MAA310 Accounting and Society - Assignment 4

Requirements

You are required to respond to all four questions. The questions relate to the Sakens Ltd case study, which you can access in the Week 8 learning resource folder.

Please note: you must provide detailed evidence and examples to support your responses.

Question 1

Taking the institutional theory lens, critically discuss the (i) coercive pressure and (ii) normative pressure that Sakens Ltd are likely to face for delaying payments to small business suppliers. In your response, ensure you explicitly define, explain and analyse the coercive and normative pressures under institutional theory.

Question 2

1. In the context of agency theory, critically discuss why the misclassification of Research and Development (R&D) item(s) can intensify agency conflicts between Sakens Ltd’s shareholders and managers/executives. In your response, ensure you explicitly define, explain and apply agency theory.
2. Review each R&D item listed on Exhibit 3 of the case. Identify individual R&D item(s) that is/are misclassified, and explain why it is/they are misclassified with reference to AASB 138 Intangible Assets.

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Question 3

Sakens Ltd provided earnings before interest, tax depreciation, amortisation and COVID (EBITDAC) as an additional earnings measure in press releases and conference calls to highlight what their performance might have been had it not been for the impact of COVID.

Evaluate whether EBITDAC provides useful information based on the two fundamental qualitative characteristics of information prescribed by the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting.

Question 4

There is a disagreement between board members whether and where Sakens Ltd should outsource their production.

1. Discuss issues that Sakens Ltd should consider if they were to discontinue the production in
2. If Sakens Ltd were to outsource the production, evaluate and suggest whether it should outsource the production to Switzerland or Vietnam.

Submission Instructions and Reminders (as advised in previous document related to assessment task 4)

• Your submitted response must be typed in a Word
• An executive summary (abstract), introduction and conclusion are not
• If references are used, you must include a link to the reference or provide sufficient information that your marker can locate the reference. This can be included in the body of your response. A reference list is not
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assessment response will not be marked. As a result of the application of the hurdle requirement, late submission will result in a fail grade be awarded for the unit.

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