Globalization And Its Effect On Poverty Essays - Economic Geography

Globalization And Its Effect On Poverty Globalization and Its Effect on Poverty Globalization has helped raise the standard of living for many people worldwide. It has also, however, driven many deeper into poverty. Small businesses and third world countries are not capable of updating their technology as often as their larger, wealthier counterparts. Unable to compete with multinational firms and wealthy nations, small businesses and third world countries and forced to do business locally, never growing and reaching their full potential. Technological advances are made daily throughout the world. However, it is expensive to rapidly make and transport these advances globally. This high production cost causes the consumers price to be unnecessarily high. Today, there are many countries in the world that cannot afford to pay such a high price for the latest technology, and by the time they can afford to pay, newer, more advanced technology exists. The democratization of technology benefits mainly the wealthier countries. - 2 Technological advances not only benefit wealthy countries, but also wealthier companies. Technological advancements allow countries and their companies worldwide publicity when they are successful. Because investors are able to easily invest on the Internet, on the telephone, and through facsimile machines, the profits of companies have increased greatly. Currency traders all over the world have also been able to update exchange rates and notify the public of the updates more rapidly. This has led to more desire to finalize deals because companies are able to be sure that they are receiving competitive exchange rates. Swissair, an airline based in Switzerland, even moved its entire accounting division from Switzerland to India simply because the accountants in India are among the best in the world. They were able to do this because all of the information from their new office halfway around the world was transmitted through the use of technologically advanced devices. Because labor i s cheaper and the workers are more skilled in India, the company benefited in two ways. For the same reasons as in India, Thailand has moved from being primarily a rice-producing nation, to the worlds second largest producer of pickup - 3 trucks and fourth largest producer of motorcycles (In Class Handouts). As far back as the invention of the telephone, the countries with the best economies were the most technologically advanced. The invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 allowed information to be sent around the world considerably more rapidly than ever before. Before the invention of the telephone, it might have taken days, weeks, or even months to courier documents around the world. Today, however, Selectronic, a company in Delhi, India takes doctors dictation from a toll-free number in the United States, transcribes the recordings, and sends the text back to a U.S. HMO (In Class Handouts). With the invention of the telephone and its spread to the worlds wealthier countries also came increased growth in the wealthier countries economies. The global marketplace is based on a winner take all system. The wealthy, winning companies and countries are able to sell their goods and services to a global market, while the losing, poorer countries and businesses are limited to their local markets. Massive global markets also create huge incentives for businesses and nations to market products internationally. The National Basketball - 4 Association, for example, in 1998 sold more than five hundred million dollars in licensed merchandise worldwide. The NBA owes this huge source of income to advances in technology. Basketball organizations in other countries that cannot afford to market their organizations globally, however, are forced to sell licensed merchandise only in their countries, substantially lowering potential profits. In the past fifty years, global capitalism has raised the living standards of more people higher and faster than the previous five hundred years. Increasing the number of haves in the world has also dramatically increased the number of have-nots. It has also driven the poor further into poverty making it more and more unlikely that they will ever recover. Globalization creates tensions, especially within nations and companies, between those who have the skills and resources to compete in the global market and those who do not. When the Internet was first introduced to the public, the wealthier countries in the world were able to

Often parents get divorced 50 percent of the time Essays

Often parents get divorced 50 percent of the time Essays Often parents get divorced 50 percent of the time in the United States according to Mckinley Irvin family law. Having parents that are divorced may or may not still affect their children who are eighteen and older. There is a 50 percent chance that married couples get divorced when their children are younger then eighteen years old according to children divorce statistics. Usually parents that get a divorce affects their children and it may or may not affect them the older they get. According to divorce usu, some children grow up living productive lives after divorce occurs with their parents, but they are at greater risk for emotional and physical problems. Some children are more emotionally affected than others and experience serious, long-term emotional problems while others don't. Some people who are older than eighteen expressed how they felt with their parents being divorced, and how it may or may not still affect them. Britteny Richards who is 21 years old from Miami, Florida parents got divorced when she was three years old. She was asked with her parents being divorce does it still affect you? Why or why not? Richards says, " Personally my parents divorce does not ever had any affect on me. If it has had a affect it would actually be a positive one because I live having divorced parents. My parents got divorced when I was very young so I don't even remember them together. My mom lives in California and my dad lives in LA so being a child of divorced parents has allowed me travel and given my parents the opportunity to be happy, so all in all it was a good thing," Lauren Infante who is 22 years old from San Francisco, CA parents got divorced when she was three months old. Even though her parents got divorced when she was so young, it still affected her. Infante says, " My parents got divorced right after I was born, so that's all I've ever known. When I was younger, having divorced parents used to affect me much more than it does now. While it can still be annoying to split my vacations between both parents every year, it's not more difficult than it was to switch houses every month up until college. Infante continues saying," When I was younger, I always used to wish my parents were still together and wanted to have a picture perfect nuclear family, but now that I'm older I realize there's a reason that things are the way they are. My parents divorce was out of my control and there's nothing I can do, but accept it." Daniel O'har who is 22 years old from Birmingham, Alabama parents got divorced when he was five years old. O' hara says, " It doesn't affect me anymore because I'm more mature than I was when it first happened. I have also come to realize that there was nothing I could do to change the outcome. I have learned throughout life to accept things for the way they are and try to stay positive in rough situations." Alex Coleman who is 23 years old from Atlanta, Georgia parents got divorced when she was nine years old. She says, " My parents got divorced when I was in elementary school and even though I am 22 now it still affects me, but not as much as it used to. I used to go back and forth in court because they both were fighting for custody of me. I hated going back and forth with them. My parents always communicated through me, when they needed to communicate with each other. I know now that it was best for them to get a divorce because they never really got along. I'm just scared to get married and have kids in the future because I don't want my kids to go through what I went through." Parents get divorced often and it may or may not affect their children the older they get. Even though getting a divorce may have a huge impact on the child, it's not good seeing two people together who aren't happy. "Divorce is a life-transforming experience. After divorce, childhood is different. Adulthood with

Economic Repercussions of the Clean Air Act Essay

Economic Repercussions of the Clean Air Act - Essay Example In the public discussion over legal obligations versus economic rewards, there is a very limited knowledge of the fundamental economics concerned. If the goal is to regulate the discharge to an accurate, predictable level, direct quantitative regulations are apt to be most successful in attaining the social objective. If they can be checked and implemented, direct regulations will be effective in lessening pollution to a predictable level. It is far from evident that legislators must aspire for a definite pollution level. Being aware or predicting the right pollution level demands costs and benefits information that could be indecisive at best. Devoid of this particular knowledge legislators might prefer a technique that reduces the social costs stemming from the inaccurate costs or benefits information. This is likely to entail economic rewards instead of obligatory standards. While there are various views regarding the suitable objective of environmental policy, this paper supposes that environmental legislators pursue to take full advantage of the economic interests emerging from their policy decisions. The problem is that they are trying to exploit an indecisive ‘net benefit stream’, which is identified as the â€Å"difference between the health, aesthetic and material benefits of reducing air pollution and the costs of achieving this reduction† (Crandall, 1983, 59). There are critical setbacks of indecisiveness in approximating the costs of benefits of regulation. The importance of future health effects, the link between ambient quality of air and discharges from point-sources, the significance of reduced mortality or morbidity rates, and the regulation costs across various sources are the primary providers of this indecisiveness (Freedman & Jaggi, 1993). For each of these important connections, subjective or objective approximations should be performed by

Change of Management - OH&S Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Change of Management - OH&S - Essay Example In the entire process, stakeholders and those affected by change normally have to absorb the simple elements that define and make up the change process. As a result, time, effort and resources are required in order to make the process of change adoption more smooth and possible. Moreover, change is complex, which requires planning, organization, and implementation. Throughout the entire process of change, communication remains the critical aspect that glues the entire process of change. The concept of change as it is applicable in the organization has two major components; that of organizational change itself, and the change of people within the environment where people affected with change are perceived to be crucial to the success of change process. The understanding here is that successful application of change management should integrate the people within the organization and more so the entire process need to be inline with the values of the corporation or organization involved. The University’s Occupational Health and Safety Risk Management (OHSRM) system was established in 2002, in consultation with academic and administrative groups, as a practical mechanism to assist managers and staff at all levels to systematically manage OHS risks in their work areas. It is a key element in promoting the health, safety and well being of staff, students and visitors, and enabling compliance with NSW OHS legislation. As part of the OHSRM, an OHS Audit was undertaken in late 2010. The Faculty of Health Sciences which currently employs approximately 350 staff and educates 5,500 students, scored 20%, the lowest Faculty score within the University. The Faculty will be re audited in November 2011 and it is expected to achieve a minimum of 70%. The survey results portrayed an initial diagnosis of staff being unaware of safety procedures, evacuation plans, who to report incidents and hazards to. However, it was unknown if this was all staff or only

Mystic Monk Coffee SWOT Analysis Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Mystic Monk Coffee SWOT Analysis - Case Study Example The vision of the company was declared to be: â€Å"acquiring a large parcel of land - a new Mount Carmel – and building a monastery with accommodations for 30 monks, a retreat center for lay visitors, a Gothic church, a convent for Carmelite nuns, and a hermitage† (Turnipseed 2011, 237). While this vision clearly defines the goal of the monastery for the next year or several years, it needs some improvement as it sounds more like a strategic plan than a vision statement. In order to achieve the above listed strategic objectives, the monastery needs to have an appropriate strategy and business model. At the present moment, the monastery does not have clearly identified strategy. Current business model is based on the sales of roasted coffee beans to Catholic visitors, wholesale shops, and churches. The monastery purchases fair trade Arabica beans at $2,99, roasts it, packages, and resells at $9,95 per 12-ounce bag. The sales are carried out mainly online, via the corporate website of the monastery. If customer purchase three coffee bags or more, they are granted free shipping service. Also, there exists a â€Å"coffee club†, whereas customers are offered to a monthly delivery of one to six bags of preselected coffee (Turnipseed 2011, 237). All these elements make up the current business model of the Wyoming Monastery Coffee business operations. Before recommending any improvements on the strategy and business model, it is necessary to analyze t he key internal strengths and weaknesses of the monastery and evaluate major threat and opportunities. The first initial strategic option was to consider Mystery Monk Coffee operations as a potential source for funding the project. For implementing this strategy it is necessary to produce a calculation of the monastery’s production capability.  

The Purpose and Objectives of Annual Reports

The Purpose and Objectives of Annual Reports The literature review section talks about the background of research being undertaken. It provides an illustration about the importance of the different sections of the annual reports and the qualitative characteristics of information that make it useful for users of accounting information. Hence, it outlines on the previous research done on the study of annual reports and the importance of annual reports to users who have a reasonable knowledge in business, economics and accounting. The main purpose of annual reports The purpose of the annual report is to inform shareholders as to the financial status of a company. Coy and Pratt (1998) conclude that the annual report serve as a communication tool and determines the reality of the organization in the public mind. However for this reality to be recognized, it depends on the quality of information provided in the annual reports. Annual reports are extremely significant sources of company information (Stanga,1976). Furthermore studies by Chang and Most (1985) and Hawkins and Hawkins (1985) concluded that even though individual investors do not find the annual report useful in decision making and do not meet their information needs, still the annual report is the document used as reference for investors and managers. Though annual report is not the only source of information for a company, as in New Zealand newspapers and magazines were also found as a source of information, nevertheless the annual report is considered to be an important resource due to its large reporting and availability. Therefore the fundamental aims of preparing financial reports are for decision making and accountability. Accountability Annual reports are considered as the main accountability mechanism. In 1975, the American Accounting Association (AAA) defined the purpose of accounting as to provide information for making useful economic decisions and which, if provided will increase social welfare. Thus annual report can be one tool for communicating economic information to allow update decisions and judgements by users. According to Stanton and Stanton (2002) the annual report uses the tools of management, marketing and communication theory to construct a picture of the organization. Thus, annual report is a tool for a firm to classify its accountability for managing and controlling business activities. Moreover, a number of researchers (Winfield, 1978; Chang and Most, 1985; Boyne and Law, 1991), have noted the importance of annual reports as a vehicle releasing accountability. Furthermore accountability is involved in the monitoring, evaluation and control of organizational agents to make sure that they perform in the welfare of shareholders and other stakeholders (Keasey and wright,1993). It can be classified as a requirement for one party to another party for its performance over certain time. In short, accountability is simply a must to report upon as it gives an extent to which an entity has met its responsibilities towards its owners and to fulfill this role, financial reports should reflect the nature and extent of performance that are related to the entity. Moreover accountability requires broadening the capacity of disclosure beyond the financial focus to ensure that adequate and meaningful qualitative information is also contained in the annual report. Besides, the owners of the companies, the shareholders, have a right to know what actions and what developments are taking place within the organization. Thus, the organizations are accountable to its shareholders and the annual report plays a great role in conveying the firms performances to them. Decision making As per IAS 1, the financial statements objective is to offer and inform the performance and the evolution of the financial situation, that could be helpful to a wide range of potential users for evaluating and making economic decisions .It is further claimed that, when the general purpose of financial reports meet this objective, they will also enable entities to discharge accountability. Consequently the first aim of the Trueblood Report is the provision of information for economic decision making is being interpreted as being the primary function of financial statements. Hence financial reports should seek to satisfy the information needs of users. In 1989, the Solomons Report, commissioned by the ICAEW (1989) reaffirmed that decision usefulness is the fundamental aim of financial reporting. Financial reports should provide information that will be accommodating to several users who have interest in financial performance and making decisions about investing and lending. Gray (1994, pp9), have proved that accounting literature is presently dominated by the idea of decision usefulness which mean that financial reporting will have to be maintained in order to meet the need of all users of accounting information. It is seen that nowadays there has been a rise in the users of accounting information for decision making hence objectives of annual reports are regarded as the major means by which companies distribute information to the external users (Firth, 1979). OBJECTIVES OF ANNUAL REPORTS According to FASB the main goals of annual reports can be classified in three parts: Objectives for making potential economic decisions; Objective of providing information about the financial position, performance and changes in financial position of an entity; Objectives for presenting and disclosing of information. Hence it is the attributes of the qualitative characteristics that make accounting information to be useful in annual reports. Characteristics of accounting information The quality of the information provided in annual reports determines the usefulness of those reports to users. FASB and the IASB propose that if Financial Statement setters study the standards and qualitative features in the process of preparation of financial statements only then the financial station would give the true and fair view. Many researchers like (Alford et al. 1993, Amir et al. 1993, Banyopadhyay et al. 1994, Harris et al. 1994, Joos and Lang 1994, Barth and Clinch 1996, Joos 1997, Lewitt 1998 and Pope and Walker 1999) had conduct studies with the aim to identify higher quality as it is related to the ability of financial statements to pass useful information to the users. Hendriksen and Van Breda (1992, P.123), has described qualitative characteristics as components of accounting information which lean to improve its usefulness. The Corporate Report of the Accounting Standards Steering Committee, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), (1975) has identified seven qualitative characteristics viewed as desirable to make the annual reports useful: relevance; understandability; reliability; completeness; objectivity; comparability; timeliness. Relevance Relevance refers to the capacity of information to influence the decision making process of users. The Solomons Report (1989) has emphasized on this point: Relevance must come first, for if information is irrelevant, it does not matter what other qualities it has. FASB Concepts Statement 2,says in paragraph 27, to be relevant accounting information must be able to make a difference in a decision by facilitating users to form predictions about the result of past, present and future events. It also proposed that there is a trade-off between relevance and reliability that is accounting information should be both relevant and reliable. A number of research by Stanga (1980), and Mores and Duncan (1988) have already been conducted to deal with the issue of relevance and reliability and that optimistic association exists between the two, with minimum levels of reliability necessary to achieve relevance. UNDERSTANDABILITY Understandability is viewed as a user-specific property in the FASB model. Information cannot be useful to decision makers who cannot understand it, even though it may otherwise be relevant to a decision and be reliable. Information is understandable when users will be able to reasonably grasp its meaning. Thus useful information should be capable of being understood by users with reasonable knowledge of business and accounting and the way information is presented in annual reports. In addition, researchers like Subramanian, Insley, and Blackwell (1993), had evaluated the relationship between the performance of companies and the readability of their annual reports, concluding that the annual reports of companies that done well were easier to read than those of companies that did not perform well. RELIABILITY Reliability involves the completeness of information. Information is reliable when it is free from material error and bias and can be depended upon by users to signify faithfully. FASB has also concluded that verifiability is a major factor of reliability. Verifiability is the ability through consensus among measurers to guarantee that information represents what it purports to represent. It also focuses on whether a particular basis of measurement is properly pertained, rather than on whether it is appropriate. While Lev and Thiagarajan (1991) , got proof that the market does not retort to certain balance sheet information results of other studies suggested that it may wait until the balance sheet information shows up in future earnings which make accounting information more verifiable and reliable. COMPLETENESS Good Accounting information is complete when it provides all its potential users with all the required information that are vital to fulfill their needs and requirements. Moreover reported information in annual reports should provide a complete image of the activities of the organization. Completeness is also when all transactions and events that should have been recorded have been recorded and classified properly. It also assumed that there will be no error of omission in the information. Thus information in the financial reports must be complete within the bounds of materiality and cost is a vital element of faithful representation. OBJECTIVITY According to Hines (1991), it is in the benefit of accounting profession to publicly produce information that is objective. Financial information being objective means it should be free from bias in accounting decisions and shall be a measurement of having supporting proof. In other words together with objectivity, information should be both reliable and uniform. COMPARABILITY Comparability is the quality of information that allows users to identify similarities in and differences between two sets of economic phenomena. Moreover compliance with accounting standards helps to attain comparability. Thus, information about an entity gains more importance if it can be contrasted with similar information about other entities and with similar information about the same entity for some other period or some other point in time. Comparability is different from consistency because comparability is the goal while consistency is a means to achieve that goal. Users must be informed of the accounting policies used in the preparation of financial statements, any changes in those policies and the effects of those changes. However it is argued that any consideration of comparability must come after relevance and faithful representation. As noted by Sterling, Robert, R (1985), Comparability alone cannot make information relevant. TIMELINESS Timeliness is considered an ancillary aspect of relevance. Timeliness is about having relevant information available sooner before it loses capacity to influence decisions. Kross and Schroeder, (1984), indicated that the timeliness of annual reports is relative to the abnormal return around the release date of reports, corporations that released their annual reports earlier held higher cumulative abnormal returns than that of later releases. Researchers like Dyer Iv, and McHugh (1975),Whittred (1980) and Dwyer, and Wilson (1989), found that timeliness is affected by factors reporting lag such as auditing opinion, profitability and company size. Therefore the use of technology may enhance position of all users and improve regularity of timeliness with which information is received. In addition to the qualitative characteristics mentioned above, there is two more qualities proposed in the accounting literature which is essential; they are faithful representation and materiality. FAITHFUL REPRESENTATION Faithful representation is attained when information is representing faithfully the transactions and other actions it either claims to represent or could reasonably be expected to represent. However faithful representation does not mean total freedom from error in the representation of an economic phenomenon because economic phenomenon presented in financial reports is normally evaluated under conditions of uncertainty. Thus, to attain a faithful representation, it sometimes may be essential to clearly disclose the degree of uncertainty in the reported financial information. MATERIALITY Materiality does not involve only relevance but also faithful representation. Information is material if it could persuade users decisions taken on the basis of the annual reports. Materiality depends on the nature and amount of the item in case of omission or misstatement. It forms the threshold for recognition of information and only material information is contained in the annual reports. According to SEC (1999), is a symmetric in emphasizing that small misstatements may be material for qualitative reasons but SAB 99 is silent on whether, and when, a quantitatively large error could be immaterial, (Taub 2007). Thus, many registrants and practitioners consider that this guidance prevents judging quantitatively large misstatements to be immaterial. COMPONENTS OF ANNUAL REPORTS The annual report encloses a huge amount of information about a company. As formal communication documents the annual reports also contains quantitative information, narratives, photographs and graphs. There have been several survey-based studies in accounting conducted that the annual reports is useful source of information (e.g., Briggs, 1975; Lee and Tweedie, 1975, 1976,1981; Anderson and Epstein, 1995; Abu Baker and Naser 2000; Ho and Wong 2004). Ho and Wong (2004) conducted a research in Hong Kong and concluded that annual reports are consisted of high value of information in comparison to other sources, even though the respondents are not fully satisfied with the amount of information disclosed. Thus in Mauritius, the section 221 of the CA 01 specifies the contents of an annual report. Hence it includes the following: Chairmans Report Lee and Tweedie (1975), Barlett and Chander, 1997, p.246 found that the most common read sections of the annual reports is the chairmans statement .This was attributed to the simplicity of the chairmans report, which clarifies the more technical information, contained in other parts of the report. On the other hand, Wilton and Tabb(1978) surveyed about 300 shareholders and concluded that the chairmans report was the most widely read followed by the income statement. However, Barlett and Chander have also disclosed that the majority of respondents in their sample desired less information in the form of a summary report rather than the annual report itself. Directors Report The Directors report supply useful information to investors about the activities of the company, the dividend policy and information about the decision makers of the company. Anderson (1998) spot out that despite majority of investors found the basic financial statements to be most valuable, the most thoroughly items read in the annual report are the directors report. Lee and Tweedie (1975) found that the executives report was of great to less importance, over one-third of the respondents believed the directors report to be of no value. Corporate Governance Report Corporate governance (CG) has been a foremost policy issue in developed market economies for more than a decade. Hashim (2009) defines CG as a combination of processes and structures conducted by the board of directors to authorize, direct and oversee management towards the achievement of the organizations objectives. The Report on Corporate Governance for Mauritius, states that companies that are listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius shall abide to all provision of the code and there should be a separate corporate governance section in the annual report. Dividend policy, Directors profile and going concern of the corporate governance report might be useful to user of accounts. Shareholders will attain valuable information about the amount and timing for payment of dividends declared by the company. On the other hand the disclosure of the qualifications and experience of the board members is useful to investors as such information specify that people with required experience, qualifications and integrity are managing the company hence it boost up the confidence of shareholders. Cohen, Krishnamoorthy and Wright (2004) recommend that CG can be one of the main functions in ensuring the quality of financial reporting. Auditors Report The auditors are required to report to the shareholders of the company as to whether in their opinion the financial statements have been prepared accordingly with the accounting standards and whether they give a true and fair view of the transactions of the company. The fundamental aspects of an Auditors report are set by ISA 700-The Auditors Report on Financial Statements. This ISA gives guidance on the type and content of the auditors report as a result of an audit carry out. The auditors report was the most understandable section of the annual report while the balance sheet was the forth (Nasser and Rutherfords 1996). Hence it is useful to users of accounts as it offers assurance that the users are making economic decisions based on reliable information. However, Bartlett and Chandler (1997) found that the auditors report was read the least by individual shareholders. Corporate social responsibilities (CSR) CSR can be described as the process of communicating the social and environmental effects of organisations economic actions to particular interest groups within society (Gray et al 1996 p.3). Corporate social disclosure is referred as the provision of financial and non financial information that intend to discharge social accountability of an organisation (Gray et al 1987).Gelb and Strawser (2001) states that CSR disclosure is a form of socially responsible behaviour, thus by providing more information to the public will help companies to meet their responsibilities towards their stakeholders in a better manner. However research studies have shown that most users use the information of financial statements for financially based decisions. IAS 1, of IASB, 2004: (para.7) states that the objective of financial statements is to provide information about the financial position, financial performance and cash flows of an entity that is useful to a wide range of users in making economic decisions. So the financial statements are made as follows: Statement of financial position Statement of comprehensive income Statement of changes in equity Statement of cash flow Notes to the accounts Statement of financial position This statement provides a snapshot summary of what a business owns or is owed-assets-and what it owes-liabilities-at a particular date thus it is referred as a statement of net worth. It shows how solvent a business is, how liquids its assets are and how much capital is being spent. It also consists of non-current assets, current assets, capital and reserves, non-current liabilities and current liabilities. The non-current can be classified as assets that are not quickly and easily realizable, and current assets are assets that can be readily convertible into cash within a short time. Furthermore share capital represents amount receives in respect of shares issued by a particular company, non-current liabilities and current liabilities are obligations that are not aimed to be liquidated within a year and one that are expected to be settled within one year respectively. Statement of comprehensive income The main purpose of the comprehensive income statement is to report a companys earnings over some pointing period of time. This statement reflects the companys revenues, expenses and earnings; it gives information about the financial performance of a company. Users of accounts who are concerned about the profitability can obtain relevant information in the comprehensive income statement and they can make use of ratios to take out information they need therein. Statement of changes in equity IAS 1 requires that companies should prepare a statement of changes in equity to be presented with the same value as the other primary statements. According to Barry and Jamie Elliot this statement is vital because a quantity of gains and losses are required by law or accounting standards to be managed through directly with reserves, so as to prevent the financial statement from being incomplete. The shareholders acquire more information about any changes made to share capital, retained earnings, revaluation reserves, share premium other reserves and to proposed dividends. Sometimes gains and losses may be easily traced by reserve accounting, which permits items to bypass the income statement. Hence the statement of changes in equity provides more transparency in reporting these gains or losses. Statement of cash flow Section 217 of the CA 01 requires all companies to include in their annual report a statement of cash flow and the latter should be prepared in accordance with IAS 7. The purpose of IAS 7 is to include the provision of information about the historical changes in cash and cash equivalents of a company by means of a statement of cash flow. Cash flow statement has become useful sources of information for users (Day (1986) and Yap (1997)). Thus cash flows are classifies during a period from: operating activities-the cash effects of transactions concerning trading activities; investing activities-cash flows from the purchase and sales of non-current assets and short term investments; financing activities-involve receipts from or refund to external providers of finance in respect of the primary amount. Notes to the accounts Notes to the accounts can be refers as explanatory notes that accompany the financial statements. These are intended to give further detail of the items appearing in the financial statements, to provide surplus information, to represent attention of related party transactions and to give existence of interest to stakeholders, other than the shareholders. It includes the IAS, concepts, depreciation policies and methods of valuation that an entity has used. Furthermore studies conducted by Anderson (1981), found that the most readable sections of the annual report were seen to be the balance sheet, profit and loss account, notes to the accounts, and the chairmans statement respectively. The comprehensive income statement, however, was seen to be more essential than the balance sheet. However this author failed to carry out any test whether there are major differences between the users usage of annual reports sections and on the other hand observed its importance of those sections. Epstein and Pava (1993) has developed on the work of Epstein (1975) and found that there has been an increased in the importance of annual report as a source of information. Furthermore, they found that the importance of the balance sheet had extended, and that over the same period the perceived usefulness of the income statement had declined. Anderson and Epstein (1995) argued that in Australia they found that the comprehensive income is more useful in making an investment decision rather than the directors report. In this respect the respondents had also demand for simplification and more explanation of the balance sheet, statement of cash flow, and the income statement. In another study by, Abdelsalam (1990ÂÂ ­) it was highlighted that the comprehensive income and information about the future of the company as well as information about directors was seen to be important part of the annual report. Ba-owaidan (1994) also found the profit and loss account to be the most influential part of the annual report followed by the balance sheet but has also concludes that some respondents faced some problems in understanding the contents of the annual reports. The Kruskal Wallis test revealed that the cash flow section was the only section of the annual report that the user groups have significant differences regarding its value. This is not surprising as the findings reported by Lee and Tweedie (1975), Wilton and Tabb (1978) and Yap (1997) for developed countries disclosed that individual and institutional investors have little interest in the cash flow statement and may not rely upon, as they are not a sophisticated group. In New Zealand, Chang and Most (1985), disclosed that newspapers and magazines were the preferred source of information and the comprehensive income statement was found as the main statement in the annual report for decision making. Moreover, Anderson (1979) and Courtis (1982) also found that the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement were regarded as the two most essential statements for decision-making. In addition, Anderson and Epsteins (1997) study revealed that in Australia, New Zealand and US, the comprehensive income and financial position statement were ranked as the most essential items but the cash flow was less important to New Zealand and Australian investors than to US respondents. Moreover, Stephen L.Buzby carried a research in 1974 on the usefulness of annual reports and his aim was to find the perceptions of professional financial analyst on selected items in the annual reports. To summarize Daniels and Daniels (1991) found that information present in financial statements is important and very useful but not sufficient enough to evaluate the financial condition of a company. USERS OF ACCOUNTS According to IASB, financial information is prepared for users, presuming that they have a reasonable knowledge of business and economic activities and accounting and a willingness to study the information with reasonable diligence. The different users and their needs are identified below: Investors Investors need information to decide whether they should continue to invest in an entity, to assess whether that particular organization will be able to pay out dividends as well as how the enterprise has been managed. The investors require information about profitability, volumes, sales, amounts invested, assets owned, share price and information about competitors. Epstein and Pava (1993) document that individual investors demand for more financial and non financial information in the annual reports. Shareholders Shareholders are the owners of the company. Thus, they have the right to receive dividends from the companys profit. Information in annual reports is very important to shareholders as profit acts as an indicator of the amount of dividends they ought to obtain. According to Cook and Sutton (1995), companies should prepare summary annual reports based on information requirements of shareholders in order to satisfy their needs. Thus, companies should disclose essential piece of information in a clear and understandable format that will enhance the relevance and value of annual reports in communicating company information to shareholders. Lenders and Financial institutions Lenders such as insurance companies, pension funds use FS information to decide the loan amount, the interest rate and security needed for business loan and they should also make sure whether the company would be able to repay back both the principal amounts and the interests payments. The key accounting information for lenders is therefore: Cash flow Investment requirements in business Thus such information required by lenders is available in the annual report. Employees Employees demand annual report for the stability and profitability of the business. They are interested in information about employment prospects, security of their jobs and retirement benefits. Furthermore, Clark and Craig (1991) conclude that relevant information for investors is also relevant for employees. Government The government group makes use of an annual report for tax purposes. The tax authorities such as the Inland Revenue needs information on the profitability of an entity to levy corporation tax and custom and excise make use of information to check VAT returns. Hence tax authorities use FS information as a source for enhancing social welfare by establishing tax policies. Public The public are usually considered as stakeholders and businesses form part of society at large and as a result create much public interest. Marston and Shrives (1991, pp196), found annual report as the main document available for the public thus is being regarded as the main disclosure vehicle. Moreover despite some improvements has taken place in reporting in recent years, the users groups of annual reports wish to have more information than is currently provided (Abu-Nassar and Rutherford, 1996; Hatif and Al-Zubaidi, 2000; Naser and Nuseibeh, 2003). On the other hand, Dye and Bowsher (1987) concluded that most users seek an annual report to include other information that will enhance their understanding. Hay and Antonio (1990) found that users demand for highly detailed disclosures in annual reports. In addition users want information on future prospects, company products, publication of quarterly reports and management audit reports (Anderson 1981). Furthermore Benston (1976) reported that annual report were the least important source of information compared to financial press and newspaper reports. In summary, results from preceding studies shows that users believed that annual reports is the main sources of information; though each section was not considered as of equal significance. The results also disclose a necessity to establish some changes to the annual reporting that allow the information to be more understandable and sufficient for potential users.

Wedding Toasts †Perhaps Others Have Said it Best Essay -- Wedding Toa

Wedding Toasts – Perhaps Others Have Said it Best To the Bride From her Groom Never above you. Never below you. Always beside you. To the bride and groom (before the wedding) Here's to the bride that is to be, Here's to the groom she'll wed, May all their troubles be light as bubbles Or the feathers that make up their bed! Anonymous To the bride from her groom "Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss within the cup, And I'll not look for wine." Ben Jonson "Grow old with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, For which, the first is made." Robert Browning I have known many, Liked not a few, Loved only one I toast to you Irish toast "Wherever I roam, whatever realms I see, My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee." Oliver Goldsmith Because I love you truly, Because you love me, too, My very greatest happiness Is sharing life with you. Every day you look lovelier and lovelier, and today you look like tomorrow. To quote John Keats's immortal line, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." Here's to you, my beautiful bride." "Were't the last drop in the well, An I gasp'd upon the brink, Ere my fainting spirit fell, 'Tis to thee that I would drink." Lord Byron The world is happy and colorful, And life itself is new. And I am very grateful for The friend I found in you. Anonym... ... Here are some words to live by: Love to one, friendship to many, and goodwill to all. May you live to learn well, and learn to live well. Remember that if you ever put your marital problems on the back burner they are sure to boil over. Unkown "Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up." Joseph Barth "A happy marriage is still the greatest treasure within the gift of fortune." Eden Phillpotts "Happy marriages begin when we marry the one we love, and they blossom when we love the one we married." Sam Levenson "Seek a happy marriage with wholeness of heart, but do not expect to reach the promised land without going through some wilderness together." Charlie W. Shedd

Negotiation and Conflict Management Final Report Essay

â€Å"It’s time to go to the next level of my career,† I told myself a few months ago. Life and life experiences have put me in the right place at the right time to make my daydream a reality. As a natural born citizen of another country and as a newly-married person, I have a unique perspective as well as a set of obstacles and opportunities on the road ahead as I pursue my Executive MBA while being in transition. GOALS My current short-term goal professionally is to find a job that not only fulfills my current ambition of being technical leader but also a management leader in the IT world, where as my long-term goal is to start my own business (Repurposing and creatively painting old leather products into house decor) along with my life-partner in the next 3-4 years. My personal goal is to again relive my artistic side, paint and be creative and get my spouse involved in the artistic world that I like. I am at a juncture of my career where in both my personal goal of working with my life-partner coincides with my ambition of starting up a new business and apply whatever knowledge I gathered during class. My goal as far as EMBA classes is to actually be able to not only learn Finance and Accounting but actually try to master it is as much as possible because when my goal of opening up my business becomes a reality, I want to make sure I have command over that. NEGOTIATIONS In my previous company, I had the opportunity to be a part of some important negotiations which helped me as well as the project understand the various aspects that we had predominantly neglected at the start of some of these negotiation. One such negotiation was when a rival vendor was trying to sell their new software to our client which they claimed would be doing the same kind of work that we were doing for past few years. When the time came to negotiate the new contract for our project, the clients asked us to come up with a plan as to why they should consider our software v/s the rival vendor’s proposed software. When I tried to analyze the whole negotiation process that we went with the end clients and even though we managed to extend the contract, there were a lot of issues that were not par with the 3D negotiation which are as follows: We didn’t set up the right negotiation  as the right party and right interests were not set up. We never considered the No-De al option. Never paid attention to the six basic interpersonal skills that are essential for negotiation. My short term goal of being a technical as well as managerial leader in IT would require me to be a part of similar negotiations that I mentioned above. Right from extending contracts, to getting funding for maintenance and development of software, getting more business from different set of end clients which might be interested in similar software. Here are some of the important factors that needs to be considered while making these kind of negotiations. My long-term goal of opening my own business with my spouse is something that would require a lot of negotiations that needs to be done be it with the bankers or venture capitalists who might be interested in funding it, real-estate people who might be interested in selling or renting their property and the end clients/customers who would be interested in buying my end products. These are the three key area of people that I have to get involved with in-order to start my business successfully. While dealing with the Bankers/VC, one thing that we need to keep in mind is that we might have issues with one of them, so we need to keep more options and try to find the right new parties who might be interested (right players). With the Real-Estate people, you need to address the Twin tasks, namely, Learn about the true ZOPA and Shape your counterpart’s ZOPA perceptions to your advantage. New customers are more interested in creating and claiming value like discounted cash flows, creating relationships, reputation and being fair. We need to think long term for creating and claiming value as none of the parties should feel that they have been exploited or dealt with unfairly as the reputation would be at stake. All conflict management processes i.e. consensual negotiations, are based on information sharing and learning. In the process of sharing information, a party seeks to alter the knowledge, attitudes, preferences and strategies of its opponents. There are some conflict s that I might have to overcome during my business negotiations that can be summed up as: APPRAISAL As a successful negotiator the six basic interpersonal skills are utmost important but initially when I started negotiating in my previous company, I never paid real attention to some of those skills. The contract extension negotiation example above was finally approved but we had a lot of things that were not correct and that almost cost us the deal. Here are some of the key aspects of that deal: a) My company had this contract for past 9 years without any competition and hence I never expected a rival vendor to just come up with another proposal with the end client. b) I never really dealt with the topic of creating and claiming value as part of the negotiation. c) Had an incomplete/blurry information on the rival vendor and their product hence before proposing the deal, we never dug deep to rectify it. d) Never pressed on the issue of Your Interests / Their Interests. As this was a contract that was being extended every single year, this thing never came to my mind. The reason we got the extension on the contract was due to some of equally compelling strength that as a negotiator we had and they were as follows: a) Our ability to make sure the end clients understand their No-Deal option. Even though we weren’t aware that it was called the No-Deal option, we certainly went that route when we presented our merits in front of them and made sure they understood what they were losing in-case the contract was not extended. b) Even though we didn’t do our homework on the rival contractor, we made sure that we had all our facts and data right once we were in front on the clients. The data showed all the current savings that we were providing to the end clients and this was a major factor that earned us the good point. My Strengths Reasoning The quality and extent of my preparation The better you understand your interests (why you want what you want); and the better you understand the interests of other parties (why they want what they want), the greater the chance you will be able to reach an elegant solution which leaves the parties feeling as if each has achieved the major portion of their goals People walk away thinking they would be pleased to  negotiate again with me A negotiator’s relative strength can be measured by whether people walk away thinking they would be pleased to negotiate again with him/her. If people leave a negotiation with you thinking they never want to see you again, then you are a poor negotiator Good communication to other parties so they understand my top priority A negotiator needs to understand that different issues should be treated as having different priorities in different negotiations. Sometimes the relationship is most important; other times creativity is the measure of how well one negotiates; and it is always true that good communication is a fundamental measure of a negotiator’s strength. A good negotiator makes her/his points clearly understood by other parties. A better negotiator makes understanding other parties her/his top priority. In Moms.com case study, I was Terry Schiller and as my role was to sell the program, I made sure that for my preparation for the case, whether finding the right balance between the no. of re-runs v/s the licensing rate and making sure that this balance would give me as well as other party the max value. I had already calculated this before the negotiation started so that I knew what value would affect me as well as the other party. In Viking Investments case study, I was the person that run Viking investments and even though bankruptcy was the option for the other party, I not only made sure that it won’t happen but provided the other party with 3 different options and gave her the choice to choose which ever suited her bill. I believe in maintaining relationships and making sure that the other party feels the same way, hence when the other party walks away after the negotiation, they would want to do more business with me going forward. In Biopharm-Seltek case study, I repres ented Biopharm and my main goal was to make sure that the other party understood that I was not only interested in their company but was not interested in buying their patent. My Weakness Reasoning Dealing with negative emotions from the other side of the table Are my standards of fairness being violated? Is the common bias operating about my being cooperative and fair while the other party is hostile and competitive?  What rule or assumption that I hold is being violated by the other’s behavior? Controlling your emotions — commanding reasonable authority, managing your temper, etc. Has something been raised that questions what I tell myself I am or hope to be, such as Am I competent? Am I fair? Am I a good person? Knowing when to step away from the negotiation table — and being able to really do it No negotiator wants to enter into a poor agreement. But similarly, every negotiator should want to walk away from an unsatisfactory agreement towards a clearly defined, satisfactory BATNA In Viking Investments case study, there were times I couldn’t control my emotion because as per my own belief I was trying to go all the way out to help the other side not file for bankruptcy but in the middle I thought that I was fighting the battle alone. I was emotionally drained out to make the other understand the consequence of bankruptcy and helping them more than I should as a result of which I questioned my own self whether I am competent enough. This to me is a sign of weakness because I let my emotion take over the negotiation process. In Biopharm-Seltek case study, I was overwhelmed by the negative emotion from the other side as they were not ready to part away with the company without me buying the patent. It was their major walk away reason for them which I was not able to understand as they were being very hostile without being reasonable. I saw a very different take on this which was against my own personality and it was something I couldn’t overcome and need to work upon that. I still have a hard time to understand that you should never accept a proposal that is worse than your BATNA. Hence I couldn’t understand when to step away in case it didn’t work out. In the Moms.com, I didn’t get the proposal that I prepared so confidently before the negotiation started and I couldn’t find the courage to walk away from the table even though I knew the value created was not as much as what I had initially proposed. PLAN Here are the negotiation skills that I plan on improving and dealing with short term as well as my long term goals: 1. Do your research. Clarify your own objectives and make sure you understand what your opposite number wants from the deal. For example, by doing some basic research into a potential supplier, you can work out how valuable your custom is to them. 2. Plan your strategy in writing and decide what approach you will adopt before beginning negotiations. Be clear about the type of deal you want, set clear goals and work out where you will draw the line and walk away from the deal. 3. Ask questions and listen closely to answers. Asking questions will help you understand what your opposite number wants to achieve. You may be able to get them to reveal how flexible they are on certain issues. 4. Decide what is negotiable. Before you start to negotiate, draw up a list of factors that are most important to you. Decide what you are (and aren’t) prepared to compromise on. Key factors might include price, payment terms, volume or delivery dates. The key is to establish your preferred outcome, but remain realistic, because if you’re not prepared to compromise some negotiations won’t last long. 5. Don’t reveal your negotiating position and avoid making unnecessary concessions. If you have to make concessions – look for reciprocation. Concessions should only be made to help you get the things you value. You should also avoid appearing too keen to do a deal. Consider what offer the other party in the negotiations is likely to make and how you’ll respond. 6. Select the best team. Once you’ve decided on your strategy it is essential that you get your negotiating team right. Make sure it has skills in all the required areas and, where necessary, use a specialist to negotiate in areas outside your expertise 7. Drawing up a contract. Once all the points have been negotiated and a deal has been agreed, it’s best t o get a written contract drawn up and signed by both parties. While verbal contracts are legally binding – they are difficult to prove in court. 8. Choose the right time and place for negotiation. Ideally select a time and place where you are not under pressure to close the deal. My plan of being successful in negotiations Mapping the parties I would like to start with private talks with various individual parties  (bankers, customers, etc.) before bringing everyone together for public negotiations, or it may be better to immediately begin negotiation with all stakeholders. When developing the process, it is important to consider the role of third parties, special procedures and specific negotiation systems. This will likely require an understanding of the cultural norms and individual personalities of the parties involved. Further important considerations relevant to the process include how the process is to be determined and how it could be modified. The set up essentially ensures that the scope, sequence and process of a negotiation is consistent with my desired outcome for the negotiation. I need to ensure that the right parties have been involved, in the right sequence, to deal with the right issues that engage the right set of interests, at the right table or tables, at the right time, under the right expectations , facing the right consequences of walking away if there is no deal.

Social Constructionism in Environmental Sociology Essays

Social Constructionism in Environmental Sociology Essays Social Constructionism in Environmental Sociology Paper Social Constructionism in Environmental Sociology Paper This construction of perceptions and meanings are what this essay is about. It is called social construction. The assay focuses more explicitly on the social construction Of environmental problems and issues. It does this by looking at examples of how and why certain societies can come to consider certain natural phenomena as environmental threats or issues, and asks the question of whether their perceptions are right or not. It focuses the concept of social constructionist and determines the relevance of it in environmental issues. It does this by looking at past findings of attempts at deconstructing the perceptions some societies have on their own identified environmental problems to be able to see if it helped with solutions to the problems. And lastly, it identifies criticism leveled against social constructionist in environmental sociology. All to support the following hypothesis: It is important to take the social construction aspect into consideration when looking at certain environmental problems to be able to identify hidden agendas when it comes to solving the perceived problems. But first, a brief definition of the social construction of environmental issues is necessary (As there are many- and some contradictory). It will serve as a foundation for building an understanding of what is going to be discussed. When something is socially constructed it then eggs the question of whether the threat or issue is in fact a real threat or issue because according to Hardballs and Holbrook a social construct is a product of social definitions, not natural, biological categories (2008: 752). Now according to Marsh, Keating, Punch and Harden (2009) the environment as a concept, is always contested and changing and he says that it means different things to different populations at different times. What the social construction of environmental issues and problems then means is that people in different populations perceive an issue on the environment differently from one another. An environmental issue for one society may not be one for another society. It is because they constructed their realities independent from each other. The independent development of perceptions allowed several dominant social constructs about the environment to emerge as separate independent realities. These realities were shaped and formed by power players in each society. The power players that shape a societys opinion in contemporary lifer and therefore its perspective on things are among others the media, activists, [and] scientists (Marsh et al, 2009). The following examples will illustrate how environmental issues may come to be instructed and considered important in one society, but not in another. When the media of a particular population informs its members about the poor condition of their local water, the water may have been of poor quality even before the media announced it, but since the announcement was made it has been added to the members environmental reality. In effect of the announcement the people may start buying bottled water, local government would start addressing the issue, they could create jobs to fight the issue, and certain entrepreneurs may see potential for business. All of which that loud not have happened if the media did not bring the knowledge of it into the societys reality. In another society, the media may be focusing on how behind they are economically rather than writing about water quality. Even though it has a quality similar to the other society, people does not worry about it because people arent aware of it. In both societies people dont get sick when drinking the Water, but the one society gave it an environmental issue label because of the media coverage it got. Another example is where scientists does research on something that is not considered dangerous to he environment, but after which it becomes an issue. It happens because scientists usually have an elite status. They are considered experts in their fields, and most people do not have the knowledge or qualified degree to grant them alternative knowledge which would enable them to disregard scientists opinions and findings. So when a scientist, based on his own interpretations and gained knowledge, in one society declare something as an environmental issue, the people generally respond with acceptance. Another example of a construct of an environmental issue is one from an article based n dingo management on an Australian island (Heathen, K. Burns G, 2007). They look at the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy (FIDS) to deconstruct key assumptions about management of dingoes on Fraser Island. What they found was that the FIDS were trying to prevent dingo aggression towards humans, and that the FIDS constructed the issue of the aggression as deriving from human-dingo interactions via feeding. The prevention techniques were composed of many ways to prevent that type of interaction. Despite that, the dingoes remained as they were, still hurting people. Heathen ND Burns concluded that the management should take to account a wider range of interpretations of human-dingo interactions (2007: 55). One can see the importance the social construction aspect has in shaping priorities of societies when looking at the above examples. It is clear that when a society does not have knowledge on a subject, it is as if it does not exist. And when making the knowledge freely available as the only relevant knowledge, the society can do no different than to accept what they are being told by power players. The construction can be deliberately created by power players in society. The government or managing scientists in a particular field can use their power to change perceptions of the society by publishing rational substantiations for their claims on a matter so that they can employ a policy or action that will benefit themselves or one that will contribute to solving a related problem of the matter without the society complaining about why they do it. It is clear from these examples that some constructed environmental issues are not real in terms true intentions as there are additional economic or monetary goals often hidden it the actions to solve he environmental problems identified by power players. This is where social constructionist in environmental sociology comes in. When social environmentalists look at an environmental issue they try to consider the social construction aspect in the origin of the issue. By doing this they are able to deconstruct what has led to the construction of the problem, and thus identify the hidden agendas associated with policies claimed to solve the problem. They can then ask the question: is it really an environmental problem if the social, cultural and economic spheres of human life are not actively affected by it? The question may leave policy makers with a conscious thought about their true agendas, and enables them to determine for themselves whether or not they will be addressing a true environmental issue or not. The study on Dingo management shows how social constructionist has deconstructed a social construction of an environmental issue to bring hidden agendas to the surface. The notion that nature should be managed by humans has led to the notion that humans are in charge of it. Humans feel that they can use and manipulate nature to generate income (like tourism to wildlife parks etc. , and that is where the problem in management comes in. The wellbeing of the nature and the economic capital it may generate produce a mixture of interests. One that wants to be green and one that wants to gain monetary profits. These two interests are contradictory because a monetary gain is sometimes gained at the expense of a green environmental gain. Now at the dingo management park, social constructionist showed why dingoes may be aggressive against humans. It showed that humans may not even belong there, or try to manage the dingoes because the fact is that dingoes are just a wild animal that react on instinct, and humans trying to control them could be causing the aggressive incidents. It showed that the management is actually catering for the safety of the humans at the expense of the dingoes (they kill dingoes deliberately to reduce their population). They cater for their safety because they bring in money, and the more safe they can make it for them, the more money they may receive. The hidden agendas (to generate monetary wealth) in the management and conservation of dingoes are actually letting dingoes getting killed instead Of getting conserved (Heathen, K. Cooper, G, 2007:48-55). Even Hough social constructionist in environmental sociology may bring the question of whether an issue is real or not under discussion when policies need to be made, it still remains just that -a question. It does not provide an answer. It is not possible to give an answer because by stating that an environmental issue is not this, but it is that, would be contradictory to what social construction stands for. That is, that people construct definitions on matter by the available knowledge they have. But knowledge is limited by a persons senses.

Roles in History essays

Roles in History essays Discrimination, whether motivated by differences in race, nationality, religion, or gender, prevents American citizens from experiencing true freedom. Discrimination has existed in many forms, both legally condoned and legally punishable, and has become a part of American history since the days our founding fathers wrote the constitution. When they wrote the famous words, We hold these truths to be self-evident, the God created all men equal, they probably werent thinking of slavery, rulings of separate but equal, and the Jim Crow laws. As a free Blackman in 1813, James Forten put it, ...they did not particularize white and black, because they never supposed it would be made a question whether we were men or not. In an episode of the television show The Family Guy, the writers comment on discrimination by making a parody with the family dog, Brian, an articulate, mature, sophisticated pet, who undergoes traditional occurrences of discrimination. In this episode, entitled Brian: Portrait of Dog, Brian gets harassed by police, refused service at local businesses, and is eventually imprisoned and sentenced to lethal injection. The episode starts at the Griffins house, where the family is enduring the summer heat without an air-conditioner. Peter, the father of the household, asks Brian to enter the dog show to win money so that the family will be able to afford an air-conditioner. Brian, who drinks dry martinis and is as quick-witted as he is sarcastic, is of course weary of this task asked before him, as he will feel degraded and void of pride. Brian goes to the dog show, does well, but toward the end of the competition, it is Brians turn to beg for a treat. This is where Brian draws the line between helping out the family and dehumanizing himself. By using that term I dont mean to say that Brian is human, but to an extent, es...

Self-Analysis of Leadership Abilities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Self-Analysis of Leadership Abilities - Essay Example Since my leadership approach promotes active employee involvement, employees are more likely to take up the responsibility of their projects and complete them successfully within the stipulated time. As Kehle (2008, p. 26) purports, high level employee satisfaction is the main strength of the participative leadership style. In addition, this approach can effectively promote a sense of belonging and teamwork, which in turn can have positive effect on the overall organisational productivity. At the same time, new hirers or inexperienced employees are not allowed to make decisions so as to maintain high level market competitiveness. Although this leadership style fosters greater employee involvement, it exercises better control over employees and changes strategies and practices once the operational flaws are identified. The major area required improvement is that I spend hardly enough time to develop leadership skills in my employees and this issue may adversely affect the performance sustainability of the organisation. As Mattone (2013, p. 2) points out, a leader should focus particularly on succession planning. In addition, I do not pay much attention to employees who are making same mistakes repetitively. Here, I need to give specific focus to those employees so as to improve the overall productivity of the firm. From the leadership style survey, I understand that my leadership approach is participative whereas the Bolman and Deal’s four framework approach to leadership indicates that I follow team leadership style. Both these assessment techniques give almost similar outcomes and indicate that I have strong team development skills. The major common finding is that my leadership strategy gives particular importance to employee involvement and employee creativity. In addition to providing guidance, instructions, and direction to employees, my leadership approach fosters employees to come up with their own ideas

The Issue of Embodiment where Competing Sociological Positions have Essay

The Issue of Embodiment where Competing Sociological Positions have been Taken with Reference to Patriarchy, Gender, and Choice - Essay Example The issue of male dominance was not very relevant in a world that was primitive and full of physical dangers. In such a society, physical strength was considered to be important rather than intellect. It was only when the concept of safety and protection became orderly and came under the ambit of a written law that was enforced by a government that physical strength became less important. It could have been due to this that women became aware that they were not treated equally in many respects by the opposite sex. As mentioned earlier, the demand for the right to vote became one of the early expressions of dissent. The concept of male dominance appears in one of the basic psychological and social needs of human beings, namely religion. In Western religion, even the concept of God is based on masculinity. God is said to have told Adam that he had been created in the same image as the creator himself. â€Å"The god-head of this system was to be a male. This male god was endowed with a ll the creative abilities of man.† (Gardiner 2009).  The religious contention that man was created in God’s image may be one of the basic underlying factors that made a man believe that he is superior to women and hence has the right to control her. In later years, the church also played a role in this regard. â€Å"Towards 1000 A.D. the Roman Catholic Church in Europe took an increasingly negative and ambivalent stance towards women. Evil was seen to come to the world through women, women’s sexuality was seen as impure and priests were required to leave their wives and stay celibate.† (Mikkola 2005, p.6). The role of women in religion, the church, and the society was also severely curtailed during that time.  Ã‚