Comparing the Book of Job to Ecclesiastes Essay

The Old Testament is often viewed as a creaky, incomprehensible tome, full of history, violence and a wrathful, bombastic God. Often, it is used as a manual: This is what God wants, this is what would displease the Creator, and so on and so forth. There are two particular books of the Old Testament, Job and Ecclesiastes, stand out from the crowd. They ask and seek to address the fundamental questions of life and spirituality. Before diving into content and themes, it is important to acknowledge structural differences between the two books. Job is told from the third person and is a story with a clear sequence of events and plot. In fact, â€Å"it is likely that versions of Job were told by many peoples of the region.† (Seow, HB 726), and â€Å"That the final form is the product of a complex history of transmission†. It consists of a narrative, focused in the introduction and epilogue, with a series of dialogues between them. Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, is more akin to an essay, interspersed with poems, proverbs and songs to support his conclusions. This requires a much telling and little showing, but allows for more wisdom to be dispensed. In both books, the mysterious workings of the world, ostensibly controlled by God, cause consternation. Job’s livelihood is ruined, even though he was a decent man. As for Ecclesiastes:†I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.† (Ecclesiastes 9:11, King James Bible)Through much of Ecclesiastes, he laments the mysterious unfairness of existence and the apparent powerlessness of mankind. The first parts of the book are about accepting that this is just the way the world is. His conclusions are as follows: That life must be enjoyed when it can be, for they are few; that we are largely powerless over our own destinies, and that God is in an unfathomable and entirely separate, wonderful realm without mortality or time. Ecclesiastes also contended that the only true judg ment of worth was from God itself. Job’s plot makes for a slightly different conclusion. Job, bewildered, speaks  with his comforters, who offer that varied interpretations of the events that transpired, which Job argues against. God enters the scene and speaks, chastising Job, who had disputed God’s will. Additionally, Job’s friends, who had so far been speaking on behalf of the deity, were punished. The message that no mortal can comprehend the will of God, and that to do so is an offense to the Creator, is stronger than in Ecclesiastes. While Ecclesiastes warns against false piety and talking as if one knows when one does not, direct justice is applied to a specific case to cap off the book of Job. The final lessons are, for the most part, trite and oft repeated in scripture: That good deeds and worship are the only sure resolution. Both of these scriptures look at the fundamental senselessness of the way the world works and put God in charge of it; both acknowledge the relative powerlessness of the individual. Both also acknowledge that an individual cannot transcend our frustrating state of being without turning to God. Sources Cited: An explanation of sources:I am aware that sacred texts would normally count as â€Å"Popular† sources, but the Oxford Annotated is garnished with ample commentary from dozens of theologians; Footnotes and essays consume about half of the text. I am considering the King James Version a popular source, which is the only sacred text that does not require notation in the Sources Cited page (Raimes, 158). Raimes, Anne. Keys for Writers. Fourth. New York, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (NRSV) Ed. Coogan, Michael. Oxford University Press. 2001.

How I met myself Essay

The English language is a thriving language. It is the window of various disciplines and knowledge. If you want to know more about the world, learn English†¦ English is a fun language, which inspire people from all walks of life. This language binds people from all over the world. So, don’t be afraid of this language. It is a language of love, peace and humility. Monday, November 25, 2013 Form 3 Novel- How I Met Myself It’s such an overdue post, PMR has just passed and here I am posting this long awaited entry on the Form 3 novel, How I Met Myself. This novel is all about finding your own ghost or doppelganger and answers the questions of â€Å"What If† and â€Å"If Only†. I found this novel as an interesting piece of literature as it questions the pasts and brings back the future, and it will definitely serves as a medium of intellectual discussions among students and teachers. By the time students reach the Third Form, I realize that students need to be stimulated and encouraged to participate well in group and class discussions as some students fail to give responses due to lack of stimulating readings and low self esteem. The idea now in Malaysia, is to let students take charge of the whole learning process, encourage them to think critically and creatively and teachers should take a back seat. Many times, teachers are deemed to be responsible on students’ learning p rocess but the reality is students should be held responsible for their own learning as well. In this entry, I’m sharing with you, some useful notes on this Form Three novel. Based on the novel â€Å" How I Met Myself† by David A. Hill, the theme that can be found is † Love †. This theme is significant in this novel as it revolves around John Taylor and his family. This can be seen from the way they take care of each other and stood by their spouses through difficult times in life. â€Å" Love† is definitely around John Taylor’s family as Andrea supports her husband through out the journey of their life. Never once in her life, that Andrea does not believe in John Taylor and his doppelganger. She is a symbol of a loyal and loving wife, who stands by her man, no matter what is happening to him. Finally, â€Å" love† is seen through  John Taylor. He is a responsible father and husband, even if he neglects his family for a while when he is carried away in finding his doppelganger. John Taylor is a character with full of love and care, he loves his wife unconditionally. In conclusion, â€Å" love† is widely seen in this novel through the characters of John Taylor and Andrea, his wife. They are the symbols of eternal love in these modern days, where love is not a language easily understood.

The Nicaraguan and Cuban Revolution

Nicaragua, the state with the least â€Å"fertile dirt for the proliferation of Left groups† , was the lone state where a revolution prevailed following the Cuban Revolution ( 4 ) . Despite many similarities between Cuba and Nicaragua, they established rather distinguishable revolutions. InSandinista, Matilde Zimmermann, frequently compares and contrasts the FSLN motion with the Cuban Revolution. In add-on, she besides provides non merely a thorough survey of the military and ideological leader Carlos Fonseca, but offers insight into the development of the FSLN. Unlike the Cuban Revolution, the Nicaraguan revolution under the leading of the FSLN was chiefly a societal revolution. Harmonizing to Zimmermann, the FSLN of Carlos Fonseca was responsible for mobilising the Nicaraguans into a societal revolution. However, following Fonseca’s decease, Zimmermann attributes the death of the revolution to the fact that the Sandinistas failed to follow Fonseca’s vision. Although Cuba and Nicaragua both suffered from inhibitory and weak democratic establishments, their revolutions are distinguishable. On the one manus, Cuba experienced a political revolution. The societal ends of the revolutionists were 2nd to the political 1s and remained mistily defined even after 1959. The revolution in Nicaragua was a societal revolution. The bulk of the Nicaraguan population massively supported the actions of the FSLN. The same can non be said about Cuba, where the bulk of the Cuban population was non mobilized by the Rebels. The radical battle against Somoza was marked by category struggle and the resistance against Batista was non. Despite the differences, the Cuban revolution in peculiar the leading of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro had a important impact on the development of Carlos Fonseca’s political political orientation. Zimmermann argues that the Cuban revolution had a profound influence on Fonseca’s thought and the Sandinista motion ( 9 ) . The voluntarism of Che Guevara and the personal appeal of Fidel Castro captured the attending of Third World hereafter revolutionists. For Fonseca, the triumph of the Cuban Revolution convinced him that revolution was possible and that a new organisation was needed to take it ( 56 ) . Fonseca found a hero in Che Guevara and became influenced by Che’s Hagiographas. Fonseca set out to double the Cuban triumph in Nicaragua. Similar to Fidel Castro’s usage of Jose Marti in Cuba, Fonseca appealed to the nationalist image of Augusto Sandino. Sandino’s battle in the 1930s divine Fonseca and as a consequence Sandino became a Nicaraguan rallying symbol for the revolution ( 61 ) . Fonseca’s political authorship remained committed to both socialist revolution and national release from imperialism. Sandino and Che Guevara were the two most of import influences on Fonseca’s political idea. Guevara’s Marxism and Sandino’s patriotism became rooted in a motion capable of doing a successful revolution. Carlos Fonseca’s political political orientation became woven into early FSLN literature and philosophy. Carlos Fonseca was really much the motivation force behind the Sandinistas. In the Historic Program, Fonseca outlined his doctrine of encompassing the experiences of the Nicaraguan workers and provincials. This doctrine was cardinal to the FSLN initial platform ( 208 ) . Unlike the 26th of July Movement, whose forces merely represented a minority of the Cuban population, the Sandinista alliance was genuinely representative of the lower sector of Nicaraguan society. From the get downing the FSLN was organized chiefly to stand for workers, provincials, and the urban hapless. They believed in educating the lower category by transfusing in them an apprehension of Nicaraguan history, which taught them about the Nicaraguan battle against imperialism ( 191 ) . In add-on, this doctrine contributed to the entreaty of the FSLN and helped mobilise immature activists. Throughout the sixtiess, Fonseca and the little group of vernal revolutionists launched a guerrilla motion. Fonseca helped form g uerilla units, recruited clandestinely for future action, and endured prison. Despite the frequent lickings, Fonseca’s strength and dedication to the cause helped keep the integrity of the organisation during long periods of belowground being. In the late seventiess, the members of the FSLN became divided and frequently argued over scheme and tactics. Zimmerman demonstrates that Fonseca understood the grounds for the divisions and differ with the cabals ( 184 ) . In 1975, Fonseca returned to Nicaragua to repair the rifts in the FSLN and to re-validate his leading. However, Fonseca died on his manner to a jungle acme meeting he called with the purpose of mending the divisions. Following his decease, the factional struggle became significantly worse. The three different cabals in the FSLN: the Insurrectional Tendency, the Prolonged People’s War, and the Proletarian Tendency, strayed off from the Historic Program designed by Fonseca ( 208 ) . In add-on the FSLN became more moderate. Zimmerman argues that the 1978 revision of the 1969 Historic Program foreshadowed a continual series of via medias intended to lenify the national businessperson resistance ( 208 ) . The FSLN bit by bit abandoned their ain radical docket. In 1979, the Sandinistas succeeded in subverting the Somoza government. The FSLN without Fonseca lost Fonseca’s focal point on apprehension and reacting to hapless Nicaraguans and their diverse signifiers of development. Rather than prosecuting them as radical topics, they made the multitudes the object of radical policy, a displacement that produced opposition instead than dialogue. In add-on, the arguments that gave rise to the FSLN cabals remained integral within the nine leaders of the National Directorate ( 226 ) . The Directorate lost sight about what was best for Nicaraguan workers and provincials. Although the FSLN claimed to be regulating in the involvement of workers and provincials, their refusal to convey new leaders from oppressed societal categories to the Directorate did non back up their claim. In the 1990s, National Directorate led to another split. That, along with the civil war took a important political toll on the FSLN. In February 1990, after a disruptive decennary in power, the FSLN was voted out of office when Conservative leader Violeta Chamorro round Daniel Ortega in the presidential race ( 228 ) . By taking to concentrate on the political vision and political orientation of Carlos Fonseca, Zimmermann was able to explicate the flight of the Nicaraguan Revolution as a gradual procedure. Carlos Fonseca was influenced significantly from the successes of the Cuban Revolution. Although certain facets of the Cuban Revolution were different, it did supply Fonseca with a political design of how he planned on conveying about a revolution in Nicaragua. Fonseca’s thoughts were to a great extent influenced by the instructions of Che Guevara and Augusto Sandino. He chose to concentrate on the Nicaraguan workers and provincials. This doctrine became the FSLN initial political platform. The early FSLN under Fonseca used this platform to make out to the laden categories and mobilized them against the Somoza Regime. Following the decease of Fonseca, the FSLN in power became more moderate, to a great extent divided, and bit by bit strayed away from Fonseca’s vision. By 1990, the FS LN had wholly changed. They still honored Fonseca as a radical icon, but they no longer incorporated his doctrines into their policies. The FSLN in power shifted off from the involvements of the workers and provincials which created much opposition. Zimmermann finally argues that it was the Sandinistas’ treachery of the thoughts and illustrations of Carlos Fonseca that attributed to the death of the revolution.

Business Environment 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business Environment 1 - Essay Example At this juncture, strategic management is the only way in which a company can grow in the long run in this competitive field. The decisions should be undertaken by the firms only after analyzing the changes and conditions in the external business environment. It is true that without the help of efficient strategies, the firms cannot frame ways for further business development (Johnson and Scholes, 1993). This paper will explain the ways in which adoption of new strategies in the business of Oman Oil Company can help in mobilizing new resources and augmenting the overall level of its performance in the market. New strategies adopted in a firm would help it to improve its resource allocations, thereby reducing its cost of operations. It would facilitate the enhancement of the brand value of the company and improve its relations with its stakeholders. New innovations and creativities providing competitive advantages to the firm can also be introduced through implementation of new busine ss strategies. All of these advantages would help to forecast directions and also, increase the scope of business for an organization (Oxford Business Group, 2008). Formation of Strategies in the Company The business strategies of the company have helped in generating competitive advantages in the market. ... The mid-year rises in the prices of oil have significantly helped in the economic growth of Oman from 1999. The country had associated with the World Trade Organization in 2000 and since then, it has been promoting privatization in the economy. The Oman Oil Company has taken his opportunity to increase its business revenue and utilize the accumulated finances in various types of new private investment projects (making equity investments in new private companies). When the demand for oil in the world market had been increasing, the company had actively augmented its resources in business and expanded its scale of operations. The country of Oman also has plenty of natural oil reserves, thereby making extracting and producing oil more convenient. Any company engaging in the production of oil would not need to outsource it from any other economy. Thus, considering the external environment, the company has correctly selected its business investment segment. Competitive Advantages due to t he Strategies The competitive advantages gained by the company are the special features of its business that makes it unique in the whole market. Oman Oil Company with its effective business strategies has become successful in providing a greater value to the customers in the market. It is true that the price of different forms of energy manufactured by the company is high as their levels are regulated by the free forces of the market equilibrium (Porter, 1998). However, the higher prices are justified when the different beneficial services of the company are recognized (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2009). Figure 2: Investments made by the Company (Source: Oman-Oil, 2012) With its effective business strategies, the company

Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, Lax Regulations or something Else Essay

Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, Lax Regulations or something Else - Essay Example Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, Lax Regulations or something Else Over the period of time, financial services industry went through extensive de-regulation with many institutions taking benefits of such lax regulations. Changes in regulations resulted into a shift in orientation and business strategies of the financial institutions. The focus clearly shifted towards managing short term performance rather than ensuring long term survival of the organization.( Allen & Snyder, 2009) Regulations alone however, cannot be termed as the reason for the financial crisis as there were multiple factors at play. Though lax regulations played their part but the changes in business strategies, changes in accounting standards, loose monitoring from the supervisory authorities, efficient market hypothesis as well as other factors were can be evaluated for their possible impact on the crisis. In this part of the paper, it will be argued that lax regulations were not the only reason for the financial crisis which emerged during 2007-2008. Financial crisis of 2007-2008 is considered as one of the worst economic and financial crisis since great depression of 1930s. The sheer size and intensity of the crisis has made it global because not only the developed countries were affected by the crisis but also the other developing countries were subject to crisis also. Besides creating the threat of the complete collapse of the leading financial institutions of the world, it also resulted into governments intervening by bailing out the financial institutions as well as other organizations.... The after effects of the financial crisis forced many developed countries to actually enter into strict austerity measures to deal with the growing public debt and fiscal deficit issues.( Aalbers, 2009) How Crisis Started The overall immediate cause of the financial crisis was the bursting of housing bubble in US wherein subprime mortgage holders started to default on their repayments. Over the period of time, US financial institutions started to lend to those borrowers who were technically not eligible to obtain the loans owing to their bad credit history and other factors. However, such borrowers also offered opportunity to earn higher returns as financial institutions attempted to profit from higher risks. Due to inflows from Russian as well as Asian financial crisis, financial institutions were left with excessive liquidity to offload in developed capital markets of US and UK. In order to utilize excess funds and banking on the lax regulations, financial institutions in US starte d to lend to borrowers with adverse credit history. This was accompanied by the boom in the construction sector of the economy also and financial institutions along with construction companies attempted to benefit from this. Housing bubble however, started to burst simultaneously at other developed markets also. Not only US suffered from the same but countries like UK also witnessed the cooling off of housing market and increasing rates of defaults on housing portfolio. Further, the crashing of the bubble created a contagion effect on other sectors of the economy also. As a result of this crisis and resulting tightening of credit by the financial institutions, other related industries such as automobiles

Primary and Secondary Sources Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Primary and Secondary Sources - Coursework Example Lincoln’s â€Å"Gettysburg Address†is an example of a primary source.Meanwhile, secondary sources are materials that digest, analyze, evaluate and interpret information contained within primary sources or other secondary sources.Examples of these are books and articles (Henderson, 2011, n.p.). In using primary sources to make a background review of a study, one of the main advantages it provides is reliabilityas it serves as the original source of information of the topic.Primary sources also avoid the problem encountered in secondary sources, where new author may distort and put their own spin on the findings of prior cited authors. Government records such as census are classified as primary sources and it provides an accurate and unbiased description of events. Choosing the right source whether primary or secondary sourcedepends upon the author themselves as both of the sources may have benefit and disadvantages. To sum it up, primary sources give raw data while secondary sources help to understand primary sources, thus these both types of sources can be of equal importance in the conduct of a

Business and Management for Engineers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Business and Management for Engineers - Essay Example Its management remains in control during the period of Chapter 11 but the important thing is that it gives the company â€Å"automatic stay† and â€Å"breathing room† to put its house in order by not allowing parties to take legal action or take away its assets (http://www.gmreinvention.com). General Motors was originally founded on September 16, 1908 as a holding company for Buick by two partners, William C. Durant and Charles S. Mott. Two years later or around 1910, Durant lost control of General Motors because of a default in its bank loan obligations. However, he was able to regain control through a proxy war he waged by using the Chevrolet Motor Car Company to acquire shares secretly but then he lost control again when the vehicle market collapsed during the Great Depression. General Motors Corporation was part of the so called three generals in American business – the other two being General Electric and General Mills. Years of mismanagement and a bureaucratic corporate culture led to its collapse in the last financial crisis and is now owned by the US government through its Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP); it was overtaken by Toyota last year. After its restructuring under Chapter 11 rules, it is now a limited liability company. It means being an LLC, it provides limited liability to its owners which are the US government and to a lesser extent, also the Canadian government. Other present owners include the United Auto Workers Union Employee Association and various bondholders of Motors Liquidation Corporation (the new name of General Motors while it is undergoing rehabilitation at present) while the previous stockholders of the company are now holding worthless pieces of paper as company liabilities are much greater than its total assets (a negative net-worth of $86 billion). Before the restructuring, it was a

Netflix - Do We Still Need Cinemas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Netflix - Do We Still Need Cinemas - Essay Example In the conventional film distribution setting, cinemas or movie theaters have often been the first point of sale for movies. After cinematic or theatrical distribution, the second traditional channel comprised of the broadcast via television, followed by DVDs. Majority of film producers opted for these three modes of distribution, in an attempt to ensure optimal viewership and reap maximum profits. Recently, however, the pervasive nature of the internet has influenced film distribution, paving way for digital online platforms. The latter include video on demand (VOD), mobile applications, and live streaming. This paper seeks to provide insight into the evolution of film distribution within the context of traditional cinema versus popular digital platform, Netflix. Even though Netflix is a key player in film distribution, cinemas are still a vital part of the entertainment industry and should not be entirely written off. Pioneers of movie distribution since the advent of the film industry were traditional theaters and cinemas. Cinemas were rather popular, as people increasingly embraced moviegoing as a weekend form of relaxation with family members and friends. The earliest theaters did not project movies on a screen. Rather, the films were showcased using peep-show machines referred to as kinetoscopes. The latter was developed by Thomas Edison and W. Dickson, and they remained popular till the end of the 19th century. As the world ushered in the 20th century, similar peep-show gadgets referred to as Mutoscopes were introduced in the continued popularisation of a theatrical portrayal of film.

Humanaties 320 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Humanaties 320 - Essay Example Bureaucracy became helpful for many companies, but in the competitive global market of the 1990s organizations started throwing away the organizational chart and replacing it with patterns of teams and projects with the idea of unleashed employee creativity. The systems approach to management views the organization as a unified, purposeful system composed of interrelated parts. Much of what we have built in terms of modern management grew from ancient theory in one form or another. Nevertheless, we do not really need to know what happened yesterday to function today. Still, it helps. It helps to know how things were and how people acted in order to emulate what they did right, eliminate what they did wrong, and improve upon what they could have done better. By studying the past, we gain insight into today and inspiration for the future. Even though, it is not necessary for daily function it is an indispensible enhancement. The first third of the 20th century featured two separate managerial approaches. The scientific management approach of Taylor, Gilbreth and the other engineers and that of the behavioral scientist led by Munsterberg, Maslow, and Mayo. They each differ from one another. Scientific management relies upon managers to make decisions. It tries to develop a best, standard method for performing each job. It selects workers with appropriate abilities and trains them according to the standard method developed. It seeks to help workers by planning work, eliminating interruptions, and providing wage incentives. The behavioral management addressed the human dimension of work. Behavioral theorists believed understanding motivation, conflict, expectations, and group dynamics improved productivity. They viewed employees as individual resources and assets to be developed. It was possible for both concepts to be applied to the same company at the same time. Organizations were not limited to

Formative Assessment Essay Example for Free

Formative Assessment Essay Assessment is regularly conducted by classroom teachers to determine whether students learn the lessons or have acquired the skills they have been taught. However, the prevailing concept of assessment is that it is given after lessons. It is also viewed as extra work that consumes time that would have been better spent in teaching. Some teachers do not even have the adequate knowledge as to how to assess properly having focused more on how to teach (in contrast with how to assess) during their years in teacher training school. As a consequence, assessment results tend to function as a periodic â€Å"snapshot of student progress and as predictors of student performance on the end-of-year statewide tests (Heritage, 2007) rather than a tool to help teachers during instruction. This need is the reason why formative assessment should be implemented. Heritage defines formative assessment as â€Å"a systematic process to continuously gather evidence about learning. The data are used to identify a student’s current level of learning and to adapt lessons to help the student reach the desired learning goal (2007). † It involves strategies which can be categorized into three types: On-the-fly-assessment which requires the teacher to provide quick â€Å"pop-up† lessons right during discussions to correct students’ misconceptions; Planned-for-interaction which requires teachers to think of questions beforehand which would make students think and explore ideas during discussion time; and, Curriculum-embedded assessment where the teacher solicits feedback by talking with the students about ongoing classroom activities like seatwork, board work or students’ notes. There are four core elements of formative assessment (Heritage, 2007). First, it is a means for teachers to identify the gap between the students’ current status in learning and the desired educational goals. Second, it is designed to provide feedback at multiple levels. Third, it encourages student involvement in the daily classroom discussion. Finally, it aims to help teachers develop learning progressions. To use formative assessment successfully, however, teachers also need to possess certain knowledge and skills. Teachers must have domain knowledge of their subject area of expertise; pedagogical knowledge; knowledge of their students’ previous learning; and assessment knowledge or knowing a variety of proper assessment strategies. With regards to the required skills, the successful implementation of formative assessment can only occur if teachers are able to create classroom conditions where learners feel a sense of community and can critique each other without fear. They must also help students learn how to assess themselves. Teachers must be skilled in analyzing student inferences. Finally, they must be able to match instruction to the gap in the present skill level or knowledge of the learner. Heritage’s article provides a convincing argument for formative assessment as it points out the ineffectiveness of current assessment methods to actually help the learner. When students perform poorly in periodical and annual exams, it becomes too late to do something about things. Students either get low grades or are not promoted to the next level. Something could have been done halfway through the school year had formative assessments been conducted. However, formative assessment can only be seen today as an alternative to the existing views since year-end statewide assessments, for example, would be a hard practice to do away with. The present school system, specifically the public schools, have been practicing traditional assessment methods for decades, even the new curriculum and programs do not change things. Nevertheless, the article introduces a challenge to educators and administrators to try this alternative if it is being lamented that the quality of the aptitude skills of the students has been regressing every year. School administrators should mind the rationale behind formative assessment, which is placing more emphasis towards reforming student performance rather than the punishment-reward system that the traditional method offers. Of course, this would mean additional training for teachers who are not used to employing formative assessment in their own classrooms and changes in the curricula of teacher training schools. Then again, the benefits of formative assessment as enumerated in the article far outweigh all cost considerations. Reference: Heritage, Margaret. (2007, October). Formative Assessment: What do teachers need to know and do? Phi Delta Kappan, pp. 140-145.

Toyotas Ethical Issues

Toyotas Ethical Issues Business ethics, guiding decision-makings and policies, is concerned with good and bad or right and wrong behaviors and practices within business context(Carroll and Buchholtz, 2008, p242). Based on its great influence on the thinking and acting of all economic entities, whether private companies or state-owned enterprises, business ethics has become a real hot business principle. It appertains to relations between stakeholders and shareholders, between employees and employers, between customers and corporation; it dedicated to product quality, customer satisfaction as well as social responsibility. With the imperative consensus on the reconstruction of social values, business ethics is bound to be pivot and prerequisite for business. However, Carroll and Buchholtz (2008) stated actual business ethics seems to be improving but not at the same pace as public expectations are rising(Carroll, 2008, p242). Furthermore, the economic globalization piles increasing pressure on international business ethics. From the case of Toyotas recall problem, it is drawn that business ethics is ubiquitous and affects a companys development and prosperity strongly. For the purpose of this essay, it is essential to identify its significance and implementation in enterprises. This essay will firstly elaborate Toyotas ethical dilemma involved in its recall. Following this, it will analysis the origin that creates Toyotas ethical dilemma, with a combination of some related theories about business ethics, such as Stakeholder Model, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Finally, some considerable recommendations for Toyota to address this problem will also be made. 2.0 Toyotas Ethical Dilemma General Background of Toyota Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan. Through tremendous development, it currently boasts about 183 billion in annual sales and is the worlds largest automaker, which has the business of which covers many countries and territories including America, Europe, Africa and Asia (Pride et al, 2009, p243). Since its foundation, Toyota continuously conducted business activities under the guiding principle of contributing to the development of a prosperous society through the manufacture of automobiles. The guiding principle, as well as Toyotas CSR policies, serves as the foundation of its business (Toyota Official Website, 2010). However, now Toyota faces a series of embarrassment caused by its vehicle recall. In the beginning of 2010, due to a defect in its accelerator pedals, the company recalled eight million cars around the world (The Times, 2010). The global large-scale recall focalized Toyota once again. Ethical Problem Involved in Toyotas Recall Apart from its quality defect, more and more people began to accuse of Toyotas loss of ethics as a big business before and during its recall. Despite under multi-accusation and criticism, lacking initiative, Toyota did not respond timely. Originally, it attributed the safety issue to the floor mats and denied defective vehicles design; subsequently, its quality problems can not be covered up any longer. Nevertheless, in order for protecting its own business interests and corporate image, Toyota still took the chances and did not recall involving vehicles. Even when appearing in the U.S. Congressional hearings, Toyoda firmly insist that electronic throttle control system has nothing to do with the safety issue, throwing the issue of pedal safety to Toyotas suppliers. More specifically, according to U.S. lawmakers, Toyota hid internal test data in its secret book and refused to hand over evidence of safety defects involving its cars. At the same time, documents obtained by the Congress ional Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee demonstrated that Toyota deliberately withheld key information of crash victims (The Times, 2010). Finally, Toyota could not quibble about its intention to try to conceal the defect or reduce the recall range, which is also a direct challenge to its reputation. Clearly, Toyotas approach is not a right one that a responsible company should adopt when problems exist. To some extent, this is not a blunder of its decision-making but the lack of business ethics. Effects of the Ethical Problem to Toyota At present, Toyotas recall problem seems not to be curbed but ever-widening. Having recalled a wide scope of vehicles, Toyota still has to face the U.S. criminal probe and litigation. What is more severe, with its market having been seriously affected, Toyota also suffered a crisis of confidence worldwide, which is undoubtedly a deadly threat to the worlds top-ranked automaker. It is considered that Toyota has paid a terrible price due to ethical dilemma rather than quality problems. 3.0 Analysis and Discussion There are multiple reasons that caused Toyotas recall crisis, including supply chain mismanagement and its stringent cost control etc. While, the root on ethical dimension should not be neglected. Toyota Attach Great Importance to Economic Benefits but Neglect Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Toyota exceeds General Motors in 2008 as the worlds largest automaker. It is in this process that Toyota introduced a relentless cost control and simultaneously reduces its concern for quality. Toyoda acknowledged that in the past decades, Toyota was committed to expanding business scale and economic benefits, elevating market share and lowering costs; while giving up priority to product safety. In the harsh reality of competition, Toyota gradually goes away from the traditional Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) it has been proud of in a sense. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a business concern for societys welfare; a capacity to treat the stakeholders of the firm ethically or in a responsible way, and it is interpreted by managers who consider both the long-range best interest of the company itself and its harmonious relationship to the surrounding society (Lamb, 2008, p66). As for its wider aim, Hopkins(2007) suggested that it is to create the higher and higher standards of living for people both within and outside a certain company, while preserving the profitability of this focal corporation (Hopkins, 2007, p16). Corporate Social Responsibility is comprised of three concepts, including Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR1), Corporate Social Responsiveness(CSR2) and Corporate Social Rectitude(CSR3). Banerjee (2007) defined CSR2 as the ability of a corporation to respond to social pressures. Compared to CSR1, which has a normative basis to instruct a company what should to do, CSR2 provides a more strategic and managerial focus; that is, it is about what issues a firm choose to address and its policies and actions to address the issue (Banerjee, 2007, p20). CSR2 can be reactive, defensive or responsive. Unfortunately, Toyota adopted the reactive one; it did not make an active response, let alone an effective one. It was not until the crisis went beyond control that Toyoda appeared to apologized to the consumer and explained the situation. To our knowledge, CSR2 is a part of social policy process, whose concentration is on the organizational process for determining implementing and evaluating the firms capacity to anticipate, respond to and manage the issues and problems arising from claims of stakeholders (Sims, 2003, p51). The undisputed is that in its CSR2 process, Toyotas reac tion is passive and slow all the time, which also illustrated its attitude as prevaricated, procrastinative and arrogant. When it comes to CSR3, it refers to the moral correctness of the policies or actions taken (Carroll and Buchholtz, 2008, p56). Frederick in 1987 indicated CSR3 involved a pervasive sense of rightness, respect and humanity that would put publics values and ethics at the center of the companys concern, policies and main decision-makings (Scherer, 2008, p57-58). However, in its recall process, Toyota treated consumers in different regions in significantly differentiated way. As can be seen from Figure3.1, compared to the large amount of recalled vehicles in U.S. and European markets, the number of those in Japanese, in particular Chinese market is very small. In China, the worlds fourth largest market of Toyota in 2009, the recalled number is only 75,552, only accounting for one-tenth of Toyotas total sales in China, and one-third of the quantity recalled in Japan. What is more, type recalled is only the RAV4, while others are excluded. However, they belong to the list of Camry, Crolla and Highlander that has been recalled in U.S. market. Meantime, observant people have found such a delicate situation. In the U.S., in addition to apologizing, Toyota would also pay a high cost, which is comprised of not only the huge recall loss and kinds of fine, but also claims from U.S. consumers. Yet for Chinese consumers, Toyota is unwilling to provide alternatives, let alone financial compensation. Undeniably, Toyota is quite familiar with the hidden rules in Chinese auto market, where a comprehensive recall system has not been established, and it is adopting an appropriate way in accordance with Chinese law to deal with the recall. However, for Toyotaa company who always seek excellence, not breaking the relevant laws and regulations is not enough to convince people. In the CSR3 context, Toyota did not serve Chinese customers who are the same important to it equally. Although within the law, its discrimination against Chinese consumers is not an ethical behavior. Source: China News (up to 10 February, 2010) -Toyota Puts its Focus on Shareholders but not Stakeholders From a general view it seems that corporate stakeholders show the trend of proliferation and diversification. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify and thus effectively balancing the interests and needs of various stakeholders. To achieve this, it can draw reference to the Shareholder and Stakeholder Model. The Shareholder Model, known as an external and independent orientation, is to improve the wealth prospects of investors. On the contrary, firms who adhere to the Stakeholder Model promote an internal control focus and will promote its performance and thereby offer favorable returns for stakeholders who share an interest in the company. This will stimulate a supportive and positive environment for the company (Kakabadse, 2004, p234). In the recall, the stakeholders facing Toyota is not just consumers, but also government, regulators, competitors and media etc.. Hence, Toyota should not only be quick to solve problem in recall, but also be cautious to balance its stakeholders expec tations and needs. Kakabadse (2004) also pointed that the pursuit of profit for shareholders may become secondary when aim of Shareholder Model sharply conflict with the broader stakeholders requirements. Put in another way, Stakeholder Model should be preoccupied with wealth creation for shareholders; if not, there will exist great contradictions between corporates economic benefits and stakeholders interest, leading enterprises into ethical censure. Toyotas recall problem is just a typical. Toyota, addicted to the competition with General Motors, has been expanding its global scale. However, its proud Lean Manufacturing loses control after rapidly spreading all over the world, with the balance between minimum cost and optimal products being broken. In order to maintain constant revenue, Toyota place cost reduction overwhelmed, largely abandoning stakeholders interests; therefore its product quality problems are boomed to arise. In a sense, it is because Toyota ignored a balance of interests of stakeholders that contributed to its present ethical dilemma. Recommendations Restore the Situation Now the primary task for Toyota is to contain the intensified situation. It has been found that product recall has become one of the recognized best practices to maintain corporate reputation when quality problem and crisis emerged. So it is acceptable that Toyota recall all of its defective vehicles regardless of their amount. Although great expenditure on recall is unavoidable and the brand may be frustrated severely, but consistent large-scale recall will allow consumers to experience Toyotas sincerity and faith; that is, its ethical commitment as a responsible big business, which will enable Toyota to win more loyal customers. From the viewpoint of long-term, it is still beneficial and adoptable. At the same time, compared with that about its vehicle defects, the criticism is more about Toyotas passive attitude. So Toyota should lower its profile to actively cooperate with all involved stakeholders including those investigation departments to expect a clear description of the inc ident. Re-establish Image and Credibility To a certain extent, Toyotas original good image in the minds of consumers has been subverted because of the recall. If Toyota had made sincere response to consumers, the product problem may not turn into todays huge crisis. So it is urgent for Toyota to take positive actions and re-establish its image and credibility. Some practical ways to be considered are as follows. Firstly, Toyota must re-win consumers confidence and support. On the one hand, it could modestly listen to customers opinions and feedback to effectively address their concerns; on the other hand, Toyota may visit its clients frequently to show its stick to quality and safety; last but not the least, it must act in a moral way to treat every consumer fair. Overall, Toyota should spare no efforts to get customers understanding and continued support. Secondly, Toyota could actively corporate with some powerful media who act as the governments mouthpiece to publicize its correct behaviors. With positive publicity or pro motion of those media, it is feasible for Toyota to re-create its image as a noble company and to restore consumers confidence to it. Revise its Vulnerabilities Business ethics, as the same as a companys commercial objective, can be achieved by management. Among them, communication plays an essential role. Besides, the reason why Toyota fell into troubled water is not just confined to those ones stated above; it is also because Toyota failed to meet the expectations of international media and consumers to handle problem crisply. Because there exist flaws on the respect of its communication management. In fact, as a multinational corporation, Toyota still followed the traditional Japanese-style communication, which is often procrastinative and burdensome. Meanwhile, as far as the balance between the interests of stakeholders is concerned, the issue worthy to review for Toyota is still its management of communication with its stakeholder. However, it is never too late to correct. The lessons drawn from this crisis is that Toyota should stress and enhance its communication management. Moreover, for Toyota, strategic communication should be emph asized, which should be used not only as a means or method of conflict resolution, but also as a tactic from the strategic perspective. To establish strategic communication, it is far enough to launch kinds of internal and external communication mechanisms; what is more important, various communication methods, such as international public relations, lobbying and advertising etc. should be made the most of. On the basis of communications great importance for multinational company to solve or eliminate ethical conflict, Toyota should pay attention to it. Conclusion Laura Hartman (2003), past president of the Society for Business Ethics, said that business ethics, whose focus is on corporate citizenship and ethical management behaviors, recognizes principled leadership, moral awareness and participates in social changes (Vega, 2007, p648). However, in the process of business internationalization, the biggest challenge facing a company derived not only from its business objective, profit, the strategy and the technology; but also from the lack of business ethics, which support its ongoing survival. Toyota is one that suffered ethical crisis caused by its vehicle recall. It attaches much more importance to economic benefits than Corporate Social Responsibility, and also focus on shareholders but not stakeholders; all these produced its current ethical dilemma. As can be seen from the Toyota case, an enterprise, even a big one, must respect ethical issues. In this regard, an effective communication, as a tactic or a strategy, can help to solve ethi cal conflicts and balance interests of stakeholders. In short, business ethics is going from the edge to the center of management and becomes the strategy of corporation. So any corporation should value ethics and regard it as the starting point of any decision-making and action. Only when its wealth objective is consistent with the expectations and request of both the public and society, it can get enough support and achieve further success.

Essay --

The Racist atmosphere in the South back in the 1920s was exceptionally oppressive. Due to that racist atmosphere many problems arose. In Ernest J. Gaines's â€Å"A Lesson Before Dying†, the two protagonist’s self-perceptions are affected by the racist atmosphere. Jefferson’s self-perception is affected by the racist atmosphere. In chapter One, Jefferson’s defense attorney tries to win the jury by claiming that Jefferson has diminished capacity to reason. He tries to reach the jury’s heart and mind by implying it would be a cruel act to kill a man whose intelligence and moral are no greater than those of a hog. The attorney expresses the ugly belief, held by many Southern whites, that blacks are somewhat beneath whites. Jefferson becomes disturbed by the idea and begins acting like a hog, angrily refusing to talk and going through his food like a hog. Miss Emma realizes the impact the attorney’s words have on Jefferson and makes it her goal to ensure Jefferson dies like a man not like an animal. When Jefferson decides to die with dignity, he shakes off the spiteful stereotypes placed on him by whites. â€Å"Gentlemen of the jury, look at this----this----this boy. I almost said a man, but I can’t sa y man. Oh sure, he has reached the age of twenty-one, when we, civilized men, consider the male species has reached manhood, but would you call this---this---this a man? No, not I†,(Gaines, 7). This quote reveals how even Jefferson’s defense attorney from the start had a stereotype opinion held by many Southern whites, a negative opinion that blacks are inferior to whites. From that point on Grant’s mission in the book is to show Jefferson’s hope, dignity, and self-respect, and to prove to whites and blacks are alike, that i... ...white people because they believe you’re inferior to them. That quotes clearly reveal and describes why Jefferson and Grant were in the situation that they were in. It is unquestionably true that the real individuality, the real human nature can be revealed in extreme situations, when the human life is at stake. This work represents an attempt to show that each individual has an opportunity to change his/her life completely, to make it really humanistic and do something good even if it is the last thing he/she can do in his/her life. A Lesson Before Dying suggest the audience to reevaluate its views on life and realize that everything may be changed. At the same time, it is never late to change the life for better and reveal positive traits of character or even commit some heroic or humanistic acts even if it threatens to end the entire life of the individual.

The Difference Between Sissy And Bitzer Essay -- essays research paper

"Give me your definition of a horse," (Pg 3) says the eminently practical Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Charles Dickens’ unforgettable novel, Hard Times. Can anybody really define a horse? Cecilia Jupe, also known as Sissy, was unable to answer this question because she was, well, normal. Bitzer, the boy brought up in Coketown, the city of facts, answered, "Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely, twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive..." (Pg. 4). Clearly the contrast between Sissy and Bitzer can be seen. The differences between Bitzer and Sissy are shown not only in their definitions of a horse, but also in their physical appearance, personality, background, and the different philosophies that they each represent: fact and fancy. From the very beginning, Dickens had made it clear to the reader that Sissy represents fancy and Bitzer represents facts. He uses the two characters in many ways to portray the differences between fact and fancy. One way of doing this is describing Sissy and Bitzer’s physical appearance. Dickens has a tendency to make his characters’ physical appearance reflect their personalities. This is true for both Sissy and Bitzer. Sissy is described as vibrant and full of dark, rich colors. She glows with passion and kindness. Bitzer, on the other hand, is described as a very pale boy. He seems cold and emotionless, with light colored eyes and light colored hair. While Sissy seems to have an aura of goodness, Bitzer does not. He is emotionless. Even in the setting of a classroom, the differences in appearance between Sissy and Bitzer are apparent, for â€Å"Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end.† Sissy seemed to â€Å"receive a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun when it shone upon her,† while the same sunbeam â€Å"seem to draw out of him (Bitzer) what little colour he ever possessed† (Pg. 3-4). The differences between Sissy and Bitzer are so evident that one must have been able to tell which philosophies that they each stand for. Throughout the course of the novel, Sissy and Bitzer’s actions help to describe what kind of personality they each have, which are a... ...s logical to them. Bitzer, however, represents the philosophy of facts and only facts. His actions, appearance, and training at Mr. McChoakumchild’s school show what a person becomes when they follow that philosophy. He had become cold and hard, with not a single thought for anyone but his self-interest. Dickens uses these two characters to show the differences between the two philosophies and the consequences that following these philosophies may have. Through Bitzer and Sissy, the two different philosophies that each represent can be clearly seen: fact versus fancy. Bitzer has become a selfish person who does not care for anyone but himself. Sissy was the emotional center of the book because she was, practically, the only one that had real emotions from the very beginning. It can be distinguished which philosophy Dickens agrees with: fancy. He makes fact seem dull and dead, while making fancy seem colorful and full of life. Sissy is the kind of person that everyone would love, and Bitzer is someone that everybody would hate. Unmistakably, it is easy to tell which philosophy one would prefer. Maybe Bitzer ought to take a couple of lessons from Sissy.

Ukraine After The Chernobyl Disaster in 1986 Essay -- neutralization pr

At the beginning of our project we considered Bertolt Brecht as a possible practitioner for our piece. By using his alienation technique we planned to create a multi-media theatre performance. As a collective, we considered doing this by examining relevant topics and implementing a mixture of verbatim theatre and devised script techniques. However, Augusto Boal is the name of the practitioner that we mainly used throughout the show. We chose Boal, because of the nature of his techniques, which allowed us to experiment with various themes and ideas throughout the performance. Our genuine idea was to create a piece that would show how the media can be used as a source of manipulation of the mass population. Furthermore, showing how the government can use this medium in their advantage, hence controlling the minds of the masses. We based this idea on Boal’s techniques that would involve the audience’s participation. A member of our group came up with the idea of luring the audience into believing that something is real, when in fact it was completely made-up by our group. By using Boal’s theatre techniques such as Forum Theatre, Joker System, Newspaper Theatre and Image Theatre we set out to convince our audience that the British government are planning to release into the atmosphere a new chemical compound called E307 that slows down cells degeneration, thus making people live longer and be healthier. The E307 compound stemmed from our initial idea to create a gas called â€Å"Anarchy Gas† that would have been used to counteract and absorb some of the nuclear radiation over Ukraine after the Chernobyl Disaster in 1986 and eventually speed up the neutralization process. As we delved into our research we divided ourselves in pairs, in or... ...-techniques.html. Last accessed 19th May 2014. David Farmer. (2010). Image Theatre. Available: http://dramaresource.com/strategies/image-theatre. Last accessed 20th May 2014. S. Leigh Thompson. (2006). What is Theatre of the Oppressed?: Image Theatre. Available: http://theforumproject.org/whatisto/imagetheatre/. Last accessed 20th May 2014. Jaqueline D. Burleson (1991). AUGUSTO BOAL’S THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED IN THE PUBLIC SPEAKING AND INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION CLASSROOMS . Louisiana State University: The Department of Communication Studies. 17-30. The Brecht Forum. (2007). AUGUSTO BOAL & THE THEATER OF THE OPPRESSED. Available: http://brechtforum.org/abouttop. Last accessed 22nd May 2014. Alex Maccioni. (2009). AUGUSTO BOAL: THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED. Available: http://chiaroscuromagazine.com/critique/augusto-boal-theatre-oppressed. Last accessed 22nd May 2014.

Kindle Fire, Amazon’s Strategy Essay

The Kindle Fire was released on November 15, 2011 by Amazon. It’s a tablet computer, and it’s the last version of Kindle up to date. The product Its dimensions are 7. 5 by 4. 7 inches, with a 0. 45 inches of depth. The display is a 7 inches (180 mm) multi-touch color screen with a 600? 1024 pixel resolution. Connectivity is through Wi-Fi and USB. The device includes 8 GB of internal storage, which is enough for 80 applications, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books. According to Amazon the Kindle Fire can run up to 8 hours of consecutive reading and up to 7. 5 hours of video. Let’s take a look on the software side. The Kindle Fire runs a customized Android 2. 3 OS. Along with access to Amazon Appstore, the Fire includes a cloud-accelerated â€Å"split browser†, Amazon Silk. The user’s Amazon digital content is given free storage in Amazon Cloud’s web-storage platform, 5GB Music storage in Amazon Cloud Drive, and a built-in email application allows webmail (Gmail, Yahoo! , Hotmail, AOL Mail, etc. ) to be merged into one inbox. Content formats supported are Kindle Format 8 (KF8), Kindle Mobi, TXT, PDF, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF and a lot of others. Why it is an innovative product? And what is the Amazon’s strategy with the Kindle Fire? Amazon tries to surf on the Kindle success by launching this product way under the market price. Amazon is willing to sell its core tablet device at a loss (one-quarter its list price) and at painfully low margins because it is an efficient point-of-sale storefront. They have 18 million songs, books, movies and television programs. The surprisingly low $199 price point will especially undercut smaller competitors and force more affordable hardware and software economics-even at Apple. Amazon founding CEO Jeff Bezos, said that the Kindle Fire is â€Å"a service† that provides â€Å"seamless integration† to all things Amazon for the world’s largest online retailer. That represents a unique pipeline for marketers, as well as content providers, wanting to connect with consumers on very specific fronts, or any interest. Marketers and content providers can follow consumers in all their movements on the website and adapt all the marketing. Amazon’s Kindle Fire strategy is designed to bring consumers closer to their main activity, selling things. The Kindle Fire is pre-loaded with a new AmazonLocal daily deals and services which is a good way to stimulate connections between buyers and sellers. Amazon is linked with NBC Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, CBS and others to become a video service like Netflix. Kindle Fire’s alignment with the Android operating system also puts Amazon in line to do more with Google and its YouTube video service to become a dominant video streaming player.

Negotiating Skills

Negotiation refers to the process of reaching an agreement that is acceptable to all parties. Thus, it necessarily requires the recognition and analysis of the interests of all parties. Successful negotiation requires careful understanding of the perceptions and interests of each party and the utilization of surefire techniques of negotiation (Management Sciences for Health and United Nations Children’s Fund 1998). It is suggested by many that the hardest part in any negotiation occurs before the parties sit down at the negotiation table. This means that a lot of the success in negotiation may be attributed to adequate preparation prior to the actual negotiation process itself (Management Sciences for Health and United Nations Children’s Fund 1998). Preparation to negotiation involves planning and intelligence gathering. One of the important things that a negotiator must learn include the interests and expectations of the parties, the non negotiable and negotiable terms, different negotiation strategies, and possible concessions and other alternatives. Preparing adequately for negotiation would enable the negotiator to anticipate issues and problems and plan strategies in advance, placing him at an advantage (Dolan 2004). Negotiators must act ethically in any given situation. It should be kept in mind that the goal of negotiation is the resolution of conflict and reaching an agreement mutually acceptable to parties. Therefore, both parties must treat each other with respect, transparency and honesty so that the process remains a viable option in case of conflicts of interest (Cohen 2004). Finally, negotiators must know how to act when actions get stalled. There may be no hard and fast rules in such kinds of situations; the ultimate guide to any negotiator lies in the nature of the negotiation process itself, which is a tool for reaching an agreement. Thus, when actions get stalled, parties must exert effort to choose alternative courses of action that could still benefit all stakeholders (Management Sciences for Health and United Nations Children’s Fund 1998). References Cohen, S. P. 2004, â€Å"Negotiation Ethics: A Matter of Common Sense.† The   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Negotiator Magazine [Online], Available at    http://www.negotiatormagazine.com/article217_1.html Dolan, J. P. 2004, ‘Six Steps For Negotiation Preparation,’ Available at Management Sciences for Health and United Nations Children’s Fund. 1998, ‘Negotiation Techniques,’ Available at http://erc.msh.org/quality/ittools/itnegot2.cfm

Aspect Oriented Software Development

The implementation of software applications using GOAD techniques results in a better implementation structure which has an impact on many important software qualities such as enhanced risibility and reduced complexity. In turn, these software qualities lead to an improved software development lifestyle and, hence, to better software. This report introduces to management and software development staff to the concepts of aspect- orientation software development.It presents why aspect-orientation is needed in modern software development and what its contributions are to the improvement of software design and implementation structure. The report also highlight AAA technology details though without probing much in particular, as it present the various concepts of GOAD. After reading this introduction, the reader will understand what GOAD is about, know its key concepts and terminology engaged to elaborate 2. Introduction As software systems becomes more complex developers use new technol ogies to help manage development. The development of large and complex software applications is a challenging task. Apart from the enormous complexity of the software's desired functionality, software engineers are also faced with many other acquirement that are specific to the software development lifestyle. Requirements such as risibility, robustness, performance, believability, etc. Re requirements about the design and the implementation of the software itself, rather than about its functionality. Nevertheless, these non-functional requirements cannot be neglected because they contribute to the overall software quality, which is eventually perceived by the users of the software application. For example, a better believability will ensure that future maintenance tasks to the implementation can be carried out relatively easily and consequently also with fewer errors.Building software applications that adhere to all these functional and non-functional requirements is an ever more co mplex activity that requires appropriate programming languages and development paradigms to adequately address all these requirements throughout the entire software development lifestyle. To cope with this ever-growing complexity of software development, computer science has experienced a continuous evolution of development paradigms and programming languages. In the early days, software was directly implemented in machine-level assembly languages, leading to highly omelet implementations for even simple software applications.The introduction of the procedural and functional programming paradigms provided software engineers with abstraction mechanisms to improve the design and implementation structure of the software and reduce its overall complexity. An essential element of these paradigms is the ability to structure the software in separate but cooperating modules (e. G. Procedures, functions, etc. ). The intention is that each of these modules represents or implements a well-iden tified subpart of the software, which renders the individual modules better reusable and evolvable.Modern software development often takes place in the object-oriented programming paradigm that allows to further enhance the software's design and implementation structure through appropriate object-oriented modeling techniques and language features such as inheritance, delegation, encapsulation and polymorphism. Aspect-oriented programming languages and the entire aspect-orientation paradigm are a next step in this ever continuing evolution of programming languages and development paradigms to enhance software development and hence, improve overall software quality 3. 0Fundamental ideas underlying aspects and aspect-oriented software development The notion behind aspects is to deal with the issue of tangling and scattering. According to Ian Somerville (2009), tangling occurs when a module in a system includes code that implements different system requirements and scattering occurs whe n implementation of a single concern (logical requirement or set of requirements) is scattered across several components in a program. 3. 1 What an Aspect is. Aspect is an abstraction which implements a concern. Aspects are completely specification of where it should be executed.Unlike other abstractions like methods, you cannot tell by examining methods where it will be called from because there is clear separation between the definition and of the abstraction and its use. With Aspects, includes a statement that defines where the aspect will be woven into the program. This statement is known as a pinpoint. Below is an example of a pinpoint (Ian Somerville, 2006) before: call (public void update* (.. )) This implies that before the execution of many method whose starts with update, followed by any other sequence of characters, the code in the aspect after the induct definition should be executed.The wildcat (*) matches any string characters that are allowed in the identifiers. The c ode to be executed is known as the advice and is implementation of the cross-cutting concern. In an example below of an aspect authentication (let's say for every change of attributes in a payroll system requires authentication), the advice gets a password from person requesting the change and checks that it matches the password of currently logged -in user. If not user is logged out and update does not proceed. Aspect authentication before: call (public void update* (.. // this is a pinpoint { // this is the advice that should be executed when woven into // the executing system into tries = O; string swearword = Password. Get ( tries ) ; while (tries Pinpoint: defines specific program events with which advice should be associated (I. E. , woven into a program at appropriate Join points) Events may be method calls/ returns, accessing data, exceptions, etc. Weaving: incorporation of advice code into the program (via source code preprocessing, link-time weaving, or execution time weav ing) 4. 0 Why Separation of Concerns a good guiding principle for Software Development Separation of concerns is a key principle of software design and implementation. Concerns reflect the system requirements and the priorities of the system stakeholders.Some examples of concerns are performance, security, specific categorized in several types. Functional concerns, quality of service concerns, Policy concerns, System concerns and Organizational concerns. Functional: related to specific functionality to be included in a system. Quality of service: related to the nonfunctional behavior of a system (e. G. , performance, reliability, availability). System: related to attributes of the system as a whole (e. G. , maintainability, configurability). Organizational: related to organizational goals and priorities (e. G. , staying within budget, using existing software assets).In other areas concerns has been categorized according to different areas of interest or properties I. E. High level i mplies security and quality of service, Caching and buffering are Low level while Functional includes features, business rules and Non Functional (systematic) implies synchronization, transaction management. By reflecting the separation of concerns in a program, there is clear traceability from requirements to implementation. The principle of separation of concerns states that software should be organized so that each program element does one thing and one thing only.In this case it means each aerogram element should therefore be understandable without reference to other elements. Program abstractions (subroutines, procedures, objects, etc) support the separation of concerns. Core concerns relate to a system's primary purpose and are normally localized within separate procedures, objects, etc. And other concerns tend to scatter and cross multiple elements. These cross-cutting concerns are managed by aspect since they cannot be localized resulting in problems when changes are require d due to tangling and scattering.Separation of concerns provides modular dependency between aspects and components. For instance we would like to maintain a system that manages payroll and personnel functions in our organization, and there is a new requirement to create a log of all changes to an employee's data by management. It would mean that changes will include in payroll, number of deduction, raises, employee's personal data and sass of many other information associated with employee. This implies that there are several codes that will require changes.This process could be tedious and you might end up forgetting changing other codes as well even not understanding each and every code. With aspects you old deal with a particular element only. In this case there won't be redundancy of multiple codes doing the same thing. An update function could be implemented that would be called whenever you would want to implement a particular method. 5. 0 Aspect-oriented Approach 5. 1 Require ment Engineering In requirements engineering there is need to identify requirements for the core system and the requirements for the system extensions.Viewpoints are a way to separate the concerns of different stakeholders that are core and secondary concerns. Each viewpoint represents the requirements of related groups of stakeholder. The requirements are organized according to stakeholder viewpoint then they are analyses to discover related requirements that appear in all or most viewpoints. These represent the core functionality of the system. There could be other viewpoint requirements that are specific to that viewpoint these then can be implemented as extensions to the core functionality.These requirements (secondary functional requirements) often reflect the needs of that viewpoint and may not share there are non-functional requirements that are cross-cutting concerns. These generate requirements of to some or all viewpoint for instance requirements for security, performance and cost. 5. 2 Software Design Aspect Oriented Design is the process of designing a system that makes use of aspects to implement the cross-cutting concerns and extensions that are identified during the requirements engineering process.ADD focuses on the explicit representation of cross-cutting concerns using adequate design languages. ADD languages consist of some way to specify aspects, how aspects are to be composed and a set of well-defined composition semantics to describe the details of how aspects are to be integrated. (Chitchat, Awls Rashes, Pete Sawyer, Alexandra Garcia, Monica Pinto Larson, Jotter Beaker, Bedim Ticonderoga, Skibobs Clarke, Andrew Jackson, 2005) Like in object orientation, several aspect-oriented extensions to ML design language to represent aspect-oriented concepts at the design level.One of these ML extensions is ATOM. ADD in ML requires a means of modeling aspects using ML stereotypes. Is an approach of specifying the Join points where the aspect advice is to be composed with the core system. The high-level statement of requirements provides a basis for identifying some system extensions that may be implemented as aspects. Developing these in more details to identify further extensions and understanding the functionality required is to identify a set of use cases associated with each viewpoint. Each use case represents an aspect.Extension use cases naturally fit the core and extensions architectural model of system. Jacobsen and Eng (2004)) 5. 2. 1 Aspect-oriented Design Process Below is fugue 1 that illustrate the design activities of generic aspect-oriented design process Core system design is where you design the system architecture to support the core functionality of the system. Aspect identification and design Starting with the extensions identified in the system requirements, you should analyses these to see if they are aspects in themselves or if they should be broken down into several aspects.Composition design At this sta ge, you analyses the core system and aspect designs to discover where the aspects should be composed with the core system. Essentially, you are identifying the Joint points in a program at which aspects will be woven Conflict analysis and resolution Conflicts occur when there is a pinpoint clash with different aspects specifying that they should be composed at the same point in the aerogram Name design is the essential to avoid the problem of accidental pinpoints.These occur when, at some program Join point, the name accidentally matches that in a pinpoint pattern. The advice is therefore unintentionally applied at that point. 5. 3 Programming The goal of aspect-oriented programming is to provide an advance modularization scheme to separate the core functionality of software system from system-wide concerns that cut across the implementation of this core functionality. (Kim Mess and Tom Tour ©, 2007) APP must address both what the programmer can say and owe the computer system wil l realize the program in a program system.APP system: mechanisms are conceptually straight forward and have efficient implementations. 5. 3. 1 Joint Point Model A Join point model defines the kinds of Join points available and how they are accessed and used. They are specific to each aspect-oriented programming language for instance Aspects. In Aspects, Joint point are defined by grouping them into pinpoints. 5. 3. 2 Pinpoint A pinpoint is a predicate that matches Join points. A pinpoint is a relationship ‘Join point Boolean', where the domain of the relationship is all possible Join points. 3. 3 Advice 5. 4 Advantages and Disadvantages of APP APP promotes clear design and risibility by enforcing the principles of abstraction and separation of concerns. APP explicitly promotes separation of concerns, unlike earlier development paradigms. This separation of concerns provides cleaner assignment of responsibilities, higher modularization and easier system evolution, and should th us lead to software systems which are easier to maintain. The process is to collect scattered concerns into compact structure units, namely the aspects.On the other hand, APP cannot be elegantly applied to every possible situation. . 0 Validation and verification Validation and Verification is the process of demonstrating that a program meets the real needs of its stakeholders and meets its specification. Validation or testing is used to discover defects in the program or to demonstrate that the program meets its requirements. Statement verification techniques focus on manual or automated analysis of the source code. Like any other systems, aspects-oriented systems can be tested as black-boxes using the specification to derive the tests.However, program source code is problematic. Aspects also introduce additional testing (Ian Somerville (2006)) 6. 1 Testing problems with aspects To inspect a program in a conventional language effectively, you should be able to read it from right to left and top to bottom. Aspects make this as the program is a web rather than a sequential document. One can't tell from the source code where an aspect will be woven and executed. Flattening an aspect-oriented program for reading is practically impossible 6. Challenges with Aspect-oriented Systems One of the limitations of APP is that it is not supported by default on any programming platform. Although it seems to be gaining popularity, its implementation has been undertaken by third parties as extensions to development framework. This has resulted in some level of disparity on the features being implemented as some of the implementations only implement specific features making it difficult to use such frameworks in some situations in addition to creating some confusion over the feature.AAA programs can be â€Å"black-box tested† using requirements to design the tests, but program inspections and â€Å"white-box testing† can be problematic, since you can't always tel l from the source code alone where an aspect will be woven and executed. 7. 0 Recommendations Adopting Aspect Oriented Software development will reduce repetitions of coding or Component maintenance and reuse has a great impact to the company. On the part of cost, the company can determine whether it is easy to maintain its systems or not.Using other development paradigm can be cumbersome hence increasing tangling and scattering. System performance will also be affected in such a way that there could be more codes doing the same thing. GOAD concepts reduce redundancy and increase system performance. All functional and non-functional concerns are dealt with in GOAD. On implementation of security, Design flaws and code errors or bugs old be some of the causes of security flaws in software. Unlike SOD, GOAD approach made Software Development easy with the separation of concerns leading to modularization in reuse.

Funeral Blues: an Explication Essay

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;For nothing now can ever come to any good. In life, people experience moments that are absolutely indescribable; from the birth of a firstborn child, to the death of a parent; things in life that impact us with such unrelenting force, that we are unable to even fathom their depths. It is the job of a writer or poet to make a reader feel the emotions of others, describe the indescribable, and tell a story. W.  H. Auden’s â€Å"Funeral Blues† does all three, and more for readers, due to its beautiful descriptive language, blinding imagery, and theme. The poem demonstrates everything that is needed in such a fine piece of literature. Have you ever heard the rustle of the leaves? The wind whistle, maybe? Both are examples of descriptive language that we hear every day, so often that it has become common. Auden takes the simple things and describes them with sharp detail. â€Å"Muffled drum† is a good example of a solemn drum beat of a funeral procession. Aeroplanes moaning overhead† is a good example of personification, as if the aeroplanes are mourning the loss of the loved one also, and by extension, the world. This effectively gets the point across that the writer feels as if the world has stopped due to the death of this person, and is a very powerful message. The theme of this poem is the loss of a loved one, something that almost everyone has experienced in their life, or seen someone go through. It is known by many as the sick feeling one gets in their gut when they hear the news of death, or the resignation they feel once they know fighting it will do nothing. Death is a natural occurrence, but that knowledge does nothing to alleviate the pain of loss. It many ways, it hurts even more to think that your hardships and pain have been felt by billions before you; insignificance adds insult to injury. That is precisely why this poem works. The writer’s seemingly effortless words mesh together to paint a picture: a perfect understanding of loss. The need for one’s pain to not only be significant, but to be acknowledged by all.

STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM - Essay Example Some primitive traditional practices that we see in Islamic societies today is more a cultural norm than a religious one. A few extreme examples are female genital mutilation and forced marriages. More mundane practices include the prohibition of women from driving cars, etc. These rules cannot be traced to Islamic literature. The edicts in Koran are equally applicable to both men and women. According to Islam, on the moral scale, both men and women are deemed equal. Islam does not discriminate between the status of men or women. The dynamic of a marital relationship requires that man has authority in certain matters. It is incorrect to assume that this implies a lower status for women. It says, â€Å"Man and Woman were created of a single soul and are moral equals in the sight of God. The rights and responsibilities of a woman are equal to those of a man but they are not necessarily identical with them. Equality and sameness are two quite different things. This difference is understandable because man and woman are not identical but they are created equals. This is especially true as it is almost impossible to find even two identical men or women.† (Jafar) According to the Koran, men and women are units of a pair. When both are taken independent of each other, there are certain obvious vacuums in the emotional, physical and psychological personalities of each. The Koran further goes on to say that God has created the two in such a way that they are complementary to each other in different ways, so that these vacuums are generally removed to a great extent. For this very purpose, God gave different mental, physical and emotional qualities to the male and the female of the species. These different mental, physical and psychological qualities, on the one hand complement man and woman, and on the other establishes for them different facets of activity in their

Marketing plan objectives Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Marketing plan objectives - Essay Example Better service provision at UPS Express Critical entail the improving the fleet and adding helicopters reducing time for delivery by 30%. The other UPS Express Critical other objective is a relentless drive for efficiency in terms of the introduction of faster better means of transportation with the addition of the helicopters. An extension of the capabilities also falls among the objectives of the marketing plan in terms of the capability of faster delivery, performance, and meet consumer needs in a fast changing consumer market. Extensive route optimization and improvement of electronic systems allow for the improved profitability and long-term growth of the business. Specialized equipment and services and comprehensive inventory allows for improved structure of the UPS Express Critical business resulting in meeting the other objective of improving service provision and augmenting profitability of the business by 20%. The changes earmarked at UPS Express Critical including introducing helicopters and improving truck, flights, and aircraft inventory aids in meeting an objective of network and operations optimization. The effect is the achievement of further objective of increasing market share in global locations by

Public health and road saftey Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Public health and road saftey - Essay Example This report will discuss the roles of public health in road safety with other sectors to achieve better solutions. The main purposes of public health are to protect, to prevent illness and injuries and to promote healthy lifestyle for the public sector (NPHP, 1997). It has sought to decrease the number of deaths and injuries of communicable and non-communicable diseases among the population, through not merely treating but also reducing the risk factor, education, screening, and other intervention (Wilson A., 2000). Therefore, public health has an essential function to play in road traffic to reduce these risks (WHO, 2004). These functions include: collecting data and evidence, analysing the causes, prevention, protection and promotion. Collecting data and evidence: The hospitals collect specific data in a systematic way as much as possible, on the road crashes injuries, and the methods to conduct the injuries observations and surveys. They have also focused on amount, range, charact eristics and consequences of the road traffic injuries (WHO, 2004). Obviously, it should be mentioned in this point that each sector, such as the police department, has different data needs and the collaboration between these data is important to cover all aspects of this issue to find better results (Binder. S., Runge J., 2004). Analysing the data The reason of studying the data of road traffic trauma in public health is to define the cause of mortality, morbidity and the effect of road traffic injuries on their family and the economy (WHO, 2004, Sleet D., Dinh-Zarr, T., Dellinger A., 2007). This can help the other sectors to determine where the real causes of accidents are. For example, road design, drivers’ behavior, etc., and thus obtains a comprehensive perception of this issue. Prevention and protection: Prevent and protect injuries in road traffic are the central aims of public health which can be achieved through enforcement of the decision-makers to consider the inju ries as an important issue and seek improved safety approaches for road traffic (Boss, A., Pikora, T., Daube, M.,2010). Experimental new methods that prevent and reduce the severity of injuries on road crashes are evaluated by the influences of these actions in them (World Report, WHO, 2004). In an example of this action, by using a speed camera, the use of seatbelts and motorcycle helmets increased. Moreover, participation in disseminating effective interventions (Binder. S, Runge J., 2004) establishes an awareness programs in human behavior, such as short broad cast about the impact of wrong behavioral action on roads. (EMSRRS1 report, 2009). Promotion: In this stage, public health allows all people to achieve healthy lifestyles and decrease the road risk to human health which occurs from environmental, economic, social and behavioral causes (Ottawa Charter, 1986). Conclusion Overall, public health should be in alliance with other sectors for share goal. Works cited Binder S., Run ge J., Road Safety and Public Health: A U. S. Perspective and the Global Challenge. Vol. 10, p 68-69. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States Department of Health and Human Services, USA, 2004. Print. Boss, A., Pikora, T., Daube, M. Road Safety and Public Health Advocacy: The Way Forward. Public Health Adv

U.S. policy toward Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program Essay

U.S. policy toward Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program - Essay Example There is no defined way of getting Iran to drop its nuclear program. But a combination of various technologies can be used to corner the country into doing so. The US government should follow both the carrot and stick approach to persuade Iran to comply by its sanctions. It should make sure its policies are bilateral and multilateral to gain support from the other countries. Here is a threefold plan to achieve the same. 1. The third world countries should be convinced regarding the threat of the increased arms proliferation and the advantages the current US sanctions might bring them to gain their support. The Iranian neighbours should be lured in to give more support to the US policies. 2. The Iranian public should be made aware of the losses they incur due to the sanctions. They can play a key role in making their government drop such activities for the general economic growth of the country. 3. The US government should stop imposing more strict sanctions on the Iranian oil market. It should bargain technological help in core areas in exchange of a cease on the nuclear program. Current Status Iran suffers from various rounds of US sanctions currently. The sanctions have banned the supply of heavy weaponry to Iran by any other country. It has prevented the exports of Iranian arms to other countries and frozen the assets of around 39 individuals and 141 companies whom it think is responsible for strengthening the nuclear power in Iran. The latest sanctions proposed by the US on prohibit all foreign financial institutions to have business contacts with Iran's Central Bank. Under requests from the American government the European Union and South Korea have also agreed not to purchase oil from Iran which comes as a heavy blow to Iranian economy. These sanctions have been imposed upon Iran because they have breached to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations as alerted by the UN's watchdog (Not Quite too Late, 2012). Iran’s Nucl ear Power The US intelligence reports states that Iran purchases advanced technology from Russia and the products necessary to materialize the technology from China. There is an assumption that Iran will develop and test an IRBM or intermediate-range ballistic missile and an ICBM with the support of these countries by 2015. The reports from the CIA state that Iran has close tie ups with North Korea and it is planning to create TD-2 type ICBM and test it within 2015 (Iranian Ballistic Missile WMD Threat to the US, 2000). They also fear a huge range of chemical and biological weapons are stocked by the Iranian government which might be used directly against the US or simply be sold to groups or countries which target the US as their primary enemy. Is it an Imaginary Fear? The US government should consider how far the previous sanctions have prevented Iran from producing the nuclear weapons. It is a proven fact that the sanctions which have been passed on the country for the past 30 ye ars have given very little result. But looking into Iran's ballistic missile history, there is no solid proof that they are capable of developing long-range ballistic missiles or huge nuclear weapons. They created a Shahab-4 which claimed to act as a ballistic missile but turned out to be just an SLV with minimum military applications. Tehran has been boasting about its plan to create

Chemical Firms Plan Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Chemical Firms Plan - Case Study Example The sixteen firms plan a 7.6% rise in spending for new plants and equipment in 2007 to 0.4 billion, down from 28.1% and 16.5% for 2005 and 2006 respectively. While companies surveyed in January 2006 expected to increase capital spending by 17.0, the expected increase in R&D was 4.7%, proving that priorities and spending plans can change over the course of a year. This year's group reports that it actually increased R&D by 9.0%. Of the 16 companies that provided 2007 capital spending plans, 10 expect to increase spending on new plants and equipment compared with 2006, two plan to spend the same, and four have plans to cut back. This compares with 14 that increased spending in 2006 and two that pulled back. In some cases, firms are spending on new capacity in response to customer demands. Other firms intend to make capital improvements to enhance efficiency and productivity. Ferro, for instance, says it is increasing spending to fund productivity improvement and also to underwrite restructuring programs in its electronic materials and colors segments. The firm plans to increase capital spending by 36.4% to million in 2007. Of the 14 firms surveyed on R&D spending plans, nine plan to increase spending in 2007, three plan spending cuts, a... The 14 firms in this group budgeted a combined 0.6 billion for research in 2007, up 5.8% over 2006. Their plans mark a slowdown compared with the collective 7.3% and 9.0% boost to research budgets in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Funds slated for R&D tend to move in a narrower range than those for capital improvements. So when capital budgets jump, a proportionately smaller share of the budget goes to fund research. This year, the firms in C&EN's survey expect to devote 30.3% of future-oriented funds to research, compared with the decade high of 34.8% in 2004 and the decade low of 27.7% in 1997. The combined 2007 budget of the 14 firms that supplied both R&D and capital spending data is .5 billion. Despite the slowdown in the rates of increase, the figure marks a decade high. Four years ago, in 2003, the group's future-oriented spending hit a decade low of .9 billion. A significant run-up in capital expenditures gets most of the credit for the rebound. But take inflation into account, and the funds destined for future-oriented projects won't buy nearly as much as they did 10 years ago. The .5 billion that the group plans to spend this year is only .9 billion in 1997 dollars. Because of the boost in capital spending in recent years, the ratio of investment in new equipment to investment in research has steadily increased. Inevitably, inflation whittles away at the buying power of dollars devoted to research. The .6 billion devoted to R&D by this year's group of 14 companies represents only .1 billion based on a constant 1997 dollar. However, that .1 billion also marks the inflation-adjusted decade high. The Industrial Research Institute's "R&D Trends Forecast for 2007" notes that despite a slowing housing market and wavering consumer confidence, many

Liberal Democratic Tradition Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Liberal Democratic Tradition - Essay Example From these principles, other elements of freedom include individualism, egalitarianism, universalism and meliorism. The presentation was positioned in the minds of the people that it gives a detailed point of liberation. Liberalism is being steered by certain themes such as not allowing the government to take control of people’s life (Buchanan 2008). A good number of Liberals believe that one is entitled to his/her opinions and thoughts. A rebel will agree with a woman who wants to abort. Liberals have support for every woman who is deemed free to choose what is good or bad for her. When it comes to love issues, most Liberals are not bothered with same-sex marriage. Liberals in America believe that every gay or straight is entitled to choose whom to love and marry. There is no boundary when it comes to the issues of the heart. It is clear for every liberal that everyone in society is free to believe in his or her religion. Individuals can believe in what their religion prescribes them to do (Mower, 2012). One can decide to worship throughout the week or even once per week depending on how they want it. If once decides to follow no religion its right for him/her. Religion should be kept private among individuals and that prayer should not interrupt other people (Barry 2009). Liberals believe that whether rich or poor everyone is subjected to equality. Economic conditions should not favor the privileged members of the society. Every member of the community is subjected to equal rights, Resources should be distributed amongst people equally without discrimination of age, race and gender. While individualism is a valid element egalitarianism, meliorism are primary fundamentals of liberalism. As promoted by classical liberalism, egalitarianism defines the equal opportunity everyone is entitled to. This will also comprise legal and political equality. Experts in the

The IKEA Business in the UAE According to the Market Demand Research Paper

The IKEA Business in the UAE According to the Market Demand - Research Paper Example In order to acquire the market share and to be labelled as one of the leading businesses in the world, IKEA has its control over the channels of production and distribution (BusinessWeek 2005). Due to the significance of marketing channels for market acceptance and profitability, developing a formal planning process for formulating and choosing channels is vital (Stern & El-Ansary 1982, p. 222). Much of this control is spelt out in its code of conduct that it calls â€Å"The IKEA Way on Purchasing Home Furnishing Products† (IKEA 2010). This code was launched in 2000 (IKEA 2010). It indicates what suppliers should look forward to from IKEA and suggests what IKEA should expect from its suppliers (IKEA 2010). It not only spells out its expectations in terms of legal requirements, working conditions, external environment, and forestry management but also puts a great deal of emphasis on the active prevention of child labour (IKEA 2010). These policies and guidelines will be utiliz ed when implementing the IKEA business in the UAE. As previously mentioned, IKEA’s biggest competitive advantage over other home stores is its low prices. The low prices are the single element that drives IKEA’s cost reduction strategy. This strategy provides the company with its greatest opportunity but also its greatest challenge. The firm is passionate about cutting costs and transferring savings to the customer. This cost-cutting governs the process of design. Therefore, unless a design can be made affordable, it will not end up in IKEA’s showrooms or catalogues no matter how otherwise marketable the item might be.