When Keenan joined Rod Riders as its human resource manager, he was surprised to hear some of the executives repeatedly laughing over stories about how the company's founder ensured that his fraternity brothers moved into management positions. According to the stories, the executives embellished the performance appraisals of these employees, which also influenced later staffing decisions. Keenan talked to some employees about performance management at Rod Riders and learned that the system was widely viewed as corrupt. What can Keenan do, besides discouraging the storytelling, to decrease the political behavior related to performance management?

Mr. smith recently faced a choice between being (a) an economics profes-sor, which pays $60,000/yr, or (b) a safari leader, which pays $50,000/yr. after careful deliberation, smith took the safari job, but it was a close call. "for a dollar more," he said, "i'd have gone the other way."now smith's brother-in-law approaches him with a business proposition. the terms are as follows: - smith must resign his safari job to work full-time in his brother-in-law's business.- smith must give his brother-in-law an interest-free loan of $100,000, which will be repaid in full if and when smith leaves the business. (smith currently has much more than $100,000 in the the business will pay smith a salary of $70,000/yr. he will receive no other payment from the business. the interest rate is 10 percent per year. apart from salary considerations, smith feels that working in the business would be just as enjoyable as being an economics professor. for simplicity, assume there is no uncertainty regarding either smith's salary in the proposed business or the security of his monetary investment in it. should smith join his brother-in-law and, if so, how small would smith's salary from the business have to be to make it not worthwhile for him to join? if not, how large would smith's salary from the business have to be to make it worthwhile for him to join?

wilson's has 10,000 shares of common stock outstanding at a market price of $35 a share. the firm also has a bond issue outstanding with a total face value of $250,000 which is selling for 102 percent of face value. the cost of equity is 11 percent while the preminustax cost of debt is 8 percent. the firm has a beta of 1.1 and a tax rate of 34 percent. what is wilson's weighted average cost of capital?

Suppose that hubert, an economist from an am talk radio program, and kate, an economist from a nonprofit organization on the west coast, are arguing over government bailouts. the following dialogue shows an excerpt from their debate: kate: to recent financial crises, the concept of bailouts is a hot topic for debate among everyone these days. hubert: indeed, it’s gotten crazy! a government bailout of severely distressed financial firms is unnecessary because free markets will properly price assets. kate: i don’t know about that. without a bailout of severely distressed financial firms, the economy will experience a deep recession. the disagreement between these economists is most likely due todifferences in scientific judgments . despite their differences, with which proposition are two economists chosen at random most likely to agree? business managers can raise profit more easily by reducing costs than by raising revenue. central banks should focus more on maintaining low unemployment than on maintaining low inflation. employers should not be restricted from outsourcing work to foreign nations