before they are exploited by hackers. The proposal must include a detailed description of the software, its purpose and benefits.
Suggested Approach
Company Description
Advanced Research Corporation
Advanced Research is a startup medical research and development company. After five years of extraordinary success in the development of innovative medical and pharmaceutical products, Advanced Research is on its way to becoming a major player in the medical research and development industry. However, due to its success, Advanced Research has also become a major target of cybercriminals. Advanced Research has been the victim of cybercriminal attempts to steal intellectual property and sell it to Advanced Research’s competitors. It is suspected that the corporate network has been infiltrated from unauthorized sources more than once. In 2011, Advanced Research was falsely accused of unethical research and development practices. The false allegations resulted in the defacement of Advanced Research’s public website and several Denial of Service attacks at different times over a 9 month period that brought the corporate network to its knees. These attacks had a major impact on Advanced Research’s ability to conduct business and resulted in undesirable publicity for the company.
Regardless of its security problems, Advanced Research has continued to grow as a company. Its research and development departments have grown over the years, due to the expansion of the company, in proportion to the increase in its business making up over 40% of the human resources. Advanced Research’s innovative research and development information is paramount to its continued success as a company. Although, no known attacks have occurred in last 18 months, the security of its network and intellectual property is still a major concern for the company. Because Advanced Research is a still fairly young company, management has been hesitant to budget for expensive security projects. However, this point of view is beginning to change. Particularly, because one of Advanced Research’s competitors, a major player in the medical research and development industry for over 40 years, experienced a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in research data that was stolen from its corporate network by cyber thieves.
Background and your role
You are the IT Manager hired in 2012 to manage the physical and operational security of Advanced Research’s corporate information system.You understand information security issues better than anyone else in the company. You also know that the network is vulnerable to outside threats because it has experienced attacks in the past and because you haven’t had the resources to properly test the corporate information system to identify the vulnerabilities that might exist and take action prevent possible attacks. You have a responsibility to bring these concerns to the attention of the executive team and ask for approval to purchase the necessary testing software.
Your education and training have introduced you to variety of security tools for testing computer and network security. The majority of these tools you either only read about or have practiced using in lab environment. You have decided to research some of these tools and test them out in your own lab environment and choose one for recommendation to executive team.
You will need to present information that proves the chosen tool will be beneficial to the security of corporate information system. To accomplish this you will need to research the product, if possible, test the product in a virtual lab environment. If the tool is part of your iLab exercise, it is recommended that you practice using and testing the tool beyond the scope of the lab exercise. Based on your research and analysis, you will include this information in your proposal in way that the executive staff can understand and allowing them to make an informed decision to approve purchase of the product.
The executive management team of Advanced Research:
The proposal should include:
The software should test for one or more of the following types of attacks:
Corporate Office Network Topology
The Advanced Research main research and development facility is located in Reston Virginia. You have concerns about the sensitive information that is stored at this location as well as data that transmitted over the WAN to Advanced Research’s New York City headquarters location, business partners and clients. The Reston facility is also where the Advanced Research data center is located. The data center is where Advanced Research’s public website, email, databases and corporate intranet are hosted. The environment contains a mix of Microsoft and *NIX technologies.
Grading Rubrics
| Final Deliverable | |||
| Category | Points | % | Description |
| Documentation and Formatting | 10 | 10% | Appropriate APA citations/referenced sources and formats of characters/content. |
| Software Research | 20 | 20% | Accurate Completion of Software Research |
| Software Analysis | 20 | 20% | Accurate Completion of Software Analysis |
| Executive Proposal | 50 | 50% | Provide proposal for purchase |
| Total | 100 | 100% | A quality paper will meet or exceed all of the above requirements. |
Final Research Project Preparation – Annotated Bibliography
Review the Final Research Project instructions located in Week Five. To help with the preparation of the paper, complete the following items and submit them to your instructor as a single document.
•Introduction to Topic: Refer to the Final Research Project guidelines for your topic selection. For your introduction, you should write a 150-word paragraph which clearly explains the topic, the importance of further research, ethical implications, and how the topic relates to one’s academic and professional pursuits. Make sure you effectively inform the reader of the rationale behind your topic.
•Thesis statement: Write a direct and concise thesis statement, which will become the point or perspective you will argue or prove in the Final Research Project. A thesis statement should be a single declarative sentence that makes one point in 25 words or less. The thesis statement must appear within the introduction paragraph.
•Annotated Bibliography: To help prepare for your Final Research Project, write an annotated bibliography to indicate the quality of the sources you have read. The bibliography must include no less than five scholarly sources that will be used to support the major points of the Final Research Project. Critical thinking skills need to be demonstrated by accurately interpreting evidence used to support various positions of the topic. Please make sure to provide full reference information in accordance with APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. Write a brief paragraph (around 150 words) summarizing the source and explaining how it is pertinent and relevant to the topic of the project and how each source will support your thesis statement. See the Sample Annotated Bibliography in the Ashford Writing Center for more detailed information. Keep in mind the academic research standards for all Ashford University papers.
For information regarding APA, including samples and tutorials, visit the Ashford Writing Center.
The Final Research Project Preparation
•Must be 1,000 – 1,250 words in length (excluding the title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
•Must include a separate title page with the following:
◦Title of paper
◦Student’s name
◦Course name and number
◦Instructor’s name
◦Date submitted
•Must use at least five scholarly sources.
•Must document all sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
History of U.S. Labor Legislation
Employers have a long history of using their power to abuse employees. Past employer practices have led to bloody conflicts. Over time, the development of Federal regulations has helped ease the tense employee/employer relationship.
Create a timeline of all the significant labor legislation passed in the 20th century using Word’s Table( https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Insert-or-create-a-table-de20e78c-ede3-4043-a9fb-27f0b73fb447) feature. Next to the name of each law, place a column with the year it was passed, and then another column, in your own words, provide a description of what the law covered. If the law was amended by another law, make an additional column and explain why and how it amended the previous law.
Remember to comply with APA, 6th edition guidelines as delineated in the Ashford University Writing Center and in the Originality Matters section of the course. You must use at least two scholarly sources in addition to the course text.
History of U.S. Labor Legislation
Employers have a long history of using their power to abuse employees. Past employer practices have led to bloody conflicts. Over time, the development of Federal regulations has helped ease the tense employee/employer relationship.
Create a timeline of all the significant labor legislation passed in the 20th century using Word’s Table( https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Insert-or-create-a-table-de20e78c-ede3-4043-a9fb-27f0b73fb447) feature. Next to the name of each law, place a column with the year it was passed, and then another column, in your own words, provide a description of what the law covered. If the law was amended by another law, make an additional column and explain why and how it amended the previous law.
Remember to comply with APA, 6th edition guidelines as delineated in the Ashford University Writing Center and in the Originality Matters section of the course. You must use at least two scholarly sources in addition to the course text.
Article Review Instructions – SEE ARTICLE ATTACHED
You will be required to submit a paper analyzing an article provided in the Reading & Study folder of Module/Week 6. The article is a collection of brief commentaries about the Stages of Change model (also known as the Transtheoretical Model). Your paper should be 2–4 pages, double spaced (not including the title page and reference page).
After reading the article, write a synopsis that includes the following 4 components. Each section should begin with the heading that is provided below in bold type:
Outline the main thesis, objective, or “opinion” of the article.
Select at least 2 authors from the article and provide an explanation of their perceptions of the Stages of Change model. You must also provide supporting rationale to explain the authors’ perceptions.
Provide a clear explanation of your response to the commentaries. (Do not just agree or disagree. Please state why you feel specific findings were or were not legitimate.)
Outline 2–3 strengths of the model. You must also reference a professional journal article which support these findings and observations.
Consider what you read in the Unit III lecture concerning exegesis. Take into consideration every element that might affect how you interpret the piece of text for your art. What is your cultural lens through which you are reading the text? (Think back to your spiritual autobiography in Unit I.) Who is the author of the text? What is the author’s culture? Who was the intended audience of the text and what is their culture like? What is the purpose of the format of the text (Scripture, poem, story, etc.)? What is the grammar and sentence structure like? These are all elements to consider as you analyze your chosen text.
Follow each step in the list below.
Write a three-page research paper covering the following topics: