MGT599 - Strategic Management, Mod 3 Case Assignment Essay

MGT599 - Strategic Management, Mod 3 Case Assignment - Essay Example In this paper we will make a detailed analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Southwest Airlines and see how they contribute to its overall success. A firm is blessed with its own resources of men, money, machines and materials that can be used to its best advantage if the strategy it is following is correct and feasible in the present conditions. Strong and Robust Reputation: One of the best strengths of Southwest Airlines is its strong reputation and brand name in the airline industry. Established in 1967, it changed its name to Southwest Airlines in 1971 and from them on has been dominating the local air transport sector in the USA. According to its Annual Report 2011, it presently flies to 76 destinations within the USA, and following its acquisition of Air Tran and strategic alliance with Volaris, Mexico it has also established routes to the Caribbean and Mexico in Latin America, making it an emerging regional player (Annual Report, 2011). Zealous and Committed Staff: Southwest Airlines makes no secret of the fact that it works hard to be the leader in the domestic airline sector. It spends a lot on the training and education of its staff and likes strong, enterprising and hard workers who can do a variety of tasks. Even its internship program encourages this attitude. A unique combination of zeal and enthusiasm on the part of its workers coupled with a businesslike but courteous customer service plan makes for a WOW experience even on this low cost service provider. Although Southwest Airlines has in excess of 45,000 staff belonging to as many as 18 different Collective Bargaining Agents in Unions, yet it has managed to coexist with their needs (Annual Report, 2011). Exemplary Pricing and Service Plans: Another plus point for Southwest which other airlines are struggling to emulate are its challenging low fares and variety of pricing plans,

The Fall And Rise Of Strategic Planning Business Essay

The Fall And Rise Of Strategic Planning Business Essay Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies, at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University in Montreal. His work has focused on the work of the manager, and how managers are trained and developed. The author or co-author of 15 books, Mintzberg is, perhaps, best known for his work on organizational forms identifying five types of organization: simple structure; machine bureaucracy; professional bureaucracy; the divisionalized form; and the adhocracy. He is also credited with advancing the idea of emergent strategy the idea that effective strategy emerges from conversations within an organization rather than being imposed from on high. Mintzberg is a long time critic of traditional MBA programs. His first book,  The Nature of Managerial Work  (1973) challenged the established thinking about the role of the manager, and is one of the few books that actually examine what managers do, rather than discussing what they should do. Other highlights include  The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (1994); Managers Not MBAs  (2004), and  Managing  (2009).This report presents overview of his major works. Introduction An engineer by training, he received a PhD from MIT before joining McGills faculty of management in 1968. He was the first Fellow to be elected to the Royal Society of Canada from the field of Management. He designed and developed the IMPM, the International Masters Program in Practicing Management, and a degree-level program delivered in six countries Canada, England, France, India, Japan and Korea. It is a degree program that focuses directly on the development of managers in their jobs and organizations. Henry Mintzberg equates the process of strategy making to the process of making pottery. The strategist is similar to  a craftsman, or potter in this case. Mintzberg says, The crafting image better captures the process by which effective strategies come to be. First, the potter may create a product that follows in the tradition of her past work, but she may also create a work that breaks away from tradition in a new direction. Similarly, strategies are patterns that are put into action over time; but strategies may emerge in a different direction than tradition has previously held. Second, strategy making must be a deliberate process-thought must precede action. But strategies can form as well as be formulated. Third, strategists do not necessarily have to be top management running an organization but removed from the inner-workings of that organization. Instead, like the potter is intimately connected with her work, strategists may be those most intimately connected with the compa ny and those products/services it sells. Strategists may be those on the front lines, so to speak. Fourth, the potter may fail to make one piece, but the lump that remains may be formed into something completely different. In the same way, strategies can emerge any time and at any place; errors themselves may become chances for opportunity. The image of a craftsman is someone who is dedicated, passionate, intimately involved with the materials, has a personal touch, has mastered the detail of their art, and is experienced. The strategist must also be someone who is involved and connected with their industry and who is personally involved with the industrial processes. Finally, just as a craftsman may see things that other people miss, the strategist must be able to see emerging patterns and guide them into place as strategies. Mintzbergs major impact on the management world began with his book,  The nature of managerial work which was published in 1973 and also a seminal article in Harvard Business Review,  The managers job: folklore and fact  which was written two years after the book. These two works established Mintzbergs reputation which showed research work done on what managers did, to successfully carrying out their responsibilities, which were substantially different from the most of the theories learnt in MBA classrooms. Mintzbergs management thinking is against the concept of having one or two clever theories within some narrow discipline. His approach is merely broad enough to involve virtually the study of everything that managers do and how they do it. His appeal was further enhanced by a belief that management is about applying human skills to systems and not applying systems to people. In all the articles of Mintzberg this belief is explained. In his article  The managers job: folklore and fact,  Mintzberg has set out the reality of what managers do. A single theme runs through the article and that is the pressures of the job drive that the manager carry to take on too much work, respond quickly to each and every stimulus encourage interruption, seek the tangible, decisions in small increments, avoid the abstract, make, and do everything abruptly. Mintzberg, in this article has stressed the importance of the managers role and the need to understand it thoroughly before attempting to train and develop those engaged in carrying it out. No job is more vital to our society than that of the manager. It is the manager who determines whether our social institutions serve us well or whether they squander our talents and resources. It is time to strip away the folklore about managerial work, and time to study it realistically so that we can begin the difficult task of making significant improvements in its performance. In  The nature of managerial work, Mintzberg proposes six characteristics of management work and ten basic management roles. As per him, these characteristics and roles apply to all management jobs, from supervisor to chief executive. The six characteristics are: 1. The managers job is a mixture of regular, programmed jobs and unprogrammed tasks. 2. A manager is both a generalist and a specialist. 3. Managers rely on information from all sources but show a preference for that which is orally transmitted. 4. Managerial work is made up of activities that are characterized by brevity, variety and fragmentation. 5. Management work is more an art than a science and is reliant on intuitive processes and a feel for what is right. 6. Management work is becoming more complex. The ten roles that he believes make up the content of the managers job are divided into three categories: 1. Interpersonal a)  Figurehead   performing symbolic duties as a representative of the organization. b)  Leader   establishing the atmosphere and motivating the subordinates. c)  Liaiser   developing and maintaining webs of contacts outside the organization. 2. Information a)  Monitor   collecting all types of information that are relevant and useful to the organization. b)  Disseminator   transmitting information from outside the organization to those inside. c)  Spokesman   transmitting information from inside the organization to outsiders. 3. Decision-making a)  Entrepreneur   initiating change and adapting to the environment. b)  Disturbance Handler   dealing with unexpected events. c)  Resource Allocator   deciding on the use of organizational resources. d)  Negotiator   negotiating with individuals and dealing with other organizations. The Structure of Organizations In his book,  The structuring of organizations, Mintzberg has identified five types of `ideal organization structures. Following are the more detailed view of organization types drawn up: The entrepreneurial organization: Having small staff, loose division of labor, have small management hierarchy, being informal with power focused on the chief executive. The machine organization  : highly specialized, large operating units, routine operating tasks, formal communication, elaborate administrative systems, tasks grouped under functions, central decision making and a sharp distinction between line and staff. The diversified organization: a set of semi-autonomous units under a central administrative structure. These units are called divisions and are centrally administered called as headquarter. The professional organization: found in hospitals, universities, public agencies and firms producing standardized products or services and doing routine work, this structure relies on the skills and knowledge of professional staff in order to function. The innovative organization: Mintzbergs definition of modern organization, flexible, rejecting any form of bureaucracy and avoiding emphasis on planning and control systems. Innovation achieved by hiring experts, giving them power, training and developing them and employing them in multi-discipline teams that work in an atmosphere unbounded by conventional specialism and differentiation. The missionary organization: Here, mission is counted above everything else. The mission is clear, focused, distinctive and inspiring. Staff readily identifies with it and shares common values. They are motivated by their own zeal and enthusiasm. Mintzberg defines, the following mechanisms, regarding the coordination between different tasks: 1. Mutual adjustment, to achieve coordination by the simple process of informal communication. 2. Direct supervision, achieved by having one person issue orders or instructions to several others whose work interrelates (as when a boss tells others what is to be done) 3. Standardization of work processes, achieves coordination by specifying the work processes of people carrying out interrelated tasks (standards developed in the techno-structure to be carried out in the operating core, as in the case of the work instructions that come out of time and motion studies) 4. Standardization of outputs, which achieves coordination by specifying the results of different work (developed in the techno-structure, as in a financial plan that specifies subunit performance targets or specifications that outline the dimensions of a product to be produced) 5. Standardization of skills and knowledge, in which different work is coordinated by virtue of the related training given to the workers (as in medical specialists, a surgeon and an anesthetist in an operating room, responding almost automatically to each others standardized procedures) 6. Standardization of norms, in which the norms infusing the work that are controlled, usually for the entire organization, so that everyone functions according to the same set of beliefs. According to the organizational configurations model of Mintzberg each organization can consist of a maximum of six basic parts: 1. Strategic Apex (top management) 2. Middle Line (middle management) 3. Operating Core (operations, operational processes) 4. Techno-structure (analysts that design systems, processes, etc.) 5. Support Staff (support outside of operating workflow) 6. Ideology (halo of beliefs and traditions; norms, values, culture) Strategy and planning The relationship between strategy and planning is a constant theme in Mintzbergs writing and his views on the subject are considered to be of contributed significantly to the current management thinking. In his 1994 book, The rise and fall of Strategic Planning, Mintzberg produces a criticism on conventional theory. He believes that there are some failures in traditional understanding of planning procedure. Processes the elaborate processes use to create bureaucracy and suppress innovation and originality. Data `hard data (the raw material of all strategists) provides information, but `soft data, provides wisdom: Hard information can be no better and is often at times far worse than soft information. Detachment Mintzberg dismisses the process of producing strategies in ivory towers i.e. he believes that effective strategists cant be made by people who are at a distance from the detail of a business. They should be the ones who have immersed themselves in it, while being able to abstract the strategic messages from it. He sees strategy not as the consequence of planning but the opposite: Strategies  illustrate the concept of the delicate, painstaking process of developing strategy a process of emergence that is far away from the classical picture of strategists grouped around a table predicting the future. He argues that while an organization needs a strategy, strategic plans are generally useless as one cannot predict two to three years ahead. 5 Ps of Strategy To develop understanding of strategy Mintzberg developed what is known as the 5 Ps of Strategy. These are: Strategy as  Plan Strategy as Intended Pattern Strategy as Emergent/Unintended Pattern Strategy as Position Strategy as Perspective Strategy as  Plan: Mintzberg defined it as some  sort of consciously intended course of action, a guideline (or set of guidelines) to deal with a situation.  The  example of Game Theory, where  Strategy is nothing but a complete plan: a plan that specifies what choices [the player] will make in every possible situation. Rebuilding Companies as Communities Community means caring about our work, our colleagues, and our place in the world, geographic and otherwise, and in turn being inspired by this caring. Tellingly, some of the companies we admire most-Toyota, Semco (Brazil), Mondragon (a Basque federation of cooperatives), Pixar, and so on-typically have this strong sense of community. Young, successful companies usually have this sense of community. They are growing, energized, committed to their people, almost a family. But sustaining it with the onset of maturity can be another matter: Things slow down, politics builds up, and the world is no longer their oyster. Community is sometimes easier to preserve in the social sector-with NGOs, not-for-profits, and cooperatives. The mission may be more engaging, and the people more engaged. But somehow, in our hectic, individualist world, the sense of community has been lost in too many companies and other organizations. In the United States in particular, many great enterprises, along with the countrys legendary sense of enterprise, have been collapsing as a consequence. The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning When strategic planning was defined the mid-1960s, corporate leaders embraced it as the one best way to devise and implement strategies that would enhance the competitiveness of each business unit. For the scientific management pioneered by Frederick Taylor, this involved separating thinking from doing and creating a new function by having specialists like strategic planners. Planning systems were expected to produce the best strategies as well as step-by-step instructions for carrying out these strategies so that the managers could not get them wrong. Strategic planning has long since fallen from its pedestal. But even now followed by people as very few understand that strategic planning  is not  strategic thinking. Strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking, by causing managers to confuse real vision with the manipulation of numbers. This confusion lies at the heart of the issue i.e. the most successful strategies are visions and not plans. Strategic planning has actually been  strategic programming,  the articulation and elaboration of strategies, or visions, that already exist. Mintzberg says after understanding the difference between planning and strategic thinking, companies can get back to what the strategy-making process should be i.e. capturing what the manager learns from all sources (both the soft insights from his or her personal experiences and the experiences of others throughout the organization and the hard data from market research and the like) and then synthesizing that learning into a vision of the direction that the business should pursue. This doesnt imply that organizations, which have disenchanted with strategic planning, are needed to get rid of their planners or conclude that there is no need for programming. In fact, organizations should transform the conventional planning jobs. Planners should perform the role of providing the formal analyses or hard data required by the strategic thinkers and hence should make their contribution in strategy making process. Hence, planners should act as catalysts supporting strategy making by aiding and encouraging managers to think strategically. Thus, they can be programmers of a strategy, helping to specify concrete steps needed to carry out the vision. By redefining the planners job, companies will acknowledge the difference between planning and strategic thinking. Planning has always been about  analysis about breaking down a goal or set of intentions into steps, formalizing those steps so that they can be implemented almost automatically, and articulating the anticipated consequences or results of each step. This has been accepted by Michael Porter, who is known as the most widely read writer on strategy. Strategic thinking, is about  synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity. The outcome of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective of the enterprise, a not-too-precisely articulated vision of direction, such as the vision of Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, that three-dimensional visual computing is the way to make computers easier to use. Such strategies cant be developed on schedule basis and cant be immaculately conceived. They should be free to appear at any time and at any place in the organization through the processes of informal learning that must necessarily be carried out by people at various levels who are deeply involved with the specific issues at hand. Crafting Strategy Imagine someone planning strategy. What likely springs to mind is an image of orderly thinking: a senior manager, or a group of them, sitting in an office formulating courses of action that everyone else will implement on schedule. The keynote is reason-rational control, the systematic analysis of competitors and markets, of company strengths and weaknesses, the combination of these analyses producing clear, explicit, full-blown strategies. Now imagine someone  crafting  strategy. A wholly different image likely results, as different from planning as craft is from mechanization. Craft evokes traditional skill, dedication, perfection through the mastery of detail. What springs to mind is not so much thinking and reason as involvement, a feeling of intimacy and harmony with the materials at hand, developed through long experience and commitment. Formulation and implementation merge into a fluid process of learning through which creative strategies evolve. My thesis is simple: the crafting image better captures the process by which effective strategies come to be. The planning image, long popular in the literature, distorts these processes and thereby misguides organizations that embrace it unreservedly. In developing this thesis, I shall draw on the experiences of a single craftsman, a potter, and compare them with the results of a research project that tracked the strategies of a number of corporations across several decades. Because the two contexts are so obviously different, my metaphor, like my assertion, may seem farfetched at first. Yet if we think of a craftsman as an organization of one, we can see that he or she must also resolve one of the great challenges the corporate strategist faces: knowing the organizations capabilities well enough to think deeply enough about its strategic direction. By considering strategy making from the perspective of one person, free of all the paraphernalia of what has been called the strategy industry, we can learn something about the formation of strategy in the corporation. For much as our potter has to manage her craft, so too managers have to craft their strategy. At work, the potter sits before a lump of clay on the wheel. Her mind is on the clay, but she is also aware of sitting between her past experiences and her future prospects. She knows exactly what has and has not worked for her in the past. She has an intimate knowledge of her work, her capabilities, and her markets. As a craftsman, she senses rather than analyzes these things; her knowledge is tacit. All these things are working in her mind as her hands are working the clay. The product that emerges on the wheel is likely to be in the tradition of her past work, but she may break away and embark on a new direction. Even so, the past is no less present, projecting itself into the future. In my metaphor, managers are craftsmen and strategy is their clay. Like the potter, they sit between a past of corporate capabilities and a future of market opportunities. And if they are truly craftsmen, they bring to their work an equally intimate knowledge of the materials at hand. That is the essence of crafting strategy. In this article, we will explore this metaphor by looking at how strategies get made as opposed to how they are supposed to get made. Throughout, I will be drawing on the two sets of experiences Ive mentioned. One, described in the sidebar, is a research project on patterns in strategy formation that has been going on at McGill University under my direction since 1971. The second is the stream of work of a successful potter, my wife, who began her craft in 1967. The Five Minds of a Manager The CEO of a Canadian company has recently complained that he was not able to get his engineers to think like managers. Such a complaint is common in nature, but behind it lays an uncommon important question: What does it mean to think like a manager? We dont see much attention paid to answer that question in later years. Many of us have become enamored of leadership so much that management has been pushed into the background. Now days, we dont see anybody aspiring to become a good manager; in fact everybody, wants to be known as a great leader. But we ignore that the separation of management from leadership is harmful. As we know that management without leadership encourages an uninspired style, which deadens activities. In contrast, Leadership without management encourages a disconnected style, which promotes hubris. Knowing the destructive power of hubris in organizations we should get back to old management. The only problem is that the plain old management is comparatively more complicated and hence, confusing. Managers are asked to be global and also to be local to collaborate and to compete in the market. Show change, perpetually to maintain order. Make the numbers even while nurturing your people. Now the question is how anyone is supposed to reconcile all this? The reality is that no one can actually do it. For becoming effective, managers have to face the juxtapositions so that they can arrive at a deep integration of these seemingly contradictory concerns. This means that managers must focus not only on what exactly they have to accomplish but also on how they have to think. Basically, managers need to have different mind-sets. Helping managers to appreciate this was the challenge they had set for themselves in the mid-1990s the time, when they had began to develop a new masters program for the managers for practicing. They had guessed that they cant rely on the usual format of the MBA education, which actually divides the management world into field like function of marketing, accounting, finance, and so on. Their intention was basically to educate managers who were coming out of such narrow mindsets. They wanted to have a new structure which would encourage synthesis than separation. They came up with a framework based on the five aspects of the managerial mindset, which has proved not only powerful in the classroom but also of utter importance in practice. Below, they have explained how they came up with the five managerial mind-sets. The Managers Job:  Folklore and Fact If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organize, coordinate, and control. Then watch what they do. Dont be surprised if you cant relate what you see to these words. When a manager is told that a factory has just burned down and then advises the caller to see whether temporary arrangements can be made to supply customers through a foreign subsidiary, is that manager planning, organizing, coordinating, or controlling? How about when he or she presents a gold watch to a retiring employee? Or attends a conference to meet people in the trade and returns with an interesting new product idea for employees to consider? These four words, which have dominated management vocabulary since the French industrialist Henri Fayol first introduced them in 1916, tell us little about what managers actually do. At best, they indicate some vague objectives managers have when they work. The field of management, so devoted to progress and change, has for more than half a century not seriously addressed  the  basic question: What do managers do? Without a proper answer, how can we teach management? How can we design planning or information systems for managers? How can we improve the practice of management at all? Our ignorance of the nature of managerial work shows up in various ways in the modern organization-in boasts by successful managers who never spent a single day in a management training program; in the turnover of corporate planners who never quite understood what it was the manager wanted; in the computer consoles gathering dust in the back room because the managers never used the fancy on-line MIS some analyst thought they needed. Perhaps most important, our ignorance shows up in the inability of our large public organizations to come to grips with some of their most serious policy problems. Somehow, in the rush to automate production, to use management science in the functional areas of marketing and finance, and to apply the skills of the behavioral scientist to the problem of worker motivation, the manager-the person in charge of the organization or one of its subunits-has been forgotten. I intend to break the reader away from Fayols words and introduce a more supportable and useful description of managerial work. This description derives from my review and synthesis of research on how various managers have spent their time. In some studies, managers were observed intensively; in a number of others, they kept detailed diaries; in a few studies, their records were analyzed. All kinds of managers were studied-foremen, factory supervisors, staff managers, field sales managers, hospital administrators, presidents of companies and nations, and even street gang leaders. These managers worked in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Great Britain. Strategy as Pattern Mintzberg defines strategy as  consistency in behavior, whether or not intended.  Strategy can emerge as patterns, which may be seen as the resulting actions. To prove this point, he gives example of Henry Ford who originally developed the Model T, which was the strategy to offer the car in the  black color, but by strategy as a pattern, this was an intended strategy. An unintended strategy, as a pattern can be seen with an example of IKEA who began to flat pack their furniture, where as the original idea for this was to borne of one of the companies designers which are trying to load a table into their car and when they realized that it wouldnt fit and hence, they would have to detach the legs of the table. At that time, they realized that customers would be facing the similar issue while purchasing their product, and as such a vital aspect of Ileas strategy it emerged unintentionally.http://louisdietvorst.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/emergent-strategy.jpg?w=481h=372 Strategy as Position Strategy as a position refers to the environment in which the organization operates in and the mediating force between the internal and external context. An example to justify this concept can be of organizations strategy towards dealing with critical environmental factors such as extreme heat, disposal of waste, use of green IT. Strategy as Perspective This aspect of strategy is concerned with how the organization itself sees the business  environment. For example, an organization will have an option of being the pacesetters, who is always seen at the bleeding edge of technology and who, sell their products based on advances of technology. Whereas another option would be to be followers, where organizations learn from the mistakes of the pace setter and hence, they adopt only proven technologies and are more  concerned  with the quality and reliability of products rather than bleeding technological edge. Examples to prove this is of the automotive industry, where it can be seen, how Ford has began the new Ford Focus market to be the technological leader in this product category. With the use of economies of scale Ford has managed to cheaply introduce technologies like Self-Parking, it is a technology associated with premium brands rather than Ford who is traditionally known for targeting blue-collar workers. Key works by Henry Mintzberg Books Managing.  FT Prentice-Hall, 2009 Management: its not what you think.  (With Bruce Ahlstrand and Josepeh Lampel). FT Prentice-Hall, 2010 Strategy bites back.  (With Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel). Pearson, 2005 Managers not MBAs.  Berrett-Koehler, 2004 Strategy safari.  (With Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lample) London: Prentice-Hall, 1998 The strategy process: concepts, contexts, cases (3rd ed).London: Prentice-Hall International, 1996 The rise and fall of strategic planning.  Hemel Hempstead: Prentice-Hall International, 1994 Mintzberg on management: inside our strange world of organizations.  New York: Free Press, 1989 Power in and around organizations.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983 Structures in fives: designing effective organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983 The structuring of organizations: a synthesis of the research. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979 The nature of managerial work.  New York: Harper and Row, 1973 Journal articles Key articles are given below, for a complete list from 1967 to date, with some links through to full text, please seehttp://www.mintzberg.org/articles The managers job: folklore and fact.  Harvard Business Review, 68 (2) Mar-Apr 1990, pp. 163-176. Originally published in 1975, the article includes a retrospective commentary by the author. Crafting strategy.  Harvard Business Review, 65 (4) Jul-Aug 1987, pp. 66-75 The fall and rise of strategic planning.  Harvard Business Review, 72 (1) Jan-Feb 1994, pp. 107-114 Rounding out the managers job.  Sloan Management Review, 36 (1) Autumn 1994, pp. 11-26 Musings on management.  Harvard Business Review, 74 (4) Jul-Aug 1996, pp. 61-67 Managing on the edge.  International Journal of Public Sector Management, 10 (3) 1997, pp. 131-153 The yin and yang of managing.  Organizational Dynamics, 29 (4) 2001, pp. 306-312

A Deadly Realization Essay -- essays research papers

A Deadly Realization I walked into school around 8:25, rolling out of bed only a half hour before. I wiped the rain from my face, I hate when it rains. As usual, I strolled in with a casual walk, like I was the coolest, because I could come in late every morning since I had no first period class. The first person I saw as I walked through the cafeteria toward the staircase was Louise. Usually an outgoing and crazy person, she strikes many as being on crack. She calmly and quietly said "hey", with her face to the floor, not even looking at me. On my way up the staircase to my locker, I passed my good friend Mike. He looked me in the face and said, "Did you hear?" I replied with intense wonder of what the latest gossip at Shoreham-Wading River High School could be. "No", I replied, "what happened?" "You'll find out at the assembly." I had a few minutes before second period began, so I walked to the library, and pulled up a seat across from my friend Ke vin. "What's up, I heard we have an assembly this morning." "Yeah, I think two juniors got in an accident last night, but I heard they're all ok." I jokingly responded, "Well, at least periods are shorter." He gave me a tiny smirk, silently telling me we shouldn't be laughing over such a horrible thing. The bell rang, and first period ended. Dr. Hayward the principal came over the loudspeaker, "All students please report to the auditorium." Kevin and I got up, and joined the crowd slowly squeezing into the auditorium through the two open doors. I looked around and saw a group of my best friends sitting together. Katie had her head on Louise's shoulder, and Mike and Kyle sat there with a blank stare on their faces. I made my way into a seat, and looked at everyone, "Hey guys." No one responded, not even a look. By this point, I was scared at what news I might hear. I didn't know what to be thinking. For everyone to be so upset, it must be really serious. I looked around. Everyone had a look of wonder on their face, or they were crying, or just didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to think. I had never seen my friends like this before. Never have I seen Mike so serious, he would laugh if I got run over by a car. But this time was different for sur... ...ast person I knew that would take their own life. He always seemed happy, never missed a good laugh, and always walked around with a smile on his face. On the last day of school, the senior class planted a tree in his honor. It was strange, only about twenty kids showed up. Those that felt really close to Wes. I think to those few, Wes will never really die, and he'll always be there. Often times, when I'm upset about something, I remember what happened to Wes, and realize, things can be much, much worse. That night, I drove down Wes's street with a bunch of my friends. We each began to talk of our fondest memories of Wes, of all our memories of Wes. His smile was unforgettable, and his personality the kindest. I'll never forget that last thing Wes told me. "I'll see you on Monday." I never saw Wes that Monday, and I'll never forgive myself for not making more of that night with him. I think one really important thing that I learned from Wes, is to treat everyday of your life as if it may be your last. I've heard that line so many times before, I never really thought about it, but now, I hope to never forget it.

Religious Education S.B. Essay

Introduction The Rastafarian symbols are important tools to the Rasta’s and their religion and a massive amount of Rasta’s see it as a way of life rather than a religion as a result of this the researcher did a research in order to find out â€Å"The importance of the Rastafarian symbols to the Rasta’s and why does the Rasta’s of the community of Rose Hill District, St.Mary join this religion?† Acknowledgment The researcher would like to thank a number of persons for their assistance and cooperation throughout this research without them the successful completion of this study would not have been possible. Firstly the researcher would like to thank his teacher Mrs. Thomas and his friend Christopher Stephenson for giving him the task of completing this research truly it had positively impacted and the researcher and for instructing the researcher so he could put the research together. The researcher would like to thank his parent for relieving him from his chores and for her encouragement throughout this stressful period so that the research could be properly conducted and completed. The researcher would also like to thank the Rasta’s of the community of Riversdale, St. Catherine for answering the given questionnaires, for making sure the researcher was on the right track in conducting his research and the Highgate Library and their internet source for providing the researcher with the necessary important information and last but not least the researcher would like to thank God for giving him the strength and patience so that the research could be properly conducted and completed. Topic: Rastafarian Symbols Aims The importance of the Rastafarian symbols. The significance of the Rastafarian symbols. The founder and foundation of the different Rastafarian symbols. The different uses of the Rastafarian symbols. INFORMATION COLLECTION The researcher used both primary and secondary sources to obtain information. The primary source used is questionnaire. A questionnaire may be defined as a written set of questions answered by a number of people to provide information for a survey. A total of twenty (20) questionnaires were issued to twenty Rastafarians, eighteen males and two females living in the Riversdale community in St.Catherine on July 28, 2011 and were collected back within ten working days. The reason the researcher decided to use written questionnaire are: Questionnaire allow data to be collected from a large number of people Questionnaire is cost effective Questionnaire make it possible to compare the responses of many respondents Questionnaire can be used to collect data that can be expressed in statistical for using graphs and tables. The secondary source used to obtain information is literature review. The researcher used literature review to gain factual information of what books and reliable websites have said about the topic, Rastafarian symbols and this allow for comparison of the different views. The limitations experience in using these methods to collect data is that the respondents may not answer the questions truthfully and the questions may be ambiguous. Summary of finding Literature review have shown that the Rastafarian religion was formed in 1930 by a group of Rasta’s and from that time until now it have been widespread throughout the world. The Rastafarian movement is said to be a male dominated religion with about 92% of the members of this religion been male and a small 8% been female. Rasta’s are expected to be purity and righteous people and are not expected to eat any & everything thus they eat what is  known as ital food as been part of their main diet to remain healthy & fit. The ganja is one of the most recognized symbols of the Rastafarian and thus is smoke in abundance by them and all some none Rasta’s as they said it help them to meditate. The marijuana is not only use for smoking by the Rasta’s but they use it as medicine and they also use it in worship to get closer to God. The word jah is used in the everyday life of the Rasta’s and also non Rasta’s whether in worship when reaching out to th eir supreme being Haile Selassie or in their every life talking. The word jah has become a profound word use by almost every entertainer in the music industry today in their songs whether Rasta or non Rasta and is seen printed on buildings and vehicles of Rasta’s and non Rasta’s. Unlike the word jah the Rastafarian flag is seen printed on the buildings & vehicles of many Rastafarian living in the world today. The dread locks should be a symbol that as you see a Rasta you know that he or she is a real Rasta but it is not quite so in the world today, many person living in the world today tend to use the dreadlocks hair style as a fashion and not as a symbol of been part of the religious group. This is not good for the Rastafarian religion for if these imitators when out and do something which is not righteous or profound to the Rastafarian religion it would not only give this person a bad name but instead giving the Rastafarian religion a bad name. Many person today use the dreadlocks hair style & the Rastafarian religion as just a stepping stone for making money and one place where this is widely use is the entertainment industry. The Rastafarian religion today have not just benefited Rastafarian alone but also non Rasta as during the fast tourist season such as the summer time many person make arts of the Rastafarian symbols & other instrument of the Rastafarian movement and sell it to tourist to make a living and also some men tend to Rasta up their hair to become marketable to the tourist as it is said that tourist love and cherish Rasta men and are willing to pay for their service sex wise.

Minority report vs all the troubles of the world Essay

The two computers â€Å"All the Troubles in the World† and â€Å"Minority Report† are both machines that can predict the future, but they operate in different ways. The computer in Minority Report is actually 3 human beings with psychic powers. However the computer in â€Å"All the Troubles in the World† is actually a super computer that becomes so complex it starts to act like a human. Some other differences are that Multivac controls the world’s economy and can predict everybody’s actions before the people can even think about doing it, while the Pre-Cogs can only predicts murders with vague visions. The ways the two machines operate are vastly different; the Pre-cogs need a technician to constant watch them and special medication, but all Multivac needs are replacement parts to be installed occasionally. People also see Multivac as a god as it can predict almost anything with the data its collected. The Pre-Cogs on the other hand are constantly doubted as some people don’t believe they are 100% accurate. Although the two machines have many differences they are similar in some aspects, they both can predict murders and a police force can stop it before it happens. Both of the universes heavily rely on the two machines to make the world a better place. Overall the two stories â€Å"All the Troubles of the World† and â€Å"Minority Report† have similar concepts but are very different when you look at how the machines function. All the Troubles in the World vs. Minority Report The two computers â€Å"All the Troubles in the World† and â€Å"Minority Report† are both machines that can predict the future, but they operate in different ways. The computer in Minority Report is actually 3 human beings with psychic powers. However the computer in â€Å"All the Troubles in the World† is actually a super computer that becomes so complex it starts to act like a human. Some other differences are that Multivac controls the world’s economy and can predict everybody’s actions before the people can even think about doing it, while the Pre-Cogs can only predicts murders with vague visions. The ways the two machines operate are vastly different; the Pre-cogs need a technician to constant watch them and special medication, but all Multivac  needs are replacement parts to be installed occasionally. People also see Multivac as a god as it can predict almost anything with the data its collected. The Pre-Cogs on the other hand are constantly doubted as some people don’t believe they are 100% accurate. Although the two machines have many differences they are similar in some aspects, they both can predict murders and a police force can stop it before it happens. Both of the universes heavily rely on the two machines to make the world a better place. Overall the two stories â€Å"All the Troubles of the World† and â€Å"Minority Report† have similar concepts but are very different when you look at how the machines function. All the Troubles in the World vs. Minority Report The two computers â€Å"All the Troubles in the World† and â€Å"Minority Report† are both machines that can predict the future, but they operate in different ways. The computer in Minority Report is actually 3 human beings with psychic powers. However the computer in â€Å"All the Troubles in the World† is actually a super computer that becomes so complex it starts to act like a human. Some other differences are that Multivac controls the world’s economy and can predict everybody’s actions before the people can even think about doing it, while the Pre-Cogs can only predicts murders with vague visions. The ways the two machines operate are vastly different; the Pre-cogs need a technician to constant watch them and special medication, but all Multivac needs are replacement parts to be installed occasionally. People also see Multivac as a god as it can predict almost anything with the data its collected. The Pre-Cogs on the other hand are constantly doubted as some people don’t believe they are 100% accurate. Although the two machines have many differences they are similar in some aspects, they both can predict murders and a police force can stop it before it happens. Both of the universes heavily rely on the two machines to make the world a better place. Overall the two stories â€Å"All the Troubles of the World† and â€Å"Minority Report† have similar concepts but are very different when you look at how the machines function.

Freedom and Liberty Essays

Freedom and Liberty Essays Freedom and Liberty Essay Freedom and Liberty Essay Essay Topic: On Liberty Name: Instructor: Course: Date: : Freedom and Liberty The two concepts of Freedom and liberty have occupied the minds of Americans for a very long time. America is always touted as the land of freedom. The declaration of independence illustrated the kinds of freedom all Americans ought to enjoy. It defined freedom in a simple and concise way. The desire for freedom was strong, and Americans desired to be free from the British colonialists. This freedom was expressed in the American Declaration of independence. Some aspects of freedom were however overlooked; Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her Declaration of Sentiments created awareness on these neglected freedoms. Universal freedom in American society was still a farfetched dream. People’s desire to be free is affected by many factors. Society and government dictate the kinds of freedom people enjoy. The rights and freedoms that people enjoy, depend on how the government approaches these fundamental issues. Freedom is the ability of individuals to gain control over their lives and their actions. It consists of the power of individuals to choose that which they deem best without any form of restraint. Free individuals are not restricted from expressing their rights and freedoms. Free individuals usually have the opportunity to exercise their rights, thoughts, authorities and aspirations. Freedom allows the individual to pursue their interests without any restrictions whatsoever. A free society is a society where individuals can freely exercise their rights and freedoms. In addition, such societies do not have restrictions on the rights of individuals. In a free society, all the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals are upheld. Such a society upholds and promotes the independence of individuals in their actions, speech and the way of thinking. Different forms of government affect the freedom of individuals in many different ways. Democracies and republics affect the ways through which individuals express their freedoms and rights in diverse ways. Governments invade many aspects of human life and institute laws that govern the way people live. There are rules governing how people should be taught in schools, the way they should treat the environment, how they used their possessions and rules on what individuals are supposed to own and what they are not supposed to own. The actions of many government agencies impinge on the rights and freedoms of the citizens and society. Freedom consists of being free from any constraints or restrictions. The government however limits our actions and places restraints on the choices we make. One may argue that government restrictive action is meant to protect us, however, some government restrictions that are not protective in any way. The government has violated societal freedoms in several ways. It controls the schooling system and dictates the way schools are run a decision that should be left solely to parents. Republican governments score highly when it comes to restrictions on the rights and freedoms of individuals. In republics, citizen participation is limited; furthermore, republican policy and laws are skewed towards conservative values that are usually against the majority. Freedom is still not enjoyed by everyone. Women especially have encountered many challenges in their pursuit of freedom. Women are still discriminated upon in many respects. They are looked upon as lesser beings compared to men. The United States has made enormous strides in the elimination of women oppression; it however still exists in varied forms as inequality and gender discrimination. In addition to the declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson also authored the Virginia statute of religious freedom. Jefferson advocated for the freedom of individuals to exercise their religious rights without interference. Jefferson was able to describe freedom and democracy in a universal way. He opposed the tyranny of the colonists and the oppression Americans faced under the rule of the British colonial powers (Jefferson Fink 10). His works on freedom and government triggered a global struggle for freedom. He called for an abolishment of slavery and instituted the struggle for religious freedom. He called for universal rights and the emancipation of slaves. He insisted on the need for equal rights for people of all races. The declaration of Independence defined freedom as political fairness and freedom from political oppression. Elizabeth Caid Stanton, on the other hand, is concerned with the oppression women undergo at the hands of men. She proceeds to write her own declaration on the equality between men and women. This declaration was known as the declaration of sentiments. In her Declaration, she cites the oppression of women in society (Stanton 1). Stanton acknowledges the fact that even after independence had been declared there were sections of the population that were still oppressed and discriminated. Women still struggled against discrimination and inequality. She refined Jefferson’s declaration of independence and used it to convey her sentiments on the issue of discrimination against women. She advocated for marital freedom and that men should treat their wives as equal partners within the marriage union. In addition, the Declaration of sentiments campaigned for the recognition of women as equal to men not only in marriage but also in intelligence. In my opinion, for people to enjoy their rights and freedoms, there must be respect among them. The government must respect the rights of its citizens and acknowledge that they too possess inalienable rights. Citizens must also respect their fellow citizens. Jefferson and Stanton agree that integrity of parties and respect within unions were the key to the freedom and liberty of persons (Stanton 1). Gathering from the views of these two distinguished historians, freedom is aided by recognition and respect. Jefferson called for the recognition of the American people as people who were worthy of their own independent existence, while Stanton campaigned for the recognition of the woman as an equal being to the man and who deserved to be treated with respect. Carl Becker in his analysis of the Declaration of Independence chooses to tackle the issue of freedom and liberty in American society. Becker examines the Declaration of Independence and then proceeds to equate freedom with government (Becker 47). He says that there exists natural law and that there are inherent natural rights for every human being that must be recognized. He asserts that governments have a role to enforce the natural rights of individuals. Government actions in the enforcement of these rights must be driven by the interests of the majority. Becker reinforces my stance on the need for respect between government and citizens. The existence of respect ensures that other people are treated with the dignity they deserve. Power is a tool through which rights are enforced it is also a tool which authorities can use to trample on the freedoms of the powerless. In the fight for independence, Americans had to use their strength and power against the British to force them into submission. The Declaration of Sentiments relied upon the numbers of men and women in support of gender equality for its success. Power therefore rests with the people; the citizens are the one with the powers to push the government or society into recognizing their inherent rights and freedoms. Today, those who have more power and authority enjoy more freedoms and expression of their rights. The government is the supreme authority through which individuals rights and freedoms are enforced. It passes legislation and laws that may restrict the freedoms of its citizens or promote them. The role of the government in modern society is to protect the rights and freedoms of its citizens. It should ensure that citizens respect each otherâ⠂¬â„¢s rights and that government legislation does not infringe on the rights of citizens. Becker, Carl L. The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1942. Print. Jefferson, Thomas, and Sam Fink. The Declaration of Independence. New York: Scholastic Reference, 2002. Print. Stanton, Elizabeth C. Declaration of Sentiments: Seneca Falls Convention, July 1848. Tucson: Kore Press, 2004. Print.

Williams Name Meaning and Origin

Williams Name Meaning and Origin The common Welsh patronymic last name Williams has several possible origins: Son or descendant of Guillemin, a pet form of Guillaume, the French form of William.From the Belgic guild-helm, meaning harnessed with a gilded helmet or  welhelm, the shield or defense of many.Derived from the given name William, an Old French given name with Germanic elements: wil desire, will and helm helmet, protection. In Wales, adding an s to the end of a surname denotes son of, pointing to Wales as the origin of many people with the Williams surname. The Williams surname is also popular in countries such as England, Scotland and Germany. Williams is the third most popular surname in the United States, Great Britain and Australia. Williams Name Origin:  English, Welsh Alternate Surname Spellings:  WILLIAM, WILLIMON, WILLIMAN, WILLIAMSON, WILCOX, MACWILLIAMS, MCWILLIAMS, WILLIHELM, WILLELM Fun Facts About the Williams Surname The last man killed in the U.S. Civil War was Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He was killed in the battle of Palmetto Ranch, Texas, on May 13, 1865, a month after Lees surrender. Famous People with the Surname Williams? Thomas Lanier Tennessee Williams - American playwright who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).Hiram Hank Williams - American country music legend, credited with pioneering honky tonk.Robin Williams - American comedian and actorRoger Williams - Founder of Rhode Island Genealogy Resources for the Surname Williams 100 Most Common U.S. Surnames Their MeaningsSmith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, Brown... Are you one of the millions of Americans sporting one of these top 100 common last names from the 2000 census? Common English Surnames Their MeaningsWilliams is the 3rd most popular surname in Great Britain. Most Common Australian Surnames Their MeaningsWilliams is 3rd on this list of the most commonly occurring surnames in Australia, which includes details on each names origin and meaning. Williams Family Crest - Its Not What You ThinkContrary to what you may hear, there is no such thing as a Williams family crest or coat of arms for the Williams surname.  Coats of arms are granted to individuals, not families, and may rightfully be used only by the uninterrupted male line descendants of the person to whom the coat of arms was originally granted. Williams DNA ProjectThe Williams DNA project has over 535 participants making it the 2nd largest surname DNA project in the world. The Web site includes Williams records from around the world as well. Descendants of William WilliamsA genealogy of the descendants of William Williams (1778-1857) from Pittsylvania County, Virginia. FamilySearch - Williams GenealogyExplore over 29 million historical records and lineage-linked family trees posted for the Williams surname and its variations on the free FamilySearch website, hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Williams Surname Family Mailing ListsRootsWeb hosts a free mailing list for researchers of the Taft surname. Post a query about your own Taft ancestors, or search or browse the mailing list archives. DistantCousin.com - Williams Genealogy Family HistoryFree databases and genealogy links for the last name Williams. Sources Cottle, Basil. Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. Menk, Lars. A Dictionary of German Jewish Surnames. Avotaynu, 2005. Beider, Alexander. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Galicia. Avotaynu, 2004. Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989. Hanks, Patrick. Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003. Smith, Elsdon C. American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997.

The Sociological Definition of Anomie

The Sociological Definition of Anomie Anomie is a social condition in which there is a disintegration or disappearance of the  norms and values that were previously common to the society. The concept, thought of as â€Å"normlessness,† was developed by the founding sociologist,  Ãƒâ€°mile Durkheim. He discovered, through research, that anomie occurs during and follows periods of drastic and rapid changes to the social, economic, or political structures of society. It is, per Durkheims view, a transition phase wherein the values and norms common during one period are no longer valid, but new ones have not yet evolved to take their place. A Feeling of Disconnection People who lived during periods of anomie typically feel disconnected from their society because they no longer see the norms and values that they hold dear reflected in society itself. This leads to the feeling that one does not belong and is not meaningfully connected to others. For some, this may mean that the role they play (or played) and their identity is no longer valued by society. Because of this, anomie can foster the feeling that one lacks purpose, engender hopelessness, and encourage deviance and crime. Anomie According to Émile Durkheim Though the concept of anomie is most closely associated with Durkheims study of suicide, in fact, he first wrote about it in his 1893 book  The Division of Labor in Society.  In this book, Durkheim  wrote about an anomic division of labor, a phrase he used to describe a disordered division of labor  in which some groups no longer fit in, though they did in the past. Durkheim saw that this occurred as European societies industrialized and the nature of work changed along with the development of a more complex division of labor. He framed this as a clash between the mechanical solidarity of homogeneous,  traditional societies and the organic solidarity that keeps more complex societies together. According to Durkheim, anomie could not occur in the context of organic solidarity because this heterogeneous form of solidarity allows for the division of labor to evolve as needed, such that none are left out and all play a meaningful role. Anomic Suicide A few years later, Durkheim further elaborated his concept of anomie in his 1897 book,  Suicide: A Study in Sociology. He identified anomic suicide as a form of taking ones life that is motivated by the experience of anomie.  Durkheim found, through a study of suicide rates of Protestants and Catholics in nineteenth-century Europe, that the suicide rate was higher among Protestants. Understanding the different values of the two forms of Christianity, Durkheim theorized that this occurred because Protestant culture placed a higher value on individualism. This made Protestants less likely to develop close communal ties that might sustain them during times of emotional distress, which in turn made them more susceptible to suicide. Conversely, he reasoned that belonging to the Catholic faith provided greater social control and cohesion to a community, which would decrease the risk of anomie and anomic suicide. The sociological implication is that strong social ties help people and gr oups survive periods of change and tumult in society. Breakdown of Ties That Bind People Together Considering the whole of  Durkheims writing on anomie, one can see that he saw it as a breakdown of the ties that bind people together to make a functional society, a state of social derangement. Periods of anomie are unstable, chaotic, and often rife with conflict because the social force of the norms and values that otherwise provide stability is weakened or missing. Mertons Theory of Anomie and Deviance Durkheims theory of anomie proved influential to American sociologist Robert K. Merton, who pioneered the sociology of deviance and is considered one of the most influential sociologists in the United States. Building on Durkheims theory that anomie is a social condition in which peoples norms and values no longer sync with those of society, Merton created the structural strain theory, which explains how anomie lead to deviance and crime. The theory states that when society does not provide the necessary legitimate and legal means that allow people to achieve culturally valued goals, people seek out alternative means that may simply break from the norm, or may violate norms and laws. For example, if society does not provide enough jobs that pay a living wage so that people can work to survive, many will turn to criminal methods of earning a living. So for Merton, deviance, and crime are, in large part, a result of anomie, a state of social disorder.

Discrimination of Women Nurses in Qatar Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Discrimination of Women Nurses in Qatar - Essay Example Qatar is one of the countries that attract job seekers who travel the country to exploit numerous employment opportunities, and nursing has been one of the areas that attract many would be enthusiasts who believe that the country has the best approach towards treating and rewarding nurses (Hassan, Hassan & King, 2012). However, the reverse is the case because many of these nurses who end up Qatar face discrimination at workplace especially women as they are assigned duties that devalue their morals and personality (SYMES, 2015). An interview with the nurse in Qatar points to a new direction on how individuals who end in Qatar face serious discrimination after being brought into the country through job agencies. The discrimination against nurses explains why these women receive poor pay, as the interviewee confirmed and this is a problem that is deeply rooted in the society.   The discrimination of women in nursing is better understood by first identifying the percentage of women pa rticipation in labor as recommended by the society. In general, women are not fairly represented in the labor market as evident from the dominance of male professionals in most of the career sectors. Although women are equally educated in Qatar to assume the roles in various employment positions like nursing and other fields, the woman nurse interviewee ascertained that discrimination based on gender difference is a major constraint to ensuring gender equality in the nursing profession (Interview).

Week 2 Productivity Ctrl and Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Week 2 Productivity Ctrl and - Essay Example Productive Activity Control (PAC) involves the conversion of plans into actions, revising the plans and actions intended to achieve the desired results and the report of the achieved results. PAC system, therefore, demands suitable prior planning of materials, orders, the personnel and the capacity requirements. PAC system manages materials, equipments and resources properly according to delivery or allocated time for specific orders (Adam & Sammon, 2003). PAC has three major functions which include order dispatching, release and progress reporting. Dispatching involves activation of orders according to the original plans, which can be affected by I/O control, queue management or the principles and techniques of prior control. Dispatching decision helps in managing queue length, lead-time, the scheduled order completion and work center idle time. Material Requirements Planning is the system essential in avoidance of the missing parts. MRP establishes a priority plan highlighting the require components at all levels of assembly according to lead times where it calculates the time when the components will be required. MRP has two main objectives which include requirement’s determination and keeping the priorities updated. The main aim of MRP system is to acquire right materials in desired quantities at the appropriate time in order to meet product’s demand of the firm. The MRP system should also be capable of expediting, changing, delaying, and deleting orders because of the daily changes of demand and supply. The feedback effects from PAC to MRP include warning signals and status information. Warning signals assists in material and capacity plans. MRP system should be fed with the plan and control of raw materials while in processing state (Adam & Sammon, 2003). Lead time is the overall period needed to produce an item, including queue time, order preparation time, move time, setup time, inspection time, run

Anger Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Anger Management - Essay Example There are several factors that influence effects of anger to a person; these include race, sex, cultural and family background, and age. Anger is a two-sided emotion that may be beneficial to an individual (constructive anger) by warning of expected problems, at the same time bring harm (Peacock, Stutman and London, 2000). ADA Americans with Disabilities Act is a civil rights legislation policy that contains stipulated actions concerning the accommodation of individuals possessing any kind of disability in terms of access to judicial system, services, programs, and activities. In this scenario, John can use the ADA to assist him in the circumstances facing his employment. Both anger and emotional swings affecting John are due to the bipolar disorder, which is a mental disability. Such forms of disability are described within the ADA policy to hold ground in any given situation at the workplace, as it appears under the request for accommodation in court proceedings section of the ADA, and this section describes qualified individuals with disabilities. With the evidence from the psychiatrist concerning John’s condition, and the subsequent treatment, there is enough prove that truly John has a mental disability or disorder, which results in mood swing causing negative anger that provokes him to threaten others with violence.

Meaning behind a Speech Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Meaning behind a Speech - Essay Example As many Americans are faced with the responsibility of electing a President every four years, one of the highlights of the process would be the Inaugural speech given by the newly sworn in chief executive on their inauguration day. From George Washington, all the way to the present day with Barack Obama, each individual who has resided in the chair of the President has found themselves with the opportunity to creatively craft their message through interviews given to members of the mainstream press, as well as speeches given to an even wider audience. Going farther than the words written within the pages of their statements, the power of these deliveries, are further enabled by the presence of the passion within the person saying the words. Taking the time to effectively present essential points of whatever case may need to be made, through increases in tone to emphasis crucial aspects, all the way to something as day-to-day, as the choice of clothing that would be worn. One of the most relevant speech examples in recent memory would be the inaugural speech delivered by John F. Kennedy in January 1961. Being a man who sought to introduce youthful vigor and passion into the role of the nation's chief executive, President Kennedy's speech would convey the inherent desire he would possess for the powerful role of both the American government and its citizens, as well as the power of the rest of the world. Through the strength in his delivery by means of the elevation and passion of his voice, Kennedy would enhance the meaning of his message for the nation. In speaking of the presence of power held by man but also the presence of a higher being, President Kennedy states, "The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God," (Kennedy, 1961). With his delivery, the new President would convey to his audience that, within all humans, they do hold the potential to enact great change around them. All the while remembering that, to stay true to history and the revolutionary forefathers of the nation, would be to remember the significance given to the influence of God. The more an individual may believe and feel passionate about what they are saying, the evidence will show in the choice of words to be spoken and the elevation of their voice, to better illustrate those very same words. For example, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty,' (Kennedy, 1961). To assess the greater intended meaning of this, Kennedy would seek to further underline the strength of the American conviction for that which we believe in. With the delivery of this speech occurring in less than two decades since the end of World War II and just before the start of the Vietnam war, which would begin only a few short years later, the meaning behind the following portion of the President's speech, would be amplified through his eloquent delivery. "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted

Linking of Nursing concepts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Linking of Nursing concepts - Essay Example Generally, in today’s modern health systems, education for both the professionals and the patients plays a critical in the nursing faculty. As Carpenter and Bell suggested, teaching is a vital, teaching is a major characteristic of the nurse’s role. With the emerging trends in healthcare, there is the need for nurses to be accountable in terms of quality care delivery to patients. Therefore, these professionals must demonstrate the extent of the knowledge and skills acquired not only to their peers but also to the patients (Bastable, 2008 p.94). Imperative to note is that these professionals are obliged to teach and assist others while at the same time learn within the healthcare settings. Within the nursing fraternity in a majority of the states are nurse practice acts (NPA) in whose scope include teaching as a nursing responsibility. By the stipulated legal mandate of these acts, it is expected that nurses provide high quality instructions for the wellbeing of consume rs and diseases management. In undertaking this role of information and knowledge dissemination, nurses are able to achieve their professional goal in provision of safe, cost-effective and high quality care. For quality assurance purposes various organizations and agencies have to abide to the mandates stipulated by healthcare accreditation bodies. Such mandates elaborate the forms of care, treatment regimens and services offered to patients with different conditions. Another legal perspective in nursing education has been enshrined in the patient’s bill of rights. In this law, nurses provide complete and up to date information with regard to diagnosis, cure and prognosis in an understandable manner to patients (Bastable, 2008 p.116). Patient education in nursing as a profession majorly focuses on increasing the client’s confidence for managing of self. Effective teaching by the nurses has a lot of potential in boosting client satisfaction, ensuring continuity of self care, quality of life improvement, reduction in health complications and enhance adherence to treatment. On their part, the nurses achieve job satisfaction as educators as they forge and promote therapeutic interrelationships with patients, increased patient nurse independence and accountability boost. The education process in nursing can be likened to the nursing process itself which covers examination, planning, implementation and finally evaluation o the outcomes (Bastable, 2008 p.98). The art of practicing nursing at a higher level requires a thorough understanding of theory and ability to effectively apply the theory in provision of quality healthcare services to patients. The position of theory in the field of nursing has been perceived to be worthless for many years. This has led to the culmination of a situation termed theory-practice gap. Therefore, specialized knowledge at it is a fundamental aspect in other disciplines is also important in nursing. In order to have a deep understanding of this subject, nurses must acquire formal study in nursing comprising of precise philosophical and theoretical aspects. Additionally, the nurses must master the competencies and abilities to employ the knowledge in provision of healthcare to humankind. The carrying out of nursing duties is an intentional and premeditated act that is guided by nursing science and other knowledge sources. This practice is ultimately intended for

International Monetary Fund Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

International Monetary Fund - Article Example According to the agreements the fund is guaranteed to help the members develop economically as well as socially. Article 1 (ii) states, "To facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, and to contribute thereby to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income and to the development of the productive resources of all members as primary objectives of economic policy." Based on this article every member state should enjoy the privileges of economic growth and development. In theory this would be a practical situation but history has show that the Fund itself has several shortcomings and weaknesses. The preliminary signatories to the International Monetary Fund were mainly countries that subscribed to capitalist policies although France was the first country to benefit from the Fund after its inception in 1947. Under the IMF agreement the countries agreed to keep their currencies convertible to the US dollar and the United States agreed to a peg system where the value of their dollar was in terms of gold. Some saw this system as unable to meet the demand of global trading. Also, speculation caused a decrease in the price of gold. There was also a subsequent devaluation of the US dollar. The par value system was discontinued in 1974 and countries were allowed to choose a system that they think was best for their exchange rate. Some saw this decision by the International Monetary Fund as a sign of weakness. "It appeared that the ability of the IMF to regulate world financial conditions was at least greatly diminished, and perhaps finished" (Devries, 1986). (Peet, Born 68). After this change of idea regarding the exchange rate the IMF added a new dimension in dealing with its member countries. It became more involved with the economic policies of the countries. Many countries especially the United States of America and countries in Western Europe had had successive terms of wealth and prosperity so the Fund did not experience a great demand from these countries. The world political situation in the 1970's, however, forced a change on the volume of lending by the Fund. Many countries, especially in the African continent became independent but their new status meant that they needed financial help. Many of these countries lacked the resources and facilities present in the countries in Western Europe. To a large extent a great number was plagued by balance of payment problems. In order to lend assistance to these struggling economies the IMF created the Structural Adjustment Facility in 1986 and replaced by the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility in 1987. This consists of concessionary grants drawn up in collaboration with the World Bank. To qualify for these loans a country has to be in the low-income category. There were a total of thirt y five countries that benefitted from the Structural Adjustment Facility. The recipients are offered lower interest rates with a chance to repay the loan from between five and ten years. As is common with other assistance of the IMF countries benefitting from these loans are required by the IMF to adhere to certain policies. These policies are very restrictive and have forced critics to argue if the Structural Adjustment Facility will bring more harm than good. Firstly, there has to be

Linking of Nursing concepts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Linking of Nursing concepts - Essay Example Generally, in today’s modern health systems, education for both the professionals and the patients plays a critical in the nursing faculty. As Carpenter and Bell suggested, teaching is a vital, teaching is a major characteristic of the nurse’s role. With the emerging trends in healthcare, there is the need for nurses to be accountable in terms of quality care delivery to patients. Therefore, these professionals must demonstrate the extent of the knowledge and skills acquired not only to their peers but also to the patients (Bastable, 2008 p.94). Imperative to note is that these professionals are obliged to teach and assist others while at the same time learn within the healthcare settings. Within the nursing fraternity in a majority of the states are nurse practice acts (NPA) in whose scope include teaching as a nursing responsibility. By the stipulated legal mandate of these acts, it is expected that nurses provide high quality instructions for the wellbeing of consume rs and diseases management. In undertaking this role of information and knowledge dissemination, nurses are able to achieve their professional goal in provision of safe, cost-effective and high quality care. For quality assurance purposes various organizations and agencies have to abide to the mandates stipulated by healthcare accreditation bodies. Such mandates elaborate the forms of care, treatment regimens and services offered to patients with different conditions. Another legal perspective in nursing education has been enshrined in the patient’s bill of rights. In this law, nurses provide complete and up to date information with regard to diagnosis, cure and prognosis in an understandable manner to patients (Bastable, 2008 p.116). Patient education in nursing as a profession majorly focuses on increasing the client’s confidence for managing of self. Effective teaching by the nurses has a lot of potential in boosting client satisfaction, ensuring continuity of self care, quality of life improvement, reduction in health complications and enhance adherence to treatment. On their part, the nurses achieve job satisfaction as educators as they forge and promote therapeutic interrelationships with patients, increased patient nurse independence and accountability boost. The education process in nursing can be likened to the nursing process itself which covers examination, planning, implementation and finally evaluation o the outcomes (Bastable, 2008 p.98). The art of practicing nursing at a higher level requires a thorough understanding of theory and ability to effectively apply the theory in provision of quality healthcare services to patients. The position of theory in the field of nursing has been perceived to be worthless for many years. This has led to the culmination of a situation termed theory-practice gap. Therefore, specialized knowledge at it is a fundamental aspect in other disciplines is also important in nursing. In order to have a deep understanding of this subject, nurses must acquire formal study in nursing comprising of precise philosophical and theoretical aspects. Additionally, the nurses must master the competencies and abilities to employ the knowledge in provision of healthcare to humankind. The carrying out of nursing duties is an intentional and premeditated act that is guided by nursing science and other knowledge sources. This practice is ultimately intended for

Developing a conceptual framework is an impossible possibility Essay - 1

Developing a conceptual framework is an impossible possibility - Essay Example There have been increasing efforts towards formation of standardized approaches in accounting, in what may be explained to be an accounting conceptual framework. The standardized approach in accounting aims to offering a holistic and uniformed approach in which all accounting problems can be handled. Moreover, such standards help in ensuring ethics and morality in accounting discipline considering that fraud and dishonesty are the main vices affecting the economic discipline as people undertake such economic roles with selfish interests, eroding the integrity of such a profession. Knowledge regarding elements and aspects of accounting and the image created by such profession are thus of critical importance in accounting. Knowledge and Sources of Knowledge Epistemology is the discipline concerned with the theory of knowledge and the way people can attain knowledge. In most cases, sentences are only used to convey meaning, and the meaning itself does not reside in sentences. A proposit ion is the main element in a sentence as it refers to the meaning of a sentence, and it is the one that leads to knowledge. In accounting, knowledge can be gained from a diversity of sources. Knowledge may be attained through skills in doing something. An accountant who spends most of the time preparing financial statement will develop skills in the practice and this would lead to more detailed knowledge than other accountants in a separate department. This involves the act of â€Å"knowing how† to do something. Moreover, such knowledge may be genetically programmed in that some people are born with talents and have much higher proficiency in carrying out specific tasks. Knowledge may also be obtained through acquaintance with something or observing something until one grasps the basic concepts in doing it. For example, as person can observe the basic operation of balancing a balance sheet, or any other financial statement over time till they grasp the basic concepts of perfo rming such a task even without formal education on how to do it. Many people in on-job training learn through acquaintance till they develop such skills and are able to perform as required. Knowledge may also be obtained through understanding statements in an inductive reasoning approach. For example, one may gain knowledge by first appreciating the fact that a financial statement has to convey the truth about a company. Therefore, one has to develop a belief regarding the truth conveyed in such a financial statement, and then look for some good facts as evidence to prove the belief is true. However, it must be recalled that truth has to remain as truth despite one knowing it or not, and is not influenced with such inductive reasoning. Knowledge and truth are thus independent of one another and one requires deeper investigation to determine if such knowledge really leads to reality or truth. Accounting Theories Hendrickson (1970) defines a theory as a set of coherent hypothetical, p ragmatic and conceptual principles that guide in the field of inquiry (as cited in Deegan and Unerman, 2009). The use of the word coherence indicates that all the elements in a theory have to work together in presenting a certain knowledge, or result in accounting. However, Deegan and Unerman (2009) noted that theories

Globalization Is A Major Driving Force Commerce Essay

Globalization Is A Major Driving Force Commerce Essay Human interaction is on pace of increasing day by day with the help of new technology. We first were comfortable interacting at local, then at national and now expanding to international level. Its not only interaction but we are expanding our business at international level. Thus the word used Globalization. Globalization is a major driving force for this change the companies in this marketplace are facing. The degree of success of these companies also varies significantly. The question arises, hence, if there is a correlation between the extent of globalization of these companies, and the success they experience in their respective operations. This study has researched this question. The globalization process involves the establishment of economic, political, social, and technological links among countries. Globalization has become todays need of each and every company. Todays small scale industries aim is globalization. In todays changing world the following are the factors that lead to globalization- The Internet The Internet has served to completely eliminate the physical barrier of distance that used to exist in regards to transmission of information. People from anywhere in the world communicates instantly with people anywhere else through the connection provided by the Internet. Governments have very difficult time restricting information within their borders because the Internet doesnt respect or acknowledge international borders. The result is information freely passing throughout the world. Certain governments fear this freedom of information and take steps to prevent it. China, for example, limits this effect by blocking certain websites within its borders. Technology: The most important tool used in todays world is technology. Its role is vital with reference to business continuity. Technology is the vital force in the modern form of business globalization. Technology has revolutionized the global economy and has become critical competitive strategy. It has globalized the world, which drive all the countries to more ethical standards. Globalization has led to new markets and information technology is one of the technologies fostered to the new market in this increasing competitive world. Technology has helped us in overcoming the major hurdles of globalization and international trade such as trade barrier, lack of common ethical standard, transportation cost and delay in information exchange, thereby changing the market place. Technology has enabled the software experts to work collaboratively over the network with companies from around the world. The technological advancement has helped a lot in creation and growth of global market. Multinational Corporations (MNC) can be seen as a central actor in globalization. Markets have become global at a rapid pace, as indicated by several kinds of trade extended to foreign countries. The innovation in host country is often undertaken by MNC based in one country and due to the technological advancement MNC(s) have expanded to other countries by some kinds of FDI also facilitating the movement of research and development. The researchers have analysed that though the technology has globalized the business but economically well developed countries have been more benefited. While technology has created many opportunities for global networks of tasks it is important to look at the friction in the system to understand the limitations. The sources of friction are many and could bring the system to its knees. Companies and countries that want to thrive in this era of globalization will seek to mitigate the abuses, while dealing with the friction. Technology is further divided into the following areas like communication technology, Economic Technology, Transport Technology. Economic Technology: Economic globalization is driven ahead by the ability of international businessmen, bankers and brokers to conduct business in ways that were never possible prior to modern technology. Trades and investments are made instantly with little regard for international borders, time of day or distance via todays technology. In addition, products that used to require shipping, and therefore import and export, such as books, CDs and movies are now digitally distributed, further leading to business globalization. Transport Technology: Improving technology has completely changed the transportation industry in the post-war world. Technology advances lead to transportation that was more readily available, more reliable, faster and more cost efficient. In the latter half of the 20th century, it became in many cases more cost efficient to ship certain products halfway across the world than to manufacture them at home. This plays a very important role in the ongoing globalization trend. Communications Technology: Communications of all kinds, even above and beyond the Internet, is another key component to globalization. Not only has communication throughout the world become possible, it has also become affordable. Long distance phone calls cost much less money, fax machines allowed people to transmit full documents even before email came along and cell phones ensure that everyone anywhere can stay in touch. This allows corporations to extend their reach at small cost across international borders, leading to increased globalization of industry. The Process of Globalization: Globalization involves the creation of linkages or interconnections between nations. It is usually understood as a process in which barriers (physical, political, economic, cultural) separating different regions of the world are reduced or removed, thereby stimulating exchanges in goods, services, money, and people. Removal of these barriers is called liberalization. As these exchanges grow, nations, and the businesses involved, become increasingly integrated and interdependent. Globalization promotes mutual reliance between countries. Globalization can have many advantages for business such as new markets, a wider choice of suppliers for goods and services, lower prices, cheaper locations for investment, and less costly labour. It can also carry dangers because dependence on foreign suppliers and markets leaves businesses vulnerable to events in foreign economies and markets outside their control. Take the examples of Spain and Italy and their dependence on foreign countries for their energy supplies; they illustrate how important the interlinkages brought about by globalization can be, and what can happen when things go wrong. Since the 1980s, natural gas has become increasingly important in Spain as a source of energy. Spain itself produces an insignificant amount of oil and coal. As a result it depends on foreign suppliers for 99% of its natural gas requirements which is growing by 15% per annum. Three quarters of its gas supply comes from three African countries, Algeria, Nigeria, and Libya. These countries are potentially unstable both politically and economically. This leaves Spains power stations and four million Spanish consumers very vulnerable to any instability with their African suppliers (see the International Atomic Energy Authority web site www.iaea.org; and Isbel). Italy is dependent on cross-border supplies of electricity from Switzerland. In 2003 major sections of the Italian economy were brought to a standstill. Let us see the impact of Globalization on in the area of renewable energy and industrial energy efficiency. Globalization of Renewable Energy In recent years, the world has seen a dynamic shift of the energy landscape in terms of consumption, which has drastically increased, and with it, the reliance on energy resources, which are terminal. In this backdrop, the necessity to use the existing resources available in the most efficient manner has gained substantial importance, as has the unavoidable necessity to develop perennial energy resources. There are a large number of companies worldwide active in this area, most of them having started their specialized activities when the topic of energy efficiency and renewability was not as fashionable as it is today. Most of these companies have been small businesses, focused in their region and specific field of operation. In these changing times, these small businesses have grown both in terms of regional coverage of operations, and diversity of portfolio of offerings. In India, and particularly in Maharashtra, there are several such companies in operation. Not only does a conducive business and production atmosphere lead to start-up and thriving activities of the entrepreneurs of these companies but also the availability of renewable energy resources (such as geothermal resources) in Maharashtra lead to the presence of such companies in this state. The presence of industry leads to a market for industrial energy efficiency solutions. The growth has, in most cases, brought along with it not only promising opportunities, but also substantial challenges. The strategic direction of the business, careful selection of portfolio elements to ensure profitability on a sustained basis, ensuring the availability of finance to fuel the growth, recruiting, orientation retraining and retaining qualified staff and operations in previously unknown markets are some of the possible challenges faced. The current trends clearly show that businesses active in this area are rapidly gaining market and investor visibility as the solutions provided by them are eagerly sought after by a wide variety of customers in a global marketplace. Globalization is a major driving force for this change the companies in this marketplace are facing. The degree of success of these companies also varies significantly. The question arises, hence, if there is a correlation between the extent of globalization of these companies, and the success they experience in their respective operations. This study has researched this question. Renewable Energy Industrial Energy Efficiency Renewable energy (RE), as stated by the International Energy Agency (IEA), is derived from natural processes that are replenished constantly. In its various forms, it derives directly from the sun, or from heat generated deep within the earth. Included in the definition is electricity and heat generated from solar, wind, ocean, hydropower, biomass, geothermal resources, and bio-fuels and hydrogen derived from renewable resources. Energy Efficiency (EE) is the use of lesser amount of energy to produce or provide an unchanged (or higher) level of output. The efforts, mechanisms and technologies used for achieving energy efficiency vary widely, ranging from energy saving lamps and improved thermal insulation in homes and buildings, to highly efficient drives and motors and industrial waste heat recovery for power and heat generation in industry. The term is referred to as Industrial Energy Efficiency (IEE) in an industrial context. According to the IEA, renewable energy resources and significant opportunities for energy efficiency exist over wide geographical areas, in contrast to other energy sources, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries. Rapid deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and technological diversification of energy sources, would result in significant energy security and economic benefits Energy efficiency and renewable energy are said, in a report by the American Councils on Renewable Energy (ACORE), and for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), to be the twin pillars of sustainable energy policy Globalization Success Globalization has come to be a very widely used term in recent decades in various realms. The most common reference is, though, made in terms of its occurrence and impact in the area of trade and business. Of the many definitions of globalization available in the public domain, the one that identifies it as a generic term for all processes of international integration arising from increasing human connectivity and interchange of worldviews, products, services, capital, ideas, and other aspects of business and culture sums it up appropriately. The significant development in digital communication, especially owing to the advent and rise of the World Wide Web, and in the transportations systems and infrastructure for both humans and goods are major enablers and drivers of globalization, leading to an increased interdependence of economic activities world-wide. Globalization of companies, as this study has attempted to capture and quantify, has several dimensions, including global presence, source of financing and capital, markets of their end products, elements of their value chain from suppliers, to research development and workforce etc. Measuring the extent of the companies globalization using these dimensions has provided an objective basis for making their data and attributes comparable with each other on a uniform scale. Success as a term does not require further elaboration. In the context of this study, though, success has been seen to have several dimensions, including the viability of a commercial enterprise, market share, shareholder value, financial performance, strategic direction and employee satisfaction, to name a few. Globalization: At the start of the 21st century there is one issue that is discussed more than almost any other. That issue is called globalization. Hardly a day goes by without globalization being mentioned by politicians, broadcasters, and newspapers. It has made its way in schools, colleges, and universities too. It can even be heard in discussions among the general public in the street, in shops or at work. It seems almost anything that happens today can be attributed to or blamed upon globalization. We all have probably heard the expression Its a small world. People have been saying it for years but now it is true. Just check out the labels on your clothes almost certainly they have been made in another part of the world. Turn on the computer and the internet will give you access to websites almost anywhere. Look at sport on television and you will see that it has a worldwide audience. So why do we now live in a small world? The answer lies with improved travel and communications which have made links with other people and countries around the world so much quicker and easier. These links have increased at such a rapid rate that we now have a new word to describe it. The word is globalization. But what exactly is globalization? Relatively few people can answer this question. This is not surprising as even the experts cannot agree on what globalization means. Making sense of globalization should be a priority for anyone concerned about the future well being of the human race and our planet. The word globalization is now so widely used that a typical internet search engine will give you over two million results! New world or new word? One of the central debates concerning globalization is the use of the word itself. Many people, including politicians mostly use this word to describe the changing nature of the world around us as we move further into the 21st century. It is used to explain changes in world politics, in the global economy, in trade and industry, in crime and terrorism, in environmental threats and solutions and also social attitudes and behavior. Others take a more critical view of globalization and say that it does not describe or explain a new word at all. To them it is simply a new buzz word for patterns and processes, such as colonization, migration and international trade that have been happening for decades or even centuries. By labeling these as globalization they argue that people are ignoring the past and the lessons it has taught us. Globalization is what we in the Third World have for several centuries called colonization. Martin Khor, Director of Third World network. Malaysia. One can be sure that virtually every one of the 2882 academic papers on globalization written in 1998 include its own definition of globalization as would each of the 589 new books on the subject published in that year. The Globalization Guide 2002. Australian Apec Study Centre. Defining the Indefinable? With so many different views on globalization, defining the term is a very difficult task. However there are some common features of most definitions, which are worth considering at an outset. Interdependency the idea that people around the world are increasingly dependent on one another. What happens in one place has an effect on people elsewhere. Interconnection the idea that we are connected to people and places that were previously distant and unknown. Shrinking of Space The idea that distances are less important. Far off places are now within reach. Speeding up of time the idea that the world is operating at an even faster pace. News, money, ideas, information and people are moving around with increasing speed. Technology the idea that technological developments, such as jet aircraft, telephones, the internet, satellite television, etc make globalization possible. Capital the idea that it is the flow of money and investments around the world that drives the globalization process. Globalization is not new, but the present era has distinctive features. Shrinking space, shrinking time, and disappearing borders are linking peoples lives more deeply, more intensely, more immediately than ever before. United Nations Human Development Report. 1999 Today, every part of the natural and human world is linked to every other. Local decisions have a global impact. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The State Of The Worlds Population 2001 The world we are in: Whether we choose to use the word or not, we live in a world where globalization affects all of us. The clothes we wear, the food we eat, the television we watch, the holidays we take, the cars we travel in, the music we listen to , and the news we follow bring us into closer contact with previously distant people and places. Although many of these encounters may pass unnoticed, anyone living in the worlds more developed countries experience some form of global interaction every day. And in the less developed countries of the world, peoples lives are increasingly shaped by global forces. This means that globalization is a truly worldwide process. It directly affects each one of us and more importantly affected by us itself. New transport, communication, and information technologies intensify competition while allowing firms to spread and manage international operations more efficiently. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report, 2001. A Fast Moving World: Faster, faster, fasterà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. Speed is a central element of globalization. All around us the world seems to be moving at an ever faster rate. The best example of this is the movement of information. In 2001 more information could be sent over a single cable in a second than was sent over the entire internet in a month in 1997. The speed of international communications and information flow is getting faster by the day. Technological developments, particularly in the computer and telecommunications industry are so rapid that keeping up can be a real problem. Computers bought only a few years ago can seem almost impossibly slow compared to the latest available models. People can now use their mobile phones to access the internet or have news or sports results sent to them as the events happen to them. None of this was possible just a few years ago. Indeed it seems like something from a science fiction movie as little as ten years ago. It is this rapid development that makes globalization possible. But it also raises serious concerns for those who cannot keep up with the pace of change. What happens to those who are left out of the technological revolution? This is an issue of great concern to critics of globalization. Since 1970, the speed of microprocessors has doubled every eighteen months. On the move: Some of the greatest technological developments of the past have been in transportation and this plays a vital role in globalization. From the horse drawn stagecoach to the train, from the car to the jet air craft human beings have constantly managed to shrink space by reducing journey time. Today, jet aircrafts have made international travel easier and more affordable. Business leaders can fly to their factories, partners, or clients in other cities or countries in just a few hours. This has helped production, labour forces, and markets to become increasingly international. The jet aircraft has also caused a boon in travel for personal and leisure purposes. This can be most clearly measured by the growth in international tourism an industry that many consider to be the clearest example of globalization. In 1950 there were just 25 million international arrivals (people arriving in countries all over the world). In 2000 this figure rose to 698 million which further rose to a whooping 1 billion in 2010. Improved methods of transport allow faster movement of goods around the world. For instance Kenyan companies use air freight to fly fresh flowers to Europe every night. This is so efficient that flowers can take as little as 36 hours to get from the fields in Kenya to supermarkets in Europe. Without such improvements it would have been impossible for Kenyan flower farms to compete in the European market, as their goods would have perished using more traditional transport such as ships. This is what we call international trade. Even transport by ship has speeded up, thanks to incredible engineering achievements such as the Suez Canal (connecting the Indian ocean to the Mediterranean, and onwards to the Atlantic), and the Panama Canal (connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans). The Panama Canal avoids the need for shipping to travel around the tip of South America saving a distance of up to 8000 nautical miles. Theses canals reduced journey time drastically and boosted international trade another central element of globalization. The creation of a water passage across Panama was one of the supreme human achievements of all time. The canal is an expression of that old and noble desire to bridge the divide, to bring people together David McCullough, The Path Between The Seas, 1977. The world wide web: The internet is often seen as the ultimate symbol of globalization. It allows us to communicate with people on the other side of the world, to do business with distant companies, and to share experiences with people we may never meet. It brings the world into our schools, homes and offices. Is the internet really as global as we think that it is known as the World Wide Web? Nonetheless it has plenty of users but it is still less than 1 in 6 of the worlds population. Most internet use is concentrated in just a few key regions and countries of the world. Around 80% of internet users live in the more developed regions that are home to just 14% of the worlds population. The vast majority of the worlds people play little or no part in this technological revolution. This has led many to say that the world wide web is more like a series of hubs with the rest of the world simply passed by. In fact this makes the internet highly appropriate as a symbol of globalization because time and again as one notices it is the same places that are included and excluded from other aspects of globalization. The question we have to learn to ask about new technology is not whether it benefits us, but whom does it benefit most? For the electronic revolution has far more to offer the largest enterprises on the planet than it does to you and me. Jerry Mander, President of International Forum on Globalisation Supporters of globalization argue that communications technology will help poorer, less developed countries to catch up with the more developed. South Asia is home to 23 percent of the worlds population, but has just 1 percent of its internet users. It will provide them with new opportunities to sell their produce, attract overseas investors, and perhaps also encourage international tourism. Critics are also concerned that the same technology also makes it easier for already wealthy economies to take advantage of the same opportunities. If this happens then the benefits may only add to the wealth of the already existing and have less developed regions still catching up. Money Matters: Globalization is most often discussed in relation to the growth of international trade. Global trading activities have grown enormously over the past few decades because it has become so much easier to move capital and goods from one country to another. Companies and investors can make decisions and transfer goods from once country to another at the touch of a button. The growth of international trade has been equally impressive, with merchandise (raw materials and manufactured goods) trade increasing twenty fold between 1948 and 2000. Trade in a more deregulated environment lowers the income share of the poor, whereas trade in a more regulated environment raises the share of the poor. Christian E. Weller and Adam Hersh, The Long and Short of it: Global Liberalization Poverty And Inequality Economic Policy Institute. Washington DC, USA, 2002 Technological developments such as the internet and improved methods of transport help make this possible, but there is another important factor. This is known as the opening up of economies to greater trade. This simply opening up means that government removes barriers to international trade, making it easier for foreign companies to invest in and trade with their economies. The idea behind this so called free trade system is to allow companies and individuals to choose more freely where to locate or conduct business. While doing so, they are able to choose lower cost opportunities and maximize their profits. These higher profits can then be reinvested in further projects which in turn will lead to even greater benefits and the cycle moves on. Supporters of globalization believe that by encouraging economies to open up for free trade system it will create more jobs and lead to greater wealth for all. However opponents of free trade system argue that job insecurity and poverty have both increased because of free trade and that it is often the poorest that have been hardest hit. Openness to international market forces and competition is expected to allow developing countries to alter both the pace and the pattern of their participation in international trade to catch up with industrial countries. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Trade and Development Report, 2002. International hotspots a select few: Critics of globalization point out that trade and investment are usually limited to a few international hot spots. This can be easily noticed in the distribution of investments in trade and industry around the world, using a measure FDI. Using FDI, we can see that the critics have a good point. Just three regions, the USA, the European Union, and Japan dominate FDI. Between 2008 and 2010, they account for 85% of outgoing investment and 75% of incoming investment. These figures clearly show that majority of the worlds FDI takes place in these 3 regions. This trend has led to them being called the global triad. Critics argue that as long as the triad continues to dominate international investment, less developed countries will find it very difficult à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ to? The geographical structure of FDI has become far more complex in recent years, a further indication of increased interconnectedness within the global economy Peter Dicken, Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy, 1998. Supporters of globalization point out that, although still dominated by the triad, the broader patterns of FDI are changing. FDI in developing countries has increase 12 times since 2000. However this increase is unevenly shared and has benefited only a select few countries. Most notable among these is China. It has been the most favored destination for FDI outside the global triad. The main reason for this is because of its good infrastructure, cheap and plentiful labor supply, and low taxes. In 2001, developing countries accounted for just 27.9% of FDI, of which over a third went to china and Hong kong alone. The countries of middle- east and Africa attract relatively low FDI accounting a meager 1% share in global FDI. Several countries have attempted to attract FDI and boost trade by setting up Special Economic Zones or Free Trade Zones. Today there are over 850 EPZ across several countries employing 27 million people worldwide. An EPZ is an area where in which foreign companies are invited to locate their factories and conduct business. In return for their investment, the host government removes import and export tariffs for several years. The hope is that as companies become established in the EPZ they will choose to make further investments. In 1998 China had 124 EPZS employing an estimated 18 million people more than in any other country. In Sri Lankas EPZs investing companies are allowed to operate tax free for ten years. For the investors, free trade zones are a sort of corporate club Med, where the hotel pays for everything, and the guests live free, and where integration with the local culture and economy is kept to a bare minimum. Naomi Klein, No Logo, 2000. Critics feel that EPZs represent one of the worst sides of globalization. They see them as parasites, taking what they need from the host economy for their own benefit, giving little or nothing in return. The EPZ ends up as an enclave, isolated from the rest of the country. Worse, still investors have no loyalty- they would quickly relocate their business to a competing EPZ if it offered them greater opportunities. In this way investors have been likened to tourists, moving to different resorts as it suits them best. Their ability to shop around for the best deals can even force governments to lower wages or other standards such as health and safety or environmental regulations in order to secure their investment. So why do governments go to such lengths? They hope that by opening their economies, creating EPZs and encouraging FDI, they can share in the wealth and prosperity promised by globalization. But many see this as a false hope, suggesting that following such a path only allow s the rich to become richer and makes the poor still poorer. Whatever the truth is, it is clear that money matters a great deal and that the corporations who control this money have a great power in a globalised world. Corporations The Global Giants: In a globalised world the true rulers are the corporations. But these are not just ordinary corporations. These are enormous business enterprises many with sales that are worth more than the economies of whole countries. In 2001, General Motors sale was higher than the national income of both Denmark and Norway and almost 25 times greater than the national income of Jamaica. On a broader scale the ten largest global corporations had sales of US $ 1198 billion which is more than the combined GDP of sub Saharan Africa and South Asia which together are home to one third of the worlds population. So how have these corporations become so large and wealthy? The key to their success is that they produce and sell their products and services internationally. They are called Trans National Corporations (TNC) or