亲2500字的case study 名字是accountant in the profession 问题在case的后面
ACCG315 Case Study
The Ethics of Profit in the Australian Retail Industry
Introduction
The pressures on the Australian retail industry are building. A number of forces are constraining top-line sales
growth for many leading brands. Some high profile brands have even failed. The remainder are looking at the
only other way to maintain profits – cost reduction.
The decisions that the leaders of these businesses make in response to these pressures will be scrutinised
closely; after all, the major retailers are household-names. Commercial skills will be tested. But the ethics of
these decisions will also be examined. The criteria of success have arguably become multidimensional.
Management will not only be judged on what profit they make but the manner in which they achieve it. And,
accountants are uniquely placed to have a major impact on how these decisions will be made, how outcomes
will be measured, and, how they are reported.
A current analysis of the Australian retail industry shows just how real the pressures are on the key decision
makers within the major retailers in Australia and why action is required.
Questions for Ethics Case Study
1.The Food and Grocery Code of Conduct which provides guidelines to the Australian supermarket industry
has a requirement that “retailers and wholesalers act lawfully and in good faith”. What do you think is meant
by the term “good faith”?
2.Why do you think the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct is a “voluntary” code? Why hasn’t the ACCC moved
to have government legislate this code into law?
3.Strategic theory suggests that having power is a good thing. Generally, it is thought that having power is
better than being powerless. For example, pricing and purchasing power brings bottom-line benefits. But when
is it appropriate to use the power you have? How do you assess if the use of your decision making power as a
senior manager and/or group is legitimate?
4.If you are the Chief Financial Officer and you are approached by the CEO or other senior manager to
deliberately delay the payment to the supplier simply to improve your company’s cash position, how would
respond? On what grounds would you base this response?
5.To what extent do you believe that you can apply developed country standards of employment conditions to
less developed countries? What information and/or frameworks can you use to determine what is appropriate?
6.The case says (p4) that an OxFam Australia survey suggests that Australian consumers are willing to pay
more garments if this means that less developed country suppliers are also paid more. If you felt strongly about
this and you were on the senior management team discussing this idea, how would you convince a CEO or
Chief Marketing Officer that this is a good thing if the company’s strategy follows a cost (price) leadership
model?
7.The case states (p4) that even where retailers try to do the right thing and conduct audits on their suppliers,
“audit fraud” is a problem – workers being coached to say the right things even to independent auditors. If you
were conducting the audit how would you approach this possible problem particularly given that the employees
and management you are auditing may be in fear of losing their jobs if they are truthful?
8.What is Integrated Reporting <IR> and what is it trying to achieve? How do you think the use of this
framework may change performance and remuneration system design?
9.What do you understand by the concept of an “at risk” component of remuneration? Why do think it appears
to be a larger component of total remuneration for CEOs and senior management the bigger the company as
found by the Productivity Commission report?
10.What is your understanding of who the stakeholders of a company are? Who do you think are the
stakeholders of a large supermarket company? Why is the concept important to ideas concerning the ethical
behaviour of companies?
11.The CEO of Wesfarmers made a statement in response to the Target rebate issue saying that “we encourage
and expect strong adherence to a strong culture of managing for long term sustainable growth over short term
gain” (p7). How can this type of culture be developed inside an organisation?
12.The Administrators report into the Dick Smith Group stated that “poor and declining performance appear
to have led to management making decisions on what stock to buy based on the rebate attached to the stock,
rather than customer demand” and that “rebate driven buying contributed to a build-up in inventory and
encouraged poor product mix decisions” (pp8-9). Given that these were buyers’ decisions and that accountants
would not directly be involved in this, what responsibility do accountants have in identifying this type of
problem? If there is some level of responsibility, how would you go about identifying these issues?
13.Why does management accounting theory promote the idea of using “non-financial” measures – that is, to
not simply rely on “financial” measures? Provide some specific examples of what may be important non
financial measures to a retailer. What relevance can this concept have to the idea of what it is to be an “ethical”
organisation?
14. As a CFO, would you prefer your performance to be measured and remunerated based on simply financial
measures (for example, TSR) or on a more balanced set of measures? Why? Would this differ if, instead of the
CFO, you were a more junior accounting officer?