Monday, September 30, 2019

“How to Tame a Wild” Tongue Essay Essay

In paragraphs 27 through 34 of Gloria Anzaldua’s essay â€Å"How to Tame a Wild Tongue†; she subtly conveys her own disgust at the invariable destruction of her Chicano culture by using the rhetorical strategies of organized syntax, narrative flashbacks, and the incorporation of her â€Å"native tongue†. Between paragraphs 27 and 30, the syntax conveys Anzaldua’s deep emotions about her lingual identity using mostly balanced and declarative sentences. The perfect balanced in noticed in excerpts such as â€Å"Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself. Until I can accept as legitimate Chicano Texas Spanish, Tex-Mex, and all other languages I speak, I cannot accept the legitimacy of myself†. In a series of staccato complex sentences Anzaldua further describes her longing for lingual acceptance by stating â€Å"I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s tongue – my woman’s voice, my sexual voice, m y poet’s voice†. By organizing her sentences in this way, she draws the reader’s attention to the fact that she is virtually unable to accept herself without her own language being accepted as it is a part of her. In this way the reader is able to sympathize with the author’s lack of self-realization and is able to more fully understand the author’s indignation with the dissection of her mother-tongue. Anzaldua employs the useful tactic of a narrative flashback to further instill an empathetic emotion in the reader. She recounts her â€Å"stunned amazement† upon reading her first Chicano novel â€Å"City of Night†. Soon after that she is exposed to more Chicano literature an even poetry, and with each exposure she gains â€Å"a feeling of pure joy† and â€Å"a sense of belonging†. Here, she targets a the basic human emotion of wanting to be accepted among a group for who we truly are as opposed to what others want us or think us to be. Such a plea for acceptance is an easy concept for the reader to relate to, and thus this method serves to draw the reader into the author’s personal predicament and promote her feelings of resentment at the degradation of her â€Å"native† culture. The author does a wonderful job of incorporating her own language into the essay as a whole. She does so in a way that, even non-Spanish speaking  readers, can understand the gist of the message she is trying to convey. Also by integrating her native language into the essay she expresses its importance to her. In lines such as â€Å"People who were to amount to something didn’t go to Mexican movies, or bailes, or tune their radios to bolero, rancherita, and corrido music†, Anzaldua is not obligated to translate the last three words as the context of the passage reveals the basic meanings of those words to an acceptably understandable degree. Her incorporation of her language is almost seen as an attempt for her to personally save or even resurrect the language that she prefers most and wishes others would accept as justifiable so she herself can come to realize her own legitimacy. Throughout her essay, Anzaldua keeps to her course of trying to express her sadness at her cultures disassembling through several rhetorical devices, notably those of syntax, flashback, and by including the language she is most comfortable with. With these tactics she is able to better reach the average reader on a personal level and to gain their empathy in her hopes of preserving/reinstating her disappearing culture.

Tapescript Role Play in Business Meetings

Tapescript – Role Play in Business Meetings (NF=Nigel Fraser, M=Martin, J=John, E=Eliana, D=Denise, MK=Markus) NI  think we all agree that we need to work a  lot better as a  team. I’ve got some suggestions for improving our teamwork. I’d like to share them with you and see how you feel about them. OK, let’s start with meetings. At the moment we meet once a month. That’s not enough. In future, I’d like us all to meet once every two weeks. I would expect everyone to attend, and to be on time – that’s not the case at the moment as you know. So Martin, what do you think?MTotally against the idea, to be honest. Once a month is fine, surely. I’m making the most money for us at the moment and I can’t go on doing that if I have to attend meetings all the time. Anyway, when we do meet, we spend most of the time arguing with each other. A lot of them are a waste of time. No, keep things as they are. NThank you, Martin . John, what do you think? Meeting once every two weeks. Compulsory attendance. JIt’s a good idea. Why not? We need to spend more time together to sort out problems, share ideas, that sort of thing.Actually, I think we should meet once a week. MRubbish. NNow Martin, calm down. You’ve had your say. And nothing’s been decided yet. But thanks John for backing me up on this one. Eliana, how do you feel about this? EI’ll go along with whatever you say. It really won’t affect me much. My main problem, as you well know, is I want to move from data projectors. I’d like to sell plasma screens, they’re in great demand at the moment, that’s why Martin tops our sales, it’s not difficult to be the best when you have the best products to sell. MI thought we were talking about meetings, Nigel.Do we have to listen once again to Eliana’s complaints? NNo we don’t Martin. You’re right, we’re getting off the poin t. Denise, let’s hear from you now. DThanks, I’d like more meetings, once a week would be OK for me, but I don’t know if attendance should be compulsory. But yeah, people should turn up on time, not drift in as they do at the moment. If we had more meetings, I’d get a chance to make a few suggestions for improving sales. And maybe I wouldn’t be interrupted so often by Martin and Markus. John seems to be the only person here who listens to me. AllOh come on now.Nonsense. Right. True. NCould we come to order, please? Everyone calm down. Markus? Meeting once a week, once every two weeks, or keep to once a month? What do you think? MKKeep it as it is, once a month. That’s enough. When we do have a meeting, two or three people seem to take over, and no one else can get a word in edgeways. Frankly, Nigel, our meetings are not very productive, and that’s the real problem. I’d prefer to spend time meeting our customers and trying to dr um up more sales. That’s what we’re paid for. NOK, Markus, thanks very much. Let me get a few more opinions†¦. Robert†¦. Role cards Director one You want to: ? get rid of Nigel Fraser by asking him to resign. You do not think he is a suitable person to manage the sales team. ? Replace him with a new person from outside the company. The new manager would have a fresh approach to the team’s problems. ? Have more meetings and weekly sales reports. ? Reorganize the sales team into mini-groups, for example all plasma sales staff working together. Commissions would be based on sales targets set for each mini-group. ? Think of other suggestions for improving the performance of the team.Director two You want to: ? Keep Nigel Fraser as manager – you are a close friend of Nigel. You think he’s an excellent manager of a ’difficult team’. ? Send Nigel on a short training course which helps managers to develop team building skills. ? Get rid of Martin. He is rude and upsets members of staff. ? Have fewer reports and meetings. ? Pay commissions based on the performance of the whole team. The team should be set challenging sales targets. ? Think of other suggestions for improving the performance of the team. Director three You want to: Move Nigel Fraser to another department in the company. ? Replace him with another member of the sales team – John? Denise? (you decide) ? Hold the meeting of the whole department every two weeks, and allow members to express their opinions frankly. ? Keep Martin in the team – you are Martin’s closest friend. He is a difficult person, but a brilliant salesman, in your opinion. ? Reduce the sales team from 7 members to 6 (you decide who should go). ? Reorganize the teams (you decide how). ? Think of other suggestions for improving the performance of the team.Director four You want to: ? Hear the opinions of the other directors before making up your mind. You are not sure whether to keep Nigel Fraser as manager or not. ? Have Eliana as manager if the other directors think Nigel Fraser should go. She is young, talented, and has good people management skills. ? Get rid of Markus – he is lazy, selfish and unreliable. ? Ask Vanessa Byrant to come back and advise Nigel Fraser for the next six months. ? Send staff on regular team building courses. ? Think of other suggestions for improving the performance of the team.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Child Labor at Industrial Revolution Essay

Child labor is the idea of forcing adolescent children into hazardous tasks working under ruthless circumstances and surrounded by an unsafe environment. Children are valuable and precious therefore, they should not be mistreated and allowed to experience misery and suffering at such a young age. Problems, disagreements, injuries, and death have all been caused by child labor. Child labor was the worst issue that provoked acute social, mental, and physical damage to America. We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. † (The United States Constitution) The preamble of the U. S. constitution was made for plenty of reasons; one of those reasons was to prevent practices such as child labor to somehow disappear in America. Residents of the United States of America want a â€Å"more perfect union†. Words in the preamble such as justice, defense, tranquility, and liberty are the absolute opposite of child labor. Why would America be referred to as an almost â€Å"perfect† nation while child labor still progresses? Why would the fellow citizens of America say there is justice in America when there’s child labor practiced there? These notable questions apply from the height of child labor in the 19th Century until today of the 21st century. Children labored around perilous machinery and went through arduous conditions at a very young age, usually 16 years and under. Adolescent children were forced to work intense hours and were paid low wages or no payments at all which eliminates the purpose of having the U. S. preamble in the constitution since people hope to â€Å"establish justice†. Employers were foul and did an awful attempt to supply the children at work with a safe and healthy surrounding. The circumstances children persisted brought several forms of harm toward the children. They were paralyzed by industrial incidents, defaulted appropriate movement and clean fresh air, and became vulnerable to diseases. These children took the risk at death enduring cruel conditions to support their families. Overseers also practiced physical punishment by having whipping rooms for children that misbehaved, slept while working, and were too slow. In coal mines, children were filthy, harnessed like animals, and had to drag heavy loads on their fragile backs behind them. They suffered pain for all day and tolerated injured hands, aching backs, the fear of getting squashed to death by coal, and sickness from breathing in coal dust. Breaker boys worked above ground, picking slate and other blemishes from coal. By doing so they often got a skin condition called â€Å"red tips† caused by sulfur from the coal contacting with skin, making their hands cracked, bloody, and swollen. Breaker boys also inhaled coal dust because of the process of coal mining released poisonous gases which could result in throat trouble or respiratory illness. Their faces were black and filthy covered with coal dust. Machinery in the mines, especially coal crushers were menacingly noisy and often led to hearing loss and on those rare unfortunate days, a boy fell into the coal crusher. Mining tunnels have collapsed as well, hindering and disabling workers to their death while spreading disease from rat infestation. â€Å"Joseph Martonik, about 15 years of age. Caught in the machinery and horribly mangled. Aug. 31, 1910 Cranberry Colliery. If he had obeyed instructions, or if the machinery had been properly protected, the accident might not have happened. † (Hindman 101) Besides breaker boys in the mines there were hippers, boys who opened doors from mining cars that were often ran over. There were also spraggers, boys that kept the mining cars moving and once in a while boys got an arm or leg jammed in and sliced off. In factories, machines ran so quickly and rapidly that tiny fingers, arms, and legs were entangled in them. Since factories put out odors and toxins, it destroyed the pure air nearby which caused illness and metronomic conditions. In canneries, children as young as 4 years labored in festering surroundings for long hours and received little pay. They had to peel shrimp from their shells that gave a spiteful chemical, making their gentle hands bleed and peel. In textile mills life was woeful and unhealthy. The mills were freezing in the winter and humid in the summer. Girls in the textile mills did the more skillful work as spinners which â€Å"was to watch rotating bobbins for breaks in the cotton. When the cotton broke the little girl had to quickly mend it and then brush the lint from the machine frame. † (Greene 55) Boys did the simple job as doffers which was to replace empty bobbins. Children lost fingers or hands in the machinery that spun the bobbins. In rural areas such as farms, children harvested crops in extreme temperatures, carried stacks of produce, and used ominous farming equipment. Children were doing menacing tasks by topping beets. They held a beet against the knee and cut off the top with a 16 inch knife that had a sharp prong on the end. Too often, children accidentally hooked themselves in the leg with the knife. (58) Street trades, working on the streets, faced children into the wrong direction with physical dangers and bad influences. These children worked early in the morning for long hours outdoors all season in the worst weather which could cause illness and or death. Standing on the ground for hours led to orthopedic defects. They took the risks of muggings, terrible weather, and car or bike injuries. Young girls sold flowers, gum, fruits, and vegetables on the streets. Newsboys were on the streets as early as 5 am. and sometimes worked in the evening past midnight which was unhealthy for their age. These children worked about 16 hours a day instead of attending school. There were two kinds of sweatshops. The first kind was composed of compact manufacturing businesses in vile establishments. Many people died in fires because workers were locked in the rooms they labored in to guarantee that they would work for the entire 10-12 hours mandated and could not escape no matter the situation. In those rooms, children finished embroiders and sewed pieces of garments or piecework. Workers were paid by what they completed rather than the numbers of hours. The other kind of sweatshop was located in tenement houses which were crowded, insufficiently vaporized buildings overrun with rodents. It isn’t necessary to actually see the children laboring under repulsive conditions in pictures or in reality to feel their pain, to give them compassion, and to realize how inferior the idea of child labor really is. Just by reading or hearing about the details of children laboring in poor circumstances can enable one to see beyond their teary eyes. The history of child labor begins in the late 19th century when the Industrial Revolution triggered in England which eventually arrived in America. The Industrial Revolution was the time when hand tools were replaced by machines and farming was substituted by manufacturing. Discoveries in science and technology fueled a significant change in the society. Sequences of inventions entered America, altering the textile industry. The textile industry was the first business to become industrial. The inventions introduced at this time period brought changes upon commerce and peoples’ lives. With these new adjustments in the populace, children became exploited by employers and were misused extensively. Children were often targeted even in the modern-world. The growth of factories obliged people to endow them, therefore, employers ventured young children into factories. There was an abundant amount of children which made them easily exchangeable if they died or quit Adults usually have more power amongst children because of age and probably wealth. Thus, adults can easily manipulate or force children into employment. The children from poor families which was the majority, were mostly aimed at since they were in need of money to keep their family above poverty level. Even children as young as three made an effort to help their families by working. Children have always worked ever since the beginning of refinement like chores around the household. At first, the general population believed that hiring children was beneficial to the child and the community. The child would stay out of troubles and won’t be a burden. Children can become more independent and gain maturity. America presumptively accepts child labor because â€Å"the government didn’t record the national statistics on employed children† so people weren’t involved on what was happening. (20) Working children also kept production prices short which evoked the nation to be economical beyond the sea. Child labor assumed to be a national trend. However, while employing children became such an interest, adults were losing their jobs to children because they were hired for less money compared to adults, but with the same, possibly more hours. As industrialization of child labor continued to evolve, people began to acknowledge the evils of it. This generated the idea of reforming child labor. Reformers formed the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The SPCC prepared a restrictive factory bill for the New York state council. They wanted to forbid factory work for children under 14 years young. Moreover there was too much disagreement to this consideration but this downfall gave the organization more hope and motivation to sustain. Soon, New York passed the Factory Act of 1886 which restricted children below the age of 13 from working in factories and farms. Unfortunately this policy was inadequate and unenforceable. There would only be one inspector that had to examine all the factories in the state and was indulged to report violations just once a year. In addition the evidence of a child’s age was determined without an official document. In 1904, residents in America collaborated to compose the National Child Labor Committee. This committee believed that children needed to enjoy a vigorous and delightful puerility instead of being roused to work. If not, they would be denied the opportunities that every American deserved. 38) The NCLC constructed the Uniform Child Labor Law in 1910 which demanded a minimum age of 14 years for manufacturing employment and 16 years of age mining. They also encouraged restraint of night-work for children below 16 years young. Dramatic photography, photographed by Lewis W. Hine who was the photographer of the NCLC, rotated around the states, giving mankind access to see America’s children acted under brutal milestones. The photographs of young children at work helped the NCLC acquire the public’s attention. With their concern, 39 states passed child labor policies which definitely satisfied them, but the laws were not enforced and were misunderstood from it’s intentional purpose. The reform of child labor arose tensions against those who opposed the idea, in particularly the South. The South feared that if the NCLC became successful, employers would have to hire adults which were paid more than children and would decrease stock prices. People argued that child labor rules would dissuade manufacturing and the children wouldn’t be able to gain maturity in preparation of adulthood. In between the middle of the war to eliminate child labor, a Great Depression commenced. It changed political perspectives in America and availed Child labor reform. In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act also known as the FLSA. This act forbid employment in mining or manufacturing for children under 16 years of age while children below 14 years of age were able to work as long as it did not counteract with their education or health. In actual fact, the law only protected about 25% working children. (69) In 1944, the United States joined World War II and at this time, laboring provisions slightly improved. Younger children barely worked because school was in session. The toils the children did were much less odious and adverse than before. Children also became curtailed to work in coal mines or glass factories. The war ended in 1945 yet child labor still flourished. However, after the war, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act and organized the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA was assigned to oversee the country’s industries and ensure that they followed the regulations. Enforcing child labor laws had frequently been tough since there were not enough inspectors who were upposed to authorize the FLSA which means the Department of Labor inspects only half of the businesses in America. Furthermore, penalties have never been sufficient enough to hinder felons. In 1989, violators paid only a $165 fine that can easily be recovered by doing more business. Presently, Congress changed the FLSA on November 5, 1990 which made the utmost penalty for child labor violations be increased to $10,000. The federal government endured a explicit deal to evict child labor and restore peace to the children of America. â€Å"Child labor as it once was no longer exists. (73) Several of the events that happened in America during the 19th century impacted America positively. There was the Louisiana Purchase and the new states added into the Union which provided more land in the U. S. There was also the elimination of slavery, gaining woman’s rights, and the new inventions that were created. The wars such as the War of 1812 and the Mexican War were not as meaningful as the issue of child labor. When men died in battle, they died with honor. When children died in factories by the horrid conditions, they died with despair. Men have already passed their childhood, unlike children who have obviously not. Child labor, although it is outlawed and isn’t as commonly used as before, still exists. Children are still determined to work just as adults are. They choose to work to earn their own money to be able to purchase items independently and most importantly to support their families. Now, teenagers work under youth employment where children work around a healthy environment with fair wages. Most teenagerswork in the food industry or the entertainment industry. Nowadays, there are still sweatshops in America that violate the child labor laws and neglects the health and safety of their workers. The conditions from the 19th century is similar to the working conditions today. Youngsters labor in crowded, squalid buildings with horrible ventilation. Even though the law restrains children under 18 years old from using powered machines, inspectors saw children in New York enduring around dangerous machinery in factories for very small earnings. Toilets were also improperly functioned and workers ate their lunch on the cluttered, untidy workshop ground beside machinery that released chemicals. Newspapers are still sold on the streets by children usually in their own neighborhood. Even today, children are constantly prone to pesticides on their human flesh when they make contact against leaves and inhale toxins that surround them at work, without having access to medication or sanitation. â€Å"Today no society anywhere in the word advocates child labor. Indeed most nations have laws outlawing it. Yet child labor continues and, according to a United Nations report, is a growing evil. † (10) Will child labor still occur in America? How can any nation like the Untied States completely end child labor? When will child labor no longer exist? Is there hope for the future in becoming â€Å"perfect†? Perhaps the answers will come very soon. In a nation that people tend to believe is â€Å"perfect†, still contains flaws and imperfections. Child labor was definitely the most ghastly, heinous dilemma in America during the Industrial Revolution that stimulated rigorous damage both psychologically and morally. Hopefully sometime in the future, the world can officially announce the end of child labor.

Friday, September 27, 2019

Importance of Being Earnest and the U.S. Government Essay

Importance of Being Earnest and the U.S. Government - Essay Example He was born in 1854 and died in 1900. He had particular aspirations when it came to the writing of short stories and he is known to have written one novel. Wilde was later in his life arrested and imprisoned for being involved in homosexuality and indecency. After his release, he moved away from Ireland and he never returned. "Importance of Being Earnest" is a playwright written by Wilde in the year 1895. The concept of the play is vested in England. The play consists of humor and lies and is based on two men who escape their obligations. The first scene of the play is centered in the house of Algernon Moncrieff who is depicted as an upper-class refined young man with a male servant known as Lane. It is tea time in London and Algernon has just entered the room where Lane is preparing the table for tea. (Wilde, Pg 8) Algernon plays the piano and then starts a conversation with Lane asking him whether or not he liked how he played the piano. Lane says that he is sorry because he had not been very attentive. This first part of the play if compared with the government in the United States depicts the aristocratic kind of life that is led by the government. The government is sophisticated and their lies are surrounded by servants who undertake all kinds of duties left right and center. As the play coAs the play continues, Algernon requests his male servant to make mushroom sandwiches specifically for his aunt who is coming in with his cousin Gwendolyn. The scene takes a twist when Algernon asks Lane what he thinks about marriage and Lane says that he has no much experience on the field since he is a divorcee. The servant's casual answer surprises the boss. Their conversation is disrupted by the door bell which the servant responds to. Algernon is left in the room eating the Mushroom sandwiches. (Wilde, Pg 13) Lane comes back to the room announcing the presence of Ernest Worthing. Ernest is Algernon's friend. Ernest is from the country side but he often comes to visit London. Ernest in their conversation reveals to Algernon about his intention to propose to Gwendolyn, Algernon's cousin. Algernon is not happy about this and he tells Ernest that he would not allow him to propose to his cousin until he explains the incision that he had collected written from a certain Cecily. At first, Ernest says that he does not know of any Cecily. At this point in the play, a light is shed on the United States government. The government is always in a position to lay down its virtues earnestly but is always in denial. This is clear from the situation in Iraq where innocent individuals have been killed but the government of the United States continues to deny this. This leaves Ernest to explain to his friend that he leads a double life. In the country side, he is known as Jack. In addition, he feeds lies to the people in the country that he has a brother in the city known as Ernest Worthing. He uses this excuse as an attempt to escape his responsibility in the country. Therefore, Cecily is his ward in the country and the granddaughter of the man who had adopted him. (Wilde, Pg 15) In the process of the conversation, Algernon also reveals that he lives a double life since he also lies that he has another invalid friend in the country known as Bunbury who he goes to see

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Scan Rate Issue at W.M. Morrison Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Scan Rate Issue at W.M. Morrison - Essay Example ced inventory management process and adoption of online business process are the examples of customer centric business operation strategies of Morrisons. However, the organization is facing critical issues in the scanning process of the consumed items. Long scanning time in the supermarket chains of Morrisons is forcing the customers to wait for so long in queue. It is quite general that each and every individual can get harassed due to these issues (Slack, Chambers and Johnston, 2010, p.34). These specific issues are forcing the existing customers of Morrison to switch over to another brand as the organization is finding it difficult to meet the satisfaction level of the target customers. It is true that the organization has implemented online order processing, order delivering and online payment process. But, inadequate operation management processes affected the business performance and customer service of the organization. Several leading organizations within the industry are imp lementing advanced technological processes and tools in order to enhance several business operation activities. It is important for the organizations to capitalize on the potential business opportunities to sustain in this competitive business environment. Organizations within the UK supermarket retail chain industry are trying to focus on the recent market trend and demand of the target customers. It is quite difficult for an organization to survive in this competitive industry without having skilled and experienced workforce, and highly automotive business operation process. Operation management has become highly challenging for all the organizations within this competitive retail industry as the nature of the industry is becoming highly saturated and competitive. Skills and efficiency of... It is clear from above discussion that being one of the leading organization within the UK supermarket retail chain industry, Morrisons failed to improve its efficiency in the scan rate process. It is highly important for an organization within this particular industry to ensure effective business operation management process in order to provide effective customer service. Now-a-days, people always prefer online consumption facility in daily busy schedule in order to reduce the consumption time in cost. Several potential competitors of Morrison adopted and implemented online business operation start5egy according to the growing market demand and needs of target customers. In addition to this, the organization did not understand the real reason behind the high scan rate. Inadequate strategy development process and lack of effective training for employees affected the entire workplace performance. The organization tried several things to reduce the high scan rate that frustrates the cu stomers to wait for a longer time in a queue. The operation management of the organization increased the target for each and every executive in cash department.

European and Native American Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

European and Native American Culture - Essay Example However, but all this kindness from the settlers also came with negativity to the locals natives as the trade of blankets was not that welcoming as it was a means for the early settlers to spread smallpox to the natives. The natives’ immune systems were poor as compared to the settles this made them weak and easy to conquer after being poisoned. Also, lead to war, slavery, and territorial dispute. The relationship was uneasy the two cultures differed in language, customs, lifestyles; the Europeans viewed the Natives Americans as uncivilized, ignorant heathens, uncouth, unsophisticated, dirty, and unethical. Concerns came from missionaries with the introduction or religion in America; this not only affected their social status but also their culture and values2. The hardship encountered by early settlers started in their voyage, they had less food, diseases were uncontrollable few children survived the trip. Scurvy seasickness, dysentery, fever, and other diseases killed them before they arrived. Winter in north America was much more colder as compared to Europe winter this was a challenge to the early settlers a good example is ,â€Å"The first English Colony on Roanoke Island what is now North Carolina, "the Lost Colony." The entire original colony disappeared.† Due to weather hardship diseases such as Malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, small pox was a common feature. Colonies experienced sickness, starvation, and conflicts with the Native American cultures, such colony was Jamestown which undergone a major blow of hunger and diseases stricken early settlers3. Religion has contributed a lot to the history of America. At Cape Henry, in Virginia the first Episcopal Church was established in April 1607. Then followed by a parish in Jamestown, Virginia, in July 1620 a separate group from English emigrants docked in North

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Strategy and Organizational Performance Research Paper

Strategy and Organizational Performance - Research Paper Example However, during the execution of the strategic planning process, it is necessary for the businesses to consider the weaknesses and limitations of the strategic management and planning concept in order to apply it to bring a positive outcome. The businesses in the present days are moving towards an extensive application of the strategic planning to improve and assess the organizational performance. They have adopted the concept of strategic management to cope up with the upcoming challenges in the corporate world and be successful in the business arena. All the organizations work with strategies and objectives to sustain themselves in the cutting edge competition from their cut-throat rivals. The term ‘Strategy’ refers to the plan of action which may be adopted by any business or service organizations in order to accomplish a particular goal or set of objectives. Most of the organizations, at present, utilize the idea of Grand Strategy, which is referred to as a complete and broad ranging plan for the prominent activities of an organization with the help of which it achieves its long-standing objectives within a vibrant business environment (Rogers, Miller & Judge, 1999). The basic purpose of strategy is to provide significant support to the strategic business plan, individual career plans, work unit plans and effective job performance. Besides this, an organizational strategy also prioritizes the activities and useful initiatives that have to be taken in the department. The concept of strategic management is widely applied to the organizations. It refers to a filed which deals with the specifications of the development of missions, visions, and plans and policies of the organization with respect to its programs and plans. These elements help the organization achieve its goals through a proper allocation of plans, polices, programs and projects (Hart, 1992). The field of strategic

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Functions of Re-appropriation in Contemporary Texts About Historical Essay

Functions of Re-appropriation in Contemporary Texts About Historical Events - Essay Example However, reviewing the horrific events there are two sides of the coin. The perpetrators justify their actions while the victims are forced to fight for justice. Any form of violence such as genocide should not be justified but the account of the perpetrators should be considered when trying to understand the motive and the influencing factor leading to a horrific event. Regardless of the accounts of the victim and the perpetrator, the legal framework within which a horrific event occurred should also be evaluated. In the text by Philip the re-appropriation of these legal documents should be done on each and every horrific account to enable the neutral members of the society to understand the psychology of both the victim and perpetrator. This paper will highlight the major horrific events in the modern era. Additionally, the paper will evaluate the legal framework responsible for these events. The accounts of both the victims and perpetrators will be analyzed and how the re-appropriation of specific legal documents may help understand the vents leading to a horrific event. The paper will be compiled in consideration of the works by Heimrad Backer and Nourbese Philip on their different accounts on the modern day horrific events. The main function of re-appropriation of legal documents is to minimize the risks of a repetition of a particular horrific event. For instance, after the occurrence of the holocaust the rivalry between the Jews and the Nazis become more serious. The holocaust was an event where thousands of Jews were massacred in the hands of the Nazis. From this point, the common Jew and the Nazi were mortal enemies. Additionally, the publication and legal address of the events did not ease the pressure between the two functions. In an argument by Backer major publications and legal definitions on the holocaust has

Monday, September 23, 2019

Migration Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Migration - Assignment Example In other instances, migration is as a result of marriage. Married couples often migrate to convenient locations where they can live happily together and state a family. The emerging migration trends indicate that migration can be influenced by gender as well as sexuality. Gender has a strong relation to social, economic and political factors that might influence the movement of people from one place to another. Gender and its related subjects are some of the most discussed issues globally. Many news magazines, articles and newspapers feather gender as an emerging issue which has influenced the lives of people in so many ways (Pojmann.2006. pg. 17). Migration is one of the phenomena attributed to gender. Researchers as well as the media have been working to discover the reasons that link gender to the migration of people. This document is a review of an article on gender and migration by the International Organization for Migration. Gender in this case is described as the differences between the women and men. The differences between the male and the female gender places a great role in the social, cultural and economic status of a particular geographical location. This influences the settlement and migration of people. In 1980s, migration highly focused on economy. Male migrants played major roles in the economy while female migrants were viewed as passive followers. However this has chang ed with the change of time and women are currently playing an equal role as that of men when it comes to economic issues. The battle for supremacy is the factor that brings inequality to both genders. Men are the dominant species in the business market, thus women have found it difficult to contribute to an equal share of the economy as they are suppressed by the fact that men have taken all control of the job market. This factor has made women to migrate form one geographical

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Ap World History Hinduism and Christianity Essay Example for Free

Ap World History Hinduism and Christianity Essay Hinduism and Christianity are two of the thriving religions in the world today. Both religions help make up vast amount of worshiper all over the world. While both religions agree in some aspects, they differ in others, both impacting people around the globe in a unique way. Hinduism and Christianity are similar, in that loving god is one’s first responsibility in life. The two religions differ, in the number of gods or spirits they worship, and the founders of the religion. In both religions loving god is one’s first duty in life. In Hinduism believe that all existence is ranked: Brahman, humans, animals, plants, things. They believe that one has an essential life, or atman, a form of Brahman, and the goal of that life is to achieve moksha or union with Brahman. Similarly, Christians believe that God is above everything else, and by strengthening one’s relationship with God, it will allow one to achieve salvation, or an eternal life with God in Heaven. Differently, Hinduism is a polytheistic religion while Christianity is a monotheistic religion. Hindus believe in three main deities: Brahman, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer. Hindus worship a variety of deities, all which are aspects of Brahman. While on the other hand, Christianity believes in the worship of one deity, God the Father. Christianity believes that God is the creator of the Earth and has final judgment over every human. In contrast, Hinduism has no set founder of the religion. It is believed that a variety of different people contributed to the religion. It is said that the religion has been evolving for thousands of years and will continue to so. However, Christianity does have a set founder, Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah, or son of God. Jesus’ moral teaching in of love, charity, and humility is still practiced today with little evolution. In conclusion, while Hinduism and Christianity differed in a set founder and the number of deities worshiped, they were similar in that loving your god is your first duty in life. While these religions differ, they remain predominant, continent to continent. These religions help shape the cultural diversity throughout the world.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Ethical Theories In Human Rights Philosophy Essay

Ethical Theories In Human Rights Philosophy Essay underlying the currently influential business and management theories. Ethics may be viewed as the study of human conduct with an emphasis on determination of right and wrong (Fraedrich and Ferrell, 1992). Together with this, it is the assumption that management must adhere to a narrow version of positivism that excludes any reference to intention (Ghoshal, 2005). According to (Mallor et al., 2010), for centuries, religious and secular scholars have explored the meaning of human existence and attempted to define a good life. Ethical theories and principles are the foundations of ethical analysis because they are the viewpoints from which guidance can be obtained along the pathway to a decision. The four ethical theories according to the text are rights theory, justice theory, utilitarianism, and profit maximization. The rights theory covers a range of ethical philosophies that holds that certain human rights are important and must be respected by other society and her rights. Rights are also considered to be ethically correct and legitimate given that a large or ruling population endorses them. Few rights theorists are stringent deontologists, and one of the few is the 18th century philosopher by name Immanuel Kant and his theory is known as the Kantianism. Kant viewed humans as moral actors that are free to make choices and he also believed that humans are able to judge the morality of any action by applying his famous categorical imperative. One of his formulations of the categorical imperative is Act only on that maxim whereby at the same time you can will that it shall become a universal law. The meaning of it is that we judge an action by applying it universally. The most important strength of rights theory is that it protects fundamental rights, unless some greater right takes precedence. A major criticism of the rights theory deal with the near absolute yet relative value of the rights protected, making it difficult to articulate and administer a comprehensive rights theory. The Justice theory which came into limelight by John Rawls in 1971 when he published his book entitled: A theory of Justice, the philosophical underpinning for the bureaucratic welfare state. He reasoned that it was right for governments to redistribute wealth in order to assist the poor and the destitute. Furthermore, Rawls expressed this philosophy in his Greatest Equal Liberty Principle: each person has an equal right to basic rights and liberties. He further limited the principle with the Difference Principle: social inequalities are acceptable only if they cannot be eliminated without making the worst-off class even worse off. Rawlss justice theory has application in the business context which requires decision makers to be guided by fairness and impartiality. The strength of Rawlss justice theory lies in its basic premise, the protection of those who are least advantaged in society. The ethical dilemma for managers is to determine the fair rules and procedures for distributing outcomes to stakeholders. Managers must not give people they like bigger raises than they give to people they do not like, for example, or bend the rules to help their favorites. On the other hand, if employees want managers to act fairly toward them, then employees need to act fairly toward their companies and work hard and be loyal. Similarly, customers need to act fairly toward a company if they expect it to be fair to them-something people who illegally copy digital media should consider. The criticism that justice theory with the rights theory is that it treats equality as an absolute, without examining the costs of producing equality, including reduced incentives for innovation, entrepreneurship and production. Utilitarianism entails a decision maker to maximize utility for society as a whole. Maximizing utility means achieving the highest level of satisfactions over dissatisfactions which means that a person must consider the benefits and costs of her actions to everyone in society. A utilitarian will take action only if the benefits of the action to society outweigh the societal costs of the action. There are two types of utilitarianism, act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism judges each act separately, assessing a single acts benefit and its cost to societys members. Rule utilitarianism judges actions by a rule that over the long run maximizes benefits over cost. The strength of utilitarianism as a guide for ethical conduct is that it is easy to articulate the standard of conduct; which coincides with values of most modern countries like the USA who is capitalist in nature by focusing on total social satisfactions, benefits, wealth and welfare. In general under ca pitalism, the interests of shareholders are put above those of employees, so production will move abroad. This is generally regarded as being an ethical choice because in the long run, the alternative, domestic production might cause the business to collapse and go bankrupt. If this happens, all of the companys stakeholders will suffer-not just its employees. According to the utilitarian view, the decision that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people is best. In this case, that means outsourcing the jobs. The criticism of utilitarianism is that it is difficult to measure ones own pleasures, pains, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, let alone those of all of societys members. Profit maximization as an ethical theory requires a decision maker to maximize a businesss long-run profits within the limits of the law. This has been based on the laissez faire theory of capitalism first expressed by Adam Smith in the 18th century and more recently promoted by economists such as Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. Profit maximization is closely related to utilitarianism, but it varies essentially in how ethical decisions are made. Profit maximization optimizes total social utility by narrowing the actors focus, requiring the decision maker to make a decision that merely maximizes profits for himself or his organization. The strengths of profit maximization results in ethical conduct because it requires societys members to act within the constraints of the law and a profit maximizer, therefore, acts ethically by complying with societys mores as expressed in its laws. The criticism of profit maximizer is that if profit maximization results in an efficient allocation o f societys resources and maximization of total social welfare, it does not concern itself with how wealth is allocated within Society. An ethical theory that was not found in the text is that of rationalism, which this ethical theory focuses mainly on norms. The moral rationalism is that in which the decisive factor of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive, and it has its major proponent in Emmanuel Kant (Llano, 2002). Mr. Kant attempted to change our everyday, clear, rational knowledge of morality into philosophical knowledge. He went after a technique of using practical reason to reach conclusions which are able to be useful to the world of experience. Kant is also known for his theory that there is a single moral obligation which he called the Categorical Imperative, and derived from the perception of duty. He further stated that these moral norms must be obeyed in all situations and circumstances if our behavior is to observe the moral law. In a way to improve corporate governance and corporate social responsibilities, according to Mallor et al., 2010, one can modify the corporate governance model to educate, motivate, and supervise executives and thereby improve corporate social responsibility. Corporate governance is the structure used to direct and manage business and affairs of the company towards enhancing prosperity and corporate accountability. Corporate critics however did propose a wide rang of cures, all of which have been implemented to some degree and with varying degrees of success. Ethical codes: Ethic codes in a way have been adopted by many large corporations and several industries to guide executives and other employees. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act required that a public company discloses whether it has adopted a code of ethics for senior financial officers, and to disclose any changes in the code or waiver of the codes application. The codes can be viewed in two ways; one sees the codes as genuine efforts to foster ethical behavior within a firm or an industry while others view regards them as thinly disguised attempts to make the firm function better, to mislead the public into believing the firm behaves ethically, to prevent the passage of legislation that would impose stricter constraints on business, or to limit competition under the veil of ethical standards. Better ethical codes make clear that the corporation expects employees not to violate the law in a mistaken belief that loyalty to the corporation requires it. These kinds of codes work best, however, when a corporation also gives its employees an outlet for dealing with a superiors request to do an unethical act. Ethical instruction: Some corporate organizations require their employees to enroll in classes that teach ethical decision-making. The idea is that a manager trained in ethical conduct will recognize unethical actions before they are taken and deter herself and the corporation from the unethical acts. Majority of corporations in this present day express their dedication to ethical decision-making by an ethics officer who is not only responsible for ethical instruction, but also in charge of ethical supervision. The ethics officer tends to be a mentor or sounding board for all employees who face ethical issues. Greater Shareholder Role in Corporations: As shareholders are the vital stakeholders in a corporation in a capitalist economy, several corporate critics argue that businesses should be more attuned to shareholders ethical values and that shareholder control of the board of directors and executives should be increased. Evidence suggests that sources of ethical dilemmas will continue to increase. To understand this assessment, it will be useful to look at four categories of conditions influencing ethical behavior: global, social, organizational and individual. Global: A variety of global conditions affect our lives and our society; many are well-known to all of us. They include the increasing influence of cultural values substantially different from those of our Anglo-Saxon heritage; impacts of a complex global economy on local economic structures; and our rapidly increasing technological capacity to communicate and interact with the global community. Within the past few years we have watched the beginning of the development of a new world order that will be substantially different from our sense of world order developed over the last half century. Among the implications resulting from this picture, two are especially important: (1) we as a people no longer have a secure sense of our role in the world or our control over it; and (2) it has become increasingly acceptable, and even logical, to admit that we simply dont know what the appropriate response is. This era of rapid change has an indirect but important influence on our sense of ethi cal appropriateness. Social: A more direct source of ethical conflicts is social change. Change has been so rapid that some have argued that we have lost our sense of values or that we must seek better mechanisms to resolve value conflicts. This line of reasoning is incorrect for several reasons. First, value conflicts (and, therefore, ethical dilemmas) reflect our social and cultural fabric. Second, stakeholders have a relatively easy time gaining access to our policy making system; therefore, value conflicts are very visible and, frequently, cause our problem-solving process to forge slow, painful compromises. These processes continue to represent one of the great comparative advantages of our society and should not be changed without sober reflection. Organizational: Thirdly, we are witnessing rapid change in the nature and role of the public organization and concepts about administrative behavior. Organizational values are vital influence on the majority of us; thus far our organizational lives are becoming increasingly participatory, open, communicative and interactive. While I believe that the decline of organization hierarchy is among the more positive aspects of our society, it also signals a decline in another source of behavioral guidelines. Individual judgment, group dynamics and social interactions are replacing traditional rules of behavior dictated by the organization. We are also facing increasing conflicts between the bureaucratic ethos and the democratic ethos (Hejka-Ekins, 1998). The bureaucratic ethos includes such traditional organizational standards as efficiency, competence, loyalty and accountability. Individual: lastly, ethical anxieties are caused by changes at the individual level. In particular, individualism and materialism are at the present celebrated within major social institutions and have become a dominate ethos of the baby bust generation. Self-indulgence, greed, self-interest, and privatism are accepted components of the ethos of this generation (Frederickson, 1982). In order to improve the ethical climate of an organization, management must effectively communicate proper ethical behavior throughout the organization. Wimbush and Shephard (1984: 637-647) reported that businesses annually spend an estimated $40 billion on the ethical behavior problems. Thus, pointing to the fact that ethical dimension of employees behavior has a clear impact on the profitability of the company. It is generally accepted that customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors in successful business strategy. Although a company must continue to develop, alter and adapt products to keep pace with customers changing desires and preferences. It must also seek to develop long-term relationships with customers and its stakeholders. By focusing on customer satisfaction, a company continually deepens the customers dependence on the company, and as the customers confidence grows, the firm gains a better understanding of how to serve the customer so the relationship ma y endure. Successful businesses provide an opportunity for customer feedback, which can engage the customer in a cooperative problem solving. As is often pointed out, a happy customer will come back, but a disgruntled customer will tell others about his or her dissatisfaction with a company and discourage friends from dealing with it. When an organization has a strong ethical environment, it usually focuses on the core value of placing customers interest first. An ethical culture that focuses on customers incorporates the interests of all employees, suppliers, and other interested parties in decisions and actions. Employees working in an ethical environment support and contribute to the process of understanding customers demands and concerns. Ethical conduct towards customers builds a strong competitive position that has been shown to affect business performance and product innovation positively.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Theories of Interpersonal Perception and Self Presentation

Theories of Interpersonal Perception and Self Presentation Christian S. Bautista Social Psychology Interpersonal Relationship Solomon Asch (1946) found out that when information is given about another person, some parts of that information are given more importance than others. He called this central trait, which he said we are using to make decisions about the personality of the other person. In his warm-cold study, Asch felt that traits like warm and cold when put in conjunction with traits like practical or determined produced a completely different overall impressions. However, S. Nauts et al argued that Asch’s data (1946), do not provide clear evidence for a primacy of warmth effect; the open-ended responses that were important to Asch’s theorizing were not systematically analysed; the trait-pair choice measure seems unfit to test primacy of warmth; and the results of the ranking measure suggest that warmth was not central in determining participant’s impression. Stereotyping is an assumption we make about other people that maybe unconscious, but that influence our perception of others. Stereotypes can be split into two basic forms; individual and group stereotypes. However, negative stereotypes can lead to group polarization and prejudice, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) (cited in Payne, S. and Walker, J., 1996, p 191) classroom experiment illustrated this. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study became popular as it seemed to provide a powerful explanation for the low achievement of the so-called disadvantaged students. However, it was also criticized by educational psychologists on conceptual, methodological and statistical grounds. There were numerous attempts to replicate the study, consistently, only about one third of the studies attempting to demonstrate a self-fulfilling prophecy succeeded, and critics said that the phenomenon did not exist because the support was unreliable. TAQ 2 (752 words) Attribution theory deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events. It examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgement (Fiske, Taylor, 1991). The aim of attribution is to understand how people interpret the words and actions of others and their own behaviour. An experiment by Thibaut and Riecken in 1955 shows how the subject perceives between someone who is on a higher status and of a lower status. In the procedure, the subject interacted with two other persons; one is of higher status than the subject and the other of a lower status. Both the person complied with the request of the subject, but when the subject was asked why each one had complied, the result was higher status compliance was put down as internal reason and external reason for the lowest status persons compliance. Furthermore, his evaluation from before to after the compliance was favoured to the highest status person. This study shows both antecedent and consequences of attributions for behaviour. In this study they adopted the ideas from Heider (1944) and Michotte (1963). It was assumed that the subject makes distinction and decides between internal and external cause for the other persons compliance on the basis of their perceived power. In attributing compliance to internal causes, positive attitudes are credited by the subject to the person. Attributing these qualities to a person has the consequence that the subject tends to like the person. In this experiment, essential element of attribution research is present. The research has hypotheses about the antecedents of causal attribution and the consequences of the subject making particular attributions (Kelley, H. and L. Michela, J.). We tend to perceive that the observed behaviour is due to the qualities of the person, dispositional attribution, rather than due to external force, situational attribution. The passenger who complains about the bus schedule is likely to be regarded as disagreeable rather than in a hurry. A respectful greeting to your manager may be offered because you like her or it may be only because of the superordinate-subordinate situation which exists between you. Heider (1958), who developed the model called the Naà ¯ve Analysis of behaviour noted that people generally tend to perceive that human behaviour is somehow caused, as it can be used by us in predicting the likelihood of this happening again, rather than being due to chance. We can make two attributions; internal attribution, we attribute the behaviour of the person in their personality, character or attitude; and external attribution, the inference that the person is behaving in a certain way because of the situation he or she may be in. Heider also noted that a person’s behaviour particularly the first impression behaviour is so compelling that observers take it at face value and forget to take sufficient account of possible situational causes. When we make attribution, we must analyse the situation by going beyond the information given about the disposition of others and yourself as well as the environment and how it may be causing the person to behave in such a manner. However, order and predictability are the consequences in making inferences and inferences lead to behaviour. Once someone is given an initial label based on his observed behaviour, the label sticks and becomes self-validating as that person will continue to behave in the way now expected of him. Another attribution theory is Kelly’s covariation model: he developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to the person or stimulus. There are three types of causal information which influence our judgements; consistency, consensus and distinctiveness. Consistency is when cause and effect regularly occur together; for example you may notice that you felt irritable in the morning after a late night out with little sleep, in fact irritability might occur every time you have a very late night. Others also reported the late-night irritability syndrome, this means you are not unique then the consensus is high. Distinctiveness is whether or not a particular behaviour occurred in the same way in the similar situation. According to Kruglanski (1977), people do not just naively come across situation but bring to each social situation a wide range of experiences and prior knowledge. This theory lacks of distinction between intentional and uninten tional behaviour; intentional behaviour occurs when there is a desire for an outcome. Covariance treats explanation as a cognitive activity, no accounting for the social functions of explanations such as clarifying something for another person (Malle, B.F., 2003). TAQ 3 (165 words) TAQ 4 (190 words) Self-presentational behaviour is any behaviour intended to create, modify, or maintain an impression of ourselves in the minds of others. Whenever we attempt to lead people to think of us in a particular way, we are engaging in self-presentation. Self-presentation is very important aspect of our lives. How do we make others to believe that we possess various characteristic plays a huge role on our outcome in life. Self-presentation is a pervasive feature of our social life. However, self-presentational concerns also lead people to engage in behaviours that enhance their appearance but simultaneously jeopardize their own physical well-being and it even underlies self-destructive behaviour. Self-monitoring allows human to measure their behavioural outcomes against a set of standards. Small children typically do not have the ability to self-monitor, it develops overtime. The ability to both understand and internalize other’s behavioural expectations is a developmental social milestone that will occur in middle childhood. Both self-presentation and self-monitoring shaped me to the person I am today. I was able to convince people; my wife; my friends; and my colleagues that I am worthy of their love, their friendship, their trust and their respect. TAQ 5 (156 words) There are many factors involved, such as proximity, similarity, and physical attractiveness in the formation of relationships. It was found out that the friendliest person were those who live near on another. â€Å"Those who play together stay together†, in other words those who share similar interest in leisure activities form relationship. People of the same race, gender, age, and social background are likely to form a relationship. Person who are either similar â€Å"birds of the same feather flocks together† or that â€Å"opposites attract† forms a relationship. Physical attractiveness is also an important factor in formation of relationship, when we first meet someone their physical appearance is the first thing that will strike us before anything else. Jade’s date didn’t work out for her because as I have said above, her date didn’t have any of the factors. He faked his photo, his description and his job so Jade and his date had nothing in common basically. TAQ 6 (235 words) The main assumption of the social exchange theory (SET) is that individuals try to maximise their rewards; affection and attention and reduce their costs; time and effort. SET helps us understand the cost and rewards of relationships and it helps us predict how to keep and sustain relationships. However, it also has some weaknesses, SET neglects culture context. SET is based on a reward concept but not all cultures seek for a reward in a relationship. SET makes people seems individualistic and a reward seeking. Equity theory extends the SET, it takes into account that rewards need to be proportionate, this is based in the assumption that people expect that a relationship to be fair. People will feel satisfied if what they put into the relationship is comparable with what they get out of it. Aspects of equity theory were unable to predict whether a relationship will be maintained or break down. According to Balance theory we tend to be friends or to choose friends those people who help us maintain our balance view of the world. One simple advantage is that it recognizes that people sometimes notice inconsistent cognitions and that this inconsistency can lead to attitude change. It predicts how people will react to imbalanced and balanced situations. However, one consistent problem is that the predictions don’t work very well. Balance theory does not make any prediction about how imbalanced will be resolved. TAQ 7 (110 words) Mechanical failure is when two suitable people of goodwill and good nature grow apart, where communication may be poor or interactions go badly is the most common cause of relationship breakdown. Long term relationships often fail due to lack of common activities, as well as individual hobbies, interest and friends. If both partners do not grow equally one partner might feel that they are carrying the load. In Scenario 2 the youngest child is now completing his GCSE, couples shares responsibility in rearing their children and this is their common interest. Since their younger son is becoming less of their common interest, it can become a cause of the problem. TAQ 8 (219 words) Stages of Dissolution (Ducks Phase Model) Stage I The Intrapsychic phase Thinking about relationship in private, beginning to consider there is a problem in the relationship. Stage II The Dyadic phase The dissatisfaction is discussed. This is when the troubled partner confronts the other and tries to correct these problems. Stage III The Social phase At this point the decision is made by one or both partners to leave the relationship. The breakdown is made public. Stage IV The Grave Dressing phase A post-relationship view of the breakup is established; both of the partners go through self-justification; protecting self-esteem and rebuilding life towards new relationships. In 2006 Duck and Rollie added a fifth stage, Resurrection phase, when individual evaluate the relationship and attempting to re-instigate the relationship again. One of the strength of this model is that it gives some insight into possible techniques that can be used so that the relationship can be repaired. It also has face validity as it is an account of relationship breakdown that we can relate to our own and others experiences Brehm and Kassin (1996) sees the limitation of this study in that the women are more likely to stress unhappiness and incompatibility as reasons for breakup while men blame lack of sex suggesting gender differences that the model does not consider. TAQ 9 (93 words) Love relationships are one of the greatest sources of happiness and meaning for every human being. Even the strongest relationships get off track sometimes because of the stresses of daily living, and mismatch expectations. The HEAL (Hear-Empathize-Act-Love) technique to repair damaged relationships by replacing defensive self-protection with compassionate presence and loving connection (Greenberg, M., 2013). Hear – to listen to your partner, stay present and be there. Empathize – allow your partner’s experience deeply affect you, share the feelings. Act address the concerns and show willingness to change. Love – feel and express unconditional love. References Asch, (1946) as cited in https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U7oeILtwkxoCprintsec=frontcoversource=gbs_ge_summary_rcad=0#v=onepageqf=false  Date last accessed: 22 January 2015 Brehm and Kassin (1996) as cited in DLcentre workbook Module 6 Social Interaction Level 3. Cowan Curtis, 1994 as cited in http://www.understandingprejudice.org/apa/english/page9.htm  Date last accessed: 26 Feb 2015 Cozzarelli, Wilkinson, Tagler, 2001 as cited in http://www.understandingprejudice.org/apa/english/page9.htm  Date last accessed: 26 Feb 2015 Eysenc, M. (2002). Simply Psychology. [Online]. 2nd Edition.  East Sussex: Psychology Press. Accessed 22 January 2015.  Available at:  https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U7oeILtwkxoCprintsec=frontcoversource=gbs_ge_summary_rcad=0#v=onepageqf=false Greenberg, M., 2013. Four Steps to Relationship Repair With The H-E-A-L Technique. [online].  Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201304/four-steps-relationship-repair-the-h-e-l-technique  Accessed: 12 February 2015 Heider (1944) as cited in http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/attribution_theory_and_research.pdf   Kelley, H. and L. Michela, J. Attribution Theory and Research. [online].  Available at: http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/attribution_theory_and_research.pdf  Accessed: 19 March 2015 Kruglanski, 1977 as cited in DLCentre Ltd., 2009/11 Module 6. Social Interaction level 3 Lerner, 1980; Montada Lerner, 1998 as cited in http://www.understandingprejudice.org/apa/english/page9.htm  Date last accessed: 26 Feb 2015 Malle, B.F., 2003. Attributions as Behavior Explanations: Toward a New Theory. [Online]. Available at: http://cogprints.org/3314/1/Explanation_theory_03.pdf  Accessed: 09 February 2015 Michotte(1963) as cited in http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/attribution_theory_and_research.pdf Payne, S and Walker, J. (1996). Psychology for Nurses and the Caring Profession. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Rosenberg et al, (1968) as cited in https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U7oeILtwkxoCprintsec=frontcoversource=gbs_ge_summary_rcad=0#v=onepageqf=false  Date last accessed: 22 January 2015 Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) as cited in Payne, S and Walker, J. (1996). Psychology for Nurses and the Caring Profession. S. Nauts et al. Forming Impressions of Personality. [online].  Available at: http://selfregulationlab.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Nauts-et-al-2014-Asch.pdf  Accessed: 25 February 2015   Tagler, 2001; Schuller, Smith, Olson, 1994 as cited in http://www.understandingprejudice.org/apa/english/page9.htm  Date last accessed: 26 Feb 2015 Thibaut Riecken (1955) as cited in http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/attribution_theory_and_research.pdf

Thursday, September 19, 2019

The Nature of Evil in William ShakespeareÂs Othello Essay -- William

William Shakespeare’s Othello uses different and unique techniques in his language to express the nature of evil throughout the play. Verbal twists and the characters most importantly stress the act of evil. Iago, most of all is portrayed as the “villain” or “protagonist in the play. Shakespeare uses this character to set the basis of evil. Each plot point is spiraled further into tragedy due to the nature of Iago and his manipulative language towards the other main characters. Corruption overcomes the Venetian society as Iago uses his crafty skills of deceit. The plan to have Othello turn against the ones he loves is the perfect example of evil’s nature. The power struggle is evident between these two. This situation is the start to Iago’s plan to corrupt the society and take Othello’s place. The root of Iago’s “evil” is jealousy indeed, in turn changing into a power hungry manipulator. Iago is tired of acting like one "courteous and knee-crooking knave" like he always appears to be [I. i. 46]. Since Iago is reluctant to choose to be a master, he is the servant that bites off the fame and "keep yet their hearts attending on themselves," still showing his service to his master but instead is more self-preserving with no attachments at all towards the master [I. i. 52]. Irony is used diligently in Shakespeare’s unique language style. Referred by Othello as “honest Iago”, the irony is very evident in this title. Iago is everything but honest but this proves how easily led and manipulated Othello is. The traits Iago possess are unexpected to a normal villain. He comes across as charming and smart, he can also be referred to a wolf in sheep’s clothing. For example, he knows Roderigo is in love with Desdemona and figures that he ... ...or a most attractive, popular, good-natured, charming, selfish, cold-blooded and utterly unscrupulous scoundrel.” (pp. 333-34) [Grant: Studies in Shakespeare, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1886, pp. 205] This excerpt further explains Iago’s nature being exactly how Shakespeare intended yet a little different than what the average reader would think of him. The nature of evil is strictly evident as the play comes to an end, yet it is viewed as an opinion or a theory whether Iago is truly “evil.” Ironically, Iago’s words speak louder than his actions, proving how legitimate Shakespeare’s use of language for the character was. This dynamic use of language is significant because it can alter the thought of the reader whether Iago was truly evil or just using military tactics to better him. Iago and his use of language set the main plot for every characters outcome.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

The Raven and Ligeia a comparison Essay examples -- English Literature

The Raven and Ligeia a comparison Although the two tales are presented in different literary forms the tales themselves deal with remarkably similar subject matter. So much so that it is possible to compare the style of each with but a little reference to the general themes of the two works. The Raven and Ligeia are both about loss. The narrators of both tales have lost the dearest thing to them, a woman of incomparable talents and beauty. That the loss of this woman has happened for different reasons does not matter for it is how this loss manifests itself in the lives of the narrators that provide the drama and the poignancy of the stories. In each we discover the narrator is dwelling upon that woman that he adored and in each we find the peculiar way in which they deal with this. In the Raven a man sits alone in his chamber reading ancient tomes trying desperately to keep his mind from thoughts of his lost Lenore. But he hears the sounds from without the chamber that could be perhaps the ghost of his beloved. It is this irrational hope and fear that the bounds of death can somehow be transcended and that he might once more speak with his love that begins to lead to his irrational behaviour. When the titular Raven makes it's appearance the narrator is worked into such a fever of imagination guilt and fear that he perceives the bird as some emissary from beyond. So it is that it's constant repetition of "nevermore" are taken as both confirmation that the spirit of Lenore lives on and denial of him to ever speak to her again. The narrator leaves us still locked with the bird projecting upon it his own feelings of self-loathing and hate. Ligeia on the other hand is a statelier version of the narrat... ...e thing he identifies with in his current situation. When after the raven appears to have refuted his fantasy of Lenore he finds that he hates the raven as an extension of himself and perhaps the raven is nothing more than the narrators metaphor for himself or at least some darker aspect of his mind. The main difference between the two tales is that while Ligeia is couched in very descriptive prose the Raven makes much more use of metaphor. That said the style of the poem is very much that of a rhyming tale and as such is also similar to the prose structure of the short story. In conclusion it should be noted that both are excellent attempts to tackle a difficult and provocative subject and they manage this in two similar but unique ways. It is the similarity, which lends them both power and the stylistic differences that mark them as being exceptional.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

The athletic apparel industry of Nike

The athletic apparel industry in which Nike is involved is a major money maker in the United States, but the fact that none of the factories are located in North America has brought some heat to the company. Nike controls more than 40 percent of the U.S. Market for sports related goods, but doesn†t have a single sneaker factory in this country (Miller 1). Nike continues to make millions of dollars yet exploits workers overseas by paying them very little, while requiring long hours without overtime pay in factories that are not up to â€Å"American† standard. Nike subcontractors employ nearly 500,000 workers in plants in Indonesia, China and Vietnam (Saporito 1). The exploitation of workers in Third World counties, where the majority of Nike†s labor is done sparks a controversial issue. People question why is it that Nike continues these practices. According to â€Å"Just do it, Nike,† Nike seems especially fond of doing business in undemocratic countries like China and Indonesia, where the military can be relied upon to â€Å"crack heads† if workers get out of line (Miller 2). The military monitoring has been a large controversy due to the fact that these are often Chinese working against other Chinese workers, or Vietnamese against their own people also. For Nike there are two benefits: it it†s a cheap way to monitor in an overseas factory and it creates a sheaper labor workforce. In turn making the labor cheaper for Nike. This makes it possible for Nike workers from the states to work on other things and only tour the factories when nessecary. While still assuming a stable workforce without good pay. The critics of Nikes labor practices have taken tours and witnessed the mistreatment firsthand. Time magazine reported saying,† The plants were found to be modern and clean, well lighted and ventilated and paying a decent wage by local standards-although by no means are they trouble free. Make no mistake: these are factories not amusement parks, and even in developing Asia, where jobs are scarce and getting scarcer, this is not the job of choice.† (Saporito 1) The wages that the workers overseas are paid is nothing when compared to how much we pay for a pair of shoes or the profit that CEO Phil Knight is making off his sportswear giant he once operated out of the back of his car as a college student. â€Å"A big issue that surrounds sweatshops is wage. The minimum wage often does not reflect the cost of living.† (Hepner Online) Is the wage fair? There are many people who feel the wage is fair and the cost of living is taken into account when the wage is looked at, but studies show otherwise in many factories. Just recently, CNN reported a raise to entry level workers in Indonesia, Nike officials said â€Å"the increase will raise the minimum monthly compensation package-which includes bonuses, housing, healthcare, transportation and meal allowances to approximately $37.14 a month.†(Nike Establishes Labor† Online) To many people living in the U.S., that package may sound good however the compensation package doesn†t do away with the long hours, the poor conditions or the low rate of pay. Many of these workers are young children working to help support their families. The benefits do not make up for the low pay rates that keep them in the work force. The pay is only enough to get by where these children want to be saving in order to leave the factories and return home. In â€Å"Taking a Look inside Nike†s Factories†, part of Bill Saporito†s, â€Å"Can Nike Get Unstuck?† this is what was found. â€Å"Americans pay $100 for a pair of shoes that a worker gets less than $3 a day to make. They pay Michael Jordan $40 million to endorse them. Can†t they find more money to pay the workers? The short answer is no, because corporations pay the going rate for labor whereever they are.† (Saporito 1) If this statement is true Nike pays the wage for the country the factory is in, then what is the controversy about? Much of it stems from the overtime that these workers are forced to work without over time compensation. Here in the United States there are regulations placed on businesses that require then to compensate their workers with a higher wage for over time hours. So since Nike is an U.S. based company should Nike have to pay overtime? The answer is no. Nike doesn†t have to pay overtime like here in the U.S. so they don†t. In Vietnam â€Å"Workers so want a reduction in overtime, the length of annual leave for the Indonesian workers making Nike shoes is more than 30 days though dozens of workers interviewed in November, said the actual amount is 10 days.† (Ballinger 2) There has been evidence of Nike breaking at least nine labor laws in China according to AMRC; a Hong Kong based human rights group that has been monitoring the abuse of human rights in China for the last 20 years. â€Å"Children as young as 13, were found employed in Nike factories, working from 144-192 overtime hours per month to make ends meet.† (Designer 1) Ernest and Young, an accounting firm, hired by Nike, to do research and the issue reported conditions in Vietnam â€Å"where young women toil sixty-five hour weeks for $10, in air so bad that 78 percent of the employees have respiratory problems.† (Miller1) Factory workers endure abuse on the job lacking a voice or ablility to do anything about it. Since Nike contracts out for their factory managers, it has been hard for Nike to regulate what goes on when they are not on their tour or walk through. â€Å"A Korean supervisor in a Vietnam factory was found guilty of beating 15 Vietnamese about the head with a shoe â€Å"upper†, and another Korean supervisor was charged with sexual molestation.† (Saporito 3) In this instance it was not an U.S. supervisor, nor was it a military officer but someone of a different nationality. The hard part is that there are no independent unions and meaningful corporate codes of conduct to discipline management. So workers must turn to the courts for help which is a long fought battle that no one wants to attempt. In one case that made it to, a Vietnamese court recently found a Korean supervisor guilty of beating workers and extradition may be sought for the accused sexual molester who fled. In Indonesia 24 discharged Nike workers are challenging the legality of their dismissal before the country†s Supreme Court (Saporito 3). These are major breakthroughs in the court systems to have someone tried and convicted in these distant countries whose courts are often corrupted. Factory conditions are consistently getting press here in the U.S., as many are angry with Nike for not providing for their overseas employees. The following account is of the conditions in a Chiniese factory: Twelve hour shifts several days a week; wages as low as 16 cents and hour; 16 workers to a dorm room; pregnant women fired. Workers are not allowed to talk. There is constant pressure to produce-workers are yelled at. If you don†t meet your high production quota you must stay until you do-without pay. The factory is noisy, filled with dust and fumes. Workers have fainted, overcome by the long hours and the glue fumes. One worker died; another lost an arm; other has had their fingers broken by the equipment. Most workers have never heard of the Nike code of conduct. There is no union and workers are afraid that if they complain, they will be fired. When a group of workers stopped working in March to protest had not been paid, they were fired. The supervisor warns workers in advance of any inspection, the factory is cleaned and if workers are interviewed it is in the presence of factory management. (â€Å"The Neediest and the Greediest† 4) This is only one description of the factory conditions and the requirements that are put on the workers of these factories, on contract with Nike. In order to deal with the criticism Nike gets about working conditions and pay, â€Å"Nike Inc recently established a new department with a mandate to continue to evolve it†s monitoring of subcontracted manufacturing facilities and to continue to upgrade conditions for workers in subcontracted facilities around the world.† (â€Å"Nike establishes† 1) This department will monitor, compensation issues, benefits, the work environments, recruiting and hiring policies, overtime policies, worker management, environmental issues and supervision of independent monitoring systems. All these are large steps by Nike to improve it†s factories and to repair the relations with people here in the U.S. who are appalled by the reports of poor work environment workers are forced to endure. â€Å"The company has been tarred by an image as a sweatshop operator that exploits Asian workers who make shoes and apparel for Nike subcontractors. Nike†s efforts to be a good corporate citizen, and they have been considerable, have yet to sway the public forum. Basically, our culture, and our style, is to be a rebel, and we sort of enjoy doing that,† says Knight, who created a jock empire based on hero worship backed up with good product and great advertising. â€Å"Now that we reached a certain size there†s a fine line between being rebel and being a bully, and yeah, we have to walk that line.†Ã¢â‚¬  (Saporito 6) According to Knight he will continue to make the sport-wear giant successful any way he can. â€Å"The estimated net worth of co founder and current CEO Phil Knight is $5.4 billion, one of the wealthiest people in America.† (Miller 1) The issue remains whether the sports wear giant, Nike, will continue to do work in other countries, where labor is cheap and regulations are few, and not monitored on a normal basis. Nike will continue to exploit workers in these countries as long as America continues to buy the products. Nike, who recently spent $978 million in one year on advertising worldwide, depends upon Americans and their children to purchase its sneakers. Yet it locates 150 factories and some 350,000 jobs in Asia. Knight recently made the absurd and arrogant statement that, â€Å"Americans don†t want to make shoes.†Ã¢â‚¬  (Sanders 2) Is CEO Phil Knight right? Are American workers not willing to make the shoes that are so popular in stores and classrooms across the nation. If so, the exploitation will continue and Nike workers will remain underpaid and over worked in poor working conditions.

Monday, September 16, 2019

Cinema: Organizational Overview

What Is the span of control of the film purchase director? [2] The film purchase director has 3 subordinates which are under his command therefore the span of control is 3. 2. How many levels of hierarchy are there In the cinema buildings department? [2] There are 4 levels of hierarchy In the cinema buildings department which are the following: Cinema Buildings Director, Regional Buildings Managers, Cinema Managers (in each country) and Cinema Staff. 3. Outline three drawbacks of a centralized structure in this business. 6] A centralized structure Is a management structure where decision making Is done at higher levels by those with a strong position that includes having combined considerable knowledge and information about what needs to be done. In a centralized organization, decisions made by higher management are typically communicated to lower organizational levels who are then expected to accept and move forward in a way consistent with those decisions. Centralization Is keeping all of the Important decision making powers within head office or the centre of the organization.The control In this kind of organization Is kept In the centre. To begin with, a centralized structure may not be very suitable to this business. With a centralized structure, there will be more supervision and less flexibility, therefore managers will have to look for permission from a superior head office If they want to change or do something dissimilar. This will be negative to the cinema since it will delay decision making and make the cinemas less responsive to changes In the market. Moreover, a centralized structure would be a negative aspect to this kind of business (the cinema) since it directly affects managers.Since managers have to follow any instructions given by the command center, there will be very little chance to get managers to make their own decisions and be Innovative. This may be a hygiene factor' stated by the theorist Herbert. Their Jobs will be less challenging and less amusing and also their duty is lower. In this case having more responsibilities and a more challenging Job would be ‘motivators' in Herbert theory. A centralized structure would be a denominator to subordinates, lower in the hierarchy of staff.Furthermore, another aspect In which centralization could be negative in this kind of cuisines could be the following. On this kind of structure, the head manager would decide on how the cinemas have to work and even deciding on opening, closing and performing times. It will also decide on what kind of films have to perform on every cinema on the business branch. This would be a negative aspect since the business could operate on more than one country meaning that there are different cultures and preferred genres of films in every country.There would be several differences in the countries that Majestic Cinema operates in; therefore some films may not be popular on some countries. This could reduce potential demand and cinemas m ight miss out on lucrative opportunities. To conclude with, it is not always a very positive aspect to have a centralized structure on different kind of businesses specially those who tend to operate on more than one country which plays with different cultures and tastes. 4. Explain how Paul might decentralized the decision making in this business. 6] Decisions are allowed to be taken away from the head managers in a decentralized organization. In this case, for Paul to decentralized the decision making in this cuisines, he has to delegate the decision-making down the hierarchy of workers to a lower rank position. By delivering the business the span of control would increase, having more managers on each level, but it would be possible to delegate. In this case it may be true that Paul may want to delayer the organization; in the case study we can see that he speculates if middle managers are fully necessary.By delivering we mean that since middle managers are useless, it could be a good idea to remove them of the process. 5. Discuss the consequences to the business and to the cinema managers of centralizing decision-making authority to them. [10] organization. For decentralization to occur, it would be necessary to delegate decision-making down the hierarchy of workers. Decentralization is the transfer of decision making it is escorted by delegation of authority to individuals at any level in the organization.Decentralization decision-making authority of the business and cinema managers can be a positive aspect or a drawback to the business and the cinema managers. To begin with, this decentralization decision could be a benefit to them since it could be an opportunity to delayer the organization. By delivering the organization, they would be able to remove middle managers which may not be essential and in this way could eventually reduce the cost of the business. Moreover, decentralization decision-making authority would mean an increase in sales the need of consultation on head officers.Since this organization operates in more than one country, globally, it is obvious that each country has different cultures. By operating differently in each country, for cultural differences, the business could not lose the sales which could hypothetically been lost if each country was treated equally. The business would be now able to set different films and food/drinks according to the wants of each country. Furthermore, the decentralization idea could also be positive to the business but specially to managers.Decentralization could include delegation and a more important role to managers on the business. This supports Herbert theory of motivators in which managers are motivated by playing a more important role in the business. Managers also tend to prefer more challenging tasks in which they feel they have an input to the business. In addition, it would also be an advantage to customers and eventually the business. Decentralization would mean that the needs of the consumers could be attended with more flexibility.If the business manages to respond quickly to needs there would be an increased customer satisfaction which could finally lead to an increase in demand. On the other hand, decentralization may not be always as positive to the business or managers. Decentralization decision-making authority could provoke an increase in short term costs of delivering. When delivering, the business is making the middle managers redundant. In this situation the business might experience redundancy costs as well as contradictions from managers. What is more, Herbert theory may not be applied to every worker in the business.It is possible that not every worker would feel attracted to delegation or an increase in responsibility. It is likely that certain workers may prefer autocratic leadership and follow simple orders and rules since they may find this path easier and more practical. Additionally, the fact that the business would have to s ell different products on each cinema in the branch would be a negative aspect. It would be in this case since the business would have to buy different food and drinks for every single cinema in the branch, depending also on the region or culture it operates in.This would terminate with the advantage of bulk buying they had if they used a centralized structure, since they are now not buying in bulk and hence not getting economies of scale. Besides, a decentralized decision -making authority structure would mean that middle managers would be cut off. This means that managers on lower skilled levels would take more important roles in the decisions of the business. Since these managers loud be less skilled they could have more errors as they have less experience and be a negative aspect to the business.To bring to a close, it is arguable that businesses decide on having a decentralized decision-making authority structure since when decentralization the business not every worker is take n into account and the inexperience and denomination of workers may finish on disastrous endings to the business. Majestic cinemas would benefit from a flexible approach which could meet the needs of the customers more effectively and eventually having a long-term profit on the business.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Organization Design And Technology Of Sony Corporation Essay

Due to the fast-paced growth of Sony Corporation in the international market, it gave way for the misalignment of its market and internal expansion leading to the deterioration of its rate of technological development or the quality of its product lines, and the decline of the efficiency of its workforce as the number of responsibilities and tasks suddenly increased triggered by the market expansion of the said company. With the aid of ICT Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire and balance scorecard, Sony Corporation has been able to improve the quality of its product and workforce efficiency. By expanding the workforce of Sony, it can solve the deterioration of its rate of technological advancement and inefficiency on workforce on a long term basis. Between adding new position to the organization structure of Sony and hiring more workers to expand the workforce of the said company, adding new position to Sony Corporation is the one that fits to solve the above mentioned problems of Sony considering the cost of its implementation and effectiveness. Introduction With the growing competition in the international market, it is a must for Sony Corporation to secure competitive advantage in terms of internal stability and technological development. Most consumers nowadays provides more premium on the most advanced products in the market, and this is the primary reason why Sony Corporation allot significant amount of resources to research and development to maintain the pace of their technological development. Furthermore, Sony has designed its organization structure in such a way that it could easily respond to various new market challenges. But the forces of market competition and globalization blocks the technological advantages of Sony as well as destabilized the internal stability through attacking their organization design as various departments and key person of the said company shoulders broader responsibilities as the company continues to expand in the international market. Sony’s competitors, Panasonic, Toshiba, Apple, Microsoft, and Dell are just few of the many electronics companies also operating in the international market with fast-paced technological development (Isuppli. om 2006: 1). Due to this scenario, Sony’s products appears to be less technologically advanced compared to its competitors leading to a sudden down turn on their sales and profit internationally as their customers shift to their competitors (Eetimes. com 2008: 1). Furthermore, during the peak of Sony’s international operation, various departments and top level managers was bombarded with more tasks and responsibilities in order to support their market expansion which presently lead to the deterioration of their performances. Distribution of task and responsibilities is weak and most of the organization design of Sony is already obsolete considering the present condition of competition and globalization in the international market. In this regard, this paper aims to discuss how the forces of competition and globalization weaken the organization design and technological advantage of Sony as well as the potential alternatives that Sony must undertake in order to solve the said weaknesses. At the end of this paper, expect for a recommendation that would best solve the problems of Sony concerning its organization design and technology. Classification of Organization Structure Sony Corporation has been using divisional type of organizational design as illustrated by their organizational chart, see appendix (. During the early years of Sony’s operation in the market, the divisional type of organization design enables them to easily implement strategies and decisions to problems that need immediate solution. Since Sony was only on its development stage, they were able to fully utilize the optimal gains that can be derived from using divisional organization structure. The fast relay of information, decision making and implementation of strategies through the use of divisional organization design provided Sony with tremendous amount of gains in the international market as they start successfully penetrating their target market and out-performed their competitors in the market, making them one of the successful multinational companies around the globe (Goliath. ecnext. com 2007: 1). Furthermore, the divisional organization design enables Sony to specialize its â€Å"groups† since thereby improving the quality of their products in the market (Market Wire 2005: 1). Like for instance, the Sony Ericson Mobile Communications Group concentrate only to develop and produce mobile communication products in the market. The head of Ericson Mobile Communications Group is directly below the CEO of Sony, and so with their other groups (Sony. net 2008: 1). The direct relationship between the head of Sony’s groups and its CEO provides ease on decision making and distribution of information as well as strategies on brand development. But this organizational structure starts to provide instabilities to Sony Corporation as it continues to grow as electronics industry superpower in the international market. As the company grew in the international market, responsibilities of each head of various groups also increased up to the point wherein they start performing inefficiently as their time being spent on every vital aspect of their operation become lesser and lesser. In this regard, the present status of divisional organization design to Sony becomes ineffective and only provides instabilities as the executives of the company starts to perform inefficiently on their respective fields. But divisional organization design fits Sony than any other organization structure available in the business management realm. Since Sony have a diversity of products in the market, and each group specializes into the production of their own product lines, then, divisional structure already fits Sony. The only problem lies on the fact that every executive of Sony starts gaining more responsibilities in his/her assigned group. In other words, the international expansion of Sony in the recent years was not accompanied by expansion of internal responsibilities of various executives of the said company, thereby leading to a down turn on their overall performance. In order for Sony to restore the stability of its internal affairs, it does not have to change its organization design; rather, Sony management can make improvements on their divisional structure by adding new positions or by appointing executive assistants to key positions on various groups of the said company. This strategy will provide enough room for the key personnel of Sony to manage their responsibilities well and delegate those less priority tasks to their assistance or new positions in the group. In other words, this strategy will give way for the internal expansion of Sony while maintaining their original organization design that was already proven to be effective and fit to the business structure of Sony Corporation. Choosing organization structure other than divisional design would provide great risk since Sony operates on various groups with different product lines to produce into the market. Furthermore, each group has less influence on one another and almost operates independently from other group while their headquarters and CEO serves as the link between them. In this regard, it is vital for Sony Corporation to implement the said internal expansion of their groups in order for them to re-establish their competitive advantage in the international market in terms of internal stability and workforce efficiency especially during these times wherein the forces of tight market competition and globalization calls for the acquisition of more potential sources of competitive advantages to keep the pace of Sony’s growth internationally. Key Determinant and Influences on Organizational Structure One of the main strategies of Sony in expanding its share on the international market would be the diversification of its product line from electronics to B2B business solutions, which later on enables the company to tap various resources. Since each product line of Sony needs different production processes compared to others, Sony decided to use divisional organizational structure in order to easily manage the entire company without compromising the quality of their product lines. For instance, Sony Financial Holdings Group provides business solution services to the market and needs different operational processes compared to Sony Entertainment Business Group that provides television, digital cameras, and video cameras in the market. Each of these groups requires different set of operational style, set of skills and equipments, and set of strategies, thereby providing enough room to these groups to operate independently from one another would enhance their productivity and efficiency as they specialize into their production process. This is the main reason why Sony chose to use divisional organization design in order to provide enough room for each product line to be developed separately by workers specialized on producing it from other product line. In this regard, the strategy of Sony to diversify its product line gave way for the use of divisional organization structure. Furthermore, another factor that serves to be the key determinant of Sony Corporation’s organization structure would be its growth rate. Sony Corporation has roughly 4 percent sales growth rate internationally as of this month which is relatively higher compared to its rival companies like Panasonic with -2. 78 percent sales growth rate (Reuters. com 2008: 1). During the initial stage of Sony’s growth in the international market, as their product become more diverse leading to a fast-paced growth, Sony chose to use divisional organization structure to allow the company to cope up with the said growth rate since divisional organization structure provides enough room for Sony to further develop their diverse product line through specialization. At present, the root of organization stability of Sony roots on the fact that they were not able to accompanied their market growth and expansion with internal expansion causing for the divisional organization structure to work inefficiently. Once the internal growth rate of Sony already aligned itself to its market growth, then, that is the only time wherein Sony can fully utilize the potential gains of using divisional organization structure. In this regard, it is therefore vital for Sony to keep track its market growth and internal growth if whether these two still align each other since these affects the performance of their organization structure. The strategy and growth of Sony is interrelated to one another and this is the main reason why these two factors greatly affect its organization structure. The strategy of Sony to diversify its product line provided them with enough opportunity to increase their market share in the international market. The said product line expansion and increase of market share enable Sony to easily penetrate its target market and outperformed its competitors. Furthermore, as Sony continues to successfully penetrate its target market and outperformed its competitors, it starts to gain impressive growth in the market due to higher sales and profit. But the said market growth of Sony was not accompanied by internal expansion which presently leads to tremendous losses as key personnel of its groups starts performing inefficiently and ineffectiveness of their organization structure. Furthermore, as these key personnel of Sony perform inefficiently, the research and development of their products starts to drop, giving enough room for its competitors to step up in the electronics and business solutions industry and provide financial losses to the company (Forbes. com 2008: 1). Therefore, at this point in time, it is vital for Sony to address these instabilities on its workforce in order to restore their competitiveness in the international market with respect to their market strategies and technological advancement. Organizational Effectiveness One way in which Sony Corporation evaluates performance would be through the use of Information and Communications Technology Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire which aims to determine if whether their suppliers uphold the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct. Since suppliers have a direct impact on the overall performance of Sony in terms of product quality, along with other electronics companies around the globe such as HP, IBM, and Microsoft, Sony Corporation created the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct which encompasses the ICT Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire. Through the ICT Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire, Sony can monitor the product quality of their suppliers. By securing the performance of their suppliers, Sony Corporation has been able to maintain its integrity of producing high quality products in the market. There were cases wherein Sony Corporation was sued for releasing substandard products in the market. Like what happened recently when a couple sued Sony when the battery of a Sony laptop exploded causing injuries to the complainants. Due to this, Sony had to pull out all of the batteries that were being suspected as substandard and replaced with a new one in order to prevent having more accidents. In this regard, through the ICT Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire, Sony Corporation can stop the above mentioned accident caused to substandard products that they release in the market which mostly came from their suppliers. Dell, the maker of the said substandard battery of Sony laptop, is now making collaboration with Sony in pulling out those substandard laptop batteries in the market. Another way by which Sony evaluates their performance is through the use of balance scorecard. Balance score card help every organization in the market to determine if whether their smaller scale operational activities are still aligned with their larger scale activities. As for the case of Sony Corporation, it uses balance scorecard in determining the alignment operational processes of its groups, e. g. Sony Ericson Mobile Communications, Game Business Group, Entertainment Business Group, and Sony Financial Holdings Group, to the vision and strategy of the entire organization. For instance, the balance scorecard is being used by Sony Corporation in determining if whether the processes used in producing Sony Ericsson in the market are still aligned with the Corporate Social Responsibility of the entire company. Through this, Sony Corporation can keep their various groups intact to the vision and strategies of their â€Å"parent† company – Sony Corporation. Just recently, Sony Ericsson phone was awarded as the most â€Å"Eco-Friendly† phone in the market and the said award is being attributed to the continues success of Sony Corporation to uphold its Corporate Social Responsibility on minimizing the wastes being emitted in producing the said product (Sayer 2008: 1). Considering the said success of Sony Ericsson phone in the market, there is a great possibility that it can earn positive balance scorecard by upholding the CSR of Sony Corporation, which can eventually serve as the basis for further development of Sony Ericsson phone in the market (Ericsson. co. jp 2005: 9). Therefore, balance scorecard provides enough room for Sony Corporation to determine the alignment of their product lines to their vision and strategy especially when it concerns the integrity of their brand name. At this point, the performance evaluation tools of Sony Corporation, ICT Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire and Balance Scorecard, has been able to solve its problem regarding maintaining the quality of their products in the market by securing the compliance of their suppliers and aligning the production processes of their product lines into their Corporate Social Responsibilities. Therefore, ICT Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire and Balance Scorecard fit to the vision and strategies of Sony Corporation based from their successful solution regarding the low quality level of Sony’s products in the market. This issue on quality level and on how the above identified evaluation tools of Sony Corporation solved it will be thoroughly discussed in the next part of the paper. Critical Analysis of Current Problems Actually, the main problem of Sony Corporation would be the misalignment of its market and internal expansion that eventually lead to various â€Å"branch-problems† like low performance rate from the workforce of the company as well as the deterioration of the quality level of their product lines in the market. The fast-paced growth of Sony in the past years, while leaving their internal condition to remain untouched, provided inefficiencies on the part of their workforce as the responsibility of one another can no longer be performed as efficient as before, and low product quality as the said inefficiencies on their workforce started to reflect on the quality level of their product lines. This is the main reason why Sony Corporation suffers from return on investment and profit on its operation as their customers shift to the side of their competitors since the latter already have relatively technologically advanced product lines in the market compared to Sony Corporation. In order to provide a long term solution to this problem of Sony Corporation, it is a must for the management of the said company to expand their workforce either by adding new positions to reinforce the key positions in the company or hire more workers to delegate the tasks optimally among their workforce. But at present, Sony Corporation is applying short term solutions to these problems through the use of evaluation tools as discussed on the previous part of this paper. First, the ICT Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire provided solution on securing the quality of their supplier’s products which later on be used on the production process of Sony. With the ICT Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire, Sony can monitor if whether the supplies of their suppliers are substandard or complies with the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct which sets up the standards for electronic products in the market (Greenwald 2005: 2). Sony Corporation can now minimize the incidence of product malfunction or substandard components of their product lines just like what happened to the batteries of Sony’s laptop that exploded due to overheating. ICT Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire will improve the quality of Sony’s product line even up to a small degree since it only solves their problem on the side of their supplier and not the root of the problem which still lies on the internal stability of their workforce. With the rise of ICT Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire and Electronic Industry Code of Conduct, cases of substandard electronic products in the market will be minimized leading for Sony to improve the quality level of its products (United Nations Environment Program 2005: 1). In this regard, through the use of ICT Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire, Sony Corporation manages to improve the quality of their product lines even up to a small degree. On the other hand, the balance scorecard of Sony Corporation provides enough room for the said company to improve the quality of their workforce’s performance since the company can determine if whether a group or department already performs outside the boundaries of their vision and corporate strategies. There are times wherein the misalignment of Sony Corporation’s products to their vision and corporate strategies roots on the inefficient performance of workforce of a given department or group, and balance scorecard can determine if whether a given group of Sony Corporation performs inefficiently based from the evaluation of the products being produced by that given group. Through this, Sony Corporation can easily determine which group among its companies needs to undergo workforce expansion to solve the said inefficiency of their workers. In this regard, the balance scorecard provides two services to Sony Corporation, evaluation of their product’s performance in the market and its alignment to the vision and corporate strategies of the company, and on which group of the company needs workforce expansion in order to improve the quality of their product lines just like what happened to Sony Ericsson phone in the market (Esato. com 2007: 1). Solutions In order for Sony Corporation to have long term solution to their problem regarding the misalignment of their market and internal expansion as the consequence of their fast-paced growth, it is advisable for them to expand their workforce either by adding new positions into their organization structure to optimally delegate the tasks among the workers of the company; or, the management could hire more workers that will handle the additional responsibilities provided by the market expansion of the company. Furthermore, through adding new position to the organization structure to various business groups of Sony Corporation, e. g. executive assistants will give their key executives to delegate some of the less important tasks and responsibilities to their assistants so they can concentrate to more responsibilities. The divisional organization structure of Sony Corporation will still be used in the organization design of Sony under the said strategy considering that it is the only organization design that fits to the business nature of Sony Corporation as discussed on the previous part of this paper. On the other hand, with regards to hiring more workers that will be responsible on shouldering the additional tasks provided by the market expansion of Sony Corporation, this will provide Sony with enough room to improve the efficiency of their workforce as every person on their workforce can now perform their responsibilities to their optimal level since tasks are now well distributed on their workforce. At the end of the day, these strategies will improve the quality of Sony’s workforce and so with the quality of their products. The only problem with hiring of additional workers would be the fact that it is costly to hire more workers for the company considering that Sony is presently suffering from low profitability in the market compared to adding new position to the organization structure of Sony Corporation. Recommendation Both of the above mentioned strategies provides same improvement on lifting the efficiency of Sony Corporation’s workforce and boosting its product quality level, but in terms of costs on the part of the company, adding new positions to the organization structure of Sony is relatively cheaper than hiring more workers. In this regard, alongside with the performance evaluation tools of Sony Corporation, it is a must for their management to add new positions into the divisional organization structure of the company to provide long term solution on their low quality product in terms of technology and improving the efficiency of their workforce considering the extent of their market expansion in the global market. Conclusion With the misalignment of market and internal expansion of Sony Corporation due to its fast-paced growth in the international market, it provided various problems into the said company. Technological advancement of Sony’s products drops while the efficiency of its workforce decline due to the significant increase on tasks and responsibilities on the workplace caused by the fast-paced growth of Sony in the recent years. Through adding new positions on the organization structure of Sony, it can already improve the efficiency of its workforce and so with the rate of its product line’s technological advancement in the market.