Managements incentives for establishing and maintaining strong internal control

Managements incentives for establishing and maintaining strong internal control 25. Discuss managements incentives for establishing and maintaining strong internal control. Before we start answer this question, let us understand what the definition of internal control is. Internal control is designed and implemented by an entitys management, those charge with governance of the entity, and other personnel to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of objectives. In addition, internal control is also can be refer to a process wherein the structure of the organization, the information system and authority are designed in such a way that it can helps the organization achieve its objectives and goals. (Bhattacharyya, August 2010) Internal control plays an important role in how management meets its stewardship or agency responsibilities. For example, internal control for a bank is the systems, policies, procedures, and processes effected by the board of directors, management, and other personnel to safeguard bank assets, limit or control risks, and achieve a banks objectives (Internal Control Comptrollers Handbook January 2001). A system of str ong internal control is the backbone of an associations management program. Strong internal control may helps a company to meet their objectives and goals, and to maintain a healthy, successful operations.For a bank, Good internal control can help a bank to avoid surprises and achieve its objectives. After we understand the internal control, let us see the managements incentives for establishing and maintaining strong internal control. There are few management incentives such as provide safeguard of assets and company records, effectiveness and efficiency of operations, prevention and detection of fraud and error, compliance with applicable law and regulation, avoid wastage of resources, risk management systems are effective and decreased risk of damage to the associations reputation. First, the managements incentive for establishing and maintaining strong internal control is to ensure company records and assets can be properly safeguard. A strong internal control can ensure that asset was not been stolen and certificates or company records are proper keeping. Then, a proper safeguard of company records and assets can generate reliable information for the company because the records will not easily be manipulated. Besides, Management also needs reliable information to ensure the fairness of financial report. It can reduce the problem between the principal and agent. So, what is mean by principal and agent? Actually, principal is referring to absentee owner such as shareholder and agent refers to manger who is working in company. The problem is information asymmetry and conflicts of interest are occurring between themselves. This is because manager has more information about true financial position than shareholder. Moreover, they are different objectives in someti mes, so it will lead to conflict of interest. For example, the goal of shareholder is to obtain higher dividend from the company which they invest. However, the goal of manager is to maximum the profit of the company. Therefore, they will be a conflict such as whether using the excess earning to maximum the dividend for each of the shareholder or increase their market share by increases the advertising. It will lead to the problem between shareholder and manager, because the shareholder did not know whether the manager has done a correct or win-win decision. Then, they did not know the financial statement have incurred error or fraud or not. However, a strong internal control may ensure a safeguard of companys records and assets and it will increase the trustiness to the company. Then, decrease the problem between agent and principals. Besides this, reliable information is important to make a good decision to a company. If the information system does not provide reliable information , management may be unable to make quick and informed decisions such as product pricing, profit information and cost of production. It is important that the top management is generated with accuracy information, as they rely on these data to make important and critical decisions. Therefore, a strong internal control is necessary in order to make financial information transparent and accessible to the managers or decision makers. Second, the managements incentive for establishing and maintaining strong internal control is to have an effectiveness and efficiency of operations in a company. Effective of internal controls can be sure that all duties are being completed according to standards, rules and all quotas are being met. However, efficiency of internal control is very important to the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage and the maximization of profitability. Operational procedures, best-practice and performance reviews are effective internal controls of efficiency. (Ingram, eHow Contributing Writer) A strong internal control increases the effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reduces the risk of asset loss, and helps to ensure compliance with laws and regulations. Third, the managements incentive for establishing and maintaining strong internal control is to prevent and detect of fraud and error in company. Error is unintentional misstatements make by staff or manager such as making mistakes in gathering or processing financial data used to prepare financial statements. Then, fraud is intentional misstatements make by staff or manager such as manipulation, falsification, or alteration of accounting records or supporting documents used to prepare financial statements. Therefore, a strong internal control can prevent and detect the error and fraud. For example, segregation duty between record shipping inventory and calculate inventory physically can prevent theft or stolen of inventory occur. Besides, a proper accounting information system can prevent the error or fraud, such as sales clerk only can access and key in the information about the sales and account receivables only. Therefore, the sales clerk cant access to cash account in order to c reate a fictitious customer. Moreover, monthly bank reconciliation can check the mathematical accuracy of the bank reconciliation working paper and agree the balance per the books to general ledger to detect the error or fraud in account bank. Next, the managements incentive for establishing and maintaining strong internal control is to compliance with applicable law and regulation. Following law and regulation set by government require huge investments, especially that of time. Therefore, a strong internal control is necessary in order to avoiding legal consequences by follow the rule and regulation. That mean, it can reduces or avoid the costs which may have to occur if the company dont follow rules. Then, the managements incentive for establishing and maintaining strong internal control is to avoid wastage of resources. A strong internal control can helps company avoiding wastage of precious resources, besides increasing efficiency. It is because maximize the profits or income by utilization the resources is one of the method of efficiency. Strong internal controls can avoiding wastage of resources like an effective accounting information system can ensure the reliability and appropriate of the information for avoid to making an inefficiency and inaccurate decision and wasted asset of the company in investment in that decision such as wasted cash or establish a useless debt for an ineffective investment. The managements incentive for establishing and maintaining strong internal control is to making risk management systems effective. An entitys risk assessment process is its process of identifying, evaluating, and responding to the identified business risk. For example, mobile phone company such as Nokia always facing business risk not because of its competitive environment only but rapid changing technology is also a main reason. To suit for the customer trend and favourite, Nokia facing business risks that are always need to make investment in Research and Development Department to design a new model and rapid upgrade their product. However, not all the mobile phone produce by Nokia will be the favourite of the customer and making a profit, so a strong internal control is important to assess the business risk and reduce the business risk to an acceptable level. The last managements incentive for establishing and maintaining strong internal control is decreased risk of damage to the associations reputation. It is because a strong internal control can produce a reliable financial statement, making operating procedures more effective and efficiency, prevent and detect the error or fraud and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Therefore, the financial report will be more credibility and decreased risk of damage to the associations reputation. Last but not least, after we review the managements incentive for establishing and maintaining strong internal control, we can conclude that a strong internal control is very important to every company to achieve their businesss goal, such as provide a safeguard of records and assets or making an effectiveness and efficiency of operations. Therefore, a strong internal control is one of the factors that ensure the company may successful also.

Militarism and Border Violence

War exposes the operation of sex and race in the construction of a nation as war enables us to perceive the process of securing and creating territories through the use and implementation of particular values and standards of perceiving reality. For example, the division between the battlefront and home front along with the emphasis on the action in the trenches creates and highlights gendered boundaries, which are equivalent to the division between the protector and the protected. Furthermore, the social territories formed during and after the war highlights the use of ethnocentric viewpoints, which leads to racism and the exploitation of bodies. The mode in which these events are possible can be read by stating that the current events within the world are affected by the different modes in which a hegemonic groups’ power becomes visible in a society. Within this perspective, one may state that the current oppression that women experience is caused by the patriarchal views heeded by those who directly affect world politics. Such may be the case; however it is still possible to state that even though certain nations hold control of current world politics, equal ground has been given to the different agents within society. Women, in this perspective, may be seen as possessing freedom in so far as they are no longer placed within the stereotypes of the feminine. However, the case is not that simple. Consider for example a woman in a Third World Country who is granted the recognition of her independence. Although this woman is â€Å"free†, she is still placed within the stereotype of a Third World woman who needs to be further emancipated from her â€Å"barbaric† culture. In order to resolve such a conflict let us consider Michel Foucault’s conception of power. According to Foucault, power is not an institution. It refers to the strategic situations within a particular society. It cannot be located in a particular or specific entity such as the state’s sovereign, it is everywhere and nowhere at the same time manifesting its existence in the different forms of repressions present within society. Repression, however, should not be seen as an entirely negative aspect. Repression is not a form of paralysis; it should not be seen as a freezing of possibilities for all forms of repression enables. Consider for example a Muslim woman who is forced by social norms to wear a burqa. According to Abu-Lughod the act of wearing a burqa should not be seen as repressive in character since Muslim women choose to wear it for it is a basis of their social status. A Muslim woman who does not wear a burqa for instance does not come from a reputable family or she is a woman who participates in the trade of the flesh. Abu-Lughod states that the benevolent father image portrayed by America towards the Palestinian women misconstrues the Palestinian women’s cultural background. Such an ethnocentric perspective merely shows America’s disrespect of other cultures. In the above example, one can see how a repressive state may have allowances, which the individual may use to inch towards her freedom, which in these terms refers to the control of the power relations that is dominant in that particular period. Palestinian women’s opposition of the predominant consciousness regarding women’s oppression can best be portrayed using the notion of oppositional consciousness. Oppositional consciousness refers to the subversive use of tools of repression. This is evident in the practice of Palestinian women in the United States who choose to wear their burqa despite their freedom to dispose of it within foreign grounds. It might be stated that such an action is only possible since there are no threats placed upon the individual’s life when she refuses to adhere to the practice in a different place. However, it can be argued that as long as their actions are explicitly stated to stand for a particular cause notion of oppositional consciousness still follows. Oppositional consciousness, however, becomes problematic when one considers that an individual is predisposed to think in a particular way based upon his or her ontological and epistemic background. In other words, is it really possible for a woman to obtain freedom when she has been conditioned or predisposed to think in a particular way? Specifically, in a way wherein she considers the view of the patriarch to be the basis for truth compared to the view of her fellow women. This tendency is apparent in the current contentions that feminism experiences with women outside the academe. As an answer to the events, which occurred after the September 11 bombing, Bachetta, together with other transnational feminists stated their disapproval towards the violent effects of Bush’s â€Å"messianic mission† to redeem the world from all forms of â€Å"terror† evident in the so called â€Å"backward† and â€Å"barbaric ways† of those who reside in the Middle East. According to S.R., a Palestinian woman, though she agrees with the general appeal of feminists to stop the war, she disapproves of the way that feminists present Palestinian women in general. According to S.R., liberation should not be forced on an individual. It is an instinct, which presents itself on its own way. The general contention regarding transnational feminists appeal is their ethnocentric tendency to perceive other women who refuses to heed their call as â€Å"oppressed† individuals. However, it may be argued that transnational feminists notion of feminism may be salvaged if one considers that their emphasis lies on the need for women to be freed from their political double bind apparent in their marginalization as women and in the use of their bodies as tools for the assertion of power. Instances like these can be seen in Falcon’s analysis of the militarized rape cases, which occurred in the US-Mexico border. Sylvanna Falcon, in her paper â€Å"‘National Security’ and the Violation of Women’s Bodies† reiterates these claims as she discussed the cases of rape committed at the US-Mexico border. Falcon argued that the rape and harassment of women in the said border presents an example of â€Å"the hypermasculine nature of war and militarism† wherein sexual assault is used as a military strategy which aims to â€Å"dominate women and psychologically debilitate people viewed as the ‘enemy’† (120). According to Falcon, what occurs in the border is a form of â€Å"national security rape and systematic rape†. â€Å"National security rape† refers to the sexual abuse of women committed for the sake of â€Å"bolstering (a soldier’s) nervous nerves†. â€Å"Systematic rape†, on the other hand, refers to the use of rape â€Å"as an instrument of open warfare† (121). It should be noted that these women are placed in a political double bind. Besides being displaced individuals and forced migrants, they are considered as threats to the state as the state conveniently forgets that these individuals are products of the internal repressions caused by the war. One might presume that their existence within the middle ground grants them a special immunity since they are freed from the hegemonizing tendencies of the state. In fact, Falcon herself recognizes their positionality as providing them with a space that enables them to counter the system’s legitimacy. This idea becomes her springboard for the possibility of holding the United States accountable for the human rights violations committed in the US-Mexican border. However, it is important to consider the tendency of â€Å"universal rights† to be particularistic in character, in other words, applicable to others only-particularly to the enemy of those who hold the position of power. In the 1990’s a new norm has developed in international affairs. This refers to the right of self designated â€Å"enlighted states† to resort to force in order to protect humanity†. The guiding principle behind this exists in the malleability of norms and its tendency to be placed in alignment with the interests of the powerful. An example of this is apparent in Nuremberg trials wherein an act is considered â€Å"criminal† if and only it is not one, which the victor committed. The operative definition of a crime or any form of injustice within the universal jurisdiction would be an act, which only the vanquished foe committed. A more recent example can be seen in the â€Å"war against terror† of the United States. According to the US Code and Army Manual, terrorism refers to â€Å"the use, or threat, of action which is violent, damaging, or disrupting, and is intended to influence the government or intimidate the public and is for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideological cause† (qtd from George, 18). From this definition, it follows that the sexual assaults, which occur at the US-Mexico border are in themselves acts of terrorism since they are enacted in order to reinforce the United States’ hold on the territory through causing damages and disruptions in women’s lives. This presents us with the self- negating tendencies of the United States’ â€Å"messianic mission† of grafting democracy along with its ideals of freedom and liberty to the rest of the world. Although it might be stated that United States may be held accountable for it offenses against the national community, the possibility of the event is dependent upon the change of the power relations that dominate the national society. Such a change, on the other hand is dependent upon women’s recognition of their positions as transnational members of the global community capable of mobilizing against the capitalist movements in the world. Works Cited: Falcon, Sylvanna.   â€Å"‘National Security’ and the Violation of Women: Militarized Border Rape at the U.S. Mexico Border.† George, Alexander.   Western State Terrorism.   Polity: Blackwell, 1991.         

Applying to Business School

America s Current Health Care System - 1830 Words

According to Joe Conason, America s current health care system wastes considerably more than a trillion dollars every year. We know that because countries such as France, Germany, Japan and Finland, with comparable standards of living to ours, spend roughly half what the United States spends annually on health care per citizen, while covering everyone and achieving better results. (Conason, 2009) The United States healthcare financial systems are severely flawed - affecting the overall cost control, services, and care made accessible to its clients. The rising costs in healthcare are reaching new highs, and with rising costs, there doesn t seem to be much change in the quality of the care being given. Clients coming in and out of these†¦show more content†¦If you combine the fifty-five million who have been uninsured in a given year with the additional thirty million Americans who are under-insured, you get to a total of eighty-five million Americans with inadequate protecti on against the cost of illness (Blumenthal, 2014) Millions of Americans cannot afford healthcare services, and therefore have no financial defense in battling illnesses. Even with the affordable care act in place, there is a constant struggle for many who cannot afford the premiums that come with these insurance policies. One of the reasons why we have uninsurance in the United States is that it has become increasingly unaffordable to purchase insurance because the cost of care and the premiums for care have gone up at multiples of the rates of increase of wages and of the cost-of-living in the United States (Blumenthal, 2014) One way to combat these costs is to keep in mind the geographical location of these individuals. By taking this information into consideration, healthcare facilities can better focus on the types of services and care they offer their clients. It s important to keep in mind the type of customers that they are primarily dealing with, for example, are these faci lities located in an area primarily made up of an elder population? or an area with many young individuals? These factors are imperative to the