Impact of working capital management on profitability of the food processing and consumer goods business in New Zealand

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of working capital management (WCM) on the profitability of fifteen food processing and consumer service business listed in the New Zealand Exchange Board. The data were collected through the annual reports of the companies for five years and arranged by using Excel. The working capital was measured by it components like Account receivable period, Account payable period, Inventory conversion period, and cash conversion period. Whereas profitability was measured by Return on Assets, Return on Equity and Net profit margin. To analyse the relationship between WCM and profitability, regression analysis and correlation were used by making WCM components as independent variables and profitability as dependent variables. The correlation result reveals that there is negative relationship between the WCM components and profitability, and longer CCC leads to less profitability of the firm. Whereas the regression result reveals the negative relationship between ICP and ROA. Similarly, there is a negative relationship between ARP and ROE, and also between APP and NPM. Therefore, it is concluded that WCM have very much impact on the profitability of the business and businesses are recommend to decrease their ICP, ARP and CCC in order to increase profitability

Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on the financial performance of industrial companies in New Zealand

The purpose of this study is to discover the influence Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure has on the financial performance of industrial companies operational in New Zealand. The study implements a quantitative methodological approach. By means of a statistical analysis technique the study examines the hypothesis that CSR has a positive impact on financial performance of industries. The study makes use of content analysis in order to extract data about the independent variable (CSR Disclosure Index Rating) and dependent variable (Average Stock Price) of industrial companies. The sample comprises of 15 listed industrial companies in New Zealand. In this research it is observed that there is significance between CSR Disclosure and Financial Performance, apart from a few industries. This further reflects that there are several other factors which make CSR Disclosures affect financial performance, like industry risk and exposure and level of stakeholder engagement. The lower the rank of correlation, the better is the company. The analysis is being done with the help of correlation and regression method using MS-Excel and the data is being taken from New Zealand Stock Exchange and Bloomberg. With the help of all this data, the researcher will use it to make conclusions and offer suggestions

Strategies for the survival of ABC Produce

Small-scale vegetable shops are facing a scenario of stiff competition, posing threat to their viability and existence. The ongoing trend and customer behaviour have made it apparent to research as to what needs to be done to ensure the survival of the vegetable business and further make it a profitable venture. To research on the same, a study is conducted on the operations of ABC Produce, a vegetable and grocery shop in Hamilton. It is jointly owned. They acquired the business around two years ago. The aim of the project is to ascertain factors, strategies, and techniques which can attribute to performance and enhanced productivity. Mixed methods are used to carry the research project as it will give the opportunity for both Qualitative and Quantitative research. Qualitative research will assist in understanding the intricacies of the business by interviewing Employer and Employee. Quantitative research will help to get feedback from customers through a questionnaire that includes both open-ended and closed sample questions. The research results show that they have a good footfall and most customers prefer shopping during evening time. The maximum sale is of vegetables, which constitute around 40% of sales, followed by fruits and dairy produce. More than 70% of the customers were satisfied by quality and services. A better product mix is expected by customers. Some of the key strategies that are recommended include pricing and promotion strategy, waste management strategy, customer retention, attracting new customers, partnership and collaboration

Minimise the production and delivery cost of Hell Pizza

This research is based on Beerescourt branch of Hell Pizza. Hell Pizza is one of the leading pizzeria shops in New Zealand. The aim of this research is to minimise the production and delivery cost of Hell Pizza. Moreover, the scope of the research is to minimise the cost of production in Hell Pizza, minimise the delivery cost of Hell Pizza, and provide suggestions to reduce the cost of Hell Pizza and increase profits. For this research, the researcher has used mixed methods to collect data for ananlysis. Mixed method provide more evidence to analyse which leads to better arguments on research. The research contains two interviews which were taken at the work premises of Hell Pizza to gain in-depth knowledge of cost function in Hell Pizza. The interview is semi-structured and contains 10 questions. Some additional questions were used to obtain research results. In addition, the researcher has used secondary data such as financial documents, which include monthly bills and the financial report. The research also used online data from different sources such as Hell Pizza’s website, journals, and articles. The method used to analyse the data was thematic analyses although, during the collection of the data, the researcher came across various factors and findings such as raw material wastage, labour costs and old machinery, which increase the cost of Hell Pizza. After analysis, the factors researcher made some suggestions which could be helpful to reduce production and delivery costs of Hell Pizza, for example, control wastage of raw material and overhead costs

The implications of new financial reporting standards on New Zealand charities

This research aims to analyse the impact of new reporting standards on NZ charities. The research specifically focuses on the implications of new reporting standards of charities in areas like transparency, convenience for practitioners and accounting costs under new reporting standards. The research covers transparency aspects by trying to find the difference in truthful and accurate representation of charities in their annual financial reports after the introduction of new standards, compared to when charities were self-regulated under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The research also covers the aspect of practitioners’ convenience, by investigating whether new reporting standards made accounting practices for charities easier and clearer, or more complicated. Lastly, research was conducted to ascertain the increase or decrease in accounting cost for charities to comply with new financial reporting standards. The study used qualitative methodology for research. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews to gain in-depth knowledge of the impact of new reporting standards on charities. There were four participants in total, accountants working for different charities. The duration of each interview was approximately 20 minutes, and were conducted at the charity organisation’s premises. The method of analysis used for the research was content analysis. The findings of the research suggest that the new reporting standards and statutory audit requirements have generally increased transparency within the charity sector in New Zealand. On the other hand, accounting costs have gone up for charities, especially Tier 2 and tier 3 charities. Charities that previously complied with IFRS have to face minimal effect on accounting cost. The convenience for practitioners has decreased since smaller charities are finding it difficult to comply with new reporting requirements and preparation of service performance reports which are now part of annual reporting. New financial reporting standards have provided a much-needed reporting structure, especially to Tier 3 and Tier 4 charities. Charities that complied with IFRS for their annual reporting found it easy to make the transition to the new reporting standards. In conclusion, the new reporting standards are a step in a right direction. However charities services need to hold regular workshops in every region for charities in order to provide more awareness about new reporting requirements to help charities through this transition phase. Small charities usually operate on a very limited budged, so templates and training for service performance reporting should be provided these are now a part of annual reports for Tier 3 and Tier 4 charities

Implementing an activity-based costing system: A case study based on Platform Plus Limited

This research aimed at studying the business process of “Platform Plus Limited” (PPL) and providing recommendations to implement Activity Based Costing (ABC) into the company. The research was focused on understanding the business process of the service ‘Centralised Rostering’ and providing suggestions on implementing the ABC system and ascertaining the cost that would incur. This study used mixed research methods. Interviews were conducted with three employees to analyse the policies and procedures in the service conducted and their personal opinion on the service; observations were also carried out. The qualitative data was analysed using a thematic approach and cost information in cost calculation. This research compares and contrasts the existing cost calculation technique of Traditional Costing and ABC. The researcher has analysed the activities carried out by the process and the total time allocated to each task, thereby allocating the cost to each task and accounting for total cost. The researcher will propose steps to implement ABC at PPL after accounting the findings and considering the steps used by other service organisations when implementing ABC. Implementation of ABC has a higher tendency to succeed at PPL as the company has firm support from the management and is backed by the employees

Incorporating plant community structure in species distribution modelling: a species co-occurrence based composite approach

Species distribution models (SDM) with remotely sensed (RS) imagery is widely used in ecological studies and conservation planning, and the performance is frequently limited by factors including small plant size, small numbers of observations, and scattered distribution patterns. The focus of my thesis was to develop and evaluate alternative SDM methodologies to deal with such challenges. I used a record of nine endemic species occurrences from the Athabasca Sand Dunes in northern Saskatchewan to assess five different modelling algorithms including modern regression and machine learning techniques to understand how species distribution characteristics influence model prediction accuracies. All modelling algorithms showed robust performance (>0.5 AUC), with the best performance in most cases from generalized linear models (GLM). The threshold selection for presence-absence analysis highlights that actively selecting the optimum level is the best approach compared to the standard high threshold approach as with the latter there is a potential to deliver inconsistent predictions compared to observed patterns of occurrence frequency. The development of the composite-SDM framework used small-scale plant occurrence and UAV imagery from Kernen Prairie, a remnant Fescue prairie in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The evaluation of the effectiveness of five algorithms clearly showed that each method was capable of handling a wide range of low to high-frequency species with strong GLM performance irrespective of the species distribution pattern. It is critical to highlight that, although GLM is computationally efficient, the method does not compromise accuracy for simplicity. The inclusion of plant community structure using image clustering methods found similar accuracy patterns indicating limited advantages of using high-resolution images. The study found for high-frequency species that prediction accuracy declines to be as low as the accuracy expected for low-frequency species. Higher prediction confidence was often observed with low-frequency species when the species occurred in a distinct habitat that was visually and spectrally distinct from the surroundings. Such a pattern is in contrast to species widespread in different grassland habitats where distinct spectral signatures were lacking. The study has substantial evidence to state that the optimal algorithmic performance is tied to a balanced number of presences and absences in the data. The co-occurrence analysis also revealed significant co-occurrence patterns are most common at moderate levels of species occurrence frequencies. The research does not indicate any consistent accuracy changes between baseline direct reflectance models and composite-SDM framework. Although accuracy changes were marginal with the composite-SDM framework, the method is well capable of influencing associated type 1 and type 2 error rates of the classification

Incorporating plant community structure in species distribution modelling: a species co-occurrence based composite approach

Species distribution models (SDM) with remotely sensed (RS) imagery is widely used in ecological studies and conservation planning, and the performance is frequently limited by factors including small plant size, small numbers of observations, and scattered distribution patterns. The focus of my thesis was to develop and evaluate alternative SDM methodologies to deal with such challenges. I used a record of nine endemic species occurrences from the Athabasca Sand Dunes in northern Saskatchewan to assess five different modelling algorithms including modern regression and machine learning techniques to understand how species distribution characteristics influence model prediction accuracies. All modelling algorithms showed robust performance (>0.5 AUC), with the best performance in most cases from generalized linear models (GLM). The threshold selection for presence-absence analysis highlights that actively selecting the optimum level is the best approach compared to the standard high threshold approach as with the latter there is a potential to deliver inconsistent predictions compared to observed patterns of occurrence frequency. The development of the composite-SDM framework used small-scale plant occurrence and UAV imagery from Kernen Prairie, a remnant Fescue prairie in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The evaluation of the effectiveness of five algorithms clearly showed that each method was capable of handling a wide range of low to high-frequency species with strong GLM performance irrespective of the species distribution pattern. It is critical to highlight that, although GLM is computationally efficient, the method does not compromise accuracy for simplicity. The inclusion of plant community structure using image clustering methods found similar accuracy patterns indicating limited advantages of using high-resolution images. The study found for high-frequency species that prediction accuracy declines to be as low as the accuracy expected for low-frequency species. Higher prediction confidence was often observed with low-frequency species when the species occurred in a distinct habitat that was visually and spectrally distinct from the surroundings. Such a pattern is in contrast to species widespread in different grassland habitats where distinct spectral signatures were lacking. The study has substantial evidence to state that the optimal algorithmic performance is tied to a balanced number of presences and absences in the data. The co-occurrence analysis also revealed significant co-occurrence patterns are most common at moderate levels of species occurrence frequencies. The research does not indicate any consistent accuracy changes between baseline direct reflectance models and composite-SDM framework. Although accuracy changes were marginal with the composite-SDM framework, the method is well capable of influencing associated type 1 and type 2 error rates of the classification

Service-Learning for Introductory and Developmental Math Students

University students in an introductory mathematics course attended a local middle school to assist in tutoring activities as a service-learning project. This project enhanced their learning in their university course. The activity was considered a part of the course, and students were assigned a grade in the same way that they would be for any other course component such as homework or another project. It was found that helping younger school children changes students’ attitudes about mathematics and increases their motivation to learn mathematics, making the service-learning experience meaningful and valuable to all participants. Keywords: Service-learning, Critical reflection, Introductory mathematics, College algebra