Homework
Sugarcoating the News at Krispy Kreme
According to Krispy Kreme's "Code of Ethics for Chief Executive and Senior Financial Officers," the company's top executives are expected to practice and promote honest, ethical conduct. They're also responsible for the health and overall performance of the company. Recently, however, things have gone wrong in the top echelons of the doughnut-shop chain.
First, a little background. Founded as one small doughnut shop in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1937, the brand became increasingly popular over the next six decades, taking off in the 1980s and 1990s. By 2003, Krispy Kreme (which went public in 2000) was selling more than a billion doughnuts a year. That's when things started to go stale. (For more details on the company's ups and downs, Read the article "Krispy Kreme: The Rise, Fall, Rise and Fall of a Southern Icon.")
When sales first started to decline in the fall of 2003, CEO Scott Livengood offered a variety of creative explanations, mostly for the benefit of anxious investors: high gas prices discouraged people from driving to doughnut shops, supermarket sales were down because grocery stores were losing business to Wal-Mart, and people were cutting back on carbohydrates because of the popular Atkins diet. Unfortunately, other (more plausible) explanations were beginning to surface. To complete this exercise, you'll need to find out what they were. Read these articles: "Worst CEO: Krispy Kreme's Scott Livengood" and "Krispy Kreme Must Restate Earnings by $25.6M." Once you have a good grasp of the company's problems and you've read about the people who are responsible, answer the following questions, being sure to provide explanations for your responses:
o What factors contributed to the problems at Krispy Kreme? What happened to the company? Who was hurt?
o Should the firm's problems be attributed to poor management, unethical behavior on the part of the executive team, or both?
o Judging from the lessons of the Krispy Kreme case, how important do you think it is for a firm to have strong top-down leadership?
o If you'd been the CEO of Krispy Kreme, what things would you have done differently?
The purpose of case studies is to bring real world concepts/situations into your course work. Read the assigned case study and complete a case study analysis. It will focus you on the issues covered in the assigned readings. Adhere to the following guidelines:
Guidelines:
The end result should be four sections:
o Summary of the existing facts
o Issues/Problem Identification
o Analysis/Evaluation
o Recommendations.
Format your homework according to the following formatting requirements:
o The answer should be typed, using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides.
o The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the homework, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
o Also include a reference page. The Citations and references must follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.