Leadership. Big Five personality traits Essay

After studying this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Define leadership and contrast leadership and management. 2. Summarize the conclusions of trait theories of leadership. 3. Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theories. 4. Assess contingency theories of leadership by their level of support. 5. Compare and contrast charismatic and transformational leadership. 6. Define authentic leadership and show why effective leaders exemplify ethics and trust. 7. Demonstrate the role mentoring plays in our understanding of leadership. 8. Address challenges to the effectiveness of leadership. 9. Assess whether charismatic and transformational leadership generalize across cultures. I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep. Talleyrand Private Equity’s Poster Boy If it’s true that â€Å"Nice guys finish last,† there is no better proof than Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of the Blackstone Group, who says his mission in life is to â€Å"inflict pain† and â€Å"kill off† his rivals. â€Å"I want war,† he told the Wall Street Journal, â€Å"not a series of skirmishes.† And win in business he has. In 20 years, he has made Blackstone one of the most profitable—and most feared—investment groups on Wall Street, with assets approaching $200 billion. Though these are not easy times for any investment bank, Blackstone has largely avoided the pitfalls of subprime mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Some of this strategy might be considered good fortune—Blackstone invests much more heavily in commercial than in residential real estate. However, some credit is due to Schwarzman’s foresight. As he notes, â€Å"We were cautious in the so-called golden age. We were the least aggressive of all the big firms in the first half of 2007. We were very concerned about the high prices of deals and the vast amount of liquidity fuelling the boom. . . . Things always come to an end, and when they do they end badly.† Not only is Schwarzman smart and driven; he likes  the attention his success has drawn. When he turned 60, his birthday party might have made Caligula blush. The affair was emceed by comedian Martin Short. Rod Stewart performed. Marvin Hamlisch put on a number from A Chorus Line. Singer Patti LaBelle led the Abyssinian Baptist Church choir in a song about Schwarzman. Who staged this event? Schwarzman himself! When Blackstone executives prepared a video tribute to him to be played at the event, Schwarzman intervened to squelch any roasting or other jokes played at his expense. Schwarzman owns residences in Manhattan (a 35-room Park Avenue triplex, for which he paid $37 million), in the Hamptons (a Federal-style house, for which he paid $34 million), in Palm Beach (a 13,000-square-foot mansion, which, at $20.5 million, is the slum of the bunch), in Saint-Tropez, and in Jamaica. â€Å"I love houses,† Schwarzman says. The New Yorker called him â€Å"the designated villain of an era . . . of heedless self-indulgence.† As you might imagine, Schwarzman is not the easiest guy to work for. While sunning himself at his Palm Beach estate, he complained that an employee wasn’t wearing the proper black shoes with his uniform. On another occasion, he reportedly fired a Blackstone executive for the sound his nose made when he breathed. Given his success, his lifestyle, and his combative personality, you might imagine Schwarzman is immune to the ridicule, resentment, and criticism he receives. â€Å"How does it feel?† he asked, and then answered his own question: â€Å"Unattractive. No thinking person wants to be reduced to a caricature.†1 As Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman shows, leaders often are not like other people. But what makes them so? Intelligence? Drive? Luck? A certain leadership style? These are some of the questions we’ll tackle in this chapter. To assess yourself on another set of qualities that we’ll discuss shortly, take the following self-assessment. In this chapter, we look at what makes an effective leader and what differentiates leaders from nonleaders. First, we present trait theories, which dominated the study of leadership up to the late 1940s. Then we discuss behavioral theories, popular until the late 1960s. Next, we introduce contingency and interactive theories. Finally, we discuss the most contemporary approaches: charismatic, transformational, and authentic leadership. But first, let’s clarify what we mean by leadership. Self-Assessment Library: What’s My Leadership Style? In the Self-Assessment Library (available on CD and online) take assessment II.B.1 (What’s My Leadership Style?) and answer the following questions. 1. How did you score on the two scales? 2. Do you think a leader can be both task oriented and people oriented? Do you think there are situations in which a leader has to make a choice between the two styles? 3. Do you think your leadership style will change over time? Why or why not? What Is Leadership? 1. Define leadership and contrast leadership and management. Leadership and management are often confused. What’s the difference? John Kotter of the Harvard Business School argues that management is about coping with complexity.2 Good management brings about order and consistency by drawing up formal plans, designing rigid organization structures, and monitoring results against the plans. Leadership, in contrast, is about coping with change. Leaders establish direction by developing a vision of the future; then they align people by communicating this vision and inspiring them to overcome hurdles. Although Kotter provides separate definitions of the two terms, both researchers and practicing managers frequently make no such distinctions. So we need to present leadership in a way that can capture how it is used in theory and practice. We define leadership as the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals. The source of this influence may be formal, such as that provided by managerial rank in an organization. But not all leaders are managers, nor, for that matter, are all managers leaders. Just because an organization provides its managers with certain formal rights is no assurance they will lead effectively. Nonsanctioned leadership—the ability to influence that arises outside the formal structure of the organization—is often as important or more important than formal influence. In other words, leaders can emerge from within a group as well as by formal appointment. Organizations need strong leadership and strong management for optimal effectiveness. We need leaders today to challenge the status quo, create visions of the future, and  inspire organizational members to want to achieve the visions. We also need managers to formulate detailed plans, create efficient organizational structures, and oversee day-to-day operations. OB Poll: Confidence in Business Leaders Falling Source: Based on Edelman trust Barometer 2008 (http://www.edelman.com/TRUST/2008/TrustBarometer08_Final.pdf) Trait Theories Summarize the conclusions of trait theories of leadership. Throughout history, strong leaders—Buddha, Napoleon, Mao, Churchill, Roosevelt, Reagan—have been described in terms of their traits. Trait theories of leadership thus focus on personal qualities and characteristics. We recognize leaders like South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and American Express chairman Ken Chenault as charismatic, enthusiastic, and courageous. The search for personality, social, physical, or intellectual attributes that differentiate leaders from nonleaders goes back to the earliest stages of leadership research. Early research efforts at isolating leadership traits resulted in a number of dead ends. A review in the late 1960s of 20 different studies identified nearly 80 leadership traits, but only 5 were common to 4 or more of the investigations.3 By the 1990s, after numerous studies and analyses, about the best we could say was that most leaders â€Å"are not like other people,† but the particular traits that characterized them varied a great deal from review to review.4 It was a pretty confusing state of affairs. A breakthrough, of sorts, came when researchers began organizing traits around the Big Five personality framework (see Chapter 5).5 Most of the dozens of traits in various leadership reviews fit under one of the Big Five (ambition and energy are part of extraversion, for instance), giving strong support to traits as predictors of leadership. The personal qualities and characteristics of Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group, make him a great leader. Branson is described as fun-loving, sensitive to the needs of others, hard working, innovative, charismatic, enthusiastic, energetic, decisive, and risk taking. These traits helped the British entrepreneur build one of the most recognized and respected brands in the world for products and services in the business areas of travel, entertainment, and lifestyle. Jason Kempin/FilmMagic/Getty Images, Inc. A comprehensive review of the leadership literature, when organized around the Big Five, has found extraversion to be the most important trait of effective leaders6 but more strongly related to leader emergence than to leader effectiveness. Sociable and dominant people are more likely to assert themselves in group situations, but leaders need to make sure they’re not too assertive—one study found leaders who scored very high on assertiveness were less effective than those who were moderately high.7 Unlike agreeableness and emotional stability, conscientiousness and openness to experience also showed strong relationships to leadership, though not quite as strong as extraversion. Overall, the trait approach does have something to offer. Leaders who like being around people and are able to assert themselves (extraverted), disciplined and able to keep commitments they make (conscientious), and creative and flexible (open) do have an apparent advantage when it comes to leadership, suggesting good leaders do have key traits in common. One reason is that conscientiousness and extraversion are positively related to leaders’ self-efficacy, which explained most of the variance in subordinates’ ratings of leader performance.8 People are more likely to follow someone who is confident she’s going in the right direction. Another trait that may indicate effective leadership is emotional intelligence (EI), discussed in Chapter 4. Advocates of EI argue that without it, a person can have outstanding training, a highly analytical mind, a compelling vision, and an endless supply of terrific ideas but still not make a great leader. This may be especially true as individuals move up in an organization.9 Why is EI so critical to effective leadership? A core component of EI is empathy. Empathetic leaders can sense others’ needs, listen to what followers say (and don’t say), and read the reactions of others. As one leader noted, â€Å"The caring part of empathy, especially for the people with whom you work, is what inspires people to stay with a leader when the going gets rough. The mere fact that someone cares is more often than not rewarded with loyalty.†10

KfC Pest Analysis Essay

Political Factors: The political factors includes the government policies as KFC being a foreign company, but they have to obey the policies of the Government laid by the government of Pakistan, the country where the business activities are being carried out. KFC has handled this situation very tactfully and has obeyed the policies of the Government as prescribe by the government in order to run this kind of business. The other major factor is the pricing policies. KFC maintain & design its price policies keeping in view the income & income distribution of the people living in the country. That’s why all the classes are the target market of KFC. And the most important factor is the political instability. As in Pakistan, there are political crises faced by the government, these greatly affect the business of KFC. Economical Factors: The economic factors includes the income of the people, KFC is going to target. Income is an important economical factor of the KFC. This factor decides which class KFC is going to target. In the early time of KFC, they were focusing on the upper class but they after some time changed their strategies and started to target the mass market by introducing some different kinds of meals and offers through which we can say that they target the middle & the upper level as well. The consumption behavior of the people plays an important role. KFC also estimated the consumption behavior of the people, their liking and disliking and make decision accordingly. Payment method is an important factor in the economical factor of the KFC. They check the behavior of the regarding the payment methods of the people. They check whether the gives money in the form of cash or plastic money. Socio-culture Factors: The Social/Cultural Factors includes the Social Class, as it is discussed earlier that KFC target all the class including the upper class, upper middle and lower middle class etc. Although the culture of KFC from where they come is entirely different but they have adopted the Pakistani culture as they had to serve the people living in Pakistan having entirely different culture from other areas. And it has not only adopted the Pakistani culture but also the Religion as well. They offer Halal foods to the customers,  which is the symbol that they adopted the Muslim religion strategies as they had to serve in the Muslim country, to the Muslim customers. Technological Factors: The technological factors include the Pace of change at a fast level. Pace of change mean rate of change. KFC has strategy to introduce new technology whenever they think that it is a time to introduce new technology. Research & Development is also an important factor in the Technological factor. KFC always support the work of research & development in order to introduce the new technology. Capital formation means stock of machinery. KFC has a stock of machinery in order to run its business activities. In other words KFC has a good amount of Capital Formation.

Judaism and Christianity Essay

What beliefs and practices does Islam share with Judaism and Christianity? Specify what is distinctive about the Islamic form of those beliefs and practices. The relationships between Islam, Judaism and Christianity in the later parts of the 20th century appear to have improved as well as worsened from different perspectives as compared to any other period in history. A noteworthy aspect of the current relationships is that Muslims are now engaged in dialogues with Christians and Jews. Islam is now the fastest growing religion in the world and Muslim leaders and clerics can be observed functioning together with ministers, priests and rabbis in several religious endeavors. However, the three religions continue to have major differences and are engaged in nationalist and territorial conflicts that have gradually been characterized with religious or sectarian differences. This paper makes an analysis of the beliefs and practices that Islam shares with Christianity and Judaism because the misunderstandings between the three religions can be resolved only in recognizing that they have the same roots and share several social and religious pract ices. Islam is a monotheistic religion and is the second biggest in the world after Christianity. The religion has its origin in the Middle East and has several customs and beliefs that are the same as Christianity and Judaism. These three religions are commonly referred to as the Abrahamic religions; they believe in one God and trace their lineage from the Prophet Ibrahim, as evident in the Hebrew. Islam, Christianity and Judaism believe there is only one God who is the creator of all things that exist in the world and He is the one who takes care of every living being. The three religions provide that God believes in justice and He has established fundamental rules in guiding people about how they can become virtuous and honorable in complying with His intentions. The three religions hold that God believes in mercy and that with His grace people get the power to become more like what is desired of them to become (Wells, 2011). Islam, along with Christianity and Judaism, holds that all human beings are Ibrahim’s children and are the most capable living beings on Earth. Human beings were created with an element of mystery in being given immense potential to grow constantly, individually as well as a species. When people strive towards achieving good, righteous and loving qualities they transform into what God desired them to become. If such freedom is misused and others are harmed with one’s actions, it implies that such people are transgressing God’s will, which makes them evil. The three religions believe that it is possible for every individual to seek God’s help in achieving the capability to ward off evil influences. Eventually, the message in all three religions is to be devoted and obedient to God (Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center, 2012). In being monotheistic, the three religions are different from Buddhism and Hinduism. They share common beliefs about history being the arena of God’s activities and His encounters with human beings, Satan, angels, heavenly revelation and prophets. All three religions focus on t he importance of Judgment Day, accountability, responsibility and perpetual rewards and punishments. The three religions give immense importance to peace, which is evident from historical patterns of greeting one another, implying Peace Be Upon You, beginning with Assalamalaikim in Islam, with pax vobisum in Christianity and salom aleicham in Judaism. However, such greetings of peace have primarily pertained to greeting one another in a given community or society. All three religions believe that it is essential to engage in holy wars to espouse the cause of empires and to protect societies. The relationships between religion and politics is apparent in the present times also although in different ways, such as the circumstances that prevail in present day Israel, Palestine, Middle East and other parts of the world. All the three religions share the same ancestry and believe in scriptures that were delivered through heaven. They have similar religious practices and rites relative to charity and regular prayers, value of pilgrimage and common holy places. The three religions give the promise that appropriate behaviors will be rewarded and inappropriate behaviors will be punished in life as well as in the afterlife. They balance and integrate many elements of piety, devotion, legalism and mysticism and appear to be suitable in co-existing mutually in reinforcing one another (Peters, 1990). Islam has similarity with Judaism in regard to the focus on practice instead of beliefs. The main basis of religious obedience in Islam and Judaism is religious law, while in Christianity the focus is on theology. Across history, the main differences between Islam and Judaism have pertained to disagreement of religious practices and religious law. The disputes between Islam and Christianity have pertained primarily to the divide amongst communities about theological belief systems, relative to the relationships between divine and human characteristics. Christianity and Judaism are given special consideration in Islam in view of the Islamic beliefs that God had conveyed His will through His Prophets, namely Ibrahim, Moses and Jesus. In this regard, the Quran specifically states that God revealed his will throug h Ibrahim, Ismail and their progeny, as well as through Moses and Jesus. There is no difference amongst them and in what they say, which is why Muslims adhere to what was said by these Prophets (Newby, 1996). Islam and the Quran hold that Christians and Jews are Ibrahim’s children and relate to them as people of the book (Esposito, 2011). This is because the three religions originate from the same lineage of Ibrahim. Muslims trace their lineage from Ibrahim and his servant Hagar, while Christians and Jews trace their lineage from Ibrahim and his spouse Sarah. Muslims hold that God’s revelation in the form of the Torah was first delivered to the Jews by Prophet Moses and later to Christians by the Prophet Jesus. Muslims are in agreement about some biblical prophets such as Jesus and Moses and use their names as Isa and Musa respectively (Hipps et al, 2003). They also use the Virgin Mary’s name as Mariam and it is evident that her name appears more frequently in the Quran than in the New Testament. Muslims do not refute the status of Virgin Mary and Jesus’ virgin birth but they hold that in due course, over the centuries, the original revelation as made to Jesus and Moses became despoiled. Muslims view the Old Testament as a mix of human manufacture and of God’s messages. They hold the same views about the New Testament and believe that doctrines referring to Jesus as the Son of God are erroneous without any truth. They do not believe that the death of Jesus represented the redemption and atonement for mankind’s sins. It is apparent that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have some common roots and share several common practices. This is because they are all having the same Abrahamic heritage. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are monotheistic religions as they believe in a single God in focusing on the unity and oneness of God. The confirmation of one God in Christianity has been often debated because of its adherence to the Holy Trinity but this cannot be considered as a refutation of monotheism. It is only an acknowledgement of the ways in which God is viewed because in Christianity the Divine Being is God. Islam, Christianity and Judaism hold that God is the source and foundation of all that exists in the world and takes care of all His creations in ensuring their wellbeing. All the three religions confirm that people are governed and guided by basic rules that make them take the right path and become righteous in complying with God’s will. References 1. Esposito, John L. (2011). What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam, Oxford University Press. 2. Hipps, Amelia., Kayanaugh, Dorothy., and Khaled Abou El Fadl. (2003). Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Mason Crest Publishers. |Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center. (2012). Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Similarities, | |http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Judaism-Christianity-Islam.html, Accessed on 16 October, 2012. | |Newby, Gordon. (1996). Muslim, Jews and Christians – Relations and Interactions,The Muslim Almanac, Gale Research Inc, Detroit, p.423-429. | |Peters, F. E. (1990). Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,Volume 1: From Covenant to Community, Princeton University Press | |Wells, Mark. (2011). Comparison of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, http://smileyandwest.ning.com, Accessed on 16 October, 2012 | | |

Instruction and Learning Styles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Instruction and Learning Styles - Essay Example At this level of higher learning, I would say that auditory learning style is dominant over the other styles which are only used in some subjects. To enhance that the auditory method is effective there are various learning habits tailored to get much out of the study time. These study habits may include recording of lectures for later hearing, group discussions, reading out lecture notes softly to you, tutoring others and participating in classroom discussions. Not all of the mentioned habits may be effective to me since some like taping the lecture for later hearing may lead to time wastage and poor attention during the actual lecture. I would prefer reading quietly rather than reading loudly except for exercises to enhance reading skills. The other three study habits facilitate active learning, and by this, different points missed during the individual study time are shared. After an individual study, one may tutor others so as to instill knowledge and enhance understanding for a l ifetime. .The study habits to enhance effective usage of time in visual learning may include drawing diagrams relevant to the study contents. Mind mapping may also be effective in cases of flowing materials, chains, processes and may used to link related information. Others may include use of flash cards, creation of mental pictures and rewriting of lecture notes in own words. The last style, kinesthetic, is the use of concepts given in a practical environment. It includes study habits such as underlining and highlighting key points in the notes. Answers to various exercises to be used in a lifetime such as of multiplication tables, squares and square roots may be repeated during other activities such as jogging and walking. One may also create own practice tests and teach the learnt topics to your group again. Reflective judgment Reflective judgment is a model that describes the development of reasoning from adolescence to adulthood. It looks into the thinking where knowledge is ob tained by solving problems from both the certainty and uncertainty. The model describes a dimension of cognitive development gathered from theoretical work of the scholars; John Dewey (1933, 1938), Piaget (1960, 1970 [1956], 1974), Flavell (1963, 1971, 1977), Perry (1968, 1981), Broughton (1975, 1978), Fischer (1980; Lamborn & Fischer, 1988) and Kegan (1982, 1994). The model is featured in seven developmentally related stages of assumptions on how knowledge is acquired. The seven stages are summarized into three levels of reasoning namely pre-reflective (Stages 1-3), quasi-reflective (Stages 4 and 5), and reflective (Stages 6 and 7). The pre-reflective reasoning involves the belief that knowledge is certain if only it is acquired through direct observation or from an authority figure. It is divided into three stages i.e. stage 1 to 3. In stage 1, assumption is that, knowledge is absolute and concrete. Knowledge is obtained from direct observation and beliefs need no justification. I n this stage, a belief is true if is the taken as the truth. In stage 2, assumption is that knowledge is absolutely certain though not immediately available since it can also be obtained from authority figures other than through direct observation. Justification of the beliefs comes from correspondence to those of an authority figure such as a teacher or a parent. In stage 3, the assumption is tha

Primary Hypertension Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Primary Hypertension - Research Paper Example er is an insight into the risk factors that could result in essential hypertension as well as an elaborate description of how interdisciplinary collaboration can reverse these modifiable risk factors thereby enhancing healthcare of patients. The paper also summarizes an education plan that can help patients reverse these modifiable essential hypertension risk factors. Several risk factors associated with hypertension exist. Do et. al. (2014) while basing their study on a sampled Vietnamese population espouse that the most prevalent risk factors to hypertension include overweight and obesity, lack of physical activity and increased consumption of alcoholic beverages. Similar findings have also been established by the American Heart Association (2015) with the above statistics also reflective of the American population risks of hypertension. An individual whose body mass index lies between 25 and 30 is considered overweight and one with a BMI above 30 is obese. Having excess weight imposes more strain on the heart, raises blood cholesterol and exposing one to increased blood pressure. Regular and excess consumption of alcohol can lead to a drastic increase in blood pressure beyond the normal levels, and can lead to heart failure, stroke or irregular heartbeats. An individual should therefore avoid alcohol completely or in the even that that is impossible, then such an individual should take small and regulated amounts of alcohol for healthy living. Do et. al. also established that chances of hypertension cases in adults are elevated by lack of physical activity. Living a sedentary life with no exercise whatsoever increases the chances of an individual becoming a victim of high blood pressure, heart and blood vessel diseases. Interdisciplinary collaboration in tackling hypertension risk factors is central to effective patient care. Wakabayashi and Groschner (2013) espouse that for better efficacy in utilizing this approach, it should entail collaborative efforts

Segmentation and Introduction to Product Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Segmentation and Introduction to Product - Essay Example This is a category of the market that requires the color and the type of shapes that the product is associated with. It is star shaped and the unique shape is meant to attract children. Children respond better to such uniqueness that the product is known for. The cereal is manufactured from whole grain wheat and provides eight important vitamins and other essential minerals such as iron and calcium. These minerals help in growth which makes the product more suitable for children. The packaging of products determines the response they get from the market. In this case, the packaging has lots of cartoons which would draw attention from children. One other feature that makes this cereal favorable to women is the fact that it is chocolate flavored. The affinity women have for chocolate would draw their attention to notice this product when on a shopping spree. Consequently, as a product targeting women, Estreliats is bound to captivate the female

The Future of Cloud Computing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Future of Cloud Computing - Essay Example In this report a discussion will be presented using the concepts provided in the chapter and in the scholarly articles about the increased use and advancements in the computer technologies. This report will analyze all three forms of the discussion and present agreements and disagreements with the authors about the future of these topics. This will reflect an individual understanding about the topic on which an appropriately structured conclusion will be developed. CHAPTER SUMMARY The findings proposed in the chapter show that the use of IT and advancement in the computer technologies require that new methods evolve. For ensuring the safety of the data providing non physical spaces to the users for storing the data have led to such innovations. The developments in mobile computing segments, artificial intelligence and cloud computing are the examples of the developments in the IT industry. These facilities provide safe storage of the data online and make accessibility easier. Associa ted to these advancements are several advantages and disadvantages. The examples of such systems are Google cloud storage, Apple’s cloud, Microsoft’s cloud and other facilities like Dropbox and Amazon. There are four forms of the information clouds namely, 1. Global information/ Internet 2. External information cloud 3. Local information cloud 4. ... The main reasons why users prefer using the cloud facilities are archiving the data in backup, store application data, computing, sharing data and building apps and websites. SCHOLARLY ARTICLE 1: MODELING AND SIMULATION OF CLOUD COMPUTING SOLUTION FOR DISTRIBUTED SPACE DATA STORAGE AND ACCESS IN MOBILE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS Then high bandwidth radio telescopes generate large amounts of digitized data. The challenge associated with this is to provide the ease of access with highest efficiency of the data which is recorded. The main emphasis of the topic is to understand the storage and the retrieval of the space signals. This requires advancement in setting the core technologies and implementing it completely within the cloud computing paradigm. The article is a proposition which suggests cloud computing solutions. Within the distributed space it is required that the data stored can be accessed and at the same time it can become a part of the mobile communication networks. The modeli ng and the simulation results of the processes assist in developing an understanding that the proposed solutions perform satisfactorily in extracting the data from the specified space. The future of this process shows utter reliance on the cloud computing processes for data storage. Verification of the importance of the process and implementation of the process shows its importance in the future (Kurmis, Dzemydiene, Didziokas, & Trokss, 2013). The author of the paper is suggesting that the cloud computing process is acquiring popularity and the ease of access is providing in setting the methods which can enhance the usage. He further suggests the methods which can lead to advancements of the process. SCHOLARLY ARTICLE 2: HEAD IN THE

International Law Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

International Law - Assignment Example In this regard, obligations erga omnes should be accepted as international law due to the fact that they are based on natural law which must be observed and respected by all states, regardless of jurisdiction5. In this regard, Francisco (33) this kind of law takes precedence over treaty law where international law is concerned due to its nature and the need to protect the basic human rights. It also helps states to be accountable with regard to their actions and this in turn promotes peace6. .7 This is an indication of just how important it is for states to look at these universal obligations as international law8. Treating these obligations as international laws is important for states as it not only also protects them from abuse by other states, but sets clear precedent as to how they should treat other countries and their citizens in cases where there are no clear lines of actions9. A good example of where this is applicable is the issue of torture which is now interminably regard ed as illegal in the face of international law10. As Christian (95) says, it is necessary for all states to understand their legal obligations towards each other in order to have a harmonious existence as the international community. ... This is also echoed by Christian13 who also argues that all states must be able to follow the protocols of international law even in cases where there are no clear guidelines. According to him, where there are no clear guidelines, states must look at the fundamental human rights and use them as the beacon14. International treaties and statues such as the Rome statues are based on this kind of legal precedence that is grounded on the application of universal natural human rights15. Basic human rights are fundamentally international law as every human being is entitled to these rights regardless of where they are16. The Rome statues for instance looks at the rights of soldiers who are captured at war and the captor country is, under the Rome Statue, not allowed to torture the captives as this is an aggravation of basic human rights17. As Francisco (205) says, international humanitarian law is based on the fact that a violation of this law towards even one individual is a violation of t he same towards all mankind. This is predicated by the same declaration with regard to slavery and marine piracy which, when committed is seen under international as a violation not only to the circumstantial victims but also to the rest of mankind18. The violation of the basic human rights such as the deprivation of dignity, the denial of due process etc, to one individual is seen as an undermining of human life all over the world19. Bibliography Andre, Hoogh. Obligations Erga Omnes and International Crimes: A Theoretical Inquiry Into the Implementation and Enforcement of the International Responsibility of States. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers,

Roles and responsibilities of chairman of board of directors Essay

Roles and responsibilities of chairman of board of directors - Essay Example Roles and Responsibilities of Chairman of Board of Directors (BOD):The chairman's role includes managing the board's business and acting as its facilitator and guide. This would involve: †¢managing the business of the Board and preside over its meetings; †¢setting Board meeting agendas, taking full account of the issues and the concerns of all Board members; †¢ensuring that members of the Board receive accurate, timely and clear information, in particular about the Company’s performance, to enable effective performance of their duties;†¢monitoring progress towards the timely and effective achievement and implementation of the objectives, policies and strategies set by the Board and of other decisions taken by or on behalf of the Board;†¢facilitating the effective contribution of non- executive directors and ensure constructive relationships and open communication, both between non- executive directors and executive directors and between the Board and i nvestors; †¢ensuring that members of the Board understand the views of major shareholders and other key stakeholders; †¢promoting the highest standards of corporate governance;†¢managing the Board’s time to ensure that sufficient time is allowed for discussion of complex or contentious matters; †¢ensuring that new directors receive an induction programme that is tailored and comprehensive; †¢monitoring and addressing the development needs of individual directors and of the Board as a whole and ensure that the performance of individual directors and of the Board ... When an individual serves simultaneously as chairman and CEO, the Board's control over him will be weakened. This does not happen when the roles are separated. The role of Chairman includes managing the business of the Board and monitoring its progress. Non-segregation of duties of Chairman and CEO would reduce the monitoring effectiveness over the management of the company. Opportunistic executives may take advantage of their combined role as Chairman and CEO in order to personally benefit at the expense of the shareholders. The chances of such injustice would reduce to an extent if the roles are separated. However, segregation of roles of Chairman and CEO could give rise to certain issues such as: When the roles are segregated, conflicts between the Chairman and CEO may become common if there is lack of goal congruence. Having a single leader instead of two helps promote effective action by the CEO speeding up response to external events faced by the company. Separation of roles could lead to delays in such response. (2) (i) Theoretical Ex-Right Price (TERP): TERP = [(Number of rights required to buy one new share X Market price before rights issue) + Subscription price] / (Number of rights required to buy one new share + 1) = [(4 x 20) + 15] / (4+1) = 19 Number of shares to be issued in the rights issue = 100 million / 15 = 6,666,667 shares (ii) Value at which the rights are likely to be traded: Value of rights = (Market price of common stock - Subscription Price) / (Number of rights required to purchase one of the new shares of common stock) = (20 - 15) / 4 = 1.25 (iii) Evaluation of the three options: Option 1: Profit that can be earned by Apple Insurance Plc if it takes up the rights: (a) Theoretical ex-right price per

MANAGEMENT RESEARCH REPORT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 8250 words

MANAGEMENT RESEARCH REPORT - Essay Example 2010) Additionally the number of customers and potential customers who visited the shop floor and the website of the company have decreased as seen in the table below. Table 2: CUSTOMERS/WEBSITE VISITORS FOR CAPITAL 04 LTD. YEAR SHOPFLOOR CUSTOMERS WEBSITE VISITORS 2005 1,000,000 45,000 2006 800,000 37,500 2007 650,000 25,000 2008 250,000 20,000 2009 100,000 10,000 2010 20,000 3,000 (Source: Capital 04 Ltd. Data 2010.) The evidences given in the tables above are clear manifestation of the financial instability and poor growth in Capital 04 Limited, which this report sorts to reverse as a way forward for the company. The main issue in this case is the analysis of the financial issues in the company including analysing the reasons behind the aspect. Scope of Report The report would try to analyse the reasons behind the poor financial state and performance of the company. It would also try to investigate the possible reasons that may have led to Capital 04 becoming unprofitable. This wo uld include analysing the business model of the company and would try to find any gaps in the business model that may have led to this situation. The study would include analysis of data from secondary as well as primary sources in an attempt to find a solution for the organisation that would help it to maintain sustainability and remain viable for the next course of time. The primary research would involve a comprehensive analysis of the issues faced by the company from various perspectives. What is more, the report would ultimately present a set of credible recommendations that would help the company to get back to profitability and maintain market sustainability. Constraints The project would... The research affirms that over the past few decades, the consumer perceptions have greatly altered in terms of their beliefs and needs. The patience level with which to wait to be served or be satisfied with the product has reduced. With the advancement in technology we have to come to expect complete deliver and that too in time. This change in dynamics of customer thinking has led to a transformation in the whole procedure from the preparation of the product, through retailing and finally to the consumers. This has transformed the whole supply chain deriving from costs to service requirements along with the customer and retailer change. The retail business has been a line a work that has greatly contributed to increasing the efficiency and productivity of consumer products as well as the service sector. It happens to be one of the largest established businesses in terms of number of establishments and employees in United States of America. Other than USA, the retail sector also hap pens to be a major entity contributing to the economies of other nations as well. The last decade however, has caused a major flux in the retail business environment. There are two sides of this scenario; on one side the hike in the private labels and promotions have contributed to increasing the power of the retailers. On the other side however, the increase in the number of discounters and warehouses have taken a major toll on the traditional retailers and has also increased the competitiveness in the industry.

Success of Henry VII in strengthening the financial position of the Crown Essay Example for Free

Success of Henry VII in strengthening the financial position of the Crown Essay Crown lands were the kings estates. There were many ways in which Henry increased the yield of his crown lands. * Henry gained a lot of land from the Battle of Bosworth by naming himself king before the day of the battle therefore making all his opponents traitors and had the right to attain them all. * He gained a lot of land partly by good fortune from York and Lancaster. * Henry was not as generous as pass kings e.g. Edward IV, and kept most of his lands to himself but with the exception with some people like his mother, his uncle Jasper. * Used escheats, which were a right for the king to have lands passed to him when men died without heirs. * Skilful workers that helped Henry increase yield of lands e.g. Duchy of Lancaster and Sir Reginald Bray. Effectiveness of policy. Income from crown lands was increased by 30 % generally during his reign and with the help of Sir Reginald Bray the annual income of à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½650 increased 10 fold. Custom duties. Theses were levied on wool, leather, cloth and wine. It was a fee, which was needed to be paid for trading. Edward IV increased his income by increasing trade and cutting down on embezzlement at all levels. Henry did the same and followed what Edward IV did. Effectiveness of policy. The average annual receipts were à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½33,000 for the first 10 years of the reign and à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½40,000 thereafter, so there was not a great deal of raised income. Feudal dues. Feudal dues were paid be people who held land from the king in return for military service. Feudal dues included: * Wardship, in which the king took control in the estates of minors until they came an age. * Livery, the payment to recover lands out of wardship. * Marriage, right of crown to arrange marriages for unmarried heirs/heiresses. * Relief, payment made so that the crown recognised inheritance of land rather then reclaiming it to the throne. Effectiveness of policy. Initially the proceeds from wardship and marriage were small, amounting to only à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½350 in 1487, but after 1503 a special officer was appointed to supervise them and by 1507 the annual income was à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½6,000 a massive increase. Revenue through the operation of the judicial system. As monarch, Henry was head of the judicial system and was therefore entitled to its profits. Henry made the most of this by doing a number of things. * Fines: Henry was eager to exact fines rather then imprisonment or execution to increase his incomes. * Attainders: Method of punishment whereby the profits from the attained persons lands go to the crown. Effectiveness of policy. There were a lot of attainders e.g. Sir William Stanley had to payà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½9,000 and thenà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½1,000 p.a. for his treason in 1495. The highest passed was 51, total of 140, a third reversed. Parliamentary grants. Extraordinary revenue was money which came to the crow on particular occasions and therefore with no regularity. It arose from the obligation of the kings subjects to help him when the national interest was threatened. It was received, by the king requesting for the parliamentary consent. The usual type of tax levied was a national assessment. Effectiveness of policy. Parliamentary grants were less successful as they restricted Henrys freedom of action in return for money. By 1485 the taxes raised had ossified into a fixed sum of about à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½29,000. Loans and benevolences. The king could rely on loans from his richer subjects in times of emergency by request, and was almost virtually impossible to decline. Effectiveness of policy. It was effective in the way it was quite successful as Henry had only asked modest amounts of money from his subjects and had always repaid back, probably to lessen the risk of rebellion of some sort. Feudal obligations. As feudal overlord Henry could demand money from his subjects for special occasions e.g. the knighting of his eldest son, marriage of his eldest daughter. Effectiveness of policy. Anyone who earned more then à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½40 p.a. had to become a knight, along with the financial burdens that it entailed in military service. So this would have made a lot of money to add to the kings income from the financial burdens. Clerical dues and other income from the church. Convocation usually offered money when the king was requesting it from the parliament grant e.g. in 1489 when à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½25,000 was raised for the French war. Effectiveness of policy. Due to a rash of deaths amongst the bishops in the last years of the reign, Henry received over à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½6,000 per annum in this way.

Nature of Poverty Essay Example for Free

Nature of Poverty Essay The nature of poverty can be described in many ways. The obvious way to explain poverty is the lack of income. However, in the deeper meaning, poverty also includes those who lack of security, healthcare, power, and other basic necessities. Poverty can be categorised in terms of absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is household based measure by income per year under a statistic developed by government which will aid those who are poor by giving them money depending on the number of members in the family on a yearly basis. While, relative poverty focus on people’s living with no statistic. For instance, if a family has 10 members but they have only 3 cars, they can be regarded as poor. Nevertheless, there are three common methods that use to measure the level of poverty. The first method defines poverty as a lack of income, which can be measured by World Bank. The absolute poverty for this case is a cut up point above or below the certain amount of income. Yet, this method has a major drawback. Since it focuses solely on income and ignoring other important factors such as social well-being or the general welfare of people, this method fails to provide the whole aspect of poverty. Secondly, UNDP measures poverty in terms of the lack of capability. It is known as Human Poverty Index that indicates the standard of living of the people in the country, which are life expectancy, life satisfaction, and footprint. This method provide not only deeper but also broader ways of measuring and assessing poverty. It looks pass the income factor and takes into consideration the non-monetary aspects, which generate the more well-rounded information and results. However, there are some critics that this method cannot truly measure the level of the poor since statistics and numerals are unable to measure people’s feelings. It is said that we cannot know how others feel unless we walk in their shoes, therefore, in order to get the accurate result, living with the poor is required. Lastly, poverty as a social exclusion is mentioned by Robert Chambers about the nature of poverty. Chambers introduces the bottom-up theory, which suggests that people should actually work with the rural poor who lack of power to speak out, security, and live with fears. Therefore, the approach is carried out to get an in depth understanding of what are the real meanings of poverty by associating directly with the poor. By this view, Chambers tends to provide qualitative method while other methods are quantitative based. Although this method  provides useful information of the poor, there are few flaws to be considered. Because the outcome is mainly based on qualitative methods such as verbal communication, there is a high tendency that the outcome will be bias. Moreover, snapshot may occur. For example, the interview conducted during the harvest season might get a better result than the actual reality. Therefore, the long-term picture should be taking into account in order for the outcome to be more anthological and longitudinal. Another problem is that people may not be honest, which is called courtesy bias. This way people will only answer what the researchers want to hear and leave the truth out. Thus, sometimes researchers may ask them to draw the picture of their life, which turns out to be a better way to get the real answer. Chambers talks more about vulnerability and isolation of people. For example, the poor cannot transport to sell the goods. In conclusion, there are several ways to measure the level of poverty. Three most common methods are the lack of income, HPI by UNDP (lack of capability) and social exclusion by Robert Chambers. Each method uses different viable and factors to indicate the level of poverty, all have their own advantages and criticisms. Therefore, each one is suitable and appropriate in different situations and purposes. However, in my opinion, even though, the lack of income method might be easier to measure and assess, the social exclusion theory by Robert Chambers could provide the real well-being of people since it includes the important of non-monetary factors that are crucial for the welfare of people.

Spatial-temporal Analysis of Land Market in Urban Fringe

Spatial-temporal Analysis of Land Market in Urban Fringe 1. Research context There is a widespread deem that urbanisation is the outcome of the configuration of modern human society. The 19th century, which assumed to be the era of modernization all over the world, has experienced rapid urbanisation. For instance, urban population has increased from less than 14 percent to more than 50 percent of the worlds population during 1900-2000 and if this growth continues, urban population in the world will arrive at 4.72 -5.00 billion in 2030 (increase of 48.61-57.84 percent comparing to the current population) comparing to 6.835-8.135 billion (18.71 percent) increase in total population and 3.348-3.267 billion (2.42 percent) decrease in rural population. Nevertheless, the devastating situation will be at the developing countries, where the urban population growth is forecasted to be 74.17 percent in 2030 comparing to the current population (Zhang, 2008). Interestingly, maximum of this urban population agglomeration is in largest cities, especially megaciites (Li, 20 03) and these megacities are growing at an unprecedented rate. For example, in 1950 there were only 4 megacities, which increase to 28 in 1980, 39 in 2002; and 59 in 2015 (UN 2002). Then the question arises which criteria define the megacities. Some urban geographers tried to define the megacities based on the global economic power or influence. With the exception of Lo and Yeungs (1998) ‘Globalization and the World of Large Cities, which includes Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo and Johannesburg, and more recently systematic work by Taylor (2000), Lo and Marcotullio (2000), Taylor and Walker (2001) and Shin and Timberlake (2000) much of these works (Friedmann, 1986; Sassen, 2004) have either focused on the developed world or merely mentioned ‘megacities in the developing world (Yulong and Hamnett, 2002). However, an extensive debate has still been going on the definition of megacities. United Nations categorize the megacities with population of 8 millions while Asian Development Bank extends the population limit to 10 million along with other characteristics such as complex economy and integrated transport system. Thus, discussion takes into account the ‘population greater than 10 millions as an indicator of megacities. According to the World Population Report 2001 by UNFPA, currently there are 19 megacities such as Tokyo (26.4 millions), Mexico City (18.1 millions), Mumbai (18.1 millions), Sà £o Paulo (17.8 millions), Shanghai (17 millions), New York (16.6 millions), Lagos (13.4 millions), Los Angeles (13.1 millions), Calcutta (12.9 millions), Buenos Aires (12.6 millions), Dhaka (12.3 millions), Karachi (11.8 millions), New Delhi (11.7 millions), Jakarta (11 millions), Osaka (11 millions), Metro Manila (10.9 millions), Beijing (10.6 millions), Reo de Janeiro (10.6 millions) and Cairo (10.6 millions). Still there is a controversy about the geographical extent of these megacities. Even some of these megacities are growing on forming the urban corridors (Tokyo-Yokohama-Nagoya-Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto Shinkansen in Japan, Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan in northeastern China; and the Mumbai-Pune development corridor in India) and urban mega-clusters (national capital Region of Delhi, Dhaka, and Metro Manila; Karachi mega-urban region, Bangkok-Thonburi metropolitan region, and Jakarta-Bogor-Tangerang-Bekasi region). This continuing growth of megacities is now the burning research topic of the policy makers as well as international communities (Renaud, 1981; UN, 1993) and different policies are already been applied to counterpart this rapid urbanisations in megacities such as China, Egypt, Brazil, Korea, Mexico, and China have promoted different promotional programs (e.g. dual track urban system) for patronizing the medium size cities in their respective country level (Henderson, 2002; Ades and Glaeser, 1995). Still a comprehensive strategy needs to be initiated in order to counterpart the unprecedented rate of urbanisation and urban agglomeration. 2. Overall aim and objectives The overall aim of the thesis is to determine the economic value of land at the urban fringe of a megacity in developing country. Based on the aim, the objectives are categorised into two broad areas theoretical objectives and empirical objectives. Theoretical objectives To examine the extent of influence of urbanisation process, and land acquisition and speculation, by both the public and private sectors, on the dynamics of urban agglomeration or urban sprawl. To examine the changing urban spatial patterns of the megacites due to sprawl and to explain them within the framework of different urban growth theories. To examine the nature, characteristics, and dynamics of urban land and the land market within which land assembles, urban renewal, gentrification and development has taken place. To identify different spatio-temporal econometric methods for determining land price. Empirical objectives To develop an economic instrument, considering both spatial and temporal aspects of land, for understanding the dynamics of the land price at urban fringe of a megacity in developing country To determine the extent of influence of environmental attributes on the price of urban-rural interface lands. 3. Methodology In order to attain the objectives, the research will be carried out by following the comprehensive methodology, the structure of which is given below: The detail of the methodology and structure of the chapters to attain the objectives is given below: Objectives Methodology Organizati-on of chapters Objective 1: Definition of urbanisation and urban agglomeration; reasons; challenges; trend of urbanisation in developed and developing countries; growth pattern of different hierarchy of urban settlements; socio-economic, political and physical characteristics of urban settlements; economic, institutional, and political factors of rural-urban migration; government policies and urban politics in the context of urbanisation and urban agglomeration; concept, nature, characteristics and dynamics of megacities; spatial pattern of megacities; cases and consequences of rapid urbanisation and urban space challenges especially in megacities. Literature review of journal, books and reports of different organisations working on urbanisation and urban agglomeration Chapter 2 Objective 2: Urban land economic theories (such as classical theories, neo-classical theories, new economic geographic theories, and new institutional economic theories) in the context of urbanisation and urban agglomeration Literature review of journal and books Chapter 3 Objective 3: Dynamics of urban land market, urban land politics, actors of urban land politics, contemporary urban land regulatory mechanisms and their acceptability in different contexts, planning mechanisms for controlling land conversion or development at the urban fringe, land acquisition process, government strategy for land ceiling standard and land speculation, actors controlling the land market, impact of land use change on the wetlands and agricultural lands at urban fringe and challenges for attaining sustainability. Literature review of journal, books, reports of different organisations, and government policies, strategic plans, rules, and regulations. Chapter 4 Objective 4: Different types of spatio-temporal econometric methods for determining the land price at urban fringe Literature review of journal and books. Software for Spatio-temporal autoregressive analysis Chapter 5 Objective 5: variables or attributes explaining land market at urban fringe, compatible econometric instrument for drawing the equation of land market at urban fring Application of spatio-temporal econometric model for regression analysis Chapter 8 Objective 6: economic valuation of environmental attributes and its influence on the land market at urban fringe 4. Theoretical framework Various factors are attributed to the urbanisation in megacities such as rural-urban migration (Goldstein, 1990; Chan, 1994a,1994b; Rempel, 1996; Ma, 1999), natural population increase and even the government policies (Lo, 1994; Sit, 1995; Lin, 2004; Bloom et al., 2008) on foreign direct investment (Sit and Yang, 1997; Shen, 1999; Shen et al., 2000), expansion of tertiary industries (Lin, 2002) and economic transition (Gu and Wall, 2007). This section explores the reasons behind the urbanisation and urban agglomeration in megacities, and spatial patterns of megacities. Economic development There is a significant positive correlation between the economic development and urbanisation (Henderson, 2003), which can better be explained by the hypothesis of Williamson (1965) (Hansen, 1990). Due to the economic development of the city, the significant amount of industries are concentrated within the city core and this upshots in development of knowledge, skills, and economic infrastructure which leads to development of physical structures such as transport and communications. This physical development make obligatory to the investors or manufacturers to recalculate the cost-benefit analysis of the geographical locations of their industries taking into account the external and internal economies of scale- resulting in urban expansion or deconcentration of industries from the urban core (El-Shakhs, 1972; Alonso, 1980; Wheaton and Shishido, 1981; Junius, 1999; Davis and Henderson, 2003; Barro and Sala-I-Martin, 1991, 1992; Kuznets, 1966; Abramovitz, 1989; Easterlin, 2000). This a rgument is vivid by reviewing different literatures on the economic growth and urbanisation in megacities (Aguilar and Ward, 2003; Firman, 1997; Fanni, 2006). However, the basic assumption of urbanisation is the rural-urban migration. According to the western economists, urbanisation/ rural-urban migration is the resultant of increase in the productivity of agricultural sector and the increasing demand for labour needed by an expanding industrial sector. This economic model was adopted for the western economics, which was later tried to adopt in the urbanisation pattern of the third world countries by Lewis (1994). Nevertheless, the increasing rural-urban migration, despite the high unemployment and underemployment situation in urban areas of developing countries, raises the question of its validity. Later on, comparative evaluation of expected wage rates between urban and rural (by Harris-Todaro migration model), and present value of expected benefits and costs (by Sjaasted migration model) were identified as the key economic factors of urbanisation process. Brueckner and Zenou (1999) and Brueckner and Kim (2001) have incorporate the effe cts of land price escalation due to the migration within the Harris-Todaro model. Furthermore, classical economists (e.g. (Gordon, 1975; Petty, 1683; Yang, 1991; Yang and Rice, 1994; Sun, 2000; Sun and Yang, 2002; Zhang and Zhao, 2004) and neo-classical economists (e.g. Fujita-Krugman, 1995; Helpman, 1998; Lowry, 1966) try to project the ‘division of labor and production, and ‘economies of scale as the basic economic prerequisite of urbanisation respectively. Government policies and urban politics After the economic development, the next significant characteristic of urbanisation in megacities is government interventions or policies (Renaud, 1981; Ades and Glaeser, 1995; Moomaw and Shatter, 1996; Henderson and Becker, 2000; Davis and Henderson, 2003) by sometimes prioritizing the megacities over other cities during decisive policymaking (Fujita et al., 1999). This may cause because of their political significance and interest of the elites and bureaucrats (such as in Bangkok, Mexico City, Jakarta, and Paris, Sà £o Paulo). For promoting economic development in the megacities, the government (either national or local) of concerned countries sometime has taken promotion strategies such as in Shanghai, China (Cai, 1995; Han, 2000; Fu, 2001); Jakarta, Indonesia (Firman, 2000; Goldblum and Wong, 2000; Henderson and Kuncoro, 1996; Kaiser, 1999); Manila, Philippines (Kelly, 2003; Bankoff, 1996; Sidel, 1999); Mumbai and Delhi, India (Valerie, 1999); Cairo, Egypt (Sutton and Fahmi, 200 1); and even in London, Paris and New York (Lever, 1997; Short and Kim, 1999; Tickell, 1998).. However, the impact of dynamic government polices on urbanisation and urban agglomeration is most acute in China such as ‘Socialist Economic theory based urban-biased Hukou system during the ‘pre-reform period (Oi, 1993; Naughton, 1996; Zhang and Zhao, 2004; Chan, 1994a, 1996; Gu and Shen, 2003; Sit, 1995; Harrison, 1972; Murphey, 1974; Ma, 1976; Nolan and White, 1984; Prybyla, 1987; Kirkby, 1985; Kang, 1993; Chan, 1994b; Liu, 1999; Ma and Fan, 1994; Buck, 1981; Parish, 1987; Ofer, 1977; Konrad and Szelenyi, 1977; Ronnas and Sjoberg, 1993; Sjoberg, 1999; Kirkby, 1985; Kang, 1993; Chan, 1994b; Solinger, 1999; Lieberthal, 1995; Fallenbuchl, 1977; Zhang and Zhao, 1998; National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2000; Konrad and Szelenyi, 1977; Ofer, 1977, 1980; Musil, 1980; Murray and Szelenyi, 1984), especially in China (Cell, 1979; Orleans, 1982; Whyte, 1983; Ran and Berry, 1989; Ebanks and Cheng, 1990; Yu, 1995; Tang, 1997; Song and Timberlake, 1996; Lin, 1998; Dong and Putt erman, 2000). Later on, ‘post-reform policy also boosted the urbanisation by encouraging the foreign and private investments in megacities (Banister and Taylor, 1989; Shen and Spence, 1995; Shen, 2002; Shen et al., 2006). However, the national or local government is not solely responsible for urbanisation, urban development as well as urban expansion. Then the question is: Who runs the cities? Government interventions or policies in the urban strategic planning for political significance and interest of the elites and bureaucrats are proverbial in the cities of both developed and developing world (Renaud, 1981; Ades and Glaeser, 1995; Moomaw and Shatter, 1996; Henderson and Becker, 2000; Davis and Henderson, 2003). This is why; urban theorists are focusing on urban politics rather than on economic attributes in formulating state policies for urban development (Sites, 1997; Cockburn, 1977; Castells, 1979; Stone, 1993; 1998). Nevertheless, the influence of urban politics in urban planning priorities in different parts of the world is very complicated because urban politics are viewed from different perspectives. State-centred perspective argued for key role of government, autonomy of the state or the lo cal state and pre-eminence of political attributes in strategic planning (Steinmo, 1989; King, 1995; Thornley, 1998; Evans et al., 1985; Gurr and King, 1987), while coalition politics (Stone, 1987, 1989, 1993; Sites, 1997; Elkin, 1987; Harding, 1994; Gurr and King, 1987; Turner, 1992; DiGaetano and Klemanski, 1993; Orren and Skowronek, 1994) argued for public-private partnership for implementing planning strategies because either for the vulnerability of local government in inter-city economic competition or for the division of labour. This is why; various urban theorists (Park and Burgess, 1925; Dahl; 1967; Wirth, 1969; Jacobs; 1969; 1984; Saunders, 1983; Rae, 2004), who tried to entangle urban politics within their own theories, either failed or misinterpret the urban planning practices. The basic controversy of urban politics lies within two distinct definitions of community power (Polsby, 1980; Harding, 1995; Judge, 1995) power within communities and the power of communities (Harding, 1997). The first is concerned with ‘social production and ‘power to while the latter on is with ‘social control and ‘power over (Stone, 1989). ‘Power within communities, also known as ‘urban regime prompts integration or political coalition of civic groups and public institutions (Dowding et al. 1999; Shefter, 1985; Elkin, 1987; Stone and Sanders, 1987; Mollenkopf, 1992; Turner, 1992; Di Gaetano and Klemanski, 1993; Davies 2001, 2003; Stone, 1989, 2002, 2005; Peck and Tickell, 1995) at different levels of intensity and clarity (Stone, 2005) for economic development and physical regeneration or gentrification (Harding, 1997; Elkin, 1987; Stone and Sanders, 1987; Stone, 1989) and urban growth machines (Molotch, 1976, 1990; Logan and Molotch, 1987; Mo lotch and Logan, 1990). On the other hand, ‘power of communities is more concerned about the acting power of the actors rather than coalitions and is defined by elite and pluralist theories. Beyond the community power debate, another significant factor of citys strategic planning is the politics of globalization (Harding, 1997), which strengthens subnational autonomy and declines national importance (Ohmae, 1993). This can be elucidated by evaluating the role of business sectors on the local civic life of US and European cities. For instance, business-sectors of US cities are remarkably organized, who have strong influence on land ownership and land use planning, taxation and revenue distribution, private credit and public borrowing (Stone, 2005), election campaigns of local as well as national political leaders (Elkin, 1987) and resulting in they are within the governing system. Furthermore, the weaker capital investment by local government has persuaded for effective regime (Davis, 2003). Encouraged by the successful history of urban regime in US, Thatcher government took an ambitious initiative to install this US policy within new dimension of urban regeneration partnerships in UK (Berger and Foster, 1982; Boyle, 1985; Ward, 1996; Wolman, 1992) without resolving three questions What will be the role of development coalitions in the city politics as a whole? What types of private-sector act ivities will lead business-sector involvement in the coalitions? How can the activity balance between public and private sector be achieved? (Harding, 1997). Furthermore, some urban scholars attempted to exploit the regime concept in the European contexts (Vicari and Molotch, 1990; Harding, 1994; Kantor et al., 1997; Di Gaetano and Klemanski, 1999; Mossberger and Stoker, 2000; Zhang, 2002). The US policy was not possible to adopt in the UK context because of the powerful role of central government in the urban politics (Thornley, 1998), lack of bargaining power of urban government, reluctance of local business actors in coalitions (Peck and Tickell, 1995; Davis, 2003). This is why; the attempt has been resulted in different collaborative mechanisms, which were explained by different theories such as Rhodes and Marsh (1992) model of policy network analysis by Stoker and Mossberger (1994), integration of regulation and regime theory by Harding (1994) and Lauria (1997). Urban politics in the context of developing countries (e.g. Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) are almost similar to the politics of UK rather stronger role of national government and local government. Either military government or monarch or autocrats reined most of these countries throughout the major portion of their history after independence and they have a close tie with the business elites and bureaucrats. Eventually, the business elites and bureaucrats are influencing the urban policy agendas behind the scene. Nevertheless, the context of socialist China is quite complicated, which can be categorized within pre-reform era (before 1978) and post-reform era (from 1978 till today). Urban politics during the pre-reform period was solely contracted by the national government. After the reform policy, the national government had decentralize their economic and political powers among the local government and influential actors. H owever, the interesting thing is that ‘a clever fox is hiding inside the reform policy by controlling the property ownership, leaving the economic burden to the local government, strongly linking the vertical tie at the government level. Locational economies of production and class segregation The urbanisation of a city can be a consequence of social division of labour and industrial diversification (Harvey, 1973; Henderson, 2002; Scott, 1986; Weber, 1899; Haig, 1927; Allen, 1929; Perrin, 1937; Florence, 1948; Wise, 1949; Lampard, 1955; Hoover and Vernon, 1959; Hall, 1962; Tsuru, 1963; Sjoberg, 1965; Thiry, 1973; Webber, 1984). This can better be conceptualized by considering vertical and horizontal integration and disintegration of production and labor forces. In case of vertical and horizontal disintegration, the industries or firms try to be concentrated within the core region of a city because various economies of scales (Coase, 1937; Holmes, 1986; Richardson, 1972; Scott, 1983; Pye, 1977) and this was obvious at the earier stage of megacities of developed countries such as New York, London and Paris. On the contrary, when the vertical and horizontal integration of firms or products is strong both in spatial and temporal aspects, geographical expansion of city are more likely to be happened because of internal and external economies of scale (Scott, 1980; Brook et al., 1973; Gilmour, 1971; Abernathy et al., 1983; Piore and Sabel, 1984). Moreover, urbanisation in megacities is dependent on the type of products such as gold and diamond in Rio de Janeiro, coffee in Sà £o Paulo, manufacturing industries in Seoul, tertiary activities in London, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo (Duranton and Puga, 2001; Waley, 2009; Mukherjee, 1990; Banerjee, 1985; Glaeser et al., 1995; Lee and Kang, 1989; Lee et al., 2007; Godfrey, 1999). Locational preference Most of the megacities are located at the coastal areas[1] because of their strategic geographical location which offer the advantages of trade, communication, and living environment (Godfrey, 1995; Vance 1990). Presently, 60 percent (nearly 3 billion people) or half of the worlds population lives within 100 km or 60km of the shoreline respectively (Yeung, 2001; Hinrichsen, 1990) and it is estimated that this population will be doubled within the upcoming 30 years among which coastal megacities will contribute the lion share of population (Li, 2003). Furthermore, the number of coastal megacities will be increased to 36 from the existing 16 at the year of 2015 of them 30 will be in developing countries and 22 will be in Asia (Kullenberg, 1999). Sometimes policy makers prepare the economic development plans giving prime focus on the coastal cities (Yeung and Hu, 1992) because it is comparatively less perilous to promote economic development plans in coastal cities because of its good a nd cheap communication and already established structures and physical infrastructures. On the other hand, capital cities get also locational advantages because of the center of institutions, organizations, information and culture such as Beijing (Yulong and Hamnett, 2002), Metro Manila (Cuervo and Hin, 1998), Delhi, Dhaka, and Jakarta. Colonial influence Most of the megacities were under the different European colonies such as British, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Historically, European colonials developed these megacities for their defensive and trade functions. For example, apprehension about French incursions, the Portuguese founded Rio de Janeiro in 1565 (Godfrey, 1999); before Spanish era (1521-1898), Manila was the entry-port of Chinese, Indians and Arabian merchants (Cuervo and Hin, 1998); Bombay, Calcutta and Madras are trade oriented port cities due to British colonial legacy; New York was used as commercial center by the Portuguese colonial. Land speculation and real estate development Land conversion is a normal part of urban development in both developed and developing world (Pierce, 1981; Lockeretz, 1989; Tsai, 1993; Winoto, 1996; Kustiwan, 1997; Yeh and Li, 1999; Grigg, 1995). Nevertheless, land speculation by real estate developers has been observed at an alarming rate in Mexico City, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Jakarta, Metro Manila and megacities of developing countries (Deng, et al., 2008; Arcadis Euroconsult, 1999; Leaf, 1991, 1993; Akbar and Subroto, 1999; Firman, 2000; Bouteiller and Fouquier, 1995; Goldblum and Wong, 2000). Spatial pattern of urbanisation in megacities Megacities had grown to become primate cities at the earlier stage of urbanisation (Parai and Dutt, 1994; McGee and Greenberg, 1992). Megacities now present more polycentric spatial expansion of urban centers and sub-centers following a network pattern that tends to sprawl along major highways and/or railroad lines radiating out from the urban core (Aguilar and Ward, 2003). However, megacities have passed over four stages of urbanisation urbanisation, suburbanisation, counterurbanisation and reurbanisation (Champion, 2001; Van der Berg et al., 1982; Klaassen et al., 1981; Schweitzer and Steinbrink, 1998) ‘cyclic model. In case of ‘urban centre hierarchy, the consecutive phases of urbanisation can be illustrated as a diffusive wave of differential urbanisation (Pacione, 2001; Geyer and Kontuly, 1993) ( 5). The first phase (U) explains the concentration of population in the central city due to rapid rural-urban migration, while the second phase (S) shows an increasing population at its urban periphery and decreasing population at the central city. Third phase (D) shows decreasing of population both in central city and urban periphery and the final stage shows increasing of population at both locations. The first phase (U) explains increasing population in Primary city and intermediate city but decreasing population in the small cities. In the second phase of counterurbanisation (C), reversal situation of first phase is happening after a certain time. In the final, changing rate of net migration is falling down in case of all size of cities. However, the population of primary city will continue to growth for a certain time thereafter it will fall. On the other hand, the population of intermediate city will reach to the optimum level while population of small cities are still growing. Megacities in Latin America Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Santiago, and Sà £o Paulo are in suburbanisation stage because of the continuation of heavy concentration of production activities and population in the urban core and expanding towards sub-urban areas or fringe areas (Farà ­a 1989; Sassen 1994; Pereira 1967; Caldeira 1996; Aguilar and Ward, 2003; Gwynne, 1985; UNCHS, 1996; Aguilar, 1999a and 1999b; Campolina 1994; Parnreiter, 2002; Ward, 1998; Vance, 1990). There is different argument about the urbanisation stage of Latin American megacities such as Townroe and Keene (1984) and Gilbert (1993) claim that megacities of Latin America are in counterurbanisation stage as the secondary city growth is underway with a polycentric urban form suggestive of polarization reversal with the growth of intermediate sized cities leading to a more balanced national urban structure. Megacities of Southeast Asian are also in suburbanisation stage because of the fusion of urban and rural functions that is a mix of rural and urban activities in peri-urban areas and known as extended metropolitan region (desakota) (Gingsburg et al., 1991; McGee and Robinson, 1995; Firman, 1996; Forbes, 1997; Murakami et al., 2005). However, Beijing is still quite monocentric, and its CBD continues to contain a large share of the metropolitan areas total employment, largely because of the centrality of various urban amenities, and because of the concentration of government activities in Beijing (Zheng and Kahn, 2008). On the other hand, other megacities of China Shanghai and Guangzhou are shifting their urban spatial pattern from monocentric form to polycentric form. Lagos of Nigeria is still in urbanisation stage and there are no evidence of meta-urban or peri-urban development (Briggs and Mwamfupe, 2000; Yeboah, 2000) rather city growth is contained within clearly defined boundaries. Megacities in Western Europe and United States are the stage of reurbanisation (Antrop, 2000, 2004) such as Paris (Sallez and Burgi, 2004; Cavailhes et al., 2004), New York (Godfrey, 1995; Preston and McLafferty, 1993), and London (Bendixson, 2004). 5. Research Timeframe for initial 9 months Activity schedule Time Frame Oct- 09 Nov- 09 Dec- 09 Jan- 10 Feb-10 Mar-10 Apr-10 May-10 June-10 Conceptualization Discussion on the context, key features and material sources of the research Chapter 1: Theoretical framework on the contextual terminologies on urbanisation and agglomeration Chapter 1: Fixation of aims and objectives, and development of methodology and research structure Preparation and presentation of 100-days viva Chapter 2: (objective 1) Literature review Chapter 3: (objective 2) Literature review 6. Research Timeframe for 3 years Activity schedule Time Frame 2009 2010 2011 2012 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Conceptualization Discussion on the context, key features and material sources of the research Literature Review stage Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Empirical stage Sample size formulation Primary data collection Secondary data collection Data verification, editing and input Chapter 6: Methodology Chapter 7: Data analysis Chapter 8: Objective 5 and 6 Evaluation and conclusion Chapter 9: Findings Chapter 10: Recommendations and Implementation guidelines Chapter 11: Conclusion Final presentation and submission 7. References Abernathy, W. J., Clark, K. B., and Kantrow, A. M. (1983). Industrial renaissance: Producing a competitive future for America. New York: Basic Books. Abramovitz, M. (1989). Thinking about Growth: And Other Essays on Economic Growth and Welfare. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ades, A. F., and E. L. Glaeser. (1995). â€Å"Trade and Circuses: Explaining Urban Giants,† Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, 195-227. Aguilar, A G (1999a). â€Å"Mexico City growth and regional dispersal: the expansion of largest cities and new spatial forms,† Habitat International 23(3), 391-412. Aguilar, A G (1999b). â€Å"La Ciudad de Me ´xico en la Region Centro. Nuevas Formas de la Expansio ´n Metropolitana†. In: Transiciones. La Nueva Formacio ´n Territorial de la Ciudad de Mà ©xico, (eds.) J. Delgado and B. RamÄ ±Ã‚ ´rez, pp. 147-169. Programa de Investigacion Metropolitana-UAM, Plaza y Valdez, Mexico. Aguilar, A. G., and Ward, P. M. (2003). â€Å"Globalization, regional development, and mega-city expansion in Latin America: analyzing Mexico citys peri-urban hinterland,† Cities 20 (1), 3-21. Akbar, D. B., and Subroto B., 1999. â€Å"Northern bandung area development† Unpublished Paper, Department of Regional and City Planning, Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesian. Alonso, W. (1980). â€Å"Five Bell Shapes in Development,† Papers of the Regional Science Associations, 45, 5-16. Antrop, M., (2000). â€Å"Changing patterns in the urbanized countryside of Western Europe,† Landsc. Ecol. 15, 257-270. Antrop, M. (2004). â€Å"Landscape change and the urbanisation process in Europe†. Landscape and Urban Planning, 67, 9-26. Arcadis Euroconsult, 1999. â€Å"Land aquisition and development control† Final Report, National Planning Agency and Land Development Agency, Jakarta. Banerjee, N. (1985). Women Workers in the Unorganized Sector: The Calcutta Experience. Hyderabad: Sangain Books. Banister, J., and Taylor, J. R. (1989). â€Å"China: surplus rural labour and migration,† Asia-Pacific Population Journal, 4(4), 3-20. Bankoff, G. (1996). â€Å"Legacy of the past, promise of

Pittsburgh Steelers Essay -- essays research papers

The Pittsburgh Steelers Do you like professional football? Have you ever wondered where teams originate from? Or what teams have been around the longest? The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional team that has an extensive history. There are also many unique details about them that other NFL teams do not have. There creator was a great man who started the team from practically nothing, their name and logo represent great tradition, and lastly, they have won many championships. The Pittsburgh Steelers were founded in July of 1993. The contract was purchased for only $2500.00 by Arthur Joseph Rooney. Art Rooney was an exceptional all-around athlete who also had a Bachelors degree in Accounting. In 1964, Rooney was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his strenuous growth of the NFL and the Steelers. In 1988, at the age of 87, Rooney died of a stroke. He was the ruler of the Steelers for almost 55 years. Dan Rooney, his son, was handed the responsibility of being franchise president. Did you know the Steelers haven’t always been called the Steelers? When Arthur Rooney purchased the team he named them the Pittsburgh Pirates. He got this name from the Pittsburgh National League Baseball Team. But in 1940, the Pirates became the Steelers, in order to generate more fan support. This name came from the city’s primary source of employment. This was an honor for the Steelers, being able to represent Pittsburgh steel heritage. Team logos are essential as well. The Steeler...

Toms Character in the Great Gatsby :: essays research papers

Tom Buchanan’s moral character can be quesitoned due to his dispicable and patheic nature when it comes to his actions throughout the novel. Even though he was born into a wealthy family and thus inherited the wealth he has in the novel, no signs of moral teachings by his family were evident. The actions he took in the book were due to him being a conceited and ignorant man. His ignorance was a result of the easy access he had to power and wealth. He feels that because he has wealth and power in society, he is given the acquiescence to be as arrogant and immoral as he so chooses and society cannot do anything about it. Because of this he looks down upon people that he feels are lower in the social and financial ladder. An example of this is when Nick is talking to tom about his accomplice in adultery and Nick says â€Å"Doesn’t her(Myrtle Wilson) husband object?† and Tom replies with â€Å"Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive† (Gatsby 26). This indicates that Tom is very cocky and ignorant. Tom’s immoral acts in the novel stem from his overconfidence and ignorance due to his wealth and power. This is further proved by the fact that when his first and only child was born, he left Daisy without any support only one hour after the birth of their daughter. This is shown in the novel when Daisy says â€Å"Well she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where† (Gatsby 22). For most, the birth of a child would be a joyous occasion and a reason for celebration but as for Tom’s case, he had no love for Daisy at that time. If he had love for her, he would not commit a sin and perpetrate adultery with Myrtle Wilson. A man with strong morals would never commit the sin of betraying their spouse and then cause the other person to do the same in the process. Moreover, he uses his accomplice in the adultery as an object and has no care or consideration for her whatsoever. An example of this is an altercation between Myrtle and Tom : â€Å"Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!† shouted Mrs. Wilson. â€Å"I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy!

Child Labor Essay example -- essays research papers fc

Child Labor   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Child Labor, refers to the economically active population under the age of fifteen years old, who are employed in various industries (Grootaert, 2). Recently, child labor has become a large topic of debate; however, in most cases, it is very unfavorable. The perception that globalization is leading towards the exploitation of children, is becoming an important problem for international business. In my opinion, child labor should be eradicated. It is not only harmful to the health of children, but it takes away their chance for an education, and simply takes away their childhood.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The International Labor Organization estimates that 250 million children around the world, between the ages of five and fourteen, work. Out of the 250 million, 120 million of them work fulltime (ILO, 5). Child labor is common in industries such as agriculture, domestic services, carpet and textile, quarrying and brick making, and also prostitution. Some children work in factories and other workplaces in the â€Å"formal economy;† however, many work on farms or in homes. Child labor has many hazardous effects on the health of children. Some children work in areas such as stone quarries, tanning leather, and electroplating metals. All of these working conditions endanger the health of the child. Children in different occupations face different fatal diseases. Silicosis, which is caused from working in stone cutting, brick factories, granite and slate factories is one such disease. Tuberculosis, is also another disease endeared by children in pottery related i ndustries. Another very big problem, because of poor living conditions, is malnutrition.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The lack of education for working children is also another very serious problem. Child laborers work for most of the day, and in some cases 16 hours a day. There is no question, that education is a major contributing factor to the overall development of the child. Yet, because of the long working hours, children are deprived of time for education. Some children are more or less slaves, controlled by their employer to work all the time. In other cases, the parents are even responsible for child labor, because they give priority to labor and making money, over education. Some children must earn the income for the entire household (Grootaert, 3). Asi... ...). However, developing countries including Brazil and India, which have very high rates of child labor, rejected the proposal. But the rate of child labor is still dropping. In 1996, Brazil had 3.3 million child laborers. Soon after, international pressures, forced President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to create an anti-child labor initiative. This program basically paid parents to send their children to school. By the year 2000, the amount of child workers decreased to 2.5 million.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Today, child labor is still decreasing, but it seems almost impossible to eradicate. Child labor is ethically wrong and immoral; and yet, there are still businesses that choose to turn their heads away. Works Cited: Bachman, S. L. â€Å"The Political Economy of Child Labor and its Impacts on International Business.† Business Economics Jul. 2000: 1-4. Buckley, Stephen. â€Å"The Littlest Laborers: Why does Child Labor Continue to Thrive in the Developing World?† Washington Post 16 Mar. 2000: 1-5. Grootaert, Christian. â€Å"Child Labor: an Economic Perspective.† International Labor Review 136. 1995: 2, 3, 7. International Labor Organization. 1996. 20 Jun. 2001.

Goldstone needs to clearly define his expectations

It is clear from this case study that if Goldstone does not improve his performance he will lose his current management position. This report identifies and analyses the main issues and problems that Goldstone faces in his new role at Bulwark and also provides an improvement plan to lift performance.Over the period of 6 months since Goldstone accepted the branch management role, it has become evident that there are a number of problems and issues which need to be addressed, centred around his shortage of managerial behaviours (Yukl, 1998).Goldstone needs to clearly define his expectations of the sales team and then provide the required direction and support to facilitate the team consistently meeting those targets and expectations. Analysis Goldstone took an opportunity to move from a professional sales role into a management position at the urging of his previous manager and in the belief that he possessed the skills and knowledge to be a successful manager. He saw the role requirem ents from the biased viewpoint of a professional sales representative (Beyer et al, 1997) and once he started in the position was somewhat amazed to discover he was â€Å"†¦so wrong†.This revelation of the role demands, coupled with a shortage of Yukl’s managerial behaviours to allow him to adapt, has overwhelmed Goldstone in the first 6 months. It is likely that there was no formal management training program for Bulwark employees as part of an ongoing succession planning process, otherwise Goldstone would have had a more realistic expectation of the role requirements and had knowledge of the managerial skills needed to lead the sales team. This lack of management training is a shortcoming in Bulwark’s succession planning strategy.From the information provided in the case study it is assumed that the sales team is made up of a number of reps with varying degrees of self efficacy (Bandura, 1997). This is supported by the results of the survey conducted by G oldstone that showed an even 3-way split between satisfaction with his direction, neutral and wanting more direction. It is assumed that those with a high level of self efficacy, most likely developed through experience, are satisfied with his direction or are neutral as they are able to apply behavioural self management (BSM) techniques (Kanter and Schefft, 1988) and therefore feel that they require less direction.It is this group of reps which have driven the achievement of sales quotas in the second quarter. Those who want more direction are likely to be those who have a lower level of self efficacy and thus an increased need for development and mentoring. Goldstone’s inability to recognise the need for coaching and mentoring has resulted in significant problems managing two of his reps, Durkee and Puckett. He has provided Durkee with some support to help him through his personal problems, however has not addressed his performance issues.Durkee requires some coaching and m entoring to give him the skills to make the sale and build his self efficacy. He is already motivated as evidenced by his long hours and attention at sales meetings. There may be an opportunity to change his role within the sales team to better utilise his strengths to achieve targets and expectations. Puckett also needed some coaching and mentoring to assist in building her sales skills.Unfortunately Goldstone’s response to her approach for that assistance was to take away her delegated responsibility by completing the task himself which ultimately resulted in her leaving the company. Goldstone is also having problems managing Skrow, his branch’s top performer. Goldstone managed the conflict situation at the first sales meeting poorly when Skrow openly criticised the new investment products. It is clear from that incident that Skrow will require some extrinsic motivation if he is expected to sell the new products.In addition to this issue Skrow’s feeling of a l ack of equity in his treatment (Steers and Black, 1994) when Goldstone brought over the top performer from Spinnaker and gave him a corner office, may result in a loss in motivation to work at Bulwark. Improvement Opportunities I have identified two specific improvement opportunities to undertake if I was Goldstone. Firstly I would develop and implement a plan to improve my managerial skills and develop the required behaviours.Secondly, and concurrently, I would develop and implement a management by objectives (MBO) program (Managing People and Organisations, 2006) based on the targets and expectations set by corporate. To develop an improvement plan for my managerial skills I would initially seek some coaching from within the company. MacKinley has shown evidence of his willingness to assist and provide advice and Slake has offered his assistance on more than one occasion. I would arrange this coaching to occur on a regular basis, say 2 hours per week on the phone, and use real lif e scenarios as the basis for the coaching and advice.One obstacle that may arise is that MacKinley and Slake cannot provide coaching in all relevant aspects of management behaviour. This could be overcome by using external management consultants to supplement the internal coaching and provide a check that all aspects are being adequately addressed. The success of this coaching program could be measured through direct performance feedback from Ludlow and also utilising surveys of the sales reps to gauge their happiness with specific aspects of my management behaviour.

Mobile phones Essay

In this high-tech fast world, undeniably, mobile phones became an inevitable part of everybody’s life without any age limit. Although, it has lots of merits, in my point of view, the intense use of mobile phones among children may be discouraged because of its adverse impacts on them. To begin with, mobile phones have numerous benefits. Presently, it is not merely a simple device, which allows an easy connectivity between people. It is supporting a number of other programs such as calculators, alarm clocks, voice recorder and so on. these programs boost their academic performances, if they use it cleverly. For instance, alarm clocks in mobile phones are useful for them to woke up early in the morning or adjust the time duration to write an essay. The easy accessibility of parents and friends make them comfortable and enable them to meet any emergency or unexpected conditions. Parents also will be much relaxed, as they know their children are safe. On the other hand, these wonderful devices have negative sides also. Most importantly, the radiations from these devices are harmful for their developing brains. Researches proved that, these radiations might lead to cancers. The destruction of studies is another matter of concern. The games in the mobile phones create additions to children. Chatting and telephonic conversations with anonymous people may result in insurmountable impacts to their young minds. These contacts may indulge them in bad company and mafia especially drug and sex, spoil their future. Furthermore, easy connectivity to internet attracts them to unhealthy web sites and their total character may change. Additionally, children can effortlessly cheat their parents by convincing a false. To illustrate, if they are enjoying a television program at his friends home, they can make to believe their parents that they are on the way to their tuition class. To conclude, mobile phones are beneficial devices, if we use it sensibly. Children, as they are not mature to handle it effectively, it may leave drastic disadvantages on them. Hence, I believe that mobile phones are not favorable for children, especially if it is used uncontrolled without proper guidance and time limit.

Frito Lay Company Essay

Let’s look at how the potato chip came to be. In 1853 the first potato chip was invented by a chef at the Saratoga Springs New York resort in 1853. It was created because one of the customers at the resort keep sending them back because they were too thick, soggy and had no taste to it. Crum then decided to fry them and sprinkled them with salt for taste. They were soon a regular item on the menu. Later, around the 1920’s they then moved from restaurants to being massed produced. Once they came up with a way to keep them fresh and from breaking up, they were able to put them into mass production 1920‘s. Frito Lay was created in 1938 by Herman Lay. Frito Lay is one of the leading potato chip companies in the United States for many years. They continue to post recording breaking numbers in all of their brands. One of their enduring brands is the Lays potato chips. These potato chips can be found in many different flavors. The currently are barbecue, sour cream and onion, ranch and many others. However, this industry is highly competitive and there are large manufactures that have many types of products and other snacks. Smaller companies have found a way to compete with the larger companies. These small companies have gained footing by introducing the new healthier chips that are now being sold in health food stores. A lot of concern about the Salt content is what enable smaller companies to compete. They focused on these healthier brands and have introduced a product that is totally opposite of the major brands. Lays has also added Dips to their brand. They currently consist of Ranch, French onion and etc. This was created because dip is consistently served with potato chips at events such as birthday parties, foot ball parties, luncheons and etc. Frito Lay Extended Enterprise Supply Chain Farm Manufacturer Warehouse/ Retailer Consumer Distributor When it comes to potato chips, the industries in the extended supply are few. The first industry is the farm where the potato chip comes from. They are currently located in cities like North Dakota, New England, Florida, Michigan, Texas and California and etc. They are also located in Central and South America, Brazil, Europe, in Leicester and Coventry England, Asia, Middle East & Africa and India. These farms have been picked for their potatoes that will be used in the making of the potato chip. Because a potato is something you can grow yourself, it is very easy to make potato chips. However, these potatoes are planted and treated with the utmost of care to produce a high quality product. The potatoes are grown and harvested and then they are shipped to a Frito-Lay plant. When they arrived the first thing they do is wash them. They are then peeled with the utmost care. Next they are then cut into slices and then rinsed again to remove particles produced from the cutting. They are then cooked in oils such as sunflower, canola and corn oil. These are very important because they are considered all-natural oils. They contain 0g trans fat and are considered lower in saturated fats. Once dried, they are then sprinkled with salt for taste. Because creating these potato chips is so simple they can be created in less than a day. Once they are packaged, they are then sent out to distributions centers worldwide. This is where the products are stored and then loaded on to trucks and then taken out to stores, gas stations, vending machines and etc. Frito lay currently markets to a wide variety of consumers. One consumer is high school teens and college age students. They have many different places where they consume the product. One of the ways in which they consume the product is in sports and entertainment areas such as movie theaters or sports stadiums. Another place it is being consumed is in the home. Frito Lay has focused on the snack side for many years. These are the type of people who would eat these snacks and did not care about their weight or being healthy. But recently, Frito Lay has changed to targeting more healthy consumers also. With the way the world is changing constantly, Frito-lay is always trying to keep up by targeting with the ever changing times. Because so many people are becoming health conscious, Frito-lay as also targeted this audience. They have come up with some products that allow the consumer to also focus on their health and physical appearance. In order for Frito-lay to stay competitive, it is apparent that they have to target this demographic also because in the recent years some of their snacks have been losing sales. Another of their target audience is the Hispanic market. Hispanic market are targeted because the chips can sometime be the meal or a side dish to the meal. Also this demographic is constantly growing in numbers and have become an important and influential part of society. Frito-Lay’s wholesale and distribution consumers are also a major business. They are the resellers such as retailers and wholesaler who buy Frito-Lay’s finished goods and resell them for a profit. Frito Lay also sells directly to large retailers and retail chains and through wholesalers to smaller retail units. Frito- Lays itself also targets big business customers of other companies. Lay’s identify prospective buyers, monitor current customers’ needs and levels of satisfactions, and personally attend to existing customers. Essentially, Frito lay’s target consumer consists of everyone. It consists of Frito-Lay constantly changing their product to keep up with the changing taste of the consumer. In getting the product to the consumer, Frito-Lay has experienced bottlenecks. This is usually seen with the individuals who deliver the product to the shelves. They are the individuals who places the product on the shelves for the consumer to buy. Obviously this is a very important part of getting the product to the consumer. Frito-lay found that the sales portions was hindering the driver getting the product to the stores on time. Therefore, they separated the two which helped tremendously. Conclusion: Frito-Lay’s new product development, advertising, and marketing efforts continues to help them to grow in the salty snack market. Frito-Lay’s measures economic activity which aids them in improving their organization. Their industrial production and manufacturing production had made them the leading snack food organization in the world. Frito-Lay continues to try and have an enormous amount of knowledge at its fingertips. It continues to ascertain seasonal local demand of each of its products and exactly how much inventory each store has at any time. By keeping track of this information, it helps to better plan seasonal and local promotions. By knowing specific inventory at each store, Frito-Lay could better plan and improve its routing and inventory systems. References: Çetinkaya, S., ÃÅ"ster, H., Easwaran, G., & Keskin, B. (2009). An Integrated Outbound Logistics Model for Frito-Lay: Coordinating Aggregate-Level Production and Distribution Decisions. Interfaces, 39(5), 460-475. Feld, C. S. (1990). Directed decentralization: the Frito Lay story. Financial Executive, 6(6), 22-25. â€Å"Frito-Lay History†. Frito-Lay North America, Inc.. Retrieved 4 January 2013 @ www.fritolay.com Jacobson, G. (1989). How Frito-Lay Stays in the Chips. Management Review, 78(12), 11.