Aclothing retailer has been striving to reduce the costs of its inventory, but many of its customers are switching to competitors because they do not want to wait for the retailer to order the items. this retailer is experiencing

The hawthorne works was a large western electric factory with 45,000 employees. during the 1920s and 1930s, hawthorne works was the site of some well-known industrial studies. in one of the studies, researchers investigated the impact of different working conditions on worker productivity. prior to the start of the study, researchers secretly measured workers' productivity for several weeks. then researchers chose two workers, who then chose their own teams. the teams were separated from the general workforce and completed their work in different experiment rooms where the researchers could observe them more easily. over a 5-year period researchers manipulated the structure of the workday for each team (number and duration of breaks and number of hours per shift). for each of these changes in working conditions, the researchers measured the effect on productivity. for some conditions, such as frequent short breaks, workers rebelled by intentionally decreasing productivity.why did the researchers secretly measure the workers' productivity before creating the two treatment groups? a, to create similar treatment groups so that a cause-and-effect relationship could be establishedb, to draw conclusions about the productivity of all workers in the plant based on the test groupsc, to directly control for confounding variablesd, to provide a baseline for measuring worker productivity

The direct labor budget of yuvwell corporation for the upcoming fiscal year contains the following details concerning budgeted direct labor-hours: 1st quarter 2nd quarter 3rd quarter 4th quarterbudgeted direct labor-hours 11,200 9,800 10,100 10,900the company uses direct labor-hours as its overhead allocation base. the variable portion of its predetermined manufacturing overhead rate is $6.00 per direct labor-hour and its total fixed manufacturing overhead is $80,000 per quarter. the only noncash item included in fixed manufacturing overhead is depreciation, which is $20,000 per quarter.required: 1. prepare the company’s manufacturing overhead budget for the upcoming fiscal year.2. compute the company’s predetermined overhead rate (including both variable and fixed manufacturing overhead) for the upcoming fiscal year.

Suppose that a major city’s main thoroughfare, which is also an interstate highway, will be completely closed to traffic for two years, from january 2014 to december 2015, for reconstruction at a cost of $535 million. if the construction company were to keep the highway open for traffic during construction, the highway reconstruction project would take much longer and be more expensive. suppose that construction would take four years if the highway were kept open, at a total cost of $800 million. the state department of transportation had to make its decision in 2014, one year before the start of construction (so that the first payment was one year away). so the department of transportation had the following choices: (i) close the highway during construction, at an annual cost of $267.5 million per year for two years. (ii) keep the highway open during construction, at an annual cost of $200 million per year for four years. now suppose the interest rate is 80%. calculate the present value of the costs incurred under each plan.