Florida International University Article Critique and Responses

You will submit an original post (a critique of the WSJ article; 40 points) and two replies to other student’s critiques (30 points).

1. Read a WSJ (Wall Street Journal) article that reports on a topic related to corporate social responsibility and or is related to the week’s textbook chapter reading.
2. Succinctly, write a critique of the article in this discussion forum.
   • The approximate length of a discussion forum response should be about 200 words, 20 lines.
   • Succinctly summarize the article that you have selected.
   • Write about the impact of what you have read on the triple bottom line (e.g., profit, people, planet).
3. Read and comment on two (2) additional student posts from this week.

Reply 1

By Melanie Vite

Hey everyone,

For this WSJ assignment, I decided to go with the “Corporation Rights” that we read in chapter 5. This article was called “CFOs Invest in Employee Training, Software to Speed Up Forecasting”.

I read how the OneLogin company has a social responsibility with its employees, and to find a way to improve their data skills. With this, they want to achieve that their employees can enter all the data of the company in all departments. To speed up data collection, businesses are training employees, investing in cloud-based applications and other technologies, and enhancing connectivity. By getting their employees to use the information better, the company would also avoid overworking, and this eventuality would help reduce costs.

Over the years, technology has evolved and fewer time-consuming systems are needed. For this, they needed to use new analysis tools. Before the analysis, they not only spent a lot of time using Excel and its spreadsheets but also faced the problem of obtaining data forecasts. However, now to reduce these challenges, CFOs are increasingly automating procedures, such as the processing of banking records. Finance executives can view payments more effectively using a cloud-based accounting system instead of exchanging or consolidating Excel spreadsheets.

Finally, after seeing that they can streamline data through better skills for their employees, they did not hesitate to use it. For this, they need to improve management if they include other departments of the company. Engaging other divisions outside of finance, such as sourcing, supply chain management, and distribution, lets companies rely on the right measurement from the outset. To integrate their data insights into potential revenue and expected expenditures, the heads of each group help finance executives optimize their financial plans.

Henderson, Brooke. “CFOs Invest in Employee Training, Software to Speed Up Forecasting.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 16 Feb. 2021, www.wsj.com/articles/cfos-invest-in-employee-training-software-to-speed-up-forecasting-11613485800?mod=searchresults_pos2&page=1.

Reply 2

By Tatiana Lamour

https://www.wsj.com/articles/robinhood-faces-civil-lawsuits-over-trading-restrictions-11612384364?mod=searchresults_pos11&page=1 (Links to an external site.)

Hello Everyone,

For this week discussion and chapter, I will be covering the “Robinhood Faces Civil Lawsuit Over Trading Restriction” article. Mengqi Sun discusses that over the last few weeks after Robinhood restricted access to some stocks, users of the online brokerage app have began to file multiple lawsuits in different states. These Individual Investors are suing due to the claims of the brokerage misusing the restriction on trading securities. They are facing up to more than 30 civil lawsuits in regards to trading restrictions being imposed. According to these more than 30 lawsuit, they are claiming that Robinhood “violated various laws, including breaching of contract and fiduciary duty.”

Many of the Individual investors lawsuits in details, made claims alleging that Robinhood purposefully “deprived individual investors of the ability to invest in the open market and to manipulate the market for the benefit of individuals and financial institutions that weren’t Robinhood’s customer” amongst a stock rise. Another believed that the “brokerage’s explanation of its restrictions was false and misleading, and that the company imposed the limits to drive down the prices of the hot stocks and to benefit its institutional partners.” The Lawyers of these investors are holding Robinhood accountable and are seeking justice…However, on the other side, Robinhood has diverted the responsibility onto the fact that the issue is not with them but with “external forces” who they must follow regulatory requirements and risk management. Robinhood asserts that in order to be the trustworthy brokerage platform that they are, they must “operate within the existing regulatory environment.

This weeks chapter focused on the rights and responsibilities of a corporation. Self-Interest being the main focus. This article definitely aligns with this chapter due to the particular reason being that Robinhood is being sued for restricting access to stocks amid stock rise. They claimed to restrict access due to need of approval for higher authority and not because they just chose to, however, individual investors believe that the brokerage did not want them to succeed in using their service. After observing both sides it can be concluded that Robinhood is not dismissing the responsibility of the issue but clarifying the reasoning as to why it had to be done and that the did not mean to impose on the access to the stocks. They have put much effort into handling social, environmental, and financial issues but this one was not their call.