Cost and Management: Degree Program

Costing Case Study

Calculation of the Cost Per Student of Delivering a Particular Degree Program

As mentioned in the article, the universities are essentially reluctant to divulge the overall costs that are incurred for delivering a specific degree program. However, the article intends to analyze whether the current fees are said to cover up all the costs incurred for delivering the degree. Again, as suggested in the new article, the universities expend more than what they actually receive as government grants along with the student fees, however, this does not go towards teaching. Nevertheless, the study conducted by the Deloitte Access Economics reveals the credible figure regarding the university spending and this suggested 5% to 10% of student financing as well as fees (NewsComAu, 2015). This funding was essentially directed away from teaching and was used to support the overall university research actions as a substitute. Again, the students in different deregulated system can be charged higher fees in order to make provisions for the universities to finance additional resources rather than augmenting the teaching or else other services for the students. As per the Australian Bureau of Statistics, almost 41% of university research financing in the year 2012 mainly comes from a resource that was not particularly from research. As per the reports of the Deloitte Access Economics report on the Higher education teaching as well as the learning costs, during the year 2010 is reported to be roughly around $15,000 to instruct a student in the universities examined (NewsComAu, 2015).

Difficulties Associated to the Calculations

As mentioned in the news article on “How much does it actually cost universities to teach students?”, the universities that the news.com.cu made a contact with did not respond properly or else refused to provide a numeric figure on the cost of delivering degree program to students stating the reason of difficulty of calculation. Despite widespread debate on the subje

Extent to Which Such Enumerations can Provide a Reliable Basis for Decision-Making

The enumerations of the cost of delivering degree to students can in turn provide a substantial basis for decision-making. The administrators can decide the overall fees that need to be charged for covering the costs of teaching, research actions as well as other activities. Again, the absence of the appropriate evidences of costs leads to the lack of support for the argument put forward by the universities regarding the underfunding. However, strong evidences of the underfunding could have helped the universities to support their case and helped them to acquire the requisite funds for different research activities. This also acts an impediment for acquiring the grants from government. However, the decision regarding the acceptance of grants from the government and the amount that the administrators of the university can accept also depends on the enumeration of the overall cost (Horngren et al., 2013). In addition to this, the case study mentions that enumeration of the overall cost also help in the ascertainment of the fees that can be charged from the students both local as well as international tom cover up the entire costs (Asif et al., 2013). Again, the process of funding of different universities is frequently reduced and is not founded on the real costs that are required to deliver the entire courses (Drury, 2013). The enumeration is said to provide a reliable basis as it can also help in the process of review of the entire university sector. Mr Norton is in support of development of a balanced committee and it has refused to support the Go8 that requires compromise from different major parties. Again, the labour has the need to concede that there is a requirement for flexibility of the fee and on the other hand, the Liberals need to recognize that the complete deregulation is not completely reasonable. As such, all these require the enumeration of the cost for the ascertainment of the fees and ensuring the flexibility of the overall fee. As per the results of the reports declared by “Deloitte Access Economics report into Higher education teaching and learning costs” in the present case study, the average cost is around $15,000 during the year 2010 to instruct student of all the universities investigated. The enumeration of the cost depends on different subjects and helps in deciding whether the fees of the student can help in covering the cost of the different courses that vary. Hence, fees from different students for diverse cheaper courses can be utilized to pay for the ones that are more costly. All these require too have the need for the enumeration of the overall costs (Carlsson et al., 2015).

Decisions by Government on the Process of Financing of Universities and choices on Establishing Fees for Different Students

As per the case study, it can be hereby ascertained that there are few available information sources that refer to the fact that the universities expend greater amount than what they acquire from different government funding as well as fees from the students. However, this does not necessarily indicate the fact that the money spent by the government is necessarily spent for teaching (Shepherd, 2015). As mentioned in the case study, the reports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal the fact that the government financing as well as the fees of the overseas students contribute significantly towards funding of research. The government’s deregulation legislation failed and this led to the review of the overall university sector. Reports also divulge the fact that costs vary depending on the university, as institutions that are more prestigious tend to spend more on research and this assists the to secure extremely regarded academics. This can augment the overall quality of teaching. However, despite what universities spend, the universities acquire the same amount of finances from the government for every course. However, the suggestions proposed by the deregulation models of Mr. Chapman, government contributions needs to be reduced as and when the fees are further increased.

Corporate Social Responsibility is also known as CSR activities that are considered as the initiatives of the corporation for assessing and taking responsibility regarding the adverse affect of the operation of the firm on social and environmental well being (Carroll, 2015). Generally, the CSR activities are applied to the efforts that go beyond the required factors by the environmental protection and/ or regulators group. It has been found that the CSR activities are also considered as the “corporate citizenship” and this can be included within incurred short-term expenses, which do not give an urgent financial advantage to a particular organization. However, this also promotes positive environmental and social changes (Moon, 2014).

On the other hand, the corporate social responsibility is also considered as the business practices that include the initiatives which provide advantages to the society (Kolk & Muller, 2015). It has been noted that the CSR activities of a business are able to encompass a broaden variety of tactics, starting from a portion of the proceedings of the firm to charity in order to incorporate the “greener” operations within the business (Korschun, Bhattacharya & Swain, 2014). From detailed analysis, it can be said that there are mainly few types of CSR activities that are usually practiced by the businesses of modern days. These include – environmental efforts, philanthropy, ethical labor practices and volunteering. Philanthropy is defined as the business practices related to social responsibility where by donating to both local and national charities. Generally, the businesses possess various resources, which is able to provide benefit to programs of local community and charities. In addition to this, the environmental efforts are considered as one of the key focus of the CSR activities (Okpara & Idowu, 2013). Thus, regardless of the size of the business, it has a huge carbon footprint. The method that have been considered for reducing the footprints are counted as good for both the society and company as a whole. It has been found that by attending the events of volunteer, information about the sincerity of the organization can be obtained. Thus, by doing good deeds, a particular company can express their concern towards the welfare of the society and the environment for specific issues. The particular company should do welfare of the society and the environment without expecting anything in return, then, this will only be considered as the CSR activity of the firm (Preuss, 2013). Moreover, the ethical labor practices are also considered as the CSR activities of the firm. The reason behind this is that by treating the staffs of an organization ethically and fairly, most of the firms are able to demonstrate their CSR activities for the welfare of the society and the environment (Lund-Thomsen & Lindgreen, 2014).

Nowadays, the corporate social responsibility is considered as an important factor for every organization. The reasons are – firstly, it improves the image of the corporation in the eyes of the public, or it can also be said that this draws a different image of goodwill in the mind of the customers. It can also be said that the public image of an organization is considered as the mercy of the programs that are related to the social responsibilities and the methodologies by which the customers of the programs are alerted. Secondly, a strong CSR activity program helps to increase the probability of a firm to get media or news coverage (Servaes & Tamayo, 2013). Lastly, the CSR activities assist a corporation to attract and to retain the productive and engaged staffs of the firm. Fourthly, this also retains and attracts investors. Additionally, it has been found that the non-profit organizations also earn benefit from CSR activities. These include – investment through the programs of matching gift, extended participation of volunteers, building partnerships among corporate and different revenue resources.

Business Organization should majorly concern with Corporate Social Responsibility in comparison reacting on wealth maximization techniques (Zentes et al., 2016). The major objectives of any business organization lead towards justifications for an existence. In other words, commercial objectives rely mainly on making maximum possible profits for the key shareholders of business organization. Therefore, wealth accumulation relies upon as leading motivation for business course of action. This means economic responsibility of business in producing goods as well as services for society in selling for profit (Schneider & Schmidpeter, 2012).

Business aims at fulfilling primary responsibility concerning as economic units in major society. It is mainly observed that profit principles are based upon acceptable profits in transforming ways under “Profit Maximization” for any business organization (O'Shea et al., 2013). This is majorly endorsed by classical economic view concerning social responsibility of business organization. Modern theoretical as well as empirical analysis reveals that business firms engages strategically for acting as social responsible activities for increasing profits as far as possible. This reveals business firm stakeholders values upon bringing together social efforts in an overall manner. Business organization aims at obtaining additional benefits from attributes such as firm reputation enhancement as well as ability in generating profits. This helps in differentiating with related product as well as ability in attracting highly qualified personnel for extracting premium of its products (Mirvis, 2012).

There is much point in case of ethical theory as defined in actual goods sold. In other words, there requires ethical reasoning in case of making trade-offs as well as resolving dilemmas at the same time (Clapp & Rowlands, 2014). This develops field of ethics in maximization of individual utilities in implying with theories for future analysis purpose. Corporate Social Responsibility and profits has narrow versions for greater notion. In other words, Corporate Social Responsibility increases with profits as referred for any business organization. Empirical studies suggest that Corporate Social Responsibility largely affects profitability for exploring the relationships in an effective way (Brief et al., 2016). Corporate Social Responsibility considers as the doctrine promoting expansion of social stewardship by most of business organization (Zentes et al., 2016). In other words, Corporate Social Responsibility suggests ways whereby Business Corporations embraces responsibilities in towards set of key stakeholders. These key stakeholders involve customers as well as employees and large communities (O'Shea et al., 2013). CSR activities take into consideration charitable giving in case to community programs as well as commitment towards environmental sustainability projects for nurturing diverse and safe workplace.

There are some of the popular examples regarding Corporate Social Responsibility conducted by any business organization. Most of the business organization practices various forms of Corporate Social Responsibility in making it core for its operational activities (Clapp & Rowlands, 2014). For Example, Ben and Jerry make use of fair trade ingredients and develop proper sustainability programs from dairy firms at Vermont. Other examples include Starbucks creating Café practice guidelines for ensuring company sources on sustainable growth activities. This means processing coffee in case of evaluating for economic as well as social and environmental aspects for coffee production. For the company Tom Shoes donates one pair of shoes to child who need it (Schneider & Schmidpeter, 2012).

At the end of the study, it is concluded that Business Organization aims at profit maximization and cost minimization theories. These approaches are used by business organization as sustainable approach for maximizing profits acting for best interest of employees as well as environment and communities. This essay majorly focuses on understanding regarding different concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility as well as adoption of CSR for the purpose of attainment of profit maximization by any business organization.

References

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