Unit ii assesment Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Unit ii assesment - Coursework Example ure of an organization starts with the founders of the company and thus it flows from management downwards and it becomes acquired by new people joining the company which forms a habit of the organization. Corporate culture can be subdivided into major constituencies such as the customers, investors, government and the community and methods of operation styles such as risk taking, innovation conservative among others. A good and healthy culture increases the productivity of a company but an unhealthy culture decreases the growth of a company. A company with a healthy culture makes the employee feel as part of the company, they work as a team to help in the overall success of the company. A successful company motivates their employees to increase their productivity and level commitment which improves the quality of their products and services while an unhealthy corporate culture makes their employees feel like individuals who tend to work for their paychecks and thus not go an extra mile this leads to the failure of goals attainment of the project. For a successful project to be achieved there is need for a clear explanation and sharing of the vision of the company to everyone in the company. â€Å"Let your vision for the company becomes their vision for the company† (Malley, 2000). A well defined vision motivates the workers to understand their roles and what to do in order to help in the achievement of the set objectives or goals. But a poor defined vision or a company with no vision is reactive and will seldom lead to project failures. A corporate culture that values equality will lead to successful projects since all employees will be treated equally irrespective of their gender, relations and ethnicity. If the company is a family business the bloodlines should be irrelevant and also no favoritism for this will form barriers to success. In O’ Malleys et al’s article on How to Create a Winning Culture, it states that â€Å"showing favoritism in the workplace

Good Communication Drives Superior Financial Performance Essay Example for Free

Good Communication Drives Superior Financial Performance Essay According to Watson Wyatt’s 2009-2010 Communication ROI Study, businesses that communicate with courage, innovation and discipline, particularly in tough economic times, are more successful at engaging employees and achieving desired business results. â€Å"Effective internal communication can keep employees engaged in the business and help companies retain key talent, provide consistent value to customers, and deliver superior financial performance to shareholders,† said the study, which included 328 organizations across the world. Watson Wyatt’s newest communications study, like its other ones, found that businesses that communicate effectively with their employees are also the top financial performers. A key finding of the study was that companies that are highly effective communicators had 47 percent higher total return to shareholders over the last five years, compared to firms that are the least-effective communicators. According to the study, the best companies invest in helping leaders and managers communicate with their employees. While the study points out that only three out of 10 organizations are training managers to deal openly with resistance to change, highly effective communicators are more than three times as likely to do this compared to the least-effective communicators. A survey developed by Accountemps ®, a Robert Half Company, points out another reason why good communication equals good business. The survey found that better and more frequent communication with staff members is perhaps the best way to raise employee morale. The survey was conducted by an independent research firm in 2008 and is based on interviews with 150 senior executives from the nation’s 1,000 largest companies. Nearly half of executives who participated in the survey said better communication is the best remedy for low morale. According to the survey, the absence of open and honest communication with staff tops the list of management missteps that can wear down employee morale.

Biblical Character in the Life of Barnabas Essay -- Religion, The Book

As we first meet Joses, in the book of Acts, we learn much about his person. Joses, who we are told was surnamed Barnabas by the Apostles, must have spent a considerable amount of time with them, considering he had received a surname from them. Certainly, even in the free for all social climates that we have in society today, one would not deliberately call someone Fred when his given name was Lawrence unless their be great affection among these acquaintances. Most likely, because Barnabas was a Levite, he may have had previous interactions with the other apostles and through these interactions; they were able to view God’s development of his character. â€Å"This was not insignificant in itself because the granting of a nickname was often seen as a sign of respect.† Strong’s Concordance tells us the Barnabas means exhorter. â€Å"Joses was nicknamed Barnabas, which means Son of Exhortation, evidently because of his character and ability to encourage those wh o were downhearted.† Barnabas the Levite, having no portion of inheritance in the Promised Land showed great character in that he voluntarily sold land that he had acquired on the Island of Cyprus, which is in a region of the Mediterranean Sea. â€Å"Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him.† (Deut. 10:9) â€Å"The believers were unified not only spiritually (one in heart and mind) but also materially. Their selling of their goods was voluntary and the distribution was according to need.† Barnabas may have been a man of considerable financial means, as he did own land. Biblical character is apparent in him as he makes the arduous journey to Cyprus, completes the task of selling the land, and trav... ...le having divested much time having poured out their souls for the workings of spiritual things. What man, having disdain and hatred for another brother would be concerned for his physical well-being? Alas, any Christian would be better disposed to believe that this beloved brother, Barnabas, exhibited great biblical character by maintaining his charity towards his brother Paul. â€Å"Though we change our colleagues, we do not change our principal president.† Later, In Galatians 2 we see Barnabas and Paul once again reunited and laboring together in the battlefield, which is the fight for souls. They, having set aside their differences and having influenced many lives while winning multitudes of lost souls to Christ, carry on their unspoken biblical character. Yes, biblical character must be unspoken that it suffer not to be tainted and be truly revealed as pride.

Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes :: Media Stereotypes Stereotyping

Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes People being generalized based on limited and inaccurate information by sources as television, cartoons or even comic books (Tripod). This is a definition that seems to go against many public standards. The above words are the exact definition of stereotypes. Stereotypes as understood from the definition, goes mostly hand in hand with media -- only not the regular meaning of the innocent media we know. Media propaganda is the other form of media that is rather described as media manipulation. In this paper, the following will be discussed: first, how stereotypes of ethnic groups function in propaganda, why does it function so well, and finally, the consequences of these stereotypes on the life of Egyptians in particular in society. A fair examination will be conducted on this example of stereotypes through clarification examples and research results from researches conducted from reliable sources. The real association between Egyptians’ stereotypes and propaganda discussed in this paper shall magnify the association of stereotypes and propaganda in general. It seems necessary for this paper to start with some clarification of the terms associated with propaganda. Propaganda can be thought of as a foster parent for stereotypes. Propaganda is known to be the intentional manipulation of public opinion through hidden messages in advertisements and other media functions. Thus, propaganda uses many techniques to be able to deliver theses hidden messages to the public and influence their opinion. Fear, brainwashing, name calling, glittering generality, misinformation and much more are some of the techniques that propaganda uses to influence and manipulate the opinions of the majority. Propaganda finds the usefulness of stereotypes in the fact that it’s easy, fast and straight to the public. In the case of stereotypes about ethnic groups, Egyptians in this case are being portrayed as uneducated, unethical, ignorant, desert animal raisers, terrorists and uncivilized ethnic group. These name calling and misinformation techniques are what p ropagandists use to manoeuvre the society to portray Egyptians as humans of the underworld and Egypt as a deserted country that hunger and illness are its residents. The previous are all stereotypes that are propagandas of the media to convert such generality into truth and facts. Racial stereotypes specifically function mostly through propaganda of the media, due to the unlikelihood of every man travelling to every country, using the technique of ‘misinformation’ through movies, shows, and news reports. Egyptians have been stereotyped as desert residents for many years regardless of the reality and actual state of Egypt as a country.

The Theme of Secrecy in Twelfth Night

Secrecy is an important element in any plot. It creates irony and sometimes situational comedy. The way in which a character keeps or reveals a secret affects the plot and adds to the main theme of the work. Viola, a character in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, must keep the secret of her true identity. The play uses secrecy as an important element of the plot by creating irony, situational comedy, and tension, as well as affecting the plot and contributing to the overall meaning of the play. The plot of Twelfth Night is affect by the secret that Viola keeps and reveals. Viola is a lady of Messaline who has been shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria. Believing her brother Sebastian is dead, she wants to start a new life in Illyria, but the court of Lady Olivia is not accepting any new members because Lady Olivia is in mourning after her father and brother have died. In order to join the court of Duke Orsino, Viola must disguise herself as a boy named Cesario. Orsino accepts â€Å"Cesario† into his court and from that point on, secrecy is embedded within the plot. Secrecy is necessary because she cannot be revealed as a woman for several reasons. Viola becomes close with Orsino, which causes her to fall in love with him, but since she has become so close to him, Orsino trusts â€Å"her† and sends â€Å"Cesario† to Lady Olivia’s house to try to convince her to accept his love. Even though Olivia has sworn off love, as soon as she meets Cesario she falls for him because he knows all the charming things to say to her. Since Cesario is actually Viola, the swooning words she says to Olivia is what Viola would want to hear if a man were confessing his love to her. Cesario says to Olivia, â€Å"Make me a willow cabin at your gate/ And call upon my soul within the house,/ Write loyal cantons of contemned love,/ And sing them loud even in the dead of night// Hallow your name to the reverberate hills/ And make the babbling gossip of the air/ Cry out ‘Olivia! ’ O, you should not rest/ Between the elements of air and earth/ But you should pity me† (43). This speech is what Viola would want to hear if she was being pursued by a man, which is why Olivia falls for Cesario. This complicates the plot because now Olivia is in love with Cesario who is actually Viola which creates a sense of situational comedy and irony. This secret not only affects the plot, but it contributes to the overall theme of the play, love or the lack of. Olivia is not actually in love with Cesario and neither is Orsino with Olivia, they are both in love with the idea or concept of love. On the other hand, Viola is truly in love with Orsino, which is revealed to the audience when Cesario is discussing love with Orsino; Cesario says, â€Å"Sooth, but you must. / Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,/ Hath for your love as great a pang of heart/ As you have for Olivia. You cannot lover her:/ You tell her so. Must she not them be answered† (73)? Viola, disguised as Cesario, is speaking about herself which creates tension and irony for the audience. Viola’s secret keeps her from openly loving Orsino and causes Olivia to be in love with Cesario. Viola’s brother, Sebastian, who is in fact not dead, represents two motifs in the play: mistaken identity and things are not what they appear to be. Sebastian is saved by Antonio, a man whose tenderness towards Sebastian turns into love. Sebastian travels to Illyria, not knowing that Viola is alive and living there. Viola and Sebastian look very much alike, and now that Viola is impersonating a boy, they look identical. Sebastian is mistaken for Cesario by Olivia, which gives him two identities. Olivia begs â€Å"Cesario† to marry her and Sebastian seeing that Olivia was pretty and wealthy, accepts her proposal. Sebastian says to himself, â€Å"Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune/ So far exceed all instance, all discourse,/ That I am ready to distrust mine eyes/ And wrangle with my reason that persuades me/ To any other trust but that I am mad-/ Or else the lady’s mad† (155). Sebastian’s situation represents mistaken identity and that things do not appear to be what they seem. Viola’s secret further complicates the plot; now Olivia believes she is married to Cesario who is actually Sebastian. Also this news infuriates Orsino who is in â€Å"love† with Olivia and causes major problems between Orsino and Cesario; Orsino says to Cesario, â€Å"O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be/ When time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case? / Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow/ That thine own trip shall be tine overthrow? / Farwell, and take her, but direct thy feet/ Where thou and I henceforth may never meet† (173). Viola is heartbroken by Orsino’s speech because she is genuinely in love with him and she is not the one who married Olivia. Olivia mistaking Sebastian for Cesario, proves that she does not really love Cesario, she is in love with idea of love which is the overriding theme of the play. Identities and disguises are created by secrecy in the play. Viola’s and Sebastian’s true identities are revealed when she finds herself face to face with her brother Sebastian. Malvolio, another character in the play whose identity is lost due to secrecy, regains his identity by the end of of the play. Viola’s necessity for secrecy leads to her choice of keeping the secret for most the play. Her secret complicates the plot, and develops irony and situational comedy throughout the play. Her secret did allow her to achieve her goal of joining Orsino’s court and starting a new life, but her revealing the secret allowed her and Orsino to be together. Viola’s secret contributed to the meaning of the play, that love is not always what it appears to be, sometimes love has two identities. Love can be just falling in love with the idea of the emotion or the real thing.

design in the 1950s essays

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Deluxe Corporation Case Essays

Deluxe Corporation Case Essays Deluxe Corporation Case Paper Deluxe Corporation Case Paper By: Michael Malone Statement of the Problem Rajat Singh, a managing director at Hudson Bancorp, needs to find a way to rejuvenate the paper check corporation. One main part that needs to be calculated is the appropriate mixture of debt and equity for the firm. The company needs to determine the correct mixture so that they can both minimize the cost of capital and increase the shareholders value. I will analyze the current and future situation of the company, trying to find the correct credit rating to use that will increase income. With the new credit rating, I will be able to recommend a certain amount of debt for the company to take on and be profitable. Facts and Assumptions When trying to accurately calculate the cost of capital, the one main method stands out the most. I had to calculate the WACC of the firm for the various credit ratings. In order to accurately calculate this, I had to incorporate the repurchase of shares and add the newfound debt to the total debt from 2001. The project debt used by the corporation didn’t factor in the repurchase of shares and therefore it was calculated wrong. To help me solve the equation for the best WACC, I had to make some basic assumptions about the case. For starters, as shown in case, I decided to use a 37% tax rate like the analysts for Bancorp did because I felt that it would be comparable to the numbers that they calculated in the projection. Next, I decided to use the 5-year note yield because analysts provided information to show that the market would mature after 5 years and paper checks would be nonexistent. Furthermore, I had to use the CAPM equation to figure out what my numbers would be for the WACC equation. To show this, I used the equation: CAPM = Rf + (Rm-Rf) ? Through the use of the case, I was able to assume a risk free rate of 3. 45% while I used 11. 03% for the market risk premium and 0. 85 and the beta. This led us to the calculation of the cost of equity, which we could then use to find the debt. Once the debt was found, I needed to find the bond rating perfect or it and I believe that I found a winner. Analysis Using CAPM to provide the calculation for the equity, this presents both positive and negative effects. Advantages 1. Calculates the amount of compensation the investor demands for taking additional risk 2. Compares the returns of the asset to the market over a period of time (Beta) Disadvantages 1. Based on historical data onto the future (Beta is an estimate) 2. Simplifies assumptions about the market and how investors will actually behave. Taking the CAPM equation, we were able to figure out eh cost of equity and in its credit range CAPM = Rf + (Rm-Rf) ? =3. 45%+(11. 03%3. 45%)*0. 85 CAPM= 9. 89% With this, we can then find each of the costs for equity by averaging them within each of the bond rating categories. This showed a very flat performance in cost of equity. I we compare that to the market beta, our answer for CAPM would change from the 9. 89% to the 11. 03%. According to exhibit 8 in the case, a cost of equity of 11. 03% is between a BBB and BB bond rating. Therefore, if they were to repurchase stock from investors, there share prices would in theory go up because they are investing more and more money into the company. With the three debt instruments in the case, hundreds of millions of dollars would become readily available to the company and be at their disposal. Each of the financing opportunities provides their own money in different forms. Great companies need these different financing ideas to succeed. Recommendation Based on the analysis performed, Deluxe should definitely consider the different financing opportunities that are presented to them. By epurchasing stocks with debt, the stock price will increase from $41. 58 to $47. 04. This will bring some much needed value to both the company and its investors. In my opinion, the company shows a good potential to continue to grow during the recession through he addition of new financing opportunities and buyback of some stock. To get this to happen, it would require the company to use 1,140. 10 million dollars of debt which would equate to a mixture of 64. 85% debt and 35. 15% equity.

Business Gravitas and Language

Business Gravitas and Language Business Gravitas and Language Business Gravitas and Language By Maeve Maddox Tech columnist Rob Walker questions whether anyone still has gravitas in the Internet Era. gravitas (noun): high seriousness, as in a person’s bearing or the treatment of a subject; seriousness of conduct, bearing, speech, temperament, etc. According to Walker, â€Å"if you want to be taken seriously in our post-gravitas culture, you must demonstrate that you do not take yourself too seriously.† Walker makes his case for the disdain of gravitas in the entertainment media (and that includes much of what is called â€Å"news coverage†), but the pride in ignorance and love of vulgarity that dominates the popular media does not seem to apply in corporate America. The Web teems with consultants and business coaches who list gravitas as a characteristic of â€Å"executive presence,† an elusive quality that leads to promotion and is required in positions of leadership. According to an article at Forbes, the gravitas associated with executive presence comprises â€Å"confidence, poise under pressure and decisiveness.† Closely associated with this quality are speaking and writing skills. Executives who possess gravitas: do not sprinkle their speech with vulgarities. do not mumble, but enunciate their words and pronounce them conventionally. do not let their voices rise at the end of sentences that are not questions. On the other hand, they do: avoid nonstandard usage that would make them sound uneducated. speak in a pleasant rhythm and modulate their voices to avoid shrillness or nasality. express themselves coherently and grammatically, even in email. Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, and founder of Dozuki, believes that carelessness with language is symptomatic of carelessness in other areas: Grammar signifies more than just a person’s ability to remember high school English. I’ve found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing - like stocking shelves or labeling parts. His policy of refusing to hire anyone who cannot pass a grammar test has stirred heated controversy. His critics feel that mastery of one’s native language should apply only to employees involved directly with written communication. For example, contrary to Wiens, writer John McWhorter would require the ability to tell the difference between â€Å"your† and â€Å"you’re† only of those whose jobs require â€Å"taking dictation, writing technical directions and blog entries, teaching school, etc.† McWhorter even suggests that people who don’t demonstrate mastery of standard usage are not necessarily lazy, but are â€Å"more likely† victims of ineffective public education. Whatever the cause, a large segment of the American workforce lacks basic writing skills. A survey of 120 American corporations conducted by the National Commission on Writing, a panel established by the College Board, concluded that a third of employees in these companies wrote poorly enough to require in-house remediation costing as much as $3.1 billion annually. The tragedy of all this waste is that CEOs are not looking for people who can write like prize-winning novelists. All they want are people who can speak and write clearly enough to get their point across in a standard form of basic English skills that can be mastered by eighth-graders. TV shows and car ads may get laughs by poking fun at gravitas, but speakers who want to get ahead in the business world will master a form of standard English and know when to use it. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Business Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Possessive of Proper Names Ending in SDoes "Mr" Take a Period?10 Writing Exercises to Tighten Your Writing

Take-home exam for Mindfulness and Meditations class Essay

Take-home exam for Mindfulness and Meditations class - Essay Example This quality enables any mindful person to freely interact with their environment. From such free interactions, the person gets to learn more on the ideal response strategies to specific common scenario. Thirdly, mindfulness is characterized with acceptance (Baer 130). In this respect, the person is ready to accept fate and influences of the environment. This dictates that one makes various observations but remains non-judgmental. It is only through acceptance of various uncontrollable developments that one is able to enjoy their lives to the fullest. Finally, Mindfulness is characterized by love. This can be love for oneself or for others and the environment. This aspect of love promotes the acceptability of the mindful person to a wide range of audience. According to Baer, mindfulness involves remaining non-judgmental. In this regard, one is to be a keen observer of occurrences in the environment, but avoid forming stereotyped opinions on the occurrences. Rather, one should accept things as they are, only looking for ideal ways to make the situation better. Further, mindfulness should be present-oriented. This enables the person to tackle and respond to issues in real-time. Such present orientation also enables the person to maintain self-consciousness. Baer further notes the need of mindfulness to involve capacity for self observation, a property that is essential in alleviating over-reliance on secondary data sources. The fourth facet of mindfulness is the association of different scenarios with the intentions behind them. This labeling of words and occurrences is important in creating better understanding of the world. Finally, mindfulness involves non-reactivity. This dictates that one makes critical observations, but exhibits n o negative reactions towards such developments. a. Knowing what is happening while it is happening (Awareness): this aspect is promoted by the focus of mindfulness on present setting. Through such present- centered

Painting, architecture and sculpture of British designers Essay

Painting, architecture and sculpture of British designers - Essay Example A huge spectrum of the art in the 17th century was introduced in Britain from Italy which relied heavily on the physical impression the art depicted. Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio are some of the first Italian painters who ushered the baroque style into Italy. They ensured that naturalism and classicism coexisted to bring the required impression through art and architecture. Churches were painted and decorated in the first baroque style at the time. The spiral staircases can be witnessed in a number of present day buildings in the UK; this was one of the first architect’s works of the baroque period. In Britain art began with stone carving and engraving by the Celtic tribes. Some of the artefacts in the national museum illustrate the beautiful shapes on swords and household goods, this continued until it was conquered by the Romans. The Roman regime introduced the patterned and mosaic approaches in constructions of some of the buildings in the UK. This period is closely fol lowed by the influence of religion which brings into perspective the concepts of illuminating manuscripts. In 1066 after the invasion by William of Normandy the buildings in London were characterised by rounded columns and semi-circular arches which a system is referred to as the Romanesque. Medieval and Gothic architectural styles were later ingrained in Britain’s art system. It is a specific class affair as depicted by the type of people who practiced the concepts, for instance William Morris was a trained architect.

Business Strategic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Strategic - Essay Example number of mergers and acquisitions over the years have seen AB InBev increase its production, market and distribution of about of its beer 200 brands that include the popular global brand Budweiser Beck’s. In addition to brands such as Stella Artois, Klinskoye, Bud Light, Leffe Hoegaarden, Skol, Jupiler, Brahma, Quilmes, Harbin, Sedrin, Michelob, Sibirskaya, Chernigivske and Korona (Reuters, 2014; Solitro, 2013). The company’s production and distribution is based on a division of its brands into global, multi-country and local beer in order to take advantage of different tastes of its customers based on geographical and regional presence. The beer brands produced by AB InBev has been further been categorized into premium brands, mainstream, and sub-premium brands to take care of the economic aspects of their customers (Reuters, 2014). This essay explores value chain analysis of AB InBev PLC that will provide a clear perspective on how the company achieves maximum process effectiveness. Therefore, this analysis will rely on key aspects of the value chain hypothesis introduced by Porter where the main activities under review will cover inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service, which are all essential components in the operations of a company in the beverage industry (Porter, 2008). The importance of this value chain analysis is to find out how AB InBev PLC creates its competitive advantage and shareholder value that can only be attained through measures that ensure the cost of providing their products remains low. This is in order to generate a profit margin in addition to identifying and making assessment of competency in core areas of the company (Woodside, 2009). Inbound Logistics for any company covers all the necessary activities that take place to ensure uninterrupted supply of the necessary inputs and raw materials the company needs for a smooth production process (Dagoon, 2005). To have a have control over

The predictions of corporate failures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The predictions of corporate failures - Essay Example Corporate failures gained higher rates in last two decades. There are lots of factors that lead businesses to fail. Those factors attributed by different economists are high interest rates, heavy debt burdens and recession-squeezed profits. There are lots of industry-specific factors such as government regulation and the nature of operations, can results into to a firm’s financial failures. Studies have found that small, private and newly opened companies with poor cash flow planning and ineffective controlling systems are more exposed to financial crisis than the large and well-established firms. It is very important to have robust and reliable models that predict corporate failure accurately and promptly. It is very important for the management to take either preventive or corrective measure to secure the interest of all the stakeholders. This study would go to discuss about different models for preventing corporate failures and the study would assess the strengths and weakn esses of those models. Financial satiability is very important for any corporate house. Corporate houses are having lots of stakeholders attached with it. It is also an important duty of Government and Financial regulating authorities to keep a close look on the financial health of firm. There are lots of models are there to take preventive actions but it is very important to chose the right one for the right problem. Every model has its own strength and weaknesses. Identification of the proper model for the specific crisis is very important things to follow for any corporate house to avoid corporate failures. Failure of one firm can cause for a serious disaster for all those stake holders related with that firm. According to Beaver (1966), who used classification test to identify different financial ratios for corporate failure predictions. Author used 30 financial ratios and 79 pairs of companies for test

Risk management in British Airways Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Risk management in British Airways - Essay Example The overall process has been designed in a manner that it remains an iterative process wherein the changes and implementation of the existing and new risk management practices are scrutinized on continuous basis.( Goh, 2011). British Airways (BA) has a separate Corporate Risk Management Group in place which not only oversees the organization wide risk management practices of the firm but is also involved in managing internal control systems of the company. The Corporate Risk Group is overseen by a management board and senior key executives to ensure that the involvement of the key senior managers remains so that required improvements could be achieved and the process is managed strategically. The existing risk management practices of BA involve not only the identification of the key risks and their drivers but also their mitigation and management. The overall process is monitored at the Board Audit Committee level and involves senior management to provide an independent review and in sight into the risk management practices of the firm. Current Risk Management Process The current risk management process and its infrastructure within the organization are based on a combination of independence and authority. BA has put in place a separate risk management group which has the overall responsibility of managing the corporate risk affairs of the firm. The group is headed by the Head of Corporate Risk and Internal Controls and oversees different aspects of the risk management process. Further, there is a supervisory management board which comprises of the key senior managers of the firm to provide strategic insight and ownership to the strategic management process within the organization. (Rothwell, 2011). Company maintains a corporate risk register which is actually used for the purpose of identifying the risks and recording them for the purpose of review and assessment. The overall assessment process is based on quarterly reviews wherein the management board as well as the senior managers along with the Corporate Risk Managers evaluate the existing and new risks and determine the future course of action. It is also important to note that this is the highest level within the organization which actually assess and outlines the risk management processes within the organization. The work is further distributed to the individual departments and risk leaders within each department responsible for the management of risk at the departmental and individual level. It is also important to note that the risk at the individual level is measured through an internally developed matrix called Heat Map. Heat Map takes into account each individual risk based on its likely impact and the overall likely scale.1 This therefore allows BA to map its overall risk identification process according to the overall importance and impact of the risk on the organization. Once the different critical risks are identified, mitigating factors for managing the risk are identified and are each risk is individually managed. A report is finally produced which attempt to address different risk issues and responsibilities and accountabilities are than fixed at the individual level to ensure that the overall process is delegated to the lowest level of the organization. It is also critical to understand that this report usually do not contain the mapped results and critical actions required to be undertaken. This is purposefully done by BA in order to

The predictions of corporate failures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The predictions of corporate failures - Essay Example Corporate failures gained higher rates in last two decades. There are lots of factors that lead businesses to fail. Those factors attributed by different economists are high interest rates, heavy debt burdens and recession-squeezed profits. There are lots of industry-specific factors such as government regulation and the nature of operations, can results into to a firm’s financial failures. Studies have found that small, private and newly opened companies with poor cash flow planning and ineffective controlling systems are more exposed to financial crisis than the large and well-established firms. It is very important to have robust and reliable models that predict corporate failure accurately and promptly. It is very important for the management to take either preventive or corrective measure to secure the interest of all the stakeholders. This study would go to discuss about different models for preventing corporate failures and the study would assess the strengths and weakn esses of those models. Financial satiability is very important for any corporate house. Corporate houses are having lots of stakeholders attached with it. It is also an important duty of Government and Financial regulating authorities to keep a close look on the financial health of firm. There are lots of models are there to take preventive actions but it is very important to chose the right one for the right problem. Every model has its own strength and weaknesses. Identification of the proper model for the specific crisis is very important things to follow for any corporate house to avoid corporate failures. Failure of one firm can cause for a serious disaster for all those stake holders related with that firm. According to Beaver (1966), who used classification test to identify different financial ratios for corporate failure predictions. Author used 30 financial ratios and 79 pairs of companies for test

What could help solve poverty in Calcutta Essay

What could help solve poverty in Calcutta - Essay Example A few of the numerous people who come from different backgrounds and they are present in Calcutta include; Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains. There are numerous languages that are spoken in Calcutta includes but not limited to; Tamil, Urdu, Punjabi and Bengali. One of the biggest issue that Calcutta is facing is overcrowding. The main reason for this is the numerous activities that take place in Calcutta. In addition, there diversity of the people that are present in Calcutta is one of the reason that it has a high population density of 4.5 million people. Another reason for the over population of Calcutta is the Bangladesh conflict which took place in the 1970s which made refugees to settle in the northern and southern suburbs of the city. People move to Calcutta to take, coal, petroleum, manganese, jute, manganese and iron. This is because it is a major export centre of these products. Due to the large population, Calcutta has been having a big unemployment crisis since early 1950s. With the high population density and the equally high levels of poverty, Calcutta has a huge problem when it comes to housing (Banerji, 2007). It is estimated that more than a third of the city lives in places of severe poverty (slumdogs, 2015). In this place, the houses have poor ventilation, very limited sanitary conditions and very little open space. One of the main reason for the poverty is Calcutta is overcrowding. It is brought about when people are numerous and located in just one place (Phelan, 2015). This limits even the ability of the people to get ample space to live. There are numerous reason as to why people may be over populated in one place. As for Calcutta, the main reason for its overpopulation is the fact that numerous activities take place there (Weaver, 1985). The main industries that thrive in Calcutta include; transport industry, export industry, and manufacturing industries. In addition,

Labor Relations Essay Example for Free

Labor Relations Essay In reviewing information pertaining to labor unions, there is a plethora of information about unions in the transportation industry. One of the most widely known unions is the teamster unions, which deals with truckers. Labor unions and issues with automotive industry are often seen in the media. The newest transportation industry in American history is the airline industry. As the newest transportation industry that is still vital to American comfort, convenience, and commercial, the airline industry is ripe for workers to organize and demand a greater piece of the profits from operations. In this essay, an effort will be made to review this company in regards to labor relations. Company’s stance toward Labor Delta Airlines was founded by C. E. Woolman, an agriculture extension agent (Anthony, Kacmar, Perrewe, 2010). C. E Woolman was not a banker, venture capitalist or war pilot, as many of the competing airlines were. He didn’t have the aggressive military style that many of the other airline founders had. What C. E. Woolman instilled within the employees at all levels of the organization is that people matter and should be treated fairly and equitably. This philosophy led Delta Airlines to be the leader in customer service from the company’s inception through the many mergers over the years. Through the difficult financial times when other airlines were laying off employees and filing for bankruptcy, Delta continued to pay their people well and keep them employed. There was an exception during the Ronald Allen CEO era of 1987 thru 1997. Human relations took a significant down turn during his tenure as CEO, especially during 1993 and 1994, but Delta decided to part ways with Allen and began repairing those fragile relationships with its employees. Delta Airlines still focuses on the human relations factor and has been able to repair the relationship with its employees; they believe it is their key to success. Despite the corporate culture to take care of its employees, a number of Delta employee departments are unionizing. They feel as though that piece is not being distributed justly. Formulate a strategy for negotiating a labor agreement Human behavior dictates that there will be problems. As a company starts making money, there is always a desire by the employees to acquire more of the profit. On the other hand, management has a desire to retain as much of the profit to be provided to investors and to receive bonuses for their â€Å"supposedly† wise business practices. When one group wants more and another wants to retain, there will be conflict. And this is precisely what is happening at Delta Airline, as well as among many industries in the transportation arena. Employees, seeking to gain an upper hand threaten to strike; however, management must be willing to address the matter through negotiation. The Negotiation Process Fisher and Ury recommend conducting negotiations according to the process of principled negotiation. Their method has four main tenets: 1. Separate the people from the problem. The idea should be for both sides to work together to attack a problem, rather than attacking each other. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to overcome emotional responses and set aside egos. 2. Focus on interests rather than positions. The natural tendency in many negotiations—for example, dickering over the price to be paid for an antique—is for both sides to state a position and then move toward middle ground. Fisher and Ury warn against confusing peoples stated positions with their underlying interests, and claim that positions often tend to obscure what people truly hope to gain through negotiation. 3. Generate a variety of options before deciding what to do. The pressure involved in any type of negotiation tends to narrow peoples vision and inhibit their creativity, making it difficult to find optimal solutions to problems. Instead, Fisher and Ury suggest developing a wide range of possible solutions as part of the negotiating process. These possible solutions should attempt to advance shared interests and reconcile differences. 4. Base the result on objective criteria. No one will be happy with the result of a negotiation if they feel that they have been taken advantage of. The solution is to find and apply some fair standard to the problem in order to guarantee a mutually beneficial result. Fisher and Urys principles provide a good overall guide for the actual negotiation process. In his book, Nierenberg offered a number of other tips and strategies that may be effective in promoting successful negotiations. For example, it may be helpful to ask questions in order to form a better understanding of the needs and interests of the other side. The questions must be phrased diplomatically and timed correctly in order to avoid an antagonistic response. The idea is to gain information and uncover basic assumptions without immediately taking positions. Nierenberg stressed the importance of listening carefully to the other sides responses, as well as studying their facial expressions and body language, in order to gain quality information. Nierenberg noted that good negotiators will employ a variety of means to accomplish their objectives. Small business owners should be aware of some of the more common strategies and techniques that they may see others apply or may wish to apply themselves. One common strategy is forbearance, or patience pays, which covers any sort of wait or delay in negotiations. If one side wishes to confer in private, or adjourn briefly, they are employing a strategy of forbearance. Another common strategy is to present a fait accompli, or come to a final offer and leave it up to the other side to decide whether to accept it. In a simple example, a small business owner may scratch out one provision in a contract that he or she finds unacceptable, then sign it and send it back. The other party to the contract then must decide whether to accept the revised agreement. Nierenberg warns that this strategy can be risky, and encourages those who employ it to carefully appraise the consequences first. Another possible negotiating strategy is reversal, which involves taking a position that seems opposed to the original one. Similarly, feinting involves apparently moving in one direction in order to ivert attention from the true goal. For example, a negotiator may give in on a point that is not very important in order to make the real objective more attainable. Another strategy involves setting limits on the negotiation, whether with regards to time, the people involved, or other factors. It is also possible to change the participation in the negotiation if it seems to be at an impasse. For example, a neutral third party may be enlisted to help, or one or two people from each side may be sent off to continue the negotiation separately. It may also be helpful to break down the problem into small pieces and tackle them one by one. Another strategy might be to trade sides for a short time and try to view the situation from each others perspective. All of these techniques may be applied either to gain advantage or to push forward a negotiation that has apparently reached an impasse. Analyze the principle economic and administrative issues The airline industry is a fast growing sector demonstrating a very strong growth rate. It is associated with a number of social and economic benefits and is a growing contributor to the global inventory (Whitelegg, 2000). Business cycles have a wide reaching impact on the airline industry; during recession, air travel was considered a luxury and therefore spending is cut which leads to reduced prices. The industry creates its impact not just by providing direct employment, but also through the creation of opportunities throughout the travel and hospitality sector of the economy. Jobs in hotels, resorts, restaurants and car rental agencies are all impacted by the airline industry (Global Airline Industry Program, 2011). The airline industry itself is a major economic force, both in terms of its own operations and its impacts on related industries such as aircraft manufacturing and tourism. There are few industries that create the amount and intensity of attention that airlines receive, not only among its participants but from government policy makers and the media as well. The crucial issues on the table vary depending on whether the person is in management or is a worker. For management, the key to retain as much money as possible, while for the workers the goal is to obtain more of the profit. Thus, in management, the argument would be made to show how much money is used to provide employee insurances and benefits, reinvest in equipment and aircraft, general property and liability. On top of that, investors must be repaid. For the employee or worker, this is a stressful environment where the employee needs to be compensated for his work-related stress. Employee paid benefits continues to decrease, and the employee is forced to pay a disproportionate share. Thus, the employee needs more money just to live at a sustainable level. Recommend policies and procedures to administer a labor contract and resolve disputes. It is of utmost importance to resolve conflict expeditiously and justly for all parties involved. Thus, I would recommend the following policies as a means to resolve disputes: When a team oversteps the mark of healthy difference of opinion, resolving conflict requires respect and patience. The human experience of conflict involves our emotions, perceptions, and actions; we experience it on all three levels, and we need to address all three levels to resolve it. We must replace the negative experiences with positive ones. Acknowledge the conflict – The conflict has to be acknowledged before it can be managed and resolved. The tendency is for people to ignore the first signs of conflict, perhaps as it seems trivial, or is difficult to differentiate from the normal, healthy debate that teams can thrive on. If you are concerned about the conflict in your team, discuss it with other members. Once the team recognizes the issue, it can start the process of resolution. †¢ Discuss the impact – As a team, discuss the impact the conflict is having on team dynamics and performance. Agree to a cooperative process – Everyone involved must agree to cooperate in to resolve the conflict. This means putting the team first, and may involve setting aside your opinion or ideas for the time being. If someone wants to win more than he or she wants to resolve the conflict, you may find yourself at a stalemate. †¢ Agree to communicate – The most important thing throughout the resolution process is for everyone to keep communications open. The people involved need to talk about the issue and discuss their strong feelings. Active listening is essential here because to move on you eed to really understand where the other person is coming from. Determine the most likely interest dispute and determine how you could leverage economic pressure to help resolve that dispute. â€Å"There is no way to overstate the role â€Å"leverage† plays when it comes to achieving favorable settlements. Leverage is defined as: â€Å"positional advantage; the power to act effectively; strategic advantage†. Stated more simply, your leverage is whatever power you have† (Cory, 2011). Leverage is usually more about situational advantage than objective strength or power. For example, a single individual or small business may have few resources relative to a large corporation but still have situational advantage by virtue of being able to compel the larger corporation to appear and answer in a favorable venue. Likewise even when there is a legitimate claim which could result in a significant loss to the defendant, if the plaintiff does not have the resources or the fortitude to stay the course, then the defendant has the situational advantage by virtue of being able to delay and wait the plaintiff out. Leverage can be real or imagined. Your actual leverage at any point in time is based only on the other side’s perception of your leverage (which can obviously differ significantly from the actual facts). There are obviously situations where you have an information advantage, such as when you know about a weakness in your case that is not yet known by the other side. In such a situation you will, perhaps only briefly, appear to have more leverage than you actually do. Likewise, you can be at an information disadvantage such as when you mistakenly think that the other side has a stronger case than they actually do. There are also situations where you mistakenly think that your case is stronger than it actually is which occurs when for one reason or another you don’t have all the facts, or when the facts have not been accurately relayed to you. But regardless of your actual leverage, if there is no fear on the other side, you have little if any effective leverage (Cory, 2011).

Cindy Sherman Artist Biography

Cindy Sherman Artist Biography No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Shermans photography is part of the culture and investigation of sexual and racial identity within the visual arts since the 1970s. It has been said that, The bulk of her workà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦has been constructed as a theater of femininity as it is formed and informed by mass culture (her) pictures insist on the aporia of feminine identity tout court, represented in her pictures as a potentially limitless range of masquerades, roles, projections (Sobieszek 229). Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman grew up in suburban Huntington Beach on Long Island, the youngest of five children and had a regular American childhood. She was very self-involved, found of costumes, and given to spending hours at the mirror, playing with makeup (Schjeldahl 7). Cindy Sherman attended the state University College at Buffalo, New York, where she first started to create art in the medium of painting. During her college years, she painted self-portraits and realistic copies of images that she saw in photographs and magazines. Yet, she became less, and less interested in painting and became increasingly interested in conceptual, minimal, performance, body art, and film alternatives (Sherman 5). Shermans very first introductory photography class in college was a complete failure for she had difficulties with the technological aspects of making a print. After her disastrous first attempt in photography, Sherman discovered Contemporary Art, which had a profound and lasting effect on the rest of her artistic career (Thames and Hudson 1). Shermans first assignment in her photography class was to photograph something which gave her a problem, thus, Sherman chose to photograph her self naked. While this was difficult, she learned that having an idea was the most important factor in creating her art, not so much the technique that she used. While she was talented at copying with pencils and paints, this artistic method would not allow Sherman to express herself personally. But with a camera, Sherman could use her body as a tool (Sills 64). The young artist became fascinated by the way any image at all, simply being presented, activates a mysterious charge-neither subjective nor objective, but of both (Schjeldahl 7). In college, Sherman became active in the local avant-garde scene, the liveliest of two decades, and especially in Hallwalls, an artist-run alternative exhibition space (Heller 223). In 1975, while still attending college, Cindy She rman created her first series of five photographs entitled, Untitled A-E. Within these first photographs, Sherman attempts to alter her face with makeup and hats, attempting to take on different personas, such as a little girl in Untitled D, and a clown in Untitled A (Thames and Hudson 2). This first series is Shermans first attempt of documenting transformation. The Curator Linda Cathcart, saw the pictures at Hallwalls and put them at the Albright Knox Art Gallery (Heller 225). Because Sherman had such vivid imagination and became fascinated with self-transformation, Sherman often bought vintage clothes and accessories from thrift stores, which helped her to form and create different characters. So it just grew and grew until I was buying and collecting more and more of these things, and suddenly the characters came together just because I had so much of the detritus from them (Thames and Hudson 2 ). Sherman went even as far as wearing the costumes and dressing as different charact ers to gallery openings and events in Buffalo. She wore these costumes because she wanted to see how far she how transformed she could look (Haller 225). Yet, Sherman never considered dressing up for performance purposes because she was not maintaining a character but simply getting dressed up to go out (Thames and Hudson 2). Cindy Sherman began her famous series of Untitled Film Series at the end of 1977. The small black and white photographs are of Sherman impersonating female character types from old B grade movies, which speak to a generation of baby boomer women who had grown up absorbing these glamorous images ay home on their televisions, taking such portrayals as cues for their future (Thames and Hudson 1). Upon graduation of college in 1977, Cindy Sherman and her fellow student Robert Longo moved to Manhattan, New York together. She continued with her interest in role-playing and dressing up as different characters, and began to photograph herself in these different guises among different locations such as her apartment Untitled Film Still #10, in the Southwest in Untitled Film Still #43, and in Long Island in Untitled Film Still # 9. Shermans manipulation of lighting, makeup, and dress make it difficult to believe that all of the characters represented were indeed the same person (Heller 225). A ll of the portraits are of her but none of the works are in any way a self-portrait of Sherman. They are portraits of an identity that Sherman shares with every female who thinks of her life in the way of a cheap movie. For this reason alone, is why her work has been looked at for special by feminist who hold the view that women do not hold theories, but tell stories. In the stills it is important to get a deep and true understanding that her use of photography is more integral to the performance then a photographic record of what took place. (Danto 10-11). Each of the stills is about the girl in trouble, but in the aggregate they touch the myth we each carry out of childhood, of danger, love, and security that defines the human condition. Desire mixed with nostalgia fuels the allure of the Untitled Film Stills-desire for the woman depicted as well as desire to be that woman, during that time (Thames and Hudson 4). Sherman said that the last thing she wanted her pictures to have was emotion. The still only provided a framework through which her deeper artistic impulses found expression (Danto 9). She was most interested in what a character was like when they were completely emotionless (Sherman 8). These black and white photographs were purposely grainy because Sherman wanted them to look like cheap publicity shots. While, Sherman takes most of her own photographs using a remote shutter-release, some of her pictures are also taken by her family and friends. This Untitled Film Series was first exhibited in 1995, in the Hirshborn Museum of Washington D.C. In each of the photographs, Sherman is depicted alone, As a familiar but unidentifiable film heroine in an appropriate setting (Thames and Hudson 2). Some of the many characters depicted are of a perky B-movie librarian in Untitled Film Still #13; a voluptuous lower-class women from an Italian neo-realist film in Untitled Film still #35; and a young secretary in the city Untitled Film Still # 21 (Thames and Hud son 2). In terms of the untitled film still #35 and Untitled Film still #15, both depict Sherman as a seductress, Sherman says To pick a character like that was about my own ambivalence about sexuality-growing up with the woman role models that I had, and a lot of them in films, that were like that character, and yet you were supposed to be a good girl (Thames and Hudson 2). Sherman encourages the viewers participation in constructing their own narratives of her Untitled Film Still #10, Untitled Film Still # 14, and Untitled Film Still #65 (Thames and Hudson 3) Sherman created sixty-nine photographs in total, presenting her works in an array of types. According to Judith Williamson, force upon the viewers that elision of image and identity which women experience all the timeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Thames and Hudson 3). Cindy Shermans Untitled Film Stills are also seen as related to feminist performance work of the 1970s by artists such as Adrian Piper and Eleanor Antin. Sherman is also noted as being heavily influenced by these artists. The Untitled Film Series are not only photographic records of performance but performative accounts of filmic images (Thames and Hudson 4). Sherman ended her sixty-nine photograph scenes in 1980, when she began to realize that she was duplicating previously used characters, clichà ©s, and stereotypes. Cindy Shermans next series or collection of photographs was her first working color called the Rear Screen Projections, which exude the artifice of a television show. With her increasing desire to work at home, Sherman created her photographs in front of a projected screen, which she projected slides of outdoor and indoor scenes. Viewing the photographs one can obviously tell that the background is fake. The very realistic and sometimes quite closely cropped images of Sherman contrast with the blurry and substantial settings, heightening the artifice of the entire scene (Thames and Hudson 5). Her second series concentrates on the 1960s and 1970s rather then the 1950s depicted in the Untitled Film Series. Rather then female victims, the Rear Screen Projections depict women who are confident and independent, usually youthful, middle-class women in the real world. The characters of the Rear Screen Projections are best identified as being counterparts of women in the media of the 1970s s uch as Mary Richards character in The Mary Tyler Moore television series (Thames and Hudson 5). In 1981, after creating a portfolio of images for an issue of Artforum, Sherman became inspired by the magazines horizontal format and produced a series of works that refer to the photo spreads in photographic magazines. This is said to be Shermans first mature work. These large photographs are in color, are cropped and close-up with each image depicting a young woman looking off to the side with a vacant and vulnerable look. She keeps background details to a minimum allowing the attention to be drawn to the figure. Shermans horizontals suggest a profound transgression against form. Within these pictures have there is no coherent point of view (Sobieszek, 25). When Sherman showed this series, she was criticized by some for having created women that reaffirm sexist stereotypes, therefore Artforum rejecting this series. Critics have found Untitled #93 as the most suggestive of all her works. This photograph shows a woman with messy hair and smudged makeup in bed covering her eyes, whil e looking toward the light that shines in her eyes. Although Sherman has stated that She was imagining someone who had just come home in the early morning from being out partying all night, and the sun wakes her shortly after she has gone to bed (Thames and Hudson 6). Critics on the other hand have read this photograph as a rape portrayal. Misreading of the centerfolds became very common because people tried to create stories from them, discovering hidden meanings where none were present (Schjeldahl 9). Much like her earlier works, the centerfolds mimic and repeat mass media modes. In the Pink Robe series, Sherman uses herself once again to imitate the stance of porno models, choosing to pose only in a pink chenille bathrobe. This series conveys a state of loveless intimacy, intimacy without understanding or personal tenderness (Schjeldahl 10). In this series, Sherman responds to the criticism of the centerfold series, and switches to a vertical format in order to do away with the vulnerability of the characters. Yet, the Pink Robe Series is just a continuation of the Centerfold series because Sherman thinks of these images as depiction of the porno model during breaks between posing for nude shots (Thames and Hudson 7). Sherman sits in front of the camera deciding to appear as un-sexy and without makeup or wigs, staring directly toward the viewer. Many critics interpret this series as the real Cindy and most revealing of all of her photographs (Thames and Hudson 7). Sherman has produced four groups of works that quote from fashion photography. In Shermans fashion series, she reminds the viewer that that fashion allows us to create and display a wide range of appearances as if we each possessed a wide range of identities (Sobieszek, 253). Her first fashion series was commissioned in 1983 for a spread in Interview magazine. Provided with designer clothes such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Sherman undoubtedly provided an antithesis of a glamour ads. The models look silly but utterly delighted in their high fashion frocks. Her second commissioned fashion photographs are even more bizarre from the previous works, with the models looking dejected in Untitled #137, exaggeratedly wrinkled in Untitled #132, and even homicidal in Untitled #138. It appears inevitable that Sherman would be drawn to fashion spreads because fashion is yet another means of masquerade for women, and ads for clothing promise to convert the buyer into a more perfect version of herself ( Thames and Hudson 8). Like all advertisements, fashion photographs manufacture a desire in a woman that could never be filled. Sherman uses her fashion photographs to undermine the desirability of such images by emphasizing their manipulating nature (Thames and Hudson 8). In the fairy tales and monster series, Sherman reminds us of the monsters from childhood memories and may be suggesting through these photographs that everyone harbors a secret, repressed self that can shift form and shape at will (Sobieszek, 253). The undercurrent turned, rather startling in the 1980s into a torrent of gore and rage when she switched to using a larger format and often lurid colors, and to concocting increasingly horrific and surreal images (Kimmelman 142). These images represent a time in her career when her images truly become strange and surreal. These photographs are unusual not only because of their horrific images, but also because a viewer is unaccustomed to seeing such stories represented in photographs. The strangest scene appears in Untitled #150, In which an androgyn with a huge, extended tongue fills the foreground, and tiny figures stand in the landscape behind it, making it seem like a giant among Lilliputians (Thames and Hudson 9). Shermans Fairy Tales do not depict a specific example, but evoke a narrative form. By the early 1990s Sherman had tired of creating these shocking images turning to art history for inspiration. The result was a series of photographic portraits of her returning as the model, transformed by her usual false noses, bosoms, into both male and female figures as painted by various old masters of Western painting (Heller 225). Even when Sherman was creating history portraits she worked out of books, with reproduction, she says that Its the aspect of photography that I appreciate, conceptually: the idea that images can be reproduced and seen anytime, anywhere, by anyone ( Kimmelman 145). Just like all the rest of her works, the history paintings do not depict a particular painting but depicts types for the history genre. Sherman creates the most memorable and humorous pictures of women. Often spoofing the awkward depictions of the female anatomy of the Old Masters paintings. Understanding how ridiculous these history paintings are helps the viewer understand that Sherman is mocking the Western canon and its depiction of royalty and religious figures (Thames and Hudson 12). Shermans next career move was to a raunchy pornographic depiction of individuals called the Sex Pictures. Using mannequins and body parts form medical catalogues, she constructs hybrid dolls. Rather then showing the dolls having sex, Sherman proudly shows the sex. Sherman created these works in response to the controversy over the National Endowment for the arts ands the debates over the constitute obscenity in the arts. Typically, pornography portrays sex as anonymous, but in Shermans series she depicts sex as ridiculous (Thames and Hudson 14). It Shermans work, the notion of self is completely abandoned, replaced by the concept of multiplicity, dissociation, and fluidity. Yet, her portraits do not appear as performances only unstable representations in ambiguous non-narratives making brief appearances, caught in a moment of ambivalent emotional expression (Sobieszek, 253). Much of her work is clearly meant to be ambiguous. Her pictures have been interpreted as feminist indictments of gender stereotyping, but Sherman insists that she is not political (Heller 226). References Danto, Arthur C. Cindy Sherman: Untitled Film Stills. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.. Heller, Nancy G. Women Artists and Illustrated History. New York: Abbeville Press, 1987. Kimmelman, Michael. Portraits. New York: Random House, 1998. Schjeldahl, Peter. Cindy Sherman. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Sherman, Cindy. The complete Untitled Film Stills. New York: The museum Of Modern Art, 2003. Sills, Leslie. In Real Life: Six Women Photographers. New York: Holiday House, 2000. Sobieszek, Robert A. Photography and The Human Soul 1850-2000. Los Angles: MIT Press and Los Angles County Museum of Art, 1999 Thames and Hudson. Cindy Sherman Retrospective. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1998.

Enviornmental Catastrophes :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many people throughout the world deal with environmental destruction. Whether it is natural or man created, both end in sudden calamities.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  An example of a natural catastrophe is the 1997 Red River Flood in Grand Forks, North Dakota. One of the unique aspects of the Red River is that it flows North and empties into the lake Winnepeg in Canada. However, since temperature tends to get colder the farther north you get, ice-jamming is often a concern of the Red River during the spring season. The National Weather Service began putting out warnings as early as February that a flood due to the spring melt was likely to occur. Due to Grand Forks harsh winter that consisted of a cruel blizzard, the amount of snow melts exceeded. In an effort to prevent the flood, the North Dakota National Guard dumped sand on the river in hopes to use the suns’ thermal energy to speed up the thawing and eliminate the ice-jams. Unable to control the excessive water the flood of the century began. On April 18, 1997, the Red River’s water level was at 52.19 ft high and had risen at a rate of an inch each hour follo wing. The flood began to take out areas of the city one by one, and people with what little possessions the could grab had to evacuate immediately. After six days of flooding the river finally began to recede and people were allowed to return. The amount of filth left behind from the flood was incredible. Much of the property had been destroyed and basically everything else had been contaminated by the water. Everything that was washed out by the water turned into trash and many had to start all over again. The post-flood clean up that was taken to the dump totaled 224 million ton, which is usually nine months of garbage.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  An example of a man-created catastrophe is the Tragedy of the World Trade Centers. September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America had a big effect on New York City environment, and the political and emotional landscapes of the United States. This will be remembered as one of the most shocking days in American history. Armed terrorists hijacked four passenger jets and used them as weapons against the U.S.. The attacks destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon and killed three thousand people. The cleanup was a very emotional and strenuous effort by fire fighters, policeman and many volunteers.

Baque-Manalang Dental Clinic Online Reservation Essay

Introduction The use of online services nowadays becomes more necessary in the various fields. It is because of the advantage and useful effects to many people when it comes to online reservation because our society is facing rapid growths of need, availability and development of different commercial web-based application. The online reservation services differ from the traditional mode in the capacity to provide services regardless of temporal and spatial constraints. They are also different from traditional interpersonal services that are delivered face-to-face. It allows persons to employ Information Technology without being tied to a single location. This technology enables users to access the site at any time in any location. A suitable use of the online reservation services and wireless technology allows new application, management and reservation for dental clinic via online services. The objective of online reservation is to reduce the effort and the time for the customers to set appointm ent and to receive services and improved the reservation validation efficiency. Background of the study Baque-Manalang Clinic is a dental clinic located at Hilario St., Ligtasan, Tarlac, Tarlac. It is owned by Dr. Eillen B. Manalang, DMD, established since 1992. The said clinic is operated by one dentist, two dental assistants, one dental photographer, four front desk staff, and one dental technician. It offers teeth maintenance, enhancement techniques and cosmetic dentistry services. The clinic’s operating hours is 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on weekdays and 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturdays. Daily they are accommodating an estimated 15 to 20 patients from Tarlac and nearby provinces. Despite its popularity, the said clinic is still using traditional reservation system. Statement of the Objective Despite its popularity, the said dental clinic is still using traditional reservation system which is time consuming and prone to problems like long waiting line and crowded queue. So in line with it, the following objectives are enumerated to cognate the problems. Specifically, it aims to accomplish the following: 1. To design and develop an online reservation system that aims to strengthen the weakness found in existing traditional reservation system. 2. To validate the developed system in terms of: 3.1. Effectiveness and efficiency 3.2. User friendliness 3.3. Security of data 3. To determine the proposed system feasible through Cost Benefits Analysis. Scope of the Study The scope of this study will focus on the patients, who will use the system to make the appointment via online service. The prototype can be used by the staff and dentist to manage the appointment for the dental clinic via online system for those who would like to set an appointment anytime, anywhere. This study is mainly focused on providing a website for Baque – Manalang Dental Clinic. The said website includes: * Online reservation or scheduling exclusively for registered patients. * Clinic information – address, site map, profile of dentist, etc. * List and price of services offered and the time allotted for services to be consumed. * Services-directory where the patients can view the information about the preferred service to take. * Information and tips on how to prevent dental problems. Delimitations The proponents limit this study for Baque – Manalang Dental Clinic only. Only current patients with previous transactions are given with accounts for the online reservation system. Only trained personnel can conduct the site maintenance of the proposed system. Significance of the Study This study is viewed to be valuable to following: Clinic. The proposed system will simplify and automate the clinic task inline with reservation to provide the clients with better service. Dentist and Staff. The proposed system will help the dentist easily identify the patients as scheduled online. Patients. The proposed system will help patients reduce their waiting time and provide them assurance to be accommodated as scheduled online. Definition of Terms In order to provide an adequate channel of communication between the researcher and the readers, the following terms arranged alphabetically and defined conceptually. Access. Access is to obtain entry to a particular program; with records and network entry procedure. Computer. Machine that performs a wide variety of activities with reliability, accuracy, speed and tasks, such as mathematical calculations or electronic communication, under a control of a set of instructions called a program. Internet. A means of connecting a computer to any other computer anywhere in the world via dedicated routers and server. Online. Activated and ready for operation; capable of communicating with or being controlled by a computer. Prototype. An original, full-scale, and usually working model of a new product or new version on an existing product. System. Any collection of component elements that work together to perform a task. Website. The file of information located on a server connected to World Wide Web (WWW). It includes text, photographs, illustrations and video, music and computer programs. It also often include links to other sites in the form of hypertext, highlighted or colored text that the user can click on with their mouse, instructing their computer to jump to the new site. Reservation System. A system that involves the process of reserving and booking of appointments on a specific date and time. CHAPTER 2 Review of related Literature and Studies This chapter presents a review of conceptual literature which is supported by studies relevant to this study. The review of literature focuses on online reservation for Baque-Dental Clinic. Related Literature Foreign Eric Richard (2012) .Consumers these days almost expects an online presence from a company or business. In fact, they may look past businesses that are not online or consider another provider. Convenience is a big factor in an individual’s decision-making process, and not offering customers what they want can put a business at a big disadvantage, especially if their  competitors offer this benefit. Convenience plays a big role in our â€Å"24-7† world. Many people simply do not have the time to pick up a phone during business hours to book an appointment. Some would much rather go online and schedule it when it’s most convenient for them. Online scheduling software makes it easy to accomplish this. Once a business sets up its scheduler, it can then add a button or link on its Web site for customers to access its online scheduler. Once on the scheduler page, customers typically can view and select available appointment or reservation times and dates, as well as other information such as services and specific staff members. Depending on internal preferences set by the business operator, the scheduler may also require the customer to register to use the service. Even businesses without a Web site can implement online scheduling into their operations. Once a business creates an account and scheduler, the service will issue it a URL link. In essence, the scheduler itself is a Web site. Entering this link in a Web browser will take a user directly to the scheduling application. Businesses can simply provide this link to customers. Eric Richard (2012) .For many service oriented business, accurate and timely reservations are necessity to ensure proper service and a positive customer experience. From tour operators and boat rental providers to managers of athletic fields and facilities, these groups must have a proven reservation system in place, not only for internal scheduling processes, but also for the convenience of their customers. Traditional reservation procedures often come up short in both regards. And it’s for these reasons that many business, organizations and individuals are incorporating online reservation systems into their operations. Booking and managing customer reservations, although a vital component of many service-based groups is generally viewed as time-consuming and tedious. The traditional manner of scheduling reservations doesn’t help refute this statement: It usually involves booking reservation over the phone and by e-mail, then recording and managing the dates, times, services and customer contact information in separate appointment books, files, spreadsheets or folders. Not only does this method require a considerable amount of staff time, it also does not give customers the ability to book their reservations when it’s most convenient for them. Many individuals simply do not have the time to call in a reservations or appointment during normal business hours. This can lead to two different scenarios: The person  can either book the reservation online (if the service provider offers this option), or he or she can leave a voice message, in which case the provider must take the time to follow up with the individual (and possibly engage in a game of â€Å"phone-tag† until a specific reservation time is agree upon). Most will agree that the former is the more appealing of these two schemes. An online reservation system is generally the best option for these service-providers to automate and improve their booking processes. Commonly referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud-computing applications, this technology is accessible through any Internet connection and typically does not require any installations, downloads or expensive hardware. SaaS is software delivery method that provides access to software and its functions remotely as a Web-based service. Software as a Service allow organizations to access business functionality at a cost typically less than paying for licensed applications since SaaS pricing is based on a monthly fee. Also, because the software is hosted remotely, users don’t need to invest in additional hardware. Software as a Service removes the need for organization to handle the installation, set up and often daily upkeep and maintenance. Software as a service may also be referred to a simply hosted application. Both the service provider and its customers access is in the same manner as any Web page. Like online data storage and document uploads applications, online reservation systems are securely housed online and not confined to an individual computer terminal or network. This characteristic not only makes it possible for customers to book reservations online, it also give service providers and their staff the ability to access their reservation calendar and customer details from any Internet connection, a valuable benefit for those individuals who must have access to this information from outside their office. Booking customer reservations with a pen and paper appointment book simply doesn’t cut it in today’s busy, 24-7 world. Technology has caught up with all office procedures, including booking processes, and service providers that tap into these online reservation systems can expect a significant improvement in their overall operations. And on top of that, they’ll have more satisfied customers. Local Alice Adams (2011).Kabayan Hotel Cubao has recently integrated a reservation  system in its website for a more efficient online booking. Through this technology, travellers worldwide save time and effort in reserving accommodations as the user-friendly booking engine makes the whole process a simple and effortless activity. Online hotel reservations are becoming popular method for booking hotel rooms, and Kabayan Hotel Cubao takes this opportunity to ensure fast reservations for guests from different parts of the world. This easy-to-use system, powered by DirectWithHotels, is now fully functioning at its website, http://www.kabayanhotel.com.ph/cubao.php. With this, guest only have to go through a very short booking process to be entitled of a comfortable stay at this budget hotel. Upon clicking the â€Å"Reserve Now † button, visitors can immediately select arrival and departure dates, navigate their way to their preferred guestrooms, and view the inclusive amenities and room rates. And after paying a 10% deposit, which is certified by Trust wave and secured by VeriSign, they instantly receive confirmation directly from the hotel via e-mail. With just a few clicks of the mouse, guests are guaranteed to experience amazing ease and warm Filipino hospitality at this budget hotel in Quezon City, Philippines. Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation (2012). BooktoEat.ph now offers the opportunity to book restaurants online, in real-time just like booking in a hotel or an airline. The days of waiting hours for a restaurant to open, call back, respond to an e-mail or a telephone message will soon be over. A real-time reservation completely automates the reservation process. When making a reservation using BookToEat.ph the reservation is instantly confirmed in the restaurant’s Electronic Reservation System. This is the same Reservation System that used by the restaurant to manage all of its bookings so it automatically checks for real-time availability. The difference between BookToEat.ph and most other restaurant reservation services that we are genuinely â€Å"real-time† so no more busy signals, waiting until the restaurant opens or waiting hours for an e-mail response. BookToEat.ph now allows you to book your favourite restaurants on online in real-time just like booking in a hotel or an airline. The soon introduction of real-time bookings into Philippines presents a significant development for the restaurant industry. The concept has been hugely successful in the USA and UK markets, and in 2008 over 36 million bookings were made online in real-time. Related studies The application of modern information technology dominated so far by the use of internet websites and online reservation systems, gives competitive advance to other with same establishment. However the potential competitive advantage can be transformed into real advantage if only the websites have proper design. As a result, the advocator conducted research on the facts related to the system that might be helpful to its development. Foreign StormSource (2002).An online reservation system has booked over 50 million appointments and reservations since its launch in 2002. Over 4,000 businesses throughout the United States, Canada and 10 other countries rely on the software for such tasks as online reservation system of customer services, booking rooms, facilities and equipment, accepting online payments, sending reminders, and e-marketing. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based technology firm specializing in the development of online appointment software for a wide variety of applications and industries. Geared primarily toward small businesses such as doctors’ offices, spas, health clubs and massage therapists, users of Appointment-Plus also include Fortune 500 companies; colleges and universities; healthcare agencies and facilities; federal and local government; and freight and delivery services. Scharl, Wà ¶ber and Bauer (2003).Evaluate the effectiveness of hotel websites. Authors identify personal, system and media factors that contribute to hotel website adoption. In the system factors group, that is more controllable by the hotel management compared to personal and media factors, they identify the perceived utility of the product, speed of the system, intelligence, layout, services, navigation, interactivity, reliability of the system. Michael Pearce (2012). The online program at ksoutdoors.com – click on â€Å"reservations† – is part of the Reserve America system, which is used by about 20 states and 30 private groups to help customers reserve camping spots. Reservations for Kansas parks also can be made by calling 620-672-5911. The new system gets money into state park coffers quicker, and also saves time that the state park staff would have spent handling the money. Those are huge benefits for the department, which is constantly battling budget and staffing issues. Lanterman said it also allows the department to better study the demographics of its users. Adjustments can  then be made to make sure the public is best served. Wilson State Park is getting the most online reservations; Cheney and El Dorado State Parks are about tied for second place. Lanterman said usually no more than about half of the camping spots can be reserved online. The rest are first-come, first-served, as they have been for years. She said a few campers have been frustrated to arrive at a park and see their favourite site empty but reserved by another camper. Park managers, though, say support for the reservation system is strong and growing. â€Å"People like that they can go online, reserve the site they want, and when they show up it’s ready,† said Ryan Stucky, Cheney State Park manager. â€Å"Most are figuring out the system and that it’s more convenient for them.† Local Studies â€Å"An online inquiry and reservation system with virtual tour for La Maja Rica Hotel and Restaurant Tarlac City† a thesis conducted by Duenias, Kathleen Joy J., Ilagan, Keneth D. and Tolenceda, Niccolo Andrei P. AMA Computer College Tarlac City (March 2010), allows management for their hotel and restaurant to be more organized in terms of reservation, inquiry and customer avail of the available services and inquire for the details even without personal appearances which they can spare time, money and efforts. The Thesis entitled â€Å"Online Cagayan Valley Economic Zone Authority Information System† by Anwar Saludsong (April 2002), discuss the advantage of web-based application to allow user acquire information through online that is accessible through any internet. â€Å"Luisita Gold And Country Club Online Reservation† a Study conducted by Rina Lyn C. Burgos and Rowena S. Cortez at AMA Computer College Tarlac City (Aug 2005) discuss the capabilities of the internet and modern application to update users about the advantage and reliability of features of an online reservation system.A real-time reservation that completely automates the reservation process and reduce the effort and the time consume of customer. Theoretical Framework The proponents proposed system is a program that has a set of elements that work together to understand some objective that will help the Baque- Manalang Dental Clinic with regards to their manual reservation. One of the problems in most clinics nowadays is how to accommodate and serve  as many patients as possible, where patients do not need to go to the clinic for appointment scheduling. An online reservation system is generally the best option for these service-providers to automate and improve their booking processes. Not only that, this will also avoid patients not to experience a longer waiting time. Online reservations also assure the availability of schedule as these are shown online and security of information is provided. The literature has its similarity to the proponents propose system in the sense of both project utilize the internet function such as the availability of date and time which is one of the features that the proponents included in the study. The proponents are looking forward that the propose system will improve the manual reservation of the Baque- Manalang Dental Clinic. Conceptual Framework Below is the research paradigm which states the input data that will process to produce an output. Research, works, books, interviews, publication, net-surfing and studies are the researches mean gathering and compiling information and data that can help in the investigation improvement and development of the system

Reflective analysis of my leadership approach Essay

â€Å"†¦..beyond the horizon of time is a changed world, very different from today’s world. Some people see beyond that horizon and into the future. They believe that dreams can become reality. They open our eyes and lift our spirits. They build trust and strengthen our relationships. They stand firm against the wind of resistance and give us the courage to continue the quest; we call these people leaders† (Kouzes and Posner, 1995). For a number of us leadership can be described as quality – even though we know it when we see it but it is quiet difficult to define or describe. In this respect, Kouzes and Posner (1995) aptly capture what I think about when I was asked to describe a leader and leadership. In the course of my education and career, I have come across some touch points that shaped my opinions and influenced my general perspectives regarding the roles of leaders and leadership. Fundamentally, I have been able to experience my various roles as a le ader who articulates and puts into words into action to develop vision for a future that inspires others to join. It is within this context that my perspectives on leadership have been developed. My thoughts on concepts of leadership are an amalgam of what I have was taught in Leadership in Healthcare Module, what I have read, what I have experienced as an individual, and the lessons that I have picked up along the way. Due to complex nature of leadership especially regarding the number of theories that have been suggested by scholars, it is important that not only leaders, but also people who aspire be leaders develop their own personal philosophy leadership. This could be achievable by engaging in reflective exercise. I have come to realise that some fundamental principles have sharpened my opinions and also driven my beliefs and perception about leadership as an ongoing process, rather than a destination or an achievement. Frequently, I also know that additional learning, unlearning and relearning (through books read on the subject of inquiry, or book read out of mere curiosity) have supplemented the theorizing process of leadership, and fall short of being consistent with grounded theory methodology in which a review of academic literature often occurs following initial data and prior to formation of theory (McGhee et al., 2007). Therefore, this essay will adopt the model of ground theory, starting from the scratch, a collection of my personal  observations, beliefs and experience regarding the concept of leadership approach. Reflective analysis of my leadership approach is based on three principles: (1) Maintaining a steady focus on mission and vision; (2) risk taking and (3) empowering peopl e. Starting with maintaining a steady focus on mission and vision, I have been able to learn that one of the greatest challenges that a leader can face is staying on mission of the organization. People, the led, need to know the direction they are heading to, and to know the expectation of the leader regarding the organizational vision and mission. Maintaining a consistent focus on the organization’s vision and mission is a key attribute required for leadership and it is a critical task for a leader. The leader starts its task by clearly defining the vision of the organization then keeping it alive. The leader is also responsible for achieving such vision; the buck stops at his table and must therefore communicate such both within and outside of the organization. In this regard, the leader serves as a bridge between the organization and its environment. Beyond just communicating the organization’s vision, the leader must be a source of inspiration in order to the vision and to develop a positive mental attitude and belief that it can be achieved. Covey (2012) refers to this attitude as principle-centred leadership. This is a key attribute, especially, in light of the dynamic environment in operation today. This is an attitude I have adopted over and over again in the course of my leadership role. Risk taking; this is an embodiment of 2nd principle of my personal philosophy of leadership. Like my first principle of maintenance focus on vision and mission of the organization, I consider this as another critical factor that distinguishes leaders from their followers. The rar e courage of risk-taking, to step out in front, to test water, to be a pathfinder has been long considered as an attribute that sets the leader apart from the followers and rest of the organization. According to Kouzes and Posner (1995), leaders must take a role of â€Å"pioneers.† They should develop courage to venture the horizon’s edge and report back about what is seen. Leaders take calculated risks for the sake of the vision and mission of the organization. I have done this in a couple of times and I have succeeded. I agree that some leaders are more comfortable in taking risk than others; and it is noteworthy to realise that there are different degrees of risk associated with the decisions to be taken by leaders. Over  the years, I have learnt that it is better to take a calculated risk. And I agree with school of thoughts that believe that people who are â€Å"risk averse† are not fit to be leaders. Empowerment of others: The third principle of my leadership philosophy, the final portion of my analysis, relates to the role of leaders in empowering others. Empowerment entails conveying the mission and vision in such a way that other people in the organization can make use of their initiative to make decisions on their own. This also involves some amount of boldness, confidence and risk-taking. While I was Senior Carer in a Care Home, I always encourage my colleagues to come up with, at least, two initiatives to move the association forward at each meeting day. According to Senge (2012), a certain limit of error in an organization is acceptable as long as such error provides an opportunity for people to learn and also lends credence to empowering others while carrying out the organiza tion’s mission and goals. I agree with Senge, 110%. In conclusion, I have been able to present reflective analysis of my role as a leader in various capacities I have served before. I draw my experience from past and ongoing learning processes and experience, and I have developed a set of personal leadership philosophy which are maintaining a steady focus on mission and vision, risk-taking and empowering people. I hope I will be able to develop myself further in preparation of leadership role I will engage in the future. References Covey, S. (2012). Principle-centered leadership. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster Kouzes, J. M. and Posner, B. Z. (1995). The Leadership Challenge: How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Senge, P. M. (2012). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York, NY: Doubleday/Currency