Essays on Dow Chemical

Issues addressed by the authors and their relation to the value of customer relations

Porter and Kramer (2011), in their article Creating shared value, pointed out that the assumed trade-off between economic efficiency and social progress may not be real. The authors describe some initiatives from companies and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that bridge the apparent gap between business competitiveness and social advancement, as they define the concept of ‘Shared Value.’ One of the most striking suggestions of the authors is that companies miss business opportunities as they fail to fully consider the most critical customer needs. A clearer example could not be offered as Porter and Kramer (2011) mention food companies focusing on ...

Find and properly cite a case in which the taxpayer and the IRS disagreed as to whether the taxpayer was bound by the terms of a closing agreement entered into in connection with a prior audit.  Answer: United States v Booker 543 US 220 (2005) Find and properly cite a case decided after the year 2000 in which a Big 4 accounting firm litigated the issue of whether either (i) its work papers or (ii) its communications with a client were protected from discovery by the IRS (i.e., the IRS had issued a summons to the accounting firm). Also ...

Integration of ABM and ABC in Dow Chemicals Limited

The Dow chemical, an international chemical company, applied activity based costing in order to enable the global business to report the contribution margins according to the geographical area, specific products and customers. The management believed that the system would assist in better decision making in the use and the deployment of its resources. In the traditional accounting system, the costs were assigned to areas such as sales and purchases. However the method was inappropriate as it resulted to fluctuating cash flows since the main focus of costs was on prime costs. It did not provide the manager with accurate ...