On December 1, Petro, Inc., sent Rachel & Rico (R&R) a letter, via overnight delivery, offering to employ R&R to review Petro’s tax situation for the current year for $10,000. In the letter, the company stated that R&R had ten days to accept. On December 5, R&R sent an e-mail message that stated, "The price for the tax analysis seems too low. Would you consider paying $15,000?" Petro received the message without responding immediately. The next day, Smith & Taylor, an R&R competitor, offered to conduct the appraisal for $8,000. On learning of this offer, R&R immediately e-mailed Petro, agreeing to do the work for $10,000. Petro received this message on December 7. Explain why R&R and Petro do, or do not, have a contract.

Before you begin to compose a message, you should conduct research to collect the necessary information. to avoid frustration and inaccurate messages, be sure to consider the receiver's position. which questions should you ask yourself before determining what and how to research?

Who is better at multi-tasking? in business, employees are often asked to perform a complex task when their atten-tion is divided (i.e., multi-tasking). human factors (may 2014) published a study designed to determine whether video game players are better than non–video game play-ers at multi-tasking. each in a sample of 60 college stu-dents was classified as a video game player or a non-player. participants entered a street crossing simulator and were asked to cross a busy street at an unsigned intersec-tion. the simulator was designed to have cars traveling at various high rates of speed in both directions. during the crossing, the students also performed a memory task as a distraction. two variables were measured for each student: (1) a street crossing performance score (measured out of 100 points) and (2) a memory task score (measured out of 20 points). the researchers found no differences in either the street crossing performance or memory task score of video game players and non-gamers. “these results,” say the researchers, “suggest that action video game players [and non-gamers] are equally susceptible to the costs of dividing attention in a complex task”

Grey company holds an overdue note receivable of $800,000 plus recorded accrued interest of $64,000. the effective interest rate is 8%. as the result of a court-imposed settlement on december 31, year 3, grey agreed to the following restructuring arrangement: reduced the principal obligation to $600,000.forgave the $64,000 accrued interest.extended the maturity date to december 31, year 5.annual interest of $40,000 is to be paid to grey on december 31, year 4 and year 5. the present value of the interest and principal payments to be received by grey company discounted for two years at 8% is $585,734. grey does not elect the fair value option for reporting the debt modification. on december 31, year 3, grey would recognize a valuation allowance for impaired loans of