The decision to outsource opens the firm up to certain risks, among them and . lower costs; fewer task-specific investments access to greater expertise; greater demand variability higher marketing costs; small orders loss of direct control over operations; need to disclose proprietary information greater capacity rigidity; tight knowledge control

Aceramics manufacturer sold cups last year for $7.50 each. variable costs of manufacturing were $2.25 per unit. the company needed to sell 20,000 cups to break even. net income was $5,040. this year, the company expects the price per cup to be $9.00; variable manufacturing costs to increase 33.3%; and fixed costs to increase 10%. how many cups (rounded) does the company need to sell this year to break even?

The total value of your portfolio is $10,000: $3,000 of it is invested in stock a and the remainder invested in stock b. stock a has a beta of 0.8; stock b has a beta of 1.2. the risk premium on the market portfolio is 8%; the risk-free rate is 2%. additional information on stocks a and b is provided below. return in each state state probability of state stock a stock b excellent 15% 15% 5% normal 50% 9% 7% poor 35% -15% 10% what are each stock’s expected return and the standard deviation? what are the expected return and the standard deviation of your portfolio? what is the beta of your portfolio? using capm, what is the expected return on the portfolio? given your answer above, would you buy, sell, or hold the portfolio?

Reliability and validity reliability and validity are two important considerations that must be made with any type of data collection. reliability refers to the ability to consistently produce a given result. in the context of psychological research, this would mean that any instruments or tools used to collect data do so in consistent, reproducible ways. unfortunately, being consistent in measurement does not necessarily mean that you have measured something correctly. to illustrate this concept, consider a kitchen scale that would be used to measure the weight of cereal that you eat in the morning. if the scale is not properly calibrated, it may consistently under- or overestimate the amount of cereal that’s being measured. while the scale is highly reliable in producing consistent results (e. g., the same amount of cereal poured onto the scale produces the same reading each time), those results are incorrect. this is where validity comes into play. validity refers to the extent to which a given instrument or tool accurately measures what it’s supposed to measure. while any valid measure is by necessity reliable, the reverse is not necessarily true. researchers strive to use instruments that are both highly reliable and valid.