The following recommendation was made by the Human Resources Manager to the board of directors of the Fancy Toy Company.

“In the last three quarters of this year, under the leadership of our president, Pat Salvo, our profits have fallen considerably. Thus, we should ask for her resignation in return for a generous severance package. In Pat’s place, we should appoint Rosa Winnings. Rosa is currently president of Starlight Jewelry, a company whose profits have increased dramatically over the past several years. Although we will have to pay Rosa twice the salary that Pat has been receiving, it will be well worth it because we can soon expect our profits to increase considerably.”

This argument is based on the recommendation made by the Human Resources Manager to the board of directors of the Fancy Toy Company. In this argument, the HR manager at Fancy Toy Company recommends replacing the company’s current president, Pat Salvo, with Rosa Winnings, who is currently president of Starlight Jewelry. However, this argument is based on faulty reasoning and is unconvincing. There is a complete lack of evidence to support its conclusion.

In the first place, the Human Resources Manager assumes that the falling profits of the Fancy Toy Company are the fault of the current president but gives no reason for such an assumption. Without providing any evidence, he is asking the president to take the responsibility for the falling profits and hence, resign. There are a number of other factors, which could be the cause for falling profits that might be completely out of the president’s control. For example, changes in the currency’s exchange rate, or a bad economic situation either in the home market or in an important market abroad, or a natural disaster that caused extraordinary expenses for the company. There are chances that the cost of the raw materials or labor has increased on which the president has no authority. The author has not mentioned anywhere that the falling profits are due to some specific actions or wrong decisions of the current president. Without providing any proof that the falling profits were actually caused by the actions or inactions of the current president, there is no point of asking her to resign.

Secondly, the author has recommended appointing Rosa Winnings as the president of the company. Rosa is currently president of Starlight Jewelry. Again, the author has assumed that Rosa is responsible for the profitability of the company. The manager has not provided any evidence to confirm this assumption. There might be many other factors like low prices of metal, low labor cost or increase in demand for jewelry, which are actually responsible for the company’s increasing profits. There is no data provided which will prove that the company has actually benefited in the work period of Rosa.

Moreover, it is not mentioned anywhere whether Rosa Winnings has any idea of running a toy company. Jewelry business is entirely different from the toy business. Both the businesses have different target customers. Hence, she might not be successful in toy business.

In this argument, the author has also talked about giving double salary to Rosa Winnings than the existing president’s salary. There is also a recommendation of giving a generous severance package to Pat Salvo. This will be an additional burden on the company’s declining income. The author has not considered that any increase in profits of the company would have to be big enough to overcome a huge increase in the budget.

The argument is totally based on speculations. The author has ignored many important facts and not presented any evidence to show that the current president is in any way responsible for the toy company’s declining profits. Neither has he supported his idea that the current president of Starlight Jewelry is qualified enough to lead the toy company. Hence, his conclusion cannot be accepted.