Confessions By Saint Augustine And The Nicomachean Ethics

Julie Costello Professor Halper December 18, 2015 Final Paper In both, Confessions by Saint Augustine and The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle the theme of friendship is constantly portrayed. Each philosopher has his own respected thoughts and opinions about the different aspects of friendship. This paper will argue both the similarities and differences between Aristotle and Saint Augustine’s argument about the role of friendship. In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that friendship is the greatest of external goods which is necessary to live a pleasant life. Aristotle then proceeds to define three different kinds of friendships: utility, pleasure, and purpose. He begins his argument with examining friendship based on utility. He claims that under this friendship, both people derive some benefit from the other. He indicates that this type of friendship is when two people use one another to be able to better oneself with the help of the other partner in the friendship. Aristotle further supports this claim when he state s, â€Å"Now those who love each other because of utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other,† (Nicomachean Ethics, p.144) implying that this is the type of love that people get from one another for the purpose of getting some type of good (idk if good is a good word here) out of the other person. (kinda sounds like a wordy sentence) The good that the other person is getting out of the friendshipShow MoreRelated Excessive of Self-restraint in Saint Augustine’s Confessions1686 Words   |  7 PagesExcessive of Self-restraint in Saint Augustine’s Confessions When it comes to renunciation, no pain, no gain is what Ive slowly, reluctantly, inexorably come to believe. And when Pete opted for scholarly monkhood, I think he was just trying to outsmart his pain. . . . Hed calculated that by considering the physical world illusory and burying his nose in metaphysical texts he could go on doing something comfortable--while his ignorance and sufferings and hometown and troublesome familyRead MoreIn Confessions By Saint Augustine He Recognizes That Friendships1329 Words   |  6 PagesIn Confessions by Saint Augustine he recognizes that friendships are necessities to human life because they bring people happiness and during the course of his life he ponders the role of happiness plays in his life. The philosophical term for happiness is Eudaimonia which is imperative to creating a whole person. Friends help strengthen and encourage Augustine to find a sense of community and belonging. He evaluates his friendships over the course of the three life stages. These stages in his lifeRead More Happiness in the Fourth Epistle of Alexander Popes An Essay on Man5580 Words   |  23 Pagesbeginning of the fourth epistle, The heritage of the supremacy of happiness is impressive. For example, Aristotle believed that happiness was mans strongest desire which involved an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue or excellence (Nicomachean Ethics I. v). Likewise Cicero stated that those who achieve [virtue], guiding themselves by magnanimity and uprightness, are always happy (De Finibus V. xxiv. 71). Richard Hooker similarly argued that all men desire a happy life based on the unencumbered

Multicultural Communication Free Essays

In this clip, the ISRC (International Committee of the Red Cross discuss how the Red Cross performs humanitarian aid within the political climate and upheaval of the modern world. Members of the board include someone from Great Britain, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. The discussion between persons from different countries and cultures is a fascinating watch to see how influence, negotiation, and immunization takes place at the highest levels. We will write a custom essay sample on Multicultural Communication or any similar topic only for you Order Now Liking They all communicate very formally, sometimes clumsily, in English. Several elements of influence are demonstrated. At the conclusion of her opening remarks, Bea Ivanhoe, Director of the ISRC Visitor Service Center, refers to Peter Manure as ‘his Excellency’. This is not common language, but in a formal, eastern European setting, this provides Mr.. Manure a form of Authority. When one leader refers to another in this manner, it makes clear to the audience that Mr.. Manure likes the presenter, and his credibility can easily transfer in the audiences mind.. Liking is defined as a principle â€Å"that holds that people are more likely to be influenced by those whom they like or with whom they have similarities† (Localhost Burton, 2010). When introducing Mr.. Manure, Ms. Ivanhoe actually nods her head in subjection as well. Social Proof Alexander Basel begins his speech in his native French when speaking to his immediate superiors. However, when opening remarks begin to be addressed to the general audience, he transfers to English. This is a way of demonstrating social proof hat he is well respected by his compatriots, and therefore should be respected by other on the panel and in the audience. Social proof is defined as a â€Å"principle of influence that states people are more likely to want to do something if they believe that many others are doing the same thing or buying the same product† (Localhost Burton, 2010). Reciprocation When the panel begins its discussion, Mr.. Manure discusses how Professor Musses Capita mentioned that the ISRC is successful because it runs away from politics. Mr.. Manure compliments Professor Capita on his expertise, then disagrees to say that the ISRC works within the confines of the political landscape, but does not run from it. This compliment then disagree is all done without emotion, and done in the same way that DRP. Capita speaks, this is a form of reciprocation. As defined, reciprocation is a â€Å"principle of influence that states people are more likely to say yes too request when the requester has done something for that person in the past† (Localhost Burton, 2010). Non-verbal Communication Conformity Antonio Gestures (Portugal) begins his discussion with much more facial expressions ND hand gestures than the remainder of the board. When asked questions, he uses his body language to appear humble in his responses and positions. This non-verbal communication gives an appearance of conformity, and shows he is not one to rebel against the group. How to cite Multicultural Communication, Papers

Various Research Works and its Relevant Application

Question: Write an essay onVarious research works and its relevant application. Answer: Introduction Various research works and its relevant application in the field of organizations as well as applicable contextual factors will be described. In this assignment, some of the factors are going to be analyzed critically. Organizational behavior generally, explores the effects that individual, groups and organizational composition have on behavior within an organization. The impact of these factors is compelling enough from the corporate behavioral perspective. The key components are motivation in an organization, group dynamics and team work, organizational culture, traits, creativity and innovations, personality, skills and capabilities of every individual, and finally the leadership in an organization. Developments of these are necessary to understand for improvement of the performance of employees and the overall organization. A. Individual differences: personality, skills, and abilities Individual differences are the different aspects that are intimately collaborated with organizational behavior (Krishnan, P., Krutikova, 2013). Personal reflection is dependent on the personality traits of each person working in an organization. Different authors define the definition of personality in a variety of ways those are different from one another. According to (Nielsen Nielsen, 2013), personality is a unique character that is helpful to discriminate one person from another. The factors that come into consideration during the measurement of any individuals personality are emotion, expressions, posture, gesture, communication style, behavior, etc. The personality traits can be defined with the help of the skills and abilities that someone has (Morgeson et al., 2013). These features differentiate one employee to another. The skills and abilities of a person cannot be same with any other person. Therefore, this uniqueness enables a person to become famous or to get non famous in the working environment (Daft, 2014). An experienced person can give a lot to the organization. From the training and development aspects, it is found that skill is the characteristics that define the personality of a person. This adjective always gives positive impact to an organization. Skill is the defining character of an employee whereas the ability is the outcome of a skillful person (Rabin, 2013). An experienced person possesses massive positive deliveries to an organization. Skill is something which is strictly related to development and training programs (Albon, Iqba Pearson, 2016). Skill can be enhanced if a person shares it with others the ability also increases with increased practice level. Saxena Jain, (2013) opined that ability of a person is always based on the training, general knowledge and education. If a person pursues training and development programs then it can enhance the performance level of the person (Krishnan Krutikova, (2013). Again, if a person is not enough educated, then a communication gap will occur which the lead the organization in a loss. The behavioral model explains that the two major attributes that distinguish an individual ability and personality. It is visible at certain situations and their traits are distinguishable in every person. According to a study the difference is obvious and each person is different from the psychological point of consideration. The identity of a person is endowed with traits and character that complete the characteristics of that person (Ritzhaupt Martin, 2014). The character traits, habits, temperament, and interest prevailing in the individual are manifested as a cognitive process considering the individual style of activity. The process of understanding the personality traits for analyzing the individual differences is important for the leaders and managers. In an organizational setting, the study of the personal traits and individual differences helps the supervisors for relating the qualities as per the need of the organization (Morgeson et al., 2013). There are number of tests that can be used for predicting and describing the personality of an individual. The managers can use the understanding of the individuals for managing and determining the consequences of bringing the individual in the organization. The MBTI or the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and Big Five Personality Model can be used for measuring the personality of the individual. B. Motivation in Organizations According to Belle, (2013) the acronym motivation implies several acting forces on an employee that help him or her to be more precise, well mannered and organized regarding the organizational goals. It impels a person Motivation is one of the major factors that come into consideration during the assessment of individuals within organizations (Wright, Moynihan Pandey, 2012). Motivation analyzing enhances the overall performance of every individual working in an organization. Motivation is the ratio of return and the ability of every person working in an organization. The process flow moves through different components such as cooperation, reward etc. In order to accomplish objectives of an organization motivation from the higher authority is also required (Bozeman Su, 2015). It is the combination of various internal and external factors that invigorates the wish and spark in every individual employee. These factors motivate the employees to be more committed and interested in their job profiles (McShane Von Glinow, 2015). Different authors define different kinds of motivational aspects. There are two kinds of motivations that are found in the field of organizational behavior (McShane Von Glinow, 2015). There are two kinds of motivational aspects in the field of organizational behavior such as intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation (Albon, Iqba Pearson, 2016). Intrinsic motivation is nothing else but is referred to like the job satisfaction of every individual working in an organization. This state is independent of the platform or any complimentary factor. This motivational factor mainly motivates an employee while he or she is working in an organization. The reward, payment hike or reprimands are not aspects which help the operator in case of intrinsic motivation. It is an intra-organizational component. While an employee is working in an organization his commitment to the task is paramount; then it will be a natural disturbance to that employee. Extrinsic motivations are the external factor s. These are payment hike, motivation from the top level managerial team, annual reward processing ceremony. These factors are also motivation to the employees. Sometimes it happened that the working ambiance is not favorable to one employee that time these kinds of motivations provide positive vibes to them (Liu Maitlis, 2014). In addition to this, motivation to an employee sometimes gives positive impact and sometimes it provides negative vibes to an employee (Nielsen Nielsen, 2013). These diagnostic keys always influence the performance of an individual and also the overall performance of an organization. The motivational theory explains that the workers are inspired on the account of various intentions. Some of them are completely desired entity that results in the motivation of the individual. The most significant aspect for each worker is their desires and requirements. The worker can be motivated by; Praising and Recognition, Job security, Opportunity for advancements, attaining new experiences and effective communication among the organization (Albon, Iqba Pearson, 2016). It is important for letting the workers to get involved in decision making process. The unbiased nature of the superiors also let the workers to get motivated for getting the work done. C. Group Dynamics and Work Teams Group dynamics and organizational teamwork are another important component that influences the performance of the team and the overall performance of an organization. Group dynamics and the teamwork may have a positive negative impact on an organization. Positive results always improve the performance of the team and in order to achieve the ultimate goal that is being decided previously for a team. Again, when a team is working for an organization several people will be working on the same task. Thus, there will be a huge possibility of organizational contradiction. As, a team content different kinds of people who are having a different thought, mindset, communication style, behaviors, therefore, the views of team members will also be different (Krishnan Krutikova, 2013). For the different point of opinion organization contradict will undoubtedly occur in that society. Thus, a team should have one decision maker who will make the final determination for the team. Before making any f inal decision, the necessity of the importance and benefit measurement is imperative (Trastek, 2013). The decision maker defines the most efficient one from all the views provided by the team members. In case of group formation the management team should consider some factors such as forming, storming, norming etc. The members of the group should always belong from the same background such as if the team is finance team then the employees belonging to that must have a background in finance. Again if the team is a management team, then all the members belonging to that group must have a management background. There are many positive impacts of teamwork in an organization. It is found that when many members of a team are working for an organization there will be a possibility of summation of all their critical thoughts (Valentine, Nembhard Edmondson, 2015). Sometimes it happens that the team is consists of many people having out of box logical thinking. Then those thoughts will sum up together to make a final decision for the organization (Zimbardo Boyd, 2015). The group is a collection of two or more than two free interacting people with shared norms, values, and culture to provi de a collective identity for the team as well as to an organization. In an organization, two kinds of groups are found such as formal and informal. The group dynamics is required to follow certain steps. These steps are as followed: Forming: This is the first step necessary for the formation of a group. In the case of forming certain aspects are always kept in mind. During formation, the individual characteristics of the team members are needed to be examined minutely. This is the most conflict situation during the team formation. As this time the member is unknown to each other and they always think that the other officers of the organization will not support their views. Storming: In this step, the teamwork collaborates on the task. The team members will understand the views of one another (Wright, Moynihan Pandey, 2012). During the team work thoughts of all the members are collaborated. Norming: In this case, the teamwork moves on in order to achieve the goal of the organization. In this stage members of the team starts to know each other to resolve the differences and to motivate one another. People get strongly committed to their job profile to improve the overall performance. Performance: The performance of the team which is responsible for enhancing the performance of the entire group took place in this step (McShane Von Glinow, 2015). The team members work together with all others support and motivation. This time, the emotional attachment of every individual is also calculated. If a team collaborates on a project and the task is about to complete then the members start realizing that the existence of the previous team will be staying jut for some days (Morgeson, 2013). The attachment of the team members with their task always improves the individual performance and also the overall performance of the organization. Adjourning: This is the last rather ultimate step of group dynamics. Any project team exists only for particular time period. In this stage construction of new team starts and even existing team reconstruction also starts. D. Leadership in organizations Leadership in an organization is one of the most important factors that come into consideration during the measurement of organizational traits. Leadership is different from the management of an organization. Thus, the function of a leader and manager is also different from one another (Zimbardo Boyd, 2015). The role played of a leader is imperative in the field of organizational application. The leader is the person who takes all the vital decisions which are necessary to make for the overall performance improvement of an organization. The director of an organization plans, organizes and coordinate with the team members whereas the leader leaders the entire working process (Morgeson, 2013). The leadership traits motivate and inspire the performance of the team members. Leaders innovates new things in the organization that enhances the overall performance of the team. Moore et al., (2012) Opined that the manager develops the performance of the team members, and it originated challenges within the team members and outside the team also. It has been found that the leaders make the transformation from the potential to the reality. Real leadership is necessary to improve the overall performance of a team. Leadership is an organization the key resource in any organization. Companies compete with one another based on the quality of their products (McShane Von Glinow, 2015). Innovative products are produced with the help of the support and constructive suggestions provided by a leader of an organization. A better leader always leads a group in order to create a better product in the competitive marketplace which will bring commercial benefits to the organization. A leader of an organization always tries to accomplish the requirement of a client. In order to mitigate the issues an organization should incorporate the working principle of a manager and the play role of a leader (Krishnan Krutikova, 2013). If a management unable to provide a perfect leadership to its organization then the total system will be corrupted. Leadership Styles has been divided on the basis of the qualities of the leader and the way of communication and decision making. Autocratic is the leadership style in which the leader is sole responsible for the work and decision making process. In democratic style of leadership the process of decision making is solely dependent on the leader. The communication is restricted and anarchical (Morgeson, 2013). Transformational leadership is the most suitable leadership style for any organization. In this transformational style the leader are motivators and they encourage their subordinates and followers. The style is dependent on the higher level of the communication in the level of management. The leadership style is noted for the system where the leader engages in work with their subordinates for identifying the required change (Moore et al., 2012). They create the vision that helps in the change of the plan for achieving the goal of the organization. Transformational leadership style is committed to serve the purpose of enhancement of the moral and performance of the job. E. Organizational culture, creativity, and innovation Corporate culture is one of the most fundamental entities that are required to achieve the final goal of an organization. The culture of every individual along with the culture of the entire organization influences the performance of the team and the performance of an organization as well (Krishnan Krutikova, 2013). In teamwork, the culture of every member is needed to be measured. If the thought of all the members is different, then there is a chance of occurrence of two parallel situations. As every individual have different skills thoughts, culture, and behavior, therefore, it may create the problem within the team (McShane Von Glinow, 2015). The barrier in the communication can be set up due to the occurrence of this issue. Various thoughts and creativity implementation in a task may create innovation in the performance rather it can be said that the creativity addition in the task may improve the overall performance of a team. Sometimes this is also found that the creativity of a team is partially dependent on the group members (Hoch Kozlowski, (2014). The members working in a group must have an interactive nature so that whatever thought is there in their mind they can share it with all the other members of the team. If the team members are motivating, then they can freely share their views with one another. It is not possible that a group contains all productive members. Creativity in the team leads one organization to innovations. Organizational culture is one of the most important factors that influence the performance. Some group members always have the capability to think in different ways. Therefore if the task contains all the logical thought together then, it will lead the company to ultimate benefits (Ritzhaupt Martin, 2014). Leadership in the teamwork is also required in order to obtain the best possible solution for any task. If the team is working on an IT project, then the group members must have compact knowledge in at least some of the mandatory subjects of IT. Then in the first step all the members should share their views about that particular project (Saxena Jain, 2013). The thoughts of all the members are arranged in a well-organized manner. Some of the team members have some out of box knowledge about the project. Those knowledge summations will give creativity in the project work (Wright, Moynihan Pandey, 2012). At the same time, the creativity will provide innovation in the task. Therefore it can be said that organizational culture, creativity, and innovations are interrelated to each other. Teamwork has some positive impacts, but there is a chance of occurrence of adverse working environment for a large number of team members and their different views on the same topic. It is found that due to the presence of a huge number of members in a team a simple decision making process can become complicated (Valentine, Nembhard Edmondson, 2015). Numbers of shared thoughts make the team lead confuse to choose the best option for them. If one of the provided suggestions given by the team members got selected then, other employees might sometimes feel jealous for that. Apart from this, for different views, a simple decision making process may become time-consuming (Ritzhaupt Martin, 2014). In order to mitigate this issue, an organization should acquire some steps. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is found that different organizational context is defined by organizational behavior. It explains the key components of the behavioral aspects. These are necessary to improve the overall performance of the company. First one is the summation of the thoughts of all members and the second one is the possibility of problem incidents. A different member belonging to the same group can create confusion within the team work. The terms leadership and management are different, but these are complimentary to each other. It is unnecessary to differentiate the role play of a manager and a leader in an organization otherwise it will cause intra-organizational problems. References Albon, S. P., Iqba, I., Pearson, M. L. (2016) Strategic Planning in an Educational Development Centre: Motivation, Management, and MessinessCollected Essays on Learning and Teaching,9, 227-236 Bell, N. (2013). Experimental evidence on the relationship between public service motivation and job performancePublic Administration Review,73(1), 143-153. Bozeman, B., Su, X. (2015) Public service motivation concepts and theory: A critique.Public Administration Review,75(5), 700-710. Caliendo, M., Fossen, F., Kritikos, A. S. (2014) Personality characteristics and the decisions to become and stay self-employed.Small Business Economics,42(4), 787-814 Daft, R. L. (2014).The leadership experience. Cengage Learning. Hoch, J. E., Kozlowski, S. W. (2014) Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership, structural supports, and shared team leadership.Journal of applied psychology,99(3), 390. Judge, T. A., Kammeyerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Mueller, J. D. (2012) General and specific measures in organizational behavior research: Considerations, examples, and recommendations for researchers.Journal of Organizational Behavior,33(2), 161-174. Krishnan, P., Krutikova, S. (2013). Non-cognitive skill formation in poor neighbourhoods of urban India.Labour Economics,24, 68-85 Ku, H. Y., Tseng, H. W., Akarasriworn, C. (2013) Collaboration factors, teamwork satisfaction, and student attitudes toward online collaborative learning.Computers in Human Behavior,29(3), 922-929. Liu, F., Maitlis, S. (2014). Emotional dynamics and strategizing processes: a study of strategic conversations in top team meetings.Journal of Management Studies,51(2), 202-234. McShane, S. L., Von Glinow, M. A. (2015) Organizational Behavior 7/e Moore, C., Detert, J. R., KLEBE TREVIO, L. I. N. D. A., Baker, V. L., Mayer, D. M. (2012). Why employees do bad things: Moral disengagement and unethical organizational behavior.Personnel Psychology,65(1), 1-48. Morgeson, F. P., Aguinis, H., Waldman, D. A., Siegel, D. S. (2013) Extending corporate social responsibility research to the human resource management and organizational behavior domains: A look to the future.Personnel Psychology,66(4), 805-824 Nielsen, B. B., Nielsen, S. (2013). Top management team nationality diversity and firm performance: A multilevel study.Strategic Management Journal,34(3), 373-382. O'Neill, T. A., Goffin, R. D., Gellatly, I. R. (2012). The knowledge, skill, and ability requirements for teamwork: Revisiting the teamworkà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ KSA test's validity.International Journal of Selection and Assessment,20(1), 36-52. Rabin, R. (2013). Blended Learning for Leadership The CCL Approach.White paper of Centre for Creative Leadership Ritzhaupt, A. D., Martin, F. (2014). Development and validation of the educational technologist multimedia competency survey.Educational Technology Research and Development,62(1), 13-33. Saxena, S., Jain, R. K. (2013). Social intelligence of undergraduate students in relation to their gender and subject stream.Journal of Research Method in Education,1(1), 1-4 Sue-Chan, C., Wood, R. E., Latham, G. P. (2012) Effect of a coachs regulatory focus and an individuals implicit person theory on individual performanceJournal of Management,38(3), 809-835 Trastek, V. F., Hamilton, N. W., Niles, E. E. (2014, March). Leadership models in health carea case for servant leadership. InMayo Clinic Proceedings(Vol. 89, No. 3, pp. 374-381) Elsevier Valentine, M. A., Nembhard, I. M., Edmondson, A. C. (2015) Measuring teamwork in health care settings: a review of survey instrumentsMedical Care,53(4), e16-e30 Wright, B. E., Moynihan, D. P., Pandey, S. K. (2012). Pulling the levers: Transformational leadership, public service motivation, and mission valencePublic Administration Review,72(2), 206-215 Zimbardo, P. G., Boyd, J. N. (2015) Putting time in perspective: A valid, reliable individual-differences metric InTime Perspective Theory; Review, Research and Application(pp. 17-55) Springer International Publishing

Research Proposal on Viral Marketing Essay Example

Research Proposal on Viral Marketing Essay Viral marketing is the general term which is used to define various methods of advertising, which are characterized with the extremely rapid spreading of ads by the individuals who are not connected with the company or producer of the advertisement. Viral marketing is exists due to the Internet and other media. The process of the spreading of information is easy. The advertisement which contains a smart and bright idea is perceived by the consumer and when he is interested in the ad he simply shares the information with his friends and relatives. Naturally, people do not believe in advertising and if the ad is promoted by the company itself, the credit towards such ad is very low. But if people see that the ad is spread by the independent individuals, they start to believe in the sense of the ad. Years ago viral marketing existed in the form of the printed ads which were spread on the street in great numbers. Today the necessity of the printed ads disappeared, due to the development of the Internet and especially the social networks, like Facebook, forums, blogs, etc. The technique of current viral marketing is very easy: the company creates an account in the social network and writes to numerous people messages which also include the reference to the certain advertisement of the company. People look through the ad and become familiar with it. Every day more than 50 000 people can watch the ad increasing its popularity. Of course, many people simply ignore such messages treating it like spam, but the effect of this type of marketing is enormous. We will write a custom essay sample on Research Proposal on Viral Marketing specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Research Proposal on Viral Marketing specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Research Proposal on Viral Marketing specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Viral marketing is one of the most useful types of marketing applied in the current times and it has its advantages and disadvantages. Being quite a young method of marketing viral marketing has a wide field of perspectives for the young people who want to get involved into this process. A good viral marketing research proposal should present the purpose of the research, illustrate the relevance of viral marketing and its effectiveness nowadays. The student should pay attention to the methods of the research, the sources used for it and the convincing manner of writing to make the professor permit to research the very topic deeper. The main problem related with research proposal writing is the lack of the writing experience and the disability of students to write in the persuasive manner. In order to succeed in the process of writing the student can use the Internet and read a free example research proposal on viral marketing written by an expert online. With the help of the free sample research proposal on viral marketing one can learn about the process of writing and formatting a lot and complete the assignment well. NOTE!!! All free sample research proposals and examples on Viral Marketing are 100% plagiarized, we are here to help you! EssayLib.com is a leading research proposal writing service, which can offer you the solution you have been looking for. With thousands of written research papers and proposals for Master’s and PhD degrees, we can give you exactly what you need at very affordable prices. Our experienced writers will prove you that high quality and exclusivity is a trademark of our products. We can guarantee your confidentiality and promise you strict on time delivery. There are many reasons for EssayLib.com to become your favorite research proposal writing service, but all we are asking you – just give us a try!

Corporate Citizenship - Becks Theory of the World Risk Society

Corporate Citizenship - Becks Theory of the World Risk Society Lucianne WhiteCorporate CitizenshipAssignment 1IntroductionCorporate citizenship is based on the premise that businesses will actresponsibly towards society, thus proving to be socially responsible.This essay will look at the three theories of citizenship.Risk in society is viewed by three main approaches, human behaviourapproach, techno-scientific approach and sociocultural approach.Each of these approaches puts yet another spin on the definition ofrisk and how it affects our population. This essay will look at riskfrom the 'world risk society' point of view.It will endeavour to explain Beck's theory of the 'risk society' anddiscuss how his theory might be applied as a useful framework forexamining the level of corporate citizenship in organisations.It will also include a look at how other theorists define risk. Inconclusion it will evaluate and comment on the usefulness of Beck'smodel.Corporate CitizenshipA citizen is a member of a modern political community (i.e.Corporation: Peopl ethenation-state) who posesses formally defined rights and responsibilitiesby virute of membership to that nation, typically including the right tobe involved in selecting governments (Bessant Watts, 1999).Corporate citizenship is therefore corporations which have rights andresponsibilites of their own, as well as obligations to their community.Corporate citizenship is based on three theories; minimalist,communitarian and universal rights. We will look briefly at what eachtheory means.Minimalist is where citizens strive towards their own goals with verylittle interference. They realise there are rules which regulate theirbehaviour and are able to function individually.Communitarian is where the communitys' well being outweighs theindividuals rights. Everyone works towards reaching the communitygoals rather than focusing on personal goals.Universal rights is where everyone pursues their own goals andinterests but makes sure to consider others rights. Being aware...

Agricultural Change And Intensification In Britain Environmental Sciences Essay

Emphasis was placed upon the usage of modern and intensive agricultural patterns to increase end product, ensuing in enhanced mechanization, enlargement and intensification ( Dobbs and Pretty, 2004 ) . However, a move to big scale agri-business resulted in profound and inauspicious effects on rural biodiversity and farming area home grounds with the over-exploitation of their valuable resources. Habitats underwent considerable debasement, peculiarly with hedge remotion to suit larger machinery, destructing extremely good nutrient beginnings and engendering home grounds for wildlife. Additionally, technological promotions led to the widespread execution of man-made chemical weedkillers and pesticides to increase outputs, which resulted in terrible damaging effects to flora, zoologies and H2O quality. Furthermore, the debut of larger and more sophisticated agricultural machinery and cultivated land procedures resulted in significant decreases to dirty quality, through compression and eroding. With 75 % of UK land classed as agricultural, cumulatively these damaging effects sparked major concern ( Montemayor et al. , 2010 ) . 1.2 The Rise of Modern Environmentalism As a consequence of the widespread debasement of agricultural ecosystems during the post-war period, the coming of modern environmentalism in the 1970s and 1980s focussed consciousness on the importance of extenuating the inauspicious impacts of agricultural intensification. The publication of Rachel Carson ‘s ‘Silent Spring ‘ in 1962 is thought to hold been a major landmark in the outgrowth of environmental consciousness ( Dunlap, 2008 ) . Carson highlighted the considerable damaging side-effects of pesticide use, peculiarly DDT. Concern was sparked amongst ecologists over the possible for bioaccumulation of DDT within ecosystems and its harmful generative impacts, peculiarly for birds. Doctors and the general population besides feared the harmful effects of indiscriminate DDT usage, due to toxicity and carcinogenic effects ( Carson, 1962 ) . Therefore, the publication of ‘Silent Spring ‘ instigated the modern environmental motion, and people became mor e cognizant of the jobs faced within the agricultural sector. 1.3 The Common Agricultural Policy The European Union Common Agricultural Policy ( CAP ) provides agricultural subsidies to member provinces in order to advance sustainable agribusiness ( European Commission, 2010 ) . The CAP is made up of 2 pillars ; pillar 1 encompasses market support steps and direct payments for run intoing cross-compliance criterions chiefly for the environment, nutrient safety and animate being public assistance. Pillar 2 nevertheless is focussed upon rural development programmes ( House of Lords, 2005 ) . The early CAP of the 1950s was focussed upon pillar 1 steps, for increasing autonomy through the proviso of inducements to husbandmans in order to promote greater productiveness. However, with the rise of modern environmentalism, the agricultural accent shifted towards environmental sustainability, doing a bifurcation of the function of land directors with the demand to non merely supply agricultural efficiency, but besides to integrate environmental protection ( ref ) . With increasing accent on environmental saving, and a realization of the potency of agro-ecological procedures, the United Kingdom introduced the first agri-environmental strategy in 1987, named the Environmentally Sensitive Areas strategy ( ESA ) . This was superseded by the Countryside Stewardship Scheme ( CSS ) in 1991 which was a consequence of the major CAP reforms of the 1990s, aimed at supplying for the altering demands of both the agricultural sector and the wider community ( Natural England ) . Figure 1.1 clearly illustrates the alterations to UK agri-environment strategies which took topographic point between 1973 and 2000, foregrounding the important changes to agricultural precede nces. Figure 1.1: Changes in UK agri-environment strategy subsidies from 1973 – 2000 ( beginning: Monetary value, 2003, p.122 ) . Degree centigrades: UsersEmPicturesimg010.jpg Since so, the demand to extenuate clime alteration has been progressively recognised, in order to restrict dirt and H2O debasement and to control the loss of biodiversity. Whilst direct pillar 1 subsidy payments still exist under the Single Farm Payment Scheme, accent has been shifted to pillar 2 policies ; redesigned to non merely crippled environmental harm, but heighten the agricultural landscape through the publicity of more sustainable agriculture patterns that will make a natural environment that is better suited to defy the impacts of climatic alteration. 1.4 Environmental Stewardship The Environmental Stewardship ( ES ) strategy was introduced in 2005, as a agency to counterbalance husbandmans for supplying specific environmental criterions that go beyond the cross-compliance standard of the CAP. ES strategies are administered for the authorities ‘s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs ( DEFRA ) by Natural England, and are a cardinal constituent of the European Union funded Rural Development Programme for England 2007-2013, conveying together the old CSS and ESA strategies ( Natural England ) . As keepers and stewards of the rural landscape, husbandmans have an intuitive ethical duty to continue and enrich farming area ecosystems ; nevertheless this is frequently non realistic in footings of fiscal viability ( ref ) . With the major challenges posed by clime alteration, and subsequent nutrient security issues, it has become progressively of import that support and counsel is made available for husbandmans and land directors. This enables the bringing of effectual environmental protection, whilst keeping premier agricultural land, to heighten the part of agribusiness to climate alteration extenuation through diminishing nursery gas emanations and bettering dirt C segregation ( Natural England ) . Environmental Stewardship strategies are presently the primary beginning of pecuniary inducements, dwelling of Entry Level Stewardship ( ELS ) , Higher Level Stewardship ( HLS ) , Organic Entry Level Stewardship ( OELS ) and Uplands Entry Level Stewardship ( UELS ) . It is recognised that little graduated table husbandmans must stay the focal point of such enterprises, explicating the demand for 4 different multi-objective strategies. The chief aims of Environmental Stewardship are to: preserve biodiversity maintain and enhance landscape quality protect the historic environment promote public apprehension and entree protect natural dirt and H2O resources ( Natural England, 2010 ) ELS enchiridion ) This survey will concentrate merely upon ELS and HLS ; explained in the undermentioned subdivisions. 1.4.1 Entry Level Stewardship The ELS strategy is a 5 twelvemonth understanding, open to all land directors in England, and offers a broad scope of options for simple yet effectual environmental direction. 30 points per hectare must be chosen from over 50 options, in order to have a payment of A ; lb ; 30 per hectare per twelvemonth. Management options include the usage of buffer strips, assorted stocking, screen harvests, harvest rotary motion and watercourse fence ( Natural England ELS enchiridion ) . ELS is a wide and shallow, high uptake attack with environmental demands that are comparatively easy to run into without significantly changing direction patterns. 1.4.2 Higher Degree Stewardship HLS normally builds upon ELS, OELS or UELS, offering a higher tiered direction strategy. It is more complex and demanding, necessitating well greater input, which is reflected in the higher compensation payments for direction input and capital plants. Emphasis is placed upon specialized land direction to supply important environmental addition in high precedence countries. HLS understandings last for 10 old ages, and are a competitory and discretional, narrow and deep attack with a lower application success rate. In add-on to the sweetening of ELS aims, HLS provides chances for bettering public entree and carry oning educational visits ( Natural England: HLS handbook 2010 ) . 1.5 Purposes This research undertaking aims to supply an original penetration into the effectivity of the Environmental Stewardship strategy. While other surveies focus upon the motivations of participants and the obstructions that limit engagement, this probe will turn to an underexplored, yet extremely relevant subject which relates non merely to agricultural patterns, but to wider environmental and anthropogenetic clime alteration concerns that remain at the head of current arguments. 1.6 Research Questions This probe aims to specifically turn to the undermentioned research inquiries: Are the ecological benefits to vegetations and zoologies well better under the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme when compared to the Entry Level Stewardship Scheme? Is there a pronounced sweetening of flora species richness under HLS when compared to ELS? Is H2O quality and therefore aquatic species diverseness enhanced under HLS? Does macrolepidoptera copiousness and composing exhibit significant sweetening under higher tiered direction schemes? Are dirt features significantly altered under different direction grades? 2. Overall, is Environmental Stewardship an effectual manner to pull off the rural landscape, and can the high fiscal input required be considered cost effectual in footings of the environmental return? 1.7 Aims To ease the scrutiny of the purposes and research inquiries the undermentioned aims will be used: 1. Identify 4 appropriate survey sites ; 2 ELS and 2 HLS managed farms in South Devon on which the necessary research can be conducted. 2. Undertake macroinvertebrate, dirt, flora and macrolepidoptera trying at each survey site. 3. Identify all species observed and collate informations obtained from each location. 4. Process informations utilizing appropriate graphical and statistical techniques. 5. Discourse the consequences that are obtained in order to derive a reasoned and representative rating of the effectivity of the different Environmental Stewardship direction grades. In order to carry through these aims, a literature reappraisal will be undertaken to supply farther penetration into the subject, and inform the informations aggregation, analysis and treatment chapters. Agricultural Change And Intensification In Britain Environmental Sciences Essay Emphasis was placed upon the usage of modern and intensive agricultural patterns to increase end product, ensuing in enhanced mechanization, enlargement and intensification ( Dobbs and Pretty, 2004 ) . However, a move to big scale agri-business resulted in profound and inauspicious effects on rural biodiversity and farming area home grounds with the over-exploitation of their valuable resources. Habitats underwent considerable debasement, peculiarly with hedge remotion to suit larger machinery, destructing extremely good nutrient beginnings and engendering home grounds for wildlife. Additionally, technological promotions led to the widespread execution of man-made chemical weedkillers and pesticides to increase outputs, which resulted in terrible damaging effects to flora, zoologies and H2O quality. Furthermore, the debut of larger and more sophisticated agricultural machinery and cultivated land procedures resulted in significant decreases to dirty quality, through compression and eroding. With 75 % of UK land classed as agricultural, cumulatively these damaging effects sparked major concern ( Montemayor et al. , 2010 ) . 1.2 The Rise of Modern Environmentalism As a consequence of the widespread debasement of agricultural ecosystems during the post-war period, the coming of modern environmentalism in the 1970s and 1980s focussed consciousness on the importance of extenuating the inauspicious impacts of agricultural intensification. The publication of Rachel Carson ‘s ‘Silent Spring ‘ in 1962 is thought to hold been a major landmark in the outgrowth of environmental consciousness ( Dunlap, 2008 ) . Carson highlighted the considerable damaging side-effects of pesticide use, peculiarly DDT. Concern was sparked amongst ecologists over the possible for bioaccumulation of DDT within ecosystems and its harmful generative impacts, peculiarly for birds. Doctors and the general population besides feared the harmful effects of indiscriminate DDT usage, due to toxicity and carcinogenic effects ( Carson, 1962 ) . Therefore, the publication of ‘Silent Spring ‘ instigated the modern environmental motion, and people became mor e cognizant of the jobs faced within the agricultural sector. 1.3 The Common Agricultural Policy The European Union Common Agricultural Policy ( CAP ) provides agricultural subsidies to member provinces in order to advance sustainable agribusiness ( European Commission, 2010 ) . The CAP is made up of 2 pillars ; pillar 1 encompasses market support steps and direct payments for run intoing cross-compliance criterions chiefly for the environment, nutrient safety and animate being public assistance. Pillar 2 nevertheless is focussed upon rural development programmes ( House of Lords, 2005 ) . The early CAP of the 1950s was focussed upon pillar 1 steps, for increasing autonomy through the proviso of inducements to husbandmans in order to promote greater productiveness. However, with the rise of modern environmentalism, the agricultural accent shifted towards environmental sustainability, doing a bifurcation of the function of land directors with the demand to non merely supply agricultural efficiency, but besides to integrate environmental protection ( ref ) . With increasing accent on environmental saving, and a realization of the potency of agro-ecological procedures, the United Kingdom introduced the first agri-environmental strategy in 1987, named the Environmentally Sensitive Areas strategy ( ESA ) . This was superseded by the Countryside Stewardship Scheme ( CSS ) in 1991 which was a consequence of the major CAP reforms of the 1990s, aimed at supplying for the altering demands of both the agricultural sector and the wider community ( Natural England ) . Figure 1.1 clearly illustrates the alterations to UK agri-environment strategies which took topographic point between 1973 and 2000, foregrounding the important changes to agricultural precede nces. Figure 1.1: Changes in UK agri-environment strategy subsidies from 1973 – 2000 ( beginning: Monetary value, 2003, p.122 ) . Degree centigrades: UsersEmPicturesimg010.jpg Since so, the demand to extenuate clime alteration has been progressively recognised, in order to restrict dirt and H2O debasement and to control the loss of biodiversity. Whilst direct pillar 1 subsidy payments still exist under the Single Farm Payment Scheme, accent has been shifted to pillar 2 policies ; redesigned to non merely crippled environmental harm, but heighten the agricultural landscape through the publicity of more sustainable agriculture patterns that will make a natural environment that is better suited to defy the impacts of climatic alteration. 1.4 Environmental Stewardship The Environmental Stewardship ( ES ) strategy was introduced in 2005, as a agency to counterbalance husbandmans for supplying specific environmental criterions that go beyond the cross-compliance standard of the CAP. ES strategies are administered for the authorities ‘s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs ( DEFRA ) by Natural England, and are a cardinal constituent of the European Union funded Rural Development Programme for England 2007-2013, conveying together the old CSS and ESA strategies ( Natural England ) . As keepers and stewards of the rural landscape, husbandmans have an intuitive ethical duty to continue and enrich farming area ecosystems ; nevertheless this is frequently non realistic in footings of fiscal viability ( ref ) . With the major challenges posed by clime alteration, and subsequent nutrient security issues, it has become progressively of import that support and counsel is made available for husbandmans and land directors. This enables the bringing of effectual environmental protection, whilst keeping premier agricultural land, to heighten the part of agribusiness to climate alteration extenuation through diminishing nursery gas emanations and bettering dirt C segregation ( Natural England ) . Environmental Stewardship strategies are presently the primary beginning of pecuniary inducements, dwelling of Entry Level Stewardship ( ELS ) , Higher Level Stewardship ( HLS ) , Organic Entry Level Stewardship ( OELS ) and Uplands Entry Level Stewardship ( UELS ) . It is recognised that little graduated table husbandmans must stay the focal point of such enterprises, explicating the demand for 4 different multi-objective strategies. The chief aims of Environmental Stewardship are to: preserve biodiversity maintain and enhance landscape quality protect the historic environment promote public apprehension and entree protect natural dirt and H2O resources ( Natural England, 2010 ) ELS enchiridion ) This survey will concentrate merely upon ELS and HLS ; explained in the undermentioned subdivisions. 1.4.1 Entry Level Stewardship The ELS strategy is a 5 twelvemonth understanding, open to all land directors in England, and offers a broad scope of options for simple yet effectual environmental direction. 30 points per hectare must be chosen from over 50 options, in order to have a payment of A ; lb ; 30 per hectare per twelvemonth. Management options include the usage of buffer strips, assorted stocking, screen harvests, harvest rotary motion and watercourse fence ( Natural England ELS enchiridion ) . ELS is a wide and shallow, high uptake attack with environmental demands that are comparatively easy to run into without significantly changing direction patterns. 1.4.2 Higher Degree Stewardship HLS normally builds upon ELS, OELS or UELS, offering a higher tiered direction strategy. It is more complex and demanding, necessitating well greater input, which is reflected in the higher compensation payments for direction input and capital plants. Emphasis is placed upon specialized land direction to supply important environmental addition in high precedence countries. HLS understandings last for 10 old ages, and are a competitory and discretional, narrow and deep attack with a lower application success rate. In add-on to the sweetening of ELS aims, HLS provides chances for bettering public entree and carry oning educational visits ( Natural England: HLS handbook 2010 ) . 1.5 Purposes This research undertaking aims to supply an original penetration into the effectivity of the Environmental Stewardship strategy. While other surveies focus upon the motivations of participants and the obstructions that limit engagement, this probe will turn to an underexplored, yet extremely relevant subject which relates non merely to agricultural patterns, but to wider environmental and anthropogenetic clime alteration concerns that remain at the head of current arguments. 1.6 Research Questions This probe aims to specifically turn to the undermentioned research inquiries: Are the ecological benefits to vegetations and zoologies well better under the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme when compared to the Entry Level Stewardship Scheme? Is there a pronounced sweetening of flora species richness under HLS when compared to ELS? Is H2O quality and therefore aquatic species diverseness enhanced under HLS? Does macrolepidoptera copiousness and composing exhibit significant sweetening under higher tiered direction schemes? Are dirt features significantly altered under different direction grades? 2. Overall, is Environmental Stewardship an effectual manner to pull off the rural landscape, and can the high fiscal input required be considered cost effectual in footings of the environmental return? 1.7 Aims To ease the scrutiny of the purposes and research inquiries the undermentioned aims will be used: 1. Identify 4 appropriate survey sites ; 2 ELS and 2 HLS managed farms in South Devon on which the necessary research can be conducted. 2. Undertake macroinvertebrate, dirt, flora and macrolepidoptera trying at each survey site. 3. Identify all species observed and collate informations obtained from each location. 4. Process informations utilizing appropriate graphical and statistical techniques. 5. Discourse the consequences that are obtained in order to derive a reasoned and representative rating of the effectivity of the different Environmental Stewardship direction grades. In order to carry through these aims, a literature reappraisal will be undertaken to supply farther penetration into the subject, and inform the informations aggregation, analysis and treatment chapters.

Immigration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 6

Immigration - Essay Example Barring some religious differences between catholic and protestants, they were accepted more readily within the American society as against Chinese immigrants. The Irish and German immigrants in America were conspicuous in their attitude towards work. The German immigrants were endowed with more money and therefore sought land and work in farmland. There were also politically active and endorsed the ideology of democrats who believed in equality and in the welfare of the commoners. The Irish immigrants, on the other hand, were driven to America due to poverty and scarcity of opportunities in their motherland. Most of the were employed in labor intensive work like construction of road, canals, bridges etc. But both, German and Irish immigrants faced huge opposition because they threatened the livelihood of Americans in low paying jobs. Most importantly, German and Irish immigrants showed that America remained the most attractive place to realize one’s dream of prosperous and happy

Implementing Strategy and Leadership Ethics Assignment

Implementing Strategy and Leadership Ethics - Assignment Example Culture is considered as a core element in the overall vision of any organization (Schein, 2010). The first way of embedding culture into the organization is through avoiding cultural drift. Even though it is easier to follow some cultural practices, there is a tendency of ignoring them with time. A drift comes in and the main culture is supported by several gestures. There is a tendency to overlook the important cultures of the organization. Therefore, leadership should recognized and reward those who are consistent with following the core organization’s culture. In talking about organizational midlife, it means that the organizations have been in existence for a period of between 35 to 75 years. Such organizations are complex in terms or character of the employees and a fascinating folklore. They tend to be a bit resistant to change than the younger entities. Things tend to be more stabilized for these types of organizations and they have their own way of carrying out their daily duties. Additionally, they have a culture that drives their success or failure in all their initiatives. This type of organizational soul-searching in most cases is triggered by a number of factors (Schein, 2010). Ethical leadership basically needs ethical leaders. If an organization has ethical leaders, they will find it easy to ensure ethical practices are followed in the organization, right from the management to the subordinates. Naturally, leaders are in a position of power, either on or off-duty. Therefore, ethical leadership focuses on how leaders leverage their power in the decisions they make and ways they influence others (Schein, 2010). By demonstrating ethics in leadership, leaders promote a high level of integrity. The integrity they promote stimulates trustworthiness and equally encourages the subordinates to accept and follow the organization’s vision. Basically, integrity and character

A play that was written by Arthur Miller in the 1950s Essay Example for Free

A play that was written by Arthur Miller in the 1950s Essay The Crucible is a play that was written by Arthur Miller in the 1950s. The play was originally produced in 1953 at a time where McCarthyism was at its peak. This was a time of American paranoia when Americans believed that the Russians were planning start a war with them. The Americans accused members of the society of been a communist spy for the most trivial reasons. It was a situation of hysteria. This was very similar to the situation in Salem two hundred years earlier. The people of Salem would believe anyone to be a witch even if they had very little or no evidence. Salem was governed by theocracy this meant the church ran the local government, therefore they had orthodox religious beliefs. Arthur Miller compares these two situations to show that we all should learn from past mistakes. The past events in Salem contributed to the situation in 1950s America, this shows Causation. The title reflects the play because a crucible is a container used to expose its contents to very high temperatures, this can cause impurities to rise to the surface, its metaphoric meaning is a place of severe test or trial. In the play eighteenth century Salem becomes a Crucible, Judge Danforth creates a situation in which he is trying to force the supposed witches to the surface and purify Salem. Miller uses dramatic techniques to maintain the audiences interest the message that Miller conveys is to learn from your mistakes and not to jump to conclusions. Abigail changes the way she acts when interrogated by Hale. Abigail has previously been perceived as a dynamic and powerful individual however when Rev. Hale questions her she comes across as very desperate and paranoid. This is shown when Abigail says, I am a good girl, a proper girl. She attempts to make herself out to be a model Puritan, Parris and Hale are manipulated but the audience knows that Abigail is no telling the truth, this is dramatic irony. The playwright Arthur Miller presents Abigail to be extremely deceptive and two-faced, as he wants the audience to dislike her. This is shown when Abigail notices an opportunity to blame Tituba for the unchristian and unlawful activities that she has committed. For instance Abigail blames Tituba for making her laugh in the middle of prayer and for waking her in the night and Abi finds herself naked. Miller does this to give an insight of the sin Tituba is not given the chance to object or justify Abigails accusations. An example of this is Mister Reverend, I never. And Hale interrupts her by saying Tituba I want you to wake this child. Reverend Hale is not interested in Titubas defence but her satanic influence. This shows that Hale does not pity Tituba he hears that which he wishes to hear. This reveals that the citizens of Salem will believe what they are told, they follow the majority. When Tituba enters the room Abigail immediately puts the blame on her. This shows that Abigail was under a lot of pressure, so much so that she transferred the blame onto the first person that entered the room. Tituba was not expecting Abigail to blame her. She shows this when the stage directions are shocked and angry Tituba previously considered Abi to be a loyal and honest person. Tituba has misinterpreted Abigails character. Miller increases the tension as the audience sympathises with the slave since her English is bad and she is been tricked into admitting something she has not done. When Abigail mentions the word blood, Parris Mrs Putnam and Tituba all repeat it. This reveals that the incident that took place in the forest was not as innocent as was first thought. It shows that in fact it was a lot more sinister. The repetition of this key work creates tension since repetition creates a sense of hysteria. Miller reveals this information to increase the audiences interest. The characters that repeat the word blood are insecure and gullible.

Fear Factor :: essays research papers

Fear Factor Journal   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  H. P. Lovecraft once said â€Å"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.† Everybody has or has dealt with some sort of fear in their life. For some, fear only manifests itself in some form of mild discomfort, but for others it can be so great that it creates an emotional vice-grip and holds it victim captive. I have my share of fears in life. One of these fears, which I have had since childhood, is my fear of supernatural and evil spirits. I am Christian and I believe in God, therefore I must also believe that there is a devil. As a Christian I am also aware of the contest between good and evil, so I am no doubt afraid of Satan and the infections of evil that he has brought to this earth. In the Bible it says that God allows Satan and his fallen angels a limited amount of power on earth. When I was younger I began hearing stories of people practicing witchcraft and worshipping Satan in a nearby town called Cassadaga, Florida. I was frightened at the thought of people that would deny God and follow Satan. This fear is commonly known by many as satanophobia. To confront this fear I must be prepared to possibly be in the presence of people that worship the dark prince and possibly demons or spirits.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One September day I decided to go out to Cassadaga and confront my fears of the stories that I had heard. I told myself that there should be no place where I may go that God will not be with me to protect me. With that in mind, I found the directions to this town of only 55 residences. I began driving and soon enough saw a sign that said â€Å"Cassadaga 1 mile†. Once I entered the city limits I realized that my surroundings looked like the setting of a modern day horror film. There were tall trees that were dead with no leaves, rundown houses, broken fences, dirt roads, and rotted wooden signs. The main road was paved and as I drove through the town I saw signs everywhere out front of houses that read â€Å"Spiritual Readings, Psychic Readings.† This didn’t really bother me, because I kept thinking of funny old people like Miss Cleo from paid programming on T.V. I decided to drive down some of the narrow dirt roads.

Lord of the Flies (Men are inherently evil) Essay

â€Å"Man produces evil as a bee produces honey† was a remark that was made by William Golding after his experience serving in the second world war. Lord of the Flies is a symbolic novel of his experience and this quote was his way of showing that all men were evil; it was as natural for a human to be evil as it was for a bee to produce honey. However, despite being within a bee’s natural instinct to produce honey, it isn’t within a human’s natural instinct to be evil. It is shown in Golding’s novel that society influences one’s morality. Lord of the Flies also shows that humans are self-serving, looking out for themselves and that sometimes it is necessary to be corrupt to survive. We also see that it is within a humans’ instinct to follow a leader whether they are moral or immoral. Lord of the Flies demonstrates that one’s morality is influenced by the society they are in. John Locke, an English philosopher, believed that humans were born clean and pure, but it was society that influenced the evil inside them. This is evident in Golding’s novel as even the most ‘evil’ character, Jack, has shown signs of being moral. In the second chapter, when he comes back from discovering that they were on an island, he states, â€Å"‘We’ve got to have rules and obey them.†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ The author uses irony to compare the difference of Jack’s behaviour from the start of the novel to the end. However, perhaps we see Jack as the most corrupt character because he was the first to realise that in order to survive, he would need to be more sadistic, more savage. It is obvious from then on that he tries not to show compassion, innocence or kindness. At times, he does not succeed. An example of this is on page fifty-five when Jack sa ys, â€Å"You can feel†¦you’re not hunting, but- being hunted.† This quote shows Jack’s uncertainty, and he explains that you have to be animal-like to survive and live as long as you can in a society without rules and laws, something Locke thought was absolutely necessary to sustain happiness. Here, Jack seems to relate to himself as an animal, which shows that he only acts the way he does because he saw the circumstances they were in, and decided that the only way to get off the island alive was to be beast-like. Humans are self-serving which is why they may be perceived as evil. In order  to fit in and feel safe, sometimes selfish acts will be pursued. Golding writes for the characters to become more savage. This attribute even reaches the symbol of goodness and order, Ralph. He realises that in order to survive, he could not always do the correct thing. On page one hundred and thirty-eight, Golding uses personification twice to create the drama in his message. â€Å"Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society†. He is trying to dramatise the evilness that Piggy and Ralph have succumbed to, melding with the others, however, all this quote proves is their common longing for a place with others and not any depth of evilness. We see that people who starting in the were following Ralph ‘the good side’ joined. It is within our human instincts to follow a leader, whether they are moral or immoral. Having a powerful leader gives the ‘weaker’ ones a sense of safety, and in Lord of the Flies, the two main leaders were Ralph and Jack. Ralph was the leader of the ‘good’ side, while Jack was the chief of the ‘evil’ side. The members of Jack’s tribe are not evil in nature, but are merely forced to follow his orders as he believes this is crucial for them to subsist. â€Å"With dreary obedience the choir raised their hands.† The use of imagery in this quote (shows) that when Ralph asks the young children who they would vote for for chief, the choir-boys felt obliged to vote for Jack. Jack can be compared to Adolf Hitler, a dictator in World War II. Hitler manipulated his soldiers, and alters their thinking. Similarly, Jack is doing the same thing. Leading the ‘evil’ side, he adjusts the minds of the choir-boys. The people who are fol lowing Jack are doing so for a sense of protection as he is powerful. Despite being first published fifty years ago, Lord of the Flies is still studied and read to this day as it shows that it is brutality of the second world war. Golding subtly passes through his message that what happened in Germany could occur anywhere and that sometimes, it is necessary to be evil. Throughout the novel, we see the lengths some of them, in particular Jack, go to for survival. We are shown that it is necessary to pursue evil acts in ‘life or death’ situations and that it is of human nature to choose a leader and follow his actions, even if they are immoral.

Apple’s “1984”: Greatest Commercial Ever Made Essay

â€Å"1984† is an American television commercial which introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer for the first time. The commercial served as a significant milestone in the history of adverting and had a massive effect on the popularity of Apple. The ad consistently been lauded as a classic, winning critical acclaim over time. It is now considered a watershed event and a masterpiece in advertising, and is widely regarded as one of the most memorable and successful American television commercials of all time. It aired only once on daytime television, on 22 January 1984 in the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII. The ad was not only rated as the best advertisement ever in 2007, it was also rated as the ‘Best Super Bowl spot in the 40 years history’. The turning point event was not the only computer advertisement that aired in these years, but it was â€Å"the only one that changed people’s lives†. The ad started the phenomenon known as â€Å"event marketing,† in which a high-visibility commercial garners a lot of extra free publicity. â€Å"1984† also inaugurated the trend of showcasing commercials on the Super Bowl. And, most importantly for Apple, the ad brought consumers into the stores. The commercial opens with a droning voice resonating through a science-fiction dystrophic setting, which is held in dark, blue and gray tones. Then you see emotionless, bald and almost robotic people marching in unanimity through a long tunnel with telescreens on the wall. Then out of nowhere, a young woman appears, dressed like an athlete, in a color-full sports outfit that forms a strong contrast to the dull gray environment surrounding her. She carries a sledgehammer and is being chased by uniformed guards and then she runs up to the screen, hurls a hammer with a heroic grunt, and shatters the TV image of the said dictator named â€Å"Big Brother†. As the screen explodes, bathing the stunned audience in the light of freedom, a voice-over announces, â€Å"On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like â€Å"1984.† The ad was an allusion to George Orwell’s noted novel, â€Å"Nineteen Eighty-Four†, which described a dystopian future ruled by a televised â€Å"Big Brother†. After the ad was released in 1984, Apple became a household name in the United States. Apple’s 1984 commercial’s aim was to brand their product, Macintosh with an ideology of empowerment and individuality; contrary to the 1970s perception that personal computers were tools invented for utilitarian purposes and designed to facilitate specific tasks. During those times, the trend was common and utilitarian, so with Macintosh deviating its image against the norm, the people’s attention was acquired with a bold ad set up by Apple. The 1984 ad’s strategy was to differentiate themselves by combating conformity and asserting individuality. It was a definite plus for Apple to choose to air the commercial during the most watched television event in United States, The Super Bowl. Surely, the amount of people watching was at an all-time high thus making the visibility of the commercial reach its maximum. With a large number of people exposed to the memorable commercial, it is more likely to be remembered and talked about, thus making the Macintosh known and popular. Apple’s strategy of making the viewers of the Super Bowl, particularly a wide range of age, gender, ethnicity and social status as their target audience was a clever move since the more exposure, the better outcome. The commercial made a bold move in referencing George Orwell’s novel â€Å"Nineteen Eighty- Four† which could easily been misinterpreted and ended up scaring the audience with futuristic dystopian themes. Fortunately, the ad was considered as revolutionary, innovative and positively shocking which is a good thing because it made the idea of Apple stick into people’s minds. With Apple imaging itself as the ‘hero’/’saviour’ of the masses against forced conformity, the commercial was a clever way of saying that ‘If you buy a Mac, the awful dystopian future will not take place and instead individuality and self-empowerment will dominate.’ Ever since that commercial, the Mac has glowed with an aura of rebellion and empowerment. One major element on why the ad was so successful was, of course, the remarkable production values. Nobody had ever spent that much money to make a commercial look like a big-budget blockbuster movie. By bringing in the best people in the industry, the execution was astounding especially to the common individual. Steve Job’s vision of stressing the liberating power of the Apple Macintosh and paving the way for individuality was highlighted as the message of the commercial. The advertisement delivered the message of what Apple as a whole stood for and what distinguished it from the multitude of other computer brands in the market. Steve Jobs thought he knew what was special about Apple: they were the underdogs, who’d battled the corporate giants and brought computing power to the masses. The 1984 ad glorified the Information Age into a good vs. evil battle between technologies. They considered the rival PC in the market as bad technology – centralized, authoritarian – which crushes the human freedom and controls peoples’ minds. But we can be liberated from that bad technology by the good technology – independent, individualized – of the Apple Mac. In that instant when â€Å"1984† premiered, it positioned the Apple brand as creative, different and human while re-positioning its competition as staid, status quo and robotic. The commercial ultimately explained Apple’s philosophy and purpose; that people, not just government and big corporations, should run technology. If computers aren’t to take over our lives, they have to be accessible.

Life Cycle of Fireflies and Lightning Bugs

Life Cycle of Fireflies and Lightning Bugs Fireflies, also known as lightning bugs, are part of the beetle family (Lampyridae),  in the order Coleoptera. There are about 2,000 species of fireflies worldwide, with over 150 species in the U.S. and Canada.   Like all beetles, fireflies undergo complete metamorphosis with four stages in their life cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Egg (Embryonic Stage) The firefly life cycle begins with an egg. In mid-summer, mated females will deposit about 100 spherical eggs, singly or in clusters, in the soil or near the soil surface. Fireflies prefer moist soils, and will often choose to place their eggs under mulch or leaf litter, where the soil is less likely to dry out. Some fireflies will deposit eggs on vegetation rather than directly in the soil. Firefly eggs usually hatch in 3-4 weeks. The eggs of some lightning bugs are bioluminescent, and you may see them glowing dimly if youre lucky enough to find them in the soil. Larva (Larval Stage) As with many beetles, lightning bug larvae look somewhat worm-like. The dorsal segments are flattened and extend to the back and sides, like overlapping plates. Firefly larvae produce light and are sometimes called glowworms. Firefly larvae usually live in the soil. At night, they hunt slugs, snails, worms, and other insects. When it captures prey, the larva will inject its unfortunate victim with digestive enzymes to immobilize it and liquefy its remains. Larvae emerge from their eggs in late summer and live through the winter before pupating in the spring. In some species, the larval stage lasts well over a year, with the larvae living through two winters before pupating. As it grows, the larva will repeatedly molt to shed its exoskeleton, replacing it with a larger cuticle each time. Just before pupating, the firefly larva measures about  ¾ in length. Pupa (Pupal Stage) When the larva is ready to pupate, usually in late spring, it constructs a mud chamber in the soil and settles inside it. In some species, the larva attaches itself to a trees bark, hanging upside down by the hind end, and pupates while suspended (similar to a caterpillar). Regardless of which position the larva assumes for pupation, a remarkable transformation takes place during the pupal stage. In a process called histolysis, the larvas body is broken down, and special groups of transformative cells are activated. These cell groups, called histoblasts, trigger biochemical processes that transform the insect from a larva into its adult form. When the metamorphosis is complete, the adult firefly is ready to emerge, usually about 10 days to several weeks after pupation. Adult (Imaginal Stage) When the adult firefly finally emerges, it has only one real purpose, to reproduce. Fireflies flash to find a mate, using a species-specific pattern to locate compatible individuals of the opposite sex. Typically, the male flies low to the ground, flashing a signal with the light organ on his abdomen, and a female resting on vegetation returns his communiquà ©. By repeating this exchange, the male homes in on her, and the rest of the story is happily ever after. Not all fireflies feed as adults- some simply mate, produce offspring, and die. But when adults do feed, they are usually predacious and hunt other insects. Female fireflies sometimes use a bit of trickery to lure males of other species closer  and then eat them. Not much is known about firefly eating habits, however, and it is thought that some fireflies may feed on pollen or nectar. In some species, the female adult firefly is flightless. She may resemble a firefly larva but have large, compound eyes. And some fireflies dont produce light at all. For example, in the U.S., species found west of Kansas dont glow.

Contract Negotiations in Business Law Case Study

Contract Negotiations in Business Law - Case Study Example The second error that is challenged by the insurance company is the circuit court's judgment affirming the defenses lodged by Jones and Lee-Curtis. The second assignment of error is dispositive. The dispute actually rests on the query as to whether Augusta Mutual's adjusted third-party motion for judgment affirmed unjust claims for fraud in the inducement and/or breach of fiduciary duty. It may also be that as Jones and Lee-Curtis challenge, which the insurance company tried to change what was in fact a breach of contract claim into actionable tort claims. The principles guiding the trial court's review is based on a judgment sustaining demurrers are well established. "The purpose of a demurrer is to determine whether a motion for judgment states a cause of action upon which the requested relief may be granted." Tronfeld v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 272 Va. 709, 712, 636 S.E.2d 447, 449 (2006) (citing Welding, Inc. v. Bland County Serv. Auth., 261 Va. 218, 226, 541 S.E.2d 909, 913 (2001)). "A demurrer tests the legal sufficiency of facts alleged in pleadings, not the strength of proof." Glazebrook v. Board of Supervisors, 266 Va. 550, 554, 587 S.E.2d 589, 591 (2003). Actually, in this case Jones when he signed the report he did it intentionally to get a commission for himself and Lee-Curtis and thus he misrepresented material

Developing Professional Practice Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Developing Professional Practice - Assignment Example From this paper it is clear that   there is a need to focus on the financial position of an individual. The two options have varying costs. Therefore, the financial position will be vital in making a decision. There is a need to focus on the time taken for each option. For instance, a course that will take long before completion may have dire effect on career development. Similarly, there is a need to focus on the time schedule. For instance, some curses offer evening and distance learning. This may be a prudent course. Taking a diploma in human resource is a prudent approach especially when in the human resource department. This will increase chances of getting a promotion. On the other hand, the course may be expensive when compared to the certificate in human resource management. Two aspects of group dynamics are group ideology and group cohesion. Research these two and briefly discuss them in around 100 words each in the space provided. Remember to reference your work. How does an understanding of group dynamics, including Tuckman’s model allow HR professionals to be able to perform efficiently as part of a working group? Illustrate your answer with work examples in no more than 150 words in the space provided.  

Information Sensitivity and Protection of Data Essay - 5

Information Sensitivity and Protection of Data - Essay Example ael Deaconess Medical Center uses in handling sensitive data, as appearing in Managing Information Privacy & Security: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Technology Resources Policy (2007) are against the following: Access to vital information is a key concern by these organizations. There are policies put in place that emphasize of access of information to authorized personnel only. In most cases, there are access control measures allowing specific personnel access to them. Hacking or breaking into somewhere are means of accessing information illegally, leading to further means of access control such as power switches and anti-hacking software. Disclosure of crucial information is critical in healthcare. It may have serious consequences on the patient or their relatives (Herdman, 2006). It is therefore wise to keep it as discreet as possible. In large firms with different departments, restricting disclosure to the less involved ones is a possible way of curbing disclosure. There are also restrictions of unauthorized disclosure of institutional information beyond it, mostly by export through electronic means. The issue of data alteration is a key concerning the three organizations. Altering data interferes with crucial conclusions or actions of healthcare institutions (Iyer, Levin, Shea & Ashton, 2006). Alteration occurs intentionally by malicious staff and is preventable by having monitoring systems such as CCTV cameras in safe rooms. Accidental alterations occur in some cases such as virus attacks on databases, leading to restriction of digital uses that may expose information to such. Destruction of data is likely to occur in any organization in form of crises such as fire, system failure, or virus attacks. Luckily, these are preventable by having fire-fighting equipment, computer back up systems and proper anti-virus software, or in the case of electronic data loss, data recovery mechanisms are available. It is evident that most of the policies applied in data

An Analysis of Immigration in Constitutional Law-Arizona SB 1070 Research Paper

An Analysis of Immigration in Constitutional Law-Arizona SB 1070 - Research Paper Example During its introduction to the Arizona Senate, this legislation aroused a lot of reactions, both support and rejection for its breadth and strictness in curbing illegal immigration. In fact, in recent historical times, the Arizona SB 1070 is perhaps the strictest of U.S immigration laws. Consequent to its strictness, the legislative Act did not only receive domestic reactions but also international attention and criticism. As a matter of fact, the Arizona SB 1070, like the other anti-illegal immigration laws faces a lot of challenges with regard to civil rights, constitutionality, legislatively, and enforceability. Id. Moreover, the law also faces serious social issue challenges. For instance, concerning civil liberties, the law has been opposed due to its condition that 14-year old aliens staying in the country for more than thirty days should register with the government and must possess their documents wherever they go. The legislation has also been criticized for promoting racial discrimination and profiling. As a result of these controversies, which resulted in different types of boycotts, the law was amended in the first week of its being signed into law. Id. This paper explores immigration in constitutional law in the United States, specifically focusing on the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (Arizona SB 1070). ... Beginning in the 1790 when the Congress passed the racially instigated Naturalization Act, which categorized citizens as whites, a lot has happened concerning citizenship and immigration in the country. Fortunately, these racial laws were rendered unconstitutional after the Civil War when the Naturalization Act was successfully challenged. In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act, also known as the Nationality Act of 1952 was established as the basis of all immigration and citizenship laws in the U.S. Though the law initially restricted the number of immigrants of a given nationality moving into the U.S every year, this was later changed when the Congress passed a law giving preferences to skilled immigrants. More developments would come in the subsequent decades when immigration laws allowed certified refugees and others who flee to the U.S for one reason of the other to have immigrant status. Id. Nonetheless, controversies have remained part of U.S immigration laws, as attested by the Immi grant Reform and Control Act of 1986 and the Immigration Act of 1990. Those pitted against one another in these controversies are federal and state governments, socioeconomic and political classes, and civil right activists. For instance, civil right groups opposed the California's Proposition 187 of 1994, which proposed to deny illegal immigrants schooling and medical care, which seemed to have targeted immigrants of Mexican and Latin American descent. Id. Civil right groups asserted that while the government failed to improve poor working conditions that only Latin American and Mexican laborers could work on, it insisted on denying these immigrants their rights such as education and health while they worked

The cultural and social challenges faced by IHRM

The cultural and social challenges faced by IHRM Now we going to introduce the challenges that IHRM had to face. We know the main challenge was to convince the mangers that the culture is different, the social system is different, the legal principles are different etc. Overall its a completely new environment and it is a challenge for the international HR manger to identify these changes and adopt accordingly. This is the main difference between HR and IHRM, in IHRM the manager operates in an alien environment which makes decision making and implementation much difficult. Thus the recruitment and training of these mangers, communication between the head office and the subsidiary becomes more important than in a local operation. The IHRM is focuses more on how to select, recruit and retain managers for international operations, rather than focusing on how to manage international employees. Now , we moved along, expatriates. An expatriate is an employee who is working and temporary residing in a foreign country (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.5). The fundamental difference between domestic HR and IHRM is that staff are moved across national boundaries, thus expatriates e are born. Hence it is natural in an IHRM subject to focus more on handling these expatriates. There can be three types of employees in an international firm. Employees from where the firm is headquarted is known as Parent Country Nationals, employees from where the subsidiary is located are known as Host Country Nationals, other country nationals are known as Third Country Nationals (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.5). Now it started to make sense, IHRM is more complex and complicated than domestic HRM, because now you not only have to have a thorough understanding about the host country, you also need to decide who are we going to use as employees HCNs, PCNs or TCNs, or a mixture of them. If so in what proportions? How can the organization select the right person? How is training, compensating and other activities are carried? we hope to find answers for these questions during the report. Cross-cultural communication Similarly, among various countries cross-cultural communication is very necessary so that they can understand each others through religion ,culture, art , literature, foreign policies ,fiscal polices ,etc. such type of bridges of understanding will help to lessen and minimize the gap between two culture. Thirukkural , a noted tamil poet ,who has been translated in more than twenty five languages and who had been famous for ethical themes and brevity, has very aptly remarked on power of speech: The goodness called goodness of speech IS goodness which nothing can reach Since gain or ruin speeches brings Guard against the slips of tongue Weight the words and, speak, because No wealth or virtue words surpass. They overspeak who do not seek A few and flawless words to speak (Gupta .reprint 2004) It is said that speech is grater than words ,mind is greater than speech ,will is grater than mind consciousness is greater than will ,meditation is greater than will and power of understanding is greater than meditation.sanakumara ,surmonzing narad atma vidya or brahmavidya (knowledge of the supreme) says : power of understanding beings sine quo non for proper meditation ,thats is greater than meditation . if we cannot correctly understand and discriminate good and bad ,truth and untruth and discriminate between good and bad ,truth and untruth , and the like pairs of opposites ,how can we meditate? Thus there is no doubt that the power of understanding is linked with speech ,one of the tools of communication. point 02 Cultural Differences That culture played a major role in IHRM as it involves understanding and handling a new culture and a new social system. what aspects should an international HR manager should focus on and how he should respond to cultural differences in an international arena. But the topic had lot more to offer than what I initially anticipated. Culture is the way in which a group of people solves problems and reconciles dilemmas (Trompenaars Turner, 2002, p.g.02). There are so many elements in a culture and there is no one way of understanding or defining a culture. But it was evident that having a thorough knowledge about it was essential for those who are engaged in IHRM. In order to give meaning and understanding to the culture there were several models discussed. However the one that looked most promising and attractive was the Hofstedes five dimensions. He developed a model that focused ways of measuring a national culture and how these measures might work differently in different context. The cultural values that are important in a national culture, could be reflected in the way business within that country are operated and organized (Hofstede, 2006). According to the Hofsteds there are 5 cultural damnations. Power distance this is the extent to which power is distributed unequally among the employees in between the higher positions and the lower positions. Eg- India is a high power distance culture ( even have a cast system) and USA is a lower power distance culture. Individualism vs collectivisms In a individualistic country people would priorities them self ( USA) where as collectivism country people would priorities group needs. Uncertainty avoidance People would try to minimize risk they face in a situation ( avoiding paralysis through analysis ) usually countries with long history and traditions have a high uncertainty avoidance. Countries such as USA well come higher risks. Masculinity / femininity Masculine- tough value dominant Eg; success, money, satiates, competition Feminine- tender values dominant such as personal relationships, care for others, quality of life etc. When we take Sri Lanka for a example I think we have feminine culture even though have many masculinity futures. The best example for this is during the tsunami situation whole county get together to help the tsunami victims within ours. This is an excellent model where you can get a quick idea about something complex as a national culture. we believe this simplicity itself is the major short coming of this model. Hofstede selected a country and gave marks to each dimension, thinking that the culture is static. But we all know that in todays context culture is anything but static, it changes at a rapid pace, thus a country which was once collectivist could now be individualistic due to many reasons such as economic pressure, government policies etc. And also Hofstede never took into account the complexity of the task. For an example USA is an individualistic culture, but certain complex projects and operations may force an individual to work as a group to succeed in that particular project. Thus the complexity of the task has forced someone with individualistic character to be collectivistic. But overall the model is excellent to get a glimpse of what an unknown culture would look like, but we do not believe that you can make sound business decisions based on this model. Now we had understanding about how to analyze a national culture, and also the importance of culture to employees and international HR managers. It was evident that this should be the starting point of any international HR plan. Decisions should be taken where culture is kept at the center, as the success of implementation will depend on how well international employees accept your plans. point 03 The Organizational Context All the previous section discussed about the external environment and this topic discussed how the internal environment should be arranged in accordance to international operations. Again we touched upon areas such as importance of culture in HRM and also the organization strategy and HRM etc. Although these areas are very interesting we found it difficult to see the practicality of it. For an example in one point it was said that if a certain culture is high in power distance and have respect for authority then the authority should be centralized and if not it should decentralized. But in practice it is not the culture that influences the structure most but the objectives and the task of the organization (manufacturing companies are more centralized while service oriented companies are decentralized). The most interesting form of structure for us it was the Matrix structure; it was different from all other traditional structure and had certain unique features. A matrix structure creates dual lines of authority and combines functional and product departmentalization (Robbins, Millett, 2004, p.g. 475). The most interesting part about the Matrix structure was that it broke the departmental boundaries and goes against the unity of command where now one employee reports to two mangers. This type of structure is ideal for a large matured organization. When an organization grows its information processing capacity could get overloaded, under a matrix structure this can be changed as it allows the flow of communication and greater flexibility. But what we found out was even large complex organizations are reluctant to move along with a matrix structure. First of all it is a complex structure, and secondly breaking departmental boundaries has its own repercussions such as there is greater room for conflicts, there will be constant issues about span of control and level of authority and there will always be a struggle for power among managers etc. What was clear for us is that its difficult to look at an organization and say this is the best structure for you. Whatever the structure selected it must be flexible enough to change according to situations and most importantly factors such as national culture, employee behavior must be taken into account prior to deciding on a structure. An organizations structure is the spine that allows it to stand still, the HR activities of the organization and all other activities will depend on the support it gets from the structure. Thus HR has a greater responsibility in designing the structure, the structure should be strong enough not only to stand still against the internal environment but also against the external environment as well. That is why in IHRM we look at aspects such as national cultures, work practices, ethics, norms, behaviors etc. So that HR managers can design a structure that is suitable for the external environment. Lesson 04 HRM in the Host Country Context Host country is the place where the subsidiary is going to be set out. HRM in host country is how you organize your employees, recruit them, train them and compensate them once the subsidiary is operational. But as always the subject went a step further than what I anticipated. Certain type of questions an international HR manager would ask himself. Such as should pay for performance be implemented? Should EEO be practiced here? How far are we going to distribute authority? We feel that we always focus on big areas such as compensation, recruitment, training etc. that we somehow consider the above questions as irrelevant. But we believe in todays context those questions are the burning issues. Before deciding on training and compensation we need to outline the way the organization is going to operate. This way could be the overall corporate strategy, or may be the vision of the organization, whatever it is, it should be the platform of the new subsidiary. Why we call it as the platform is because, once an organization have outlined how it plans to operate such as should it implement pay for performance or should it practice EEO etc. Then the organization has created a clear path for it to travel. Now that the core areas have been outline we can decide what our recruitment policy is going to be like, or how we are going to compensate. For an example lets say that we decided to go along with pay for performance and EEO. Now the HR manager knows what exactly to do, he can design a compensation package that would compensate according to the way employees perform. Also he can design a recruitment policy where applicants are given an equal chance of getting selected. But then there were several other questions that came up. How can an organization decide whats the best path to move forward for it subsidiary? Should it depend on the corporate strategy or the environment of the host country? These were answered quickly by the next few discuss. The topic is trying to teach to us how an organization should look for host country specific factors that will have a direct impact over the operations of the organization. As an example it might be the corporate strategy to use a pay for performance system but certain legal and social conditions in the host country will not allow an organization to use such a strategy (like in Japan where pay is according to the seniority). An organization has a choice when it comes to selecting the way it plans to operate. It can either standardize work practices where parent country standards are maintained globally. Or it can localize the operations according to the host country. These two factors are like two extremes of a continuum, the challenge is to find the point where both options are blended in correct quantities. But in reality we feel organizations do not wish to localize operations and are keen in standardizing as much as possible. From a managers perspective this is completely agreeable as it would solve lot of problems at the corporate level. But when it comes to the operational level it will create ambiguity and confusion. But still in order to ease the pressure at the corporate level and to save time, organizations are more attracted towards standardizing. And this is one of the key reasons why expatriates are used so frequently by multinationals. Apart from many other benefits they bring to the subsidiary they most importantly help the parent country to have a greater control over the operations, thus allowing them to standardize operations to a greater extent. point 05 Sustaining International Business Operations To our knowledge staffing is just one aspect of IHRM and in order to sustain, there are so many other factors that needs to be discussed (such as management style, distribution of power and autonomy etc.). There are several ways approaches to staffing available for MNE. Ethnocentric is where the subsidiary is given little autonomy and key management positions are held by foreign nationals (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.58). There can be many examples found here in Sri Lankan for this particular staffing policy such as Hilton, Suntel, IOC, Laughs etc. Polycentric is where each subsidiary is treated as a distinct national entity with some decision making autonomy (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.59) examples could be Airtel, Dialog etc. Geocentric is where the MNE takes a global approach to its operations. It is accompanied by a worldwide integrated business and nationality is ignored in favor of ability (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.60) e.g -: United Nations, HSBC. Regiocentric is like the geocentric approach, it utilizes a wider pool of managers but in a limited way (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.62) e.g -: Unilivers. However what we going to understand how important the subsidiary is to the organization. The higher the importance the greater the control the organization requires over the subsidiary, thus it is more likely that they would go ahead with an ethnocentric or any other similar approach where they can have greater control. That is why we see mature organizations such as Suntel and Hilton still using an ethnocentric approach. And a new subsidiary like Aitel Sri Lanka using a polycentric approach tells us that it is not of significant importance to the group. Regeocentric and geocentric approaches are separate from the above two, because in order to practice these approaches the MNE should be large and spread across many countries. Our observation may not be 100% true for all organizations, but it would apply for many MNEs especially small and medium once. point 06 Recruitment and Selection for International Assignment When recruiting and selection you asked your self was what should be so different in selecting a domestic manager and an international manger. After all if youre successful as a domestic manger you just have to apply the same thing abroad with a bunch of foreigners. This time we was completely wrong, we soon found out that there was a significant difference in selecting a domestic manager and an international manager. The first thing we realized about an international manager is that his task is lot more complicated than of a domestic manager. There is a lot expected from an expatriate, he will have to perform in an unfamiliar environment, he will have to play different roles in different situations (e.g-: an interpreter, a boundary spanner, an agent, a negotiator etc.), the support of the family and friends maybe absent, he is expected to be flexible and adopt to the host country situations quickly etc. An important point we want to understand, expatriate failure. We found it very interesting because we was unaware of this term and also when we looked deep in to it; it is something practically experienced by many MNEs. Expatriate failure is defined as the premature return of an expatriate (that is, a return home before the period of assignment is completed) (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.86). There were several reasons highlighted for expatriate failure, the most common issues are the inability of the expatriate to adapt to the host country and family concerns. Why we say is that when an expatriate is selected, the organization makes sure that he has performed well domestically. This certifies that he has the necessary technical competencies. So the reason for not performing internationally is not because he lacks technical skills, its just that he doesnt know how apply his knowledge to that particular culture. And also humans are social animals; they always want to be a part of a group and a community. But when an expatriate is send abroad he gets cut off from his community and gets isolated. This adds tremendous physiological pressure on the expat. That is why we believe that these two factors are the most common reasons for expatriate failure. Lesson 07 Training and Development Now we want to understand how important it is to select the right person to head an international operation. Being successful in a domestic environment does not guarantee the success in an international environment. But selecting the candidate with all these factors is difficult. So it was my understanding that if organizations cannot find individuals with the desired characteristics, they must use training and development to bring those individuals to the desired level. Before this discussion starting this we want to identify and understand the difference between training and development. As explained by Stone (2005, p.g.335) training emphasizes immediate improvement in the current job performance, while development involves those activities that prepare an employee future responsibilities. Thus the correct word to be used in IHRM would be development. The interesting thing in this discussion that expats are in most occasions going act as trainers themselves. This is a true fact; one of the main reasons of using expatriates is because they have certain skills that host country employees do not. Thus they will in time teach these new skills to host country employees. Now we had idea about how important training of expatriates really is. Not only should an organization train them on handling cross cultural instability and breaking the language barrier, they should also be trained to handle the trainers position (a person who trains host country nationals). Many expats fail due the inability to adapt to host country environment. Thus having a good cross cultural training session is vital to a successful international operation.It was also mentioned that preliminary visits should be a key area in cross cultural training. I totally agree with that statement, the expat should be given a chance to experience the host country for himself, which is more effective than any class room session. And language has been a huge barrier for many expatriates to perform well, thus it should also be a part of the cross cultural training. We strongly feel that there should be some concern given in developing the expats technical skills as well, especially if hes going take on a new management position which was absent in this chapter. point 08 Performance Management, Re-entry and Career Issues we had an understanding about performance management from a previous discussion but re-entry was a new area. So we were going to looking forward to identifying the link between these two topics. What performance management really is and how it can benefit an organization.This is because there are so many other factors that needs to be taken into consideration when assessing an expat, things like the host country environment, the culture, employee behavior etc. And another significant difference in IHRM performance appraisals is that it takes into account factors such as the expats ability to connect with the host country culture and social values, ability to understand its employees etc. Our understanding is that having a thorough, fool proof performance appraisal and conducting it correctly is vital for an organization. This is the best point where the organization can do a thorough audit about the performance of the expat. As explained earlier expatriate failure is a major issue in most of the international organizations. This can be avoided to a greater extent if the organization carries out a thorough performance appraisal. Repatriation was a interesting area. The interesting part was that most international manager after a successful international operation upon re entering to the host country underwent certain issues. This was so common that it is been included into the expatriation process. From we want to feel there two sides to this story. One being that the manager who is returning after a long time will find it difficult to adopt to his culture and environment after being away from it. Secondly issues related with the work environment such as change in positions, change in reporting styles, change in organization culture, new recruits etc. I believe the change in the work environment is the one that affects the most. Our understanding is that in order to avoid this, the expat should constantly keep in touch with the parent country during his assignment. point09 Compensation People work because they know that at the end of the day they are paid a decent amount. So if an organization wants to keep its best employees intact it must make sure that they compensate accordingly. We thought that this same rule applied in IHRM. We knew that international mangers are paid much better than local mangers, and our understanding was that it is because the task they handle is difficult. But compensating in IHRM is lot more complicated than in HRM. First of all we want to discuss about a topic that we found very interesting. There are two ways an organization can compensate an employee. The going rate approach is where the salary structure is in parallel with the host country standards (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.144). The balance sheet approach is where the salary structure would be similar to home country standards (Dowling Welch, 2004, p.g.146). Our understanding is that the salary structure is always designed to benefit the expat. For an example if an Australian manager is transferred to Sri Lanka they would adapt the balance sheet approach since Australians are paid better than Sri Lanka. If a Sri Lankan manager was to go to Australia then they would adapt the going rate approach. The reason for this as we understand is that most expats are sent to handle senior management positions, and it is most likely that they would have to start lot of things from starch such as accommodation, schooling, furniture etc. Thus the organization must make sure that not only they are paid better than their subordinates but also it should be equal or better than what theyre paid in their parent country. Otherwise an organization will not be able to attract talented individuals. The important thing to understand as we feel is that it is very difficult for someone to accept an international assignment. There is change in culture, living standards, family issues, re location issues, fear of moving into uncertain territory, career issues are some of the things that an international manager will have to face. Despite all this, if an organization wants an individual to accept an international assignment the best way of breaking the above barriers is by compensating them accordingly. we believe that is the reason why expats always gets the benefit when it comes designing their salary structure. Another important area in compensation as we found out was allowances. As we want to understand it has two purposes. Firstly an allowance makes the remuneration package attractive, thus managers will be attracted in accepting international assignments. Secondly it will help to increase the living standards of an international manager. Especially senior managers have a certain image to maintain, they reflect not only their standard but the standard of the entire firm. Hence an allowances will help senior managers to protect that image. point 10 Business Etiquettes and Social Customs There were always something new to learn in etiquettes, because every culture has their own unique way of conducting business. The important thing that we want to understand that no matter how qualified and well equipped a manager maybe he can mess the whole thing up by just doing something that is not excepted in that culture. That is how important etiquettes are. By doing things according to the hosts culture you show that you respect them and their culture. Handling these etiquettes should be one of the factors discussed in the expatriate training programs. As it will help the future expats to handle business smoothly, since then they know what they should do and what they shouldnt. The interesting part is that you can damage a relationship by doing something, or by not doing as well.