Generally Accepted Accounting Principles

GAAP are the accounting standards. Financial statements are prepared on the basis of these principles. Here are the standards/concepts/principles given by GAAP:

1. Entity Concept

This concept simply states that the owner and each of his businesses are having a separate entity and so accountants are required to consider them separate from each other. 

2. Going-concern Concept

Accountants should assume that the business will continue their operations for the foreseeable future. Each report is made with this assumption unless stated otherwise.

3. Stable-monetary unit concept

All the information in accounting is expressed in monetary terms and it is assumed that the value of each dollar or rupee remains stable.

4. Time-period Concept

It states that the accounting information must be reported at regular intervals.

5. Conservatism Concept

Accounting information is reported in such a manner that the overstatement of revenue, assets, and owners equity or understatement of the liabilities and expense can be avoided. A company can show an average picture of the financials and make it better later instead of showing a very pretty picture and ruining it later.

6. Materiality Concept

Immaterial things can be disregarded when reporting financials of the company but if something is material and significant then it must be mentioned in the reports.

7. Reliability (Objectivity) Principle

Accounting reports must be prepared on the objective and reliable data.

8. Cost Principle

Revenues and expenses, services and assets are reported on their historical costs, i.e. the cost paid or received at the time of the activity regardless of its present value.

9. Revenue Principle

Revenue is recorded on the accrual basis, i.e. when the service or product was delivered even if cash isn't received at that moment.

10. Matching Principle

Every debit has a credit, match each expense with the related revenue.

11. Consistency Principle

Same accounting methods should be used in each period.

12. Disclosure Principle

A company has to disclose all the important information about the financial position of the company.

Alright, so here are all the GAAP principles. These are always followed by the accountants while making financial statements.

Gender Discrimination’s Effect On Employees’ Performance

Abstract

This research has been conducted to analyze the gender discrimination and its effect on employees. A lot of articles have been read and analyzed along with some primary data has been taken in order to make our research logical and applicable. Our study focuses only on the impact of Gender Discrimination in the workforce. It does not focus on the assertiveness of this issue and it also has no work done in tackling the discrimination among employees.

CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION

Background Of The Study:

Definitions:

According to Oxford dictionary , gender is either you are a male or female, usually considered with the reference to social and cultural difference.

Discrimination is to treat a person differently, mostly they get treated in worse way from the way you normally treat other people with, because of their skin color, sexuality or race. (Cambridge Dictionary)

Gender Discrimination is to treat people differently on the basis of their gender.

This topic is not a new topic at all. A lot of studies are taking place for this topic continuously. A lot of researchers are trying to find solutions and impact of gender discrimination in different institutions.

HRM has become a really major concern these days for organizations. Since, they are concerned with staffing, training, developing, motivating and maintaining the employees. Everything revolves around the employee of the organizations. Fifty years back, HRM was simpler because work force used to be a lot simpler. But these days it has shifted from homogenous to heterogeneous type and it has become tough for HR forces to manage them and a lot of issues are rising every day. (Decenzo,1998)

In this era of globalization, managing diversity has become crucial for any organization. Managing Diversity means to establish a heterogeneous work environment where each member is able to perform up to its potential in an equitable work environment. No member shall have an advantage or disadvantage on other employee. The most problematic issue right now in Managing diversity is of Gender discrimination. (Wayne,1995)

This study is taking this issue in consideration and along with primary and secondary data, it is going to analyze the effect of gender discrimination on an employee and his productivity.

Significance Of The Study:

This study is significant in knowing to what extent gender discrimination is being done in Karachi, Pakistan and what impact it has on the people, working in this city. It is a very limited study with limited resources but it would be helpful in determining if this topic should be continued with more resources and researched thoroughly.

Scope Of The Study:

This study is being conducted by the Undergraduate students of Iqra University. This study will be taking some primary and secondary data from various resources will be taken for studying this topic. But due to limited time all the aspects of the study wouldn’t be covered and for primary data , Questionnaire will be used to take survey of different people. No. of people surveyed would not be more than 30, due to limited resources. Statistical tests will be conducted for analyzing the primary data.

Objective Of The Study:

This study is being conducted in order to fulfill the project requirement of our course “Organizational Behavior”, being taught by Dr. Riaz Ahmed Mangi. This study is going to see the gender discrimination’s impact on the employees and the extent of it as well. This is to analyze the extent of Gender Discrimination in our city.

Hypothesis:

·         Gender discrimination has a negative impact on employee’s performance.

Variables:

Gender discrimination is an independent variable in this situation.

Employee’s performance is a dependent variable.

CHAPTER: 2:

LITERATURE REVIEW

Erik et al., (2006) have conducted the research to analyze if women are discriminated through sticky floor or glass ceiling effects in Sweden. The study showed that women in Sweden suffer more from sticky floor effects and those women who have small children face large gender penalties in their career. It showed that middle aged women face less Gender penalty than those younger and older women.

Another study was done focusing on the work place gender discrimination by Susan et al (1998). In this research they found out that the top management discriminates among women and men more than the lower management and hence at times decision makers choose to discriminate believing that their supervisors will prefer it.

In 2004, a research was conducted by Uzma. That research suggested that the identity of each person is created through society, environment and parents. Identity of a person is give by their parents. Usually parents consider their daughters weak, timid and too vulnerable, who require protection and coordination of male members of the family to survive. And since, it is engraved in our brains females can’t protest and boys of that family also get this perception that women are weak and to be taken care of by Male members. And if a male member isn’t up to the mark then he is given the title of “female” for shaming him. This is the basic point from where gender discrimination starts. It has to be stopped from here as well.

There is no definition of the term “Discrimination” in the context of law but in the context of workforce, it is taken as “the giving of an unfair advantage (or disadvantage) to some member in comparison to others”. This was stated by Wayne in 1995.

CHAPTER 3:

METHODOLOGY

Nature Of Study:

This is an empirical study. The questionnaire is in Likert scale and it can be analyzed with the help of SPSS.

Sources of Data Collection:

Primary Data: Questionnaire have been used in order to take primary data from different employees’ of the organizations.

Secondary Data: Different similar articles have been taken, analyzed and referred to in our study for secondary data.

Sample Of The Study:

Population of this study would be infinite. Hence, a sample of 30 employees’ have been taken randomly for this study.

Questionnaire:

Questionnaire have been taken from Causes Identification of Employees Politics by Avinash Advani (2015) and then some changes have been made into it with the help of Mr. Avinash.

Analysis Technique:

Regression Analysis on SPSS has been used for the analysis of this study.

CHAPTER 4:

RESULTS

Finding and Interpretation Of The Result:

Hypothesis: There is a negative impact of gender discrimination on employee’s performance.

Variables Entered/Removeda
Model	Variables Entered	Variables Removed	Method
1	GenderDisc.Meanb	.	Enter
a. Dependent Variable: EmployyPerformanceMean
b. All requested variables entered.

Model Summary
Model	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate
1	.057a	.003	-.032	.73659
a. Predictors: (Constant), GenderDisc.Mean

ANOVAa
Model		Sum of Squares	Df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	.050	1	.050	.092	.764b
	Residual	15.192	28	.543
	Total	15.242	29
a. Dependent Variable: EmployyPerformanceMean
b. Predictors: (Constant), GenderDisc.Mean

Coefficientsa
Model		Unstandardized Coefficients		Standardized Coefficients	T	Sig.
		B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	2.325	.539		4.318	.000
	GenderDisc.Mean	.070	.231	.057	.303	.764
a. Dependent Variable: EmployyPerformanceMean

Result:

Hypothesis has been rejected.

Interpretation:

In this hypothesis Gender Discrimination has been taken as an independent variable and Employee performance is a dependent variable. In model summary , the R value represents the simple correlation and is 0.057 (the "R" Column), which indicates a low degree of correlation. The R² value (the "R Square" column) indicates how much of the total variation in the dependent variable. In Anova sig value is also more than .05 which indicates that overall, the regression model statistically does not predict the outcome variable.

Discussions:

This hypothesis has been rejected. It might be because of the limited number of sample that has been taken. This research shall be done with a larger number of people and under a good research group then those results can be said to be authentic and then only we would know if gender discrimination has a negative or positive impact on employee’s performance.

CHAPTER 5:

CONCLUSION

Conclusion:

This research showed us that there is no significant relation between gender discrimination and employee performance.

Literature Support:

A lot of literature has showed that there is a significant relation between gender discrimination and employee’s performance. And they are negatively related to each other.

Limitations:

This research was conducted by an undergraduate student have almost no knowledge of a research and limited resources with a very short span of time.

Future Recommendations:

It is recommended for future researcher to increase the sample size as well as the time to conduct the data. This  research would be very beneficial for people of Karachi and the new organizations as well as the old organizations operating in our city.

REFERENCES:

Ø    Ackler, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, Bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender and Society, 4(2), 139-158. Anwar, Shaheen. (2004).

Ø    The glass ceiling effect. Social Forces, 80 (2), 655-681. David, A.D. De Cenzo., Stephen, P. Robbins. (1998). Human Resource Management (5th edition). John Wiley & Sons, New York. Eatzaz, Ahmad., Amtul, Hafeez. (2007). Labor supply & earning functions of educated working women. The Pakistan Development Review, 46(1), 45-62.

Ø    Erik, Bihagen., Marita Ohls. (2006). The glass ceiling-where is it? Women’s and men’s career prospects in the private vs. the public sector in Sweden 1979-2000.

Ø    The Sociological Review, 54(1), 20-47. Habib, Zafarullah. (2000).T

Ø    hrough the brick wall and the glass ceiling: women in the civil services in Bangladesh. Gender, Work and Organization, 7(3), 197-209. Hiau, Joo. Kee. (2008). Glass ceiling or sticky floor exploring the Australian gender pay gap. The Economic Record, 82(59), 408-427. John, M. Ivancevich. (2004). Human Resource Management ( 9th edition). McGraw Hill, USA.

Appendix

Gender Discrimination's effect on employees.

Your name: *

Age *

·         below 15

·         15-20

·         20-25

·         above 25

Gender *

·         Male

·         Female

·         Prefer not to say

Have you experienced gender discrimination? *

• Yes
• No
•  Maybe

What problems have you experience because of gender discrimination? *

• lower salary
• Poor work treatment
•  lower chance of promotion
• None

Are men and women stereotyped a lot in your office? *

·

• Strongly agree
• agree
• neutral
• disagree
• strongly disagree

I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things. *

• Strongly agree
• agree
• neutral
• disagree
• strongly disagree

My work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment. *

• Strongly agree
• agree
• neutral
• disagree
• strongly disagree

My job makes good use of my skills and abilities. *

• Strongly agree
• agree
• neutral
• disagree
• strongly disagree

How satisfied are you with your involvement in decisions that affect your work? *

• Strongly agree
• agree
• neutral
• disagree
• strongly disagree

Marketing Report on Nestle's Nescafe Classic

Company Description

Nestle is one of the largest company in the world. It is a Swiss transnational food and drink company.  /it was originated is 1860 , two Swiss enterprises were founded that would later from the core of nestle. They expanded their business throughout Europe and U.S. In 1866, Charles & George established Anglo Swiss condensed “Milk Company” in Switzerland. And after that slowly and gradually they have become one of the world’s leading food and beverage company, with over 500 factories around the world and over 250,000 employees. In 2005, it achieved sales of $75 billion from its portfolio of well-known brands, such as Nescafe, Nestle Pure Life, Milo , Koko Krunch, Nestle Cerelac, Milk Pak , Lean Cuisine, Kit Kat, Butterfinger, Purina, and Friskies.

SWOT Analysis

STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES
1.      Nestle is a highlydiversified company operating in many different markets and sectors of those markets.	2.      Criticism over high water usage, selling contaminated food, anti-unionism, forced child labor and using other unethical practices.
3.      They have unmatched Research and Development capability.	4.      Much of its sale depend upon a few well-recognized brands. This makes the company vulnerable to any sudden changes in consumer behavior.
5.      They variety of brands give Nestle a strong ability to weather econmics because it serves many different segments of the market.	The company is heavily dependent upon advertising to shape consumer opinion and drive traditional sales. This can lead to high marketing costs with a questionable return on investment.
7.      Nestle has low cost operators that allow them to not only beat the competition by producing low cost products, but by also edging ahead with low operating cost.	8.      No direct market outlet.
9.      Strong relationship with retailers
10.  Strong geographic presence.

OPPORTUNITIES	THREATS
Growth in online retail could open up new distribution channels such as Amazon Prime that can bypass traditional retailers.	2.      Poor quality water and its scarcity
Transparency in material sourcing.	4.      Increased competition in the beverage and food industries
5.      Nestle have opportunity to expand their product line like tea, etc.	6.      The price of coffee beans could significantly rise due to major weather disasters
7.      Ethical business activities and support in community.	8.      There is pressure from large retailers for cutting prices.
9.      In todays health conscious societies, they can introduce more health-based products, and because they are a market leader, they would likely be more successful.	10.  Strong presence of regional competitors

Product description

Nestle began developing a coffee brand in 1930. Nestle introduced the new product under the brand name Nescafe, which  is a portmanteau of the words "Nestlé" and "café", on 1^st April, 1938. Nestle first introduce their coffee brand in Switzerland. Nescafe is soluble powdered coffee that became an American stable during World War 2.Their first ever coffee, which is now named as Nescafe classic.  

Later on they introduced a new brand in Canada and the US called “Taster’s choice”. In 2003, the company reintroduced the Nescafe brand in Canada & US & the product is now known as “Nescafe Taster’s Choice”. In 2006, Nescafe launched the new coffee machine system “Dolce Gusto”. This system allows consumer to make various style of coffee themselves. Nescafe have produced and retained reliable products under their brand name. Nescafe have noticed the increase of coffee culture lifestyle. That is adopted by students and young professional & have decided to focus on the psychographics & lifestyle of intend market.

The price for a 50g Nestle Nescafe classic is 175 PKR rupees. Positioning of Nescafe is “1 coffee cup, 1 good feeling”. Unique Selling point of Nescafe classic is “100% pure instant coffee”. It is used to make coffees instantly as well as people often add it in their tea to get a mixture of tea and coffee.

Product line:

Nescafe has a pretty huge product line. Here are some of the products that are included in their product line:

·         Nescafé Original

·         Nescafé Classic

·         Nescafé Gold Blend Half Caff

·         Nescafé Gold Blend Decaf

·         Nescafé Alta Rica Decaff

·         Nescafe Blend 43

·         Nescafé Blend 37

·         Nescafé Black Gold

·         Nescafé Classico

·         Nescafé Decaff

·         Nescafé Half Caff

·         Café Parisien

·         Nescafé Gold Blend

·         Nescafé Suraya

·         Nescafé Alta Rica

·         Nescafé Espresso

·         Nescafé Fine Blend

·         Nescafé Partners Blend

Product Mix:

The four dimensions to a company's product mix include,

·         Width

·         Length

·         Depth

·         Consistency.

Depth of a product mix pertains to the total number of variations for each product. Variations can include size, flavor and any other distinguishing characteristic. For example, if a company sells three sizes and two flavors of toothpaste, that particular brand of toothpaste has a depth of six.

·         Nescafe Classic. (500g pack, 100g bottle, and 50g bottle)

·         Nescafe gold. (100g and 50g bottle)

·         Nescafe 3 in 1. ( sachets)

·         Nescafe Cold Coffee. (200ml pack)

Hence Nescafe have four type flavors that comes in three sizes. Nescafe has a depth of 12.

Width of a company's product mix pertains to the number of product lines that a company sells. For example, if a company has two product lines, its product mix width is two. 

9 for nestle Pakistan,

·         Ambient Dairy (Nestle Bunyaad, Nesvita calcium plus, Milk Pak)

·         Chilled Dairy (Nestle yogurt, Zeera/Podina Raita)

·         Juices ( Nesfruita, Fruita Vitals)

·         Bottled water

·         Culinary & food (Maggie Noodles)

·         Baby food (Cerelac)

·         Breakfast cereal (Corn flakes, Koko Crunch)

·         Coffee (Nescafe)

·         Confectionary (KitKat)

Product mix length pertains to the number of total products or items in a company's product mix, For example, ABC Company may have two product lines, and five brands within each product line. Thus, ABC's product mix length would be 10.

Nestlé’s product mix length is 28.

Product mix consistency pertains to how closely related product lines are to one another--in terms of use, production and distribution. A company's product mix may be consistent in distribution but vastly different in use. For example, a small company may sell its health bars and health magazine in retail stores. However, one product is edible and the other is not. The production consistency of these products would vary as well.

Product Life Cycle:

Growth:

Ø  Nescafe has a strong branding, high quality with reasonable price to secure their market position.

Ø  Utilize advertising to stress the product’s benefits for targeted costumers.

Maturity:

At this stage Nescafe also develop a new product image and apply the new technology to their products.

Competitor Analysis

These are some of the competitors of Nescafe Classic:

1.      Maxwell

They makers of Maxwell house coffee and pepsi-cola soft driks have formed a joint venture to sell ready to drink canned coffee. They are targeting matured drinkers of coffee who want to feel the strongest of traditional coffee. They have set high prices which indicates that they they look for high income class people who want to sit back and relax at their home with a cup of coffee. 150g jar of Maxwell is of  Rs. 525.

2.      Moccona

They are targeting the main household shopper of age 25-60. It is the most expensive instant coffee in the market. And their advertisement emphasis on its rich European background and flavor. The current market price of Moccona in Pakistani is Rs. 750 for a 150g jar.

3.      Riva

They have a specific target audience who are younger consumers like students. They are potentially threatening to Nescafe as their intended market develops loyalty to brand at young age. They have similar pricing structure to Nescafe. Their market share keeps on increasing. Riva’s launch in Australia affected the maturity and stability of the instant coffee market with respect to Nescafe. The price of a 150g jar of Riva is Rs. 625.

4.      Lavazza

It claims to be “Italy’s favorite coffee”. It’s strength includes an excellent international marketing campaign targeted at younger female coffee drinkers. As a national firm they have home field advantage and they keep on advertising themselves in Italy culture. The price of 150g of Lavazza is Rs. 650. IT is available only in a few super markets like Aghas and Hyperstar.

These are some of the available competitors of Nescafe in Pakistan and this number keeps on increasing. But none of them affects Nescafe yet because they have already established their standing. The price they are offering has also become justifiable with their positioning in the market. They have a good standard packaging and pricing but along with that biggest accomplishment of this brand is feasibility. Finding a Nescafe coffee in Pakistan is easy. They have made themselves available at every mall and every shopping outlet and they are also available in local general stores. They have made such positioning that when the name of coffee comes one’s mind drifts off to Nescafe instantly. Hence, it is quite difficult for a new brand to come and capture their market.

Market Segmentation & Target market

Market Segmentation:

The Nescafe target market is mainly for coffee lovers. It is convenient to be used at home, work place or on the way. It serves them by offering wide product line for different segments.

Geographically it targets west side of turkey  because of the habitual use in east side of turkey. Demographically it targets youth to create loyalty towards brand.

Some Potential Market segments are:

1: Students:  Students are busy in their life style, possess ambitious and outgoing personality. They are potential, regular and first time users. They are also  seasonal users mostly in exam days.

2: Professionals: They are inspired and outgoing in nature. They live in urban areas mostly consume at morning. They are regular users and prefer quality.

3: Managers: People in this category are of the age of 45-60.They are  heavy users and their choice used to be indifferent. These people live in urban areas and  are hard workers in nature.

Target Market

Nestle is focused on big distributors having great market experience and huge market share. Like Albert Heijn, Jumbo and wholesalers like Hanos.

Differentiated Marketing

Nescafe target different market segments by using differentiated marketing strategy. It offers different products to different market segments to fulfill their requirements. Nescafe Xpress, Nescafe Cappuccino, Collection, Nescafe 3ü1 Arada, Nescafe Cappuccino.

NESCAFÉ CLASSIC

Differentiated Marketing

Nescafe offers different quantities so that anyone can buy as per there need and budget. For example: Classic 2gram is suitable for students. Because they may need it anywhere and at any time. But Classic Kanavos 200grams is for families. It also offers Classic economic packet 100 grams for families with lower income level.

Pricing Strategy

Nescafe has adopted non-price competition strategy. Nescafé have a huge set of products, which is mainly aimed to satisfy the customer taste buds. The price of products are dependent on the quality of the material used in that particular product.  The products are high in quality and they are significantly priced. Nescafé has made several changes in the portfolio and new products are inducted. This has increased the customer base, as people have a wide variety to choose from. Nescafe has many varieties to attract and satisfy their customers of different classes at an affordable price which gives them a good competitive advantage against their competitors.

Promotion Strategy:

Nescafe emphasizes on the promotion of products in all different kinds of way according to their target market and culture. The company has made one thing sure that their logo remains the same since the origin. This in a way made the people recognise the logo and they could recognise the brand just by the logo, as the logo has been imprinted in the mind of the people. Nestle has used a number of advertising strategies throughout the years to make the product Nescafe appealing. In particular, it has used persuasive advertising, with an emotional aspect, to make it an instant success. Such as their recent TV commercial gave coffee a way of being energetic and getting new ideas. For that they used artists to come and tell how Nescafe helped them in their lives. Nestle runs a number of advertisements and TV commercials focused towards making it a household premium brand. The continuous advertising with smart promotions has given Nescafe a strong position in the instant coffee industry. Not just the electronic media Nescafe do make loads of efforts to attract their target market using other promotion tools such as radio, billboards, internet, public relation activity and newspapers.

Positioning

Nescafe uses product differentiation and image differentitation in order to gain competitive advantages to build a position by providing superior value compare to competitors. Nescafe has the biggest market share in instant coffee market with the features of its products, quality levels, and the satisfaction that it gives to customer as perceived value. Besides, the company conveys Nescafe Classic’s distinctive benefits and positioning since customers perceive a differenece based on brand image differentiation when competing offers look the same.

Value Proposition

More for the Same

Nescafe is selling its products at the same prices with market average like its competitors but at the same time presents its customers high level of satisfaction with respect to quality of coffee.

Positioning Statement

“To people who are inspired and outgoing, cool and trendy, In the need of starting each morning with an enjoyable taste and original smell of coffee,   Nescafé and its Classic gives the best taste and quality, That makes you both relax, happy and unsleepy.”

Marketing Channels/Distribution Mix

The channel of distribution of Nescafe coffee goes from manufacturer to distributers but those distributers vary according to their geographical location and then they reach to the final customer. They have two distribution channels widely used here in Pakistan. Those are:

1^st distribution channel:

Nestle/Nescafe --à Supermarket

Supermarket --à Consumers

In this one Nestle send their product directly to super markets , such as Imtiaz, Hyperstar, Macro etc. and then from these products directly reach consumers. In this channel its quite easy for marts and nestle to be in touch.

2^nd distribution channel:

Nestle/Nescafe --à Wholesale

Wholesale --à Retailer

Retailer --à Consumers

In this channel, Nestle sends their product to Whole sale and then from their they go to local retail stores and then from their they reach the final consumer. Here, wholesalers are chosen by Nestle only and one can’t have a say in it although other wholesalers can request for their product and coordination.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Nescafe Classic is one of the leading coffee brands. They have been assuring quality in a justifiable price for a very long time.  They might have to invest more in CSR activities and other than that if they keep on inventing their products and bringing innovation in them then there will be hardly someone who can get them to a downfall.