Inventing the University

Many beginner or introductory writers are strangers to academic discourse; they do not have the understanding of the principles and logic needed to devise scholarly compositions. Thus, throughout various universities, students are assembling and mimicking the discourses taught by knowledgeable educators, ultimately trying to successfully write for a variety of diverse audiences (Bartholomae 61).Students intuitively understand that they need to reproduce a similar composition in order to gain acceptance in the academic community and to succeed in their coursework. Unfortunately, he or she does not have the knowledge necessary to complete the assignments. David Bartholomae defines â€Å"Inventing the University† as writing processes that college students must undertake each time they create a new composition. He has described the essential reason for making the comprehension of academic discourse the primary component of any first-year writing class.In his essay, Bartholomae off ers insights that could aid college composition teachers in understanding the difficulty beginner students without prior exposure to academic discourse may encounter when trying to write university level writing coursework. Essentially, students must learn to abandon their old discourse communities, use authoritative roles in their papers and use a special vocabulary to become great scholars.David Bartholomae is a leading Professor at the University of Pittsburgh; he is a revolutionary scholar and expert of composition studies. Bartholomae has challenged his profession to observe more intensely, and think more self-critically about what happens when people write and read. His vision of literacy is comprehensive and rational; he has transformed the way teachers think about students which has caused many universities and colleges to modify practices that have needed improvement for a long time.His primary research interests are in composition, literacy, pedagogy; his work engages lear ning in language and in American literature and studies. His thoughts and visions are based on Aristotelian philosophy. Students have entered many discourse communities throughout their lives that have shaped their writing styles and language patterns. Basic writers’ problems when entering college is they â€Å"face a clash, not of dialects but of discourse forms† (Bizzel 295).There are many students from different countries and social classes that come to universities with different abilities to deal with academic discourse. In order for students to effectively reproduce compositions, they need to abandon their previous discourse communities with the help and knowledge of professors. According to Bartholomae’s paradigm, educators are empowered with the responsibility of introducing students to a set of codes and conventions that will allow beginning writers to enter into a new and allegedly empowering, discourse community (67).An important task of an educator i s to â€Å"pry loose† the scholar from their previous discourse community to which he or she had been a part of prior to entering the university (Bartholomae 83). Bartholomae describes these communities as structured by the â€Å"naive† codes of â€Å"everyday' life,† and he asserts that we must replace them with â€Å"the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community† (79, 60).Contrastingly, Harris argues that the role as teachers should not be â€Å"to initiate our students into the values and practices of some new community, but to offer them a chance to reflect critically on those discourses – of home, school, work, the media and the like – to which they already belong† (19). As a fourth year university student, I have taken many literature classes, and by observing many struggling students, I believe that Bartholomae’s arguments are accurate. Students need to conform to the universities’ discourse community to properly compose writing assignments and be proven successful in the course.Many students are penalized for not appropriating a privileged discourse. First year writers have difficulty adopting an authoritative voice in their writing assignments. Writing with authority isn't a matter of correct grammar; it is a prose that displays enough skill and professionalism that it convinces the reader that the author has a purpose to his or her writing. It is important for authors to be comfortable with the audience and to ensure that readers’ expectations are met.Bartholomae explains â€Å"To speak with authority [students] have to speak not only in another’s voice but through another’s code; and they not only have to do this, they have to speak in the voice and through the codes of those of us with power and wisdom†¦ † (78). Writers only gain authority when their arguments can be rel ated to those of other critics (Gaipa 419). A student’s argument can be cogent and engaging, but it will lack authority â€Å"until its author clarifies [his or her] contribution to a larger critical community† (419).Despite having four years experience in academic writing, establishing authority and creating a purpose for various audiences continues to be an exceptionally complex task to achieve. Many hours are spent revising and modifying compositions to generate an academic essay that reaches the professor’s expectations. Most native-speakers of the English language come to a University or College with a vocabulary of approximately twenty thousand words. Generally, students will be taught more than one thousand new words every year from academic writing.Undergraduate’s discover that creating academic composition requires the use of â€Å"professional language† and a â€Å"specialized† vocabulary (Graff and Birkenstein 116,119) However, st udents should not use complex wording in there essays unless the terminology is clear and completely understood. Essays require â€Å"correct and complete understanding of the meaning of their vocabulary in order for the reader to process their intellectual substance† (Stotsky 318) Writers need to learn that â€Å"what they say (the code) is more important than what they meant(the intention)†(Bartholomae 77).I think students underestimate the importance of language used within a composition. Many words are overused by scholars or too difficult for readers to comprehend. To conclude, in order to gain familiarity with scholarly discourse, imitation is essential for the beginner and basic writers. Students continuously struggle with establishing an authoritative voice and satisfying syntactical standards to the teachers’ expectations, therefore continuous practice is necessary.It is to the students benefit to abandon their prior discourse community and engage in th e university’s academia. Ultimately, to become successful authors, students must follow a teacher’s examples and examine their preferable writing styles and techniques. Bibliography Bartholomae, David. â€Å"Inventing the University†. Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005. Print. Bizzel, Patricia. â€Å"What Happens When Basic Writers Come to College? † College Composition and Communication 37, 1986. 294-301. Web. Nov 30. 2009.Gaipa, Mark. †Breaking into the Conversation: How Students Can Acquire Authority for Their Writing† Pedagogy 4, 2004. 419-437. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. Graff, G and Birkenstein, C. They Say I say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York, NY: W. W,Norton & Company, 2006. Print. Harris, Joseph. â€Å"The Idea of Community in the Study of Writing† College Composition and Communications 40, 1989. 11-22. Web. 25 Nov. 2009. Stotsky, Sandra. â€Å"T he Vocabulary of Essay Writing: Can It Be Taught? † College Composition and Communication 32, 1981. 317-326. Web. 27 Nov. 2009.

The Movie Patriot A Piece Of History Film Studies Essay

The first thing I would state about the film is that about everyone watches the film. Peoples watch all types of film including action films, escapade films, comedy films, and many other classs, but when it comes to the history films, people do non believe if the narrative of the history film is a genuinely based on our existent history or it is merely filled with clump of fiction. Peoples normally guestimate that every history film is a portion of a existent history but the world is that about every individual history film contains at least small spot of fiction in it to do it great narrative and to maintain the audience ‘s attending. Traveling on to the chief point, to turn out it incorrect that non every history film is genuinely a portion of the existent history, I watched the film called the Patriot and in this paper I will compare the narrative of the Patriot with existent history to calculate out if the film contains a true narrative of history or is merely a filled with fiction. Let me get down my giving brief sum-up of the film Patriot. This film is about Benjamin Martin who was male parent of seven kids and he declines an offer to contend for the Continental ground forces. However, as shortly the conflict land reaches his front pace and accordingly plenty his 15 old ages old boy named Thomas is killed by Colonel Tavington who was the chief opposition. In consequence of this, Benjamin joins the ground forces and creates his private ground forces of shred ticket husbandmans and farmworkers. His ground forces ‘s chief end was to maintain General Cornwallis in the province of South Carolina by strategically cutting down his supply and ground forces. Their advancement were effectual nevertheless, subsequently in the narrative Martin ‘s another boy named Gabriel became victim to the same colonel that killed his oldest boy Thomas. This causes a last conflict in the film between Martin and Tavington. And at the terminal of this conflict, Martin kills T avington which besides helps led the Continental ground forces to triumph. ( prezi.com ) In the film, during the scene of the last conflict it shows that soldiers were keeping up the several American flags but in world, the huge bulk of the flags used by the Continental ground forces represented where their reserves is from. Another scene in which Benjamin is giving a shop clerk a money in which you can see that he is giving five dollar note with Abraham Lincoln on it and this can non be true because this film took topographic point more than eighty old ages before he was elected as a president. Besides that during the clip of American Revolution work forces normally saluted by taking their chapeau off and take downing their chapeau to the side, so they would set it back on. While in the film, Gabriel merely salutes by seting his manus on his chapeau. In the film all the Continental soldiers seem to hold same outfits and the British are firing down a church which is full of people. While in the world everyone in the Continental ground forces had really different vesture and there has ne'er been found a historical record which showed that British burned the church. ( prezi.com ) In the film there are many factual mistakes. For illustration, in the beginning of the narrative, during the town hall meeting Burwell was stating that we killed 700 of enemy at the Bunker Hill and they were merely kept coming, but in world they killed 226 of them. Besides harmonizing to the book Down and Out in Early America, it was highly impossible in the 1776 that a southern plantation proprietor could easy run a successful plantation which run by free work forces who worked by rewards. It would be about impossible to compare this plantation proprietor which person who used slaved as the work force. Besides that Benjamin Martin seems to be a rules adult male in the film but in world he killed Indians merely for merriment and was known for knaping his slaves. Therefore, I would state that all of these things did non look or they changed it merely to do Benjamin Martin good character in the film respect less of world. In one scene Benjamin Martin shoots a British troop who was on t he traveling Equus caballus utilizing a firelock gun at the scope of about 100 paces. It clearly seems bogus because slug from pulverization gun would non go this much of distance besides that going of this much distance and hitting traveling mark would be really hard with modern guns. ( sbroome ) In the film, Lord Cornwallis is portrayed as really old adult male, which is wrong because during the clip frame of this film in 1780, General Charles Lord Cornwallis was in his mid-fortiess. To be more descriptive, based on my research I found that Cornwallis was born in London on December 31, 1738 and harmonizing to that twelvemonth he would be six old ages younger than George Washington. Traveling to the following point, in the scene where auntie Charlotte takes in the kids after their household place was burned and destroyed, her hair was down. My point is that during the clip frame of the film, adult females merely wore hair down merely during illness or bedtime. Women ever pinned up their hair during the twenty-four hours and eventide, while they were out in the universe therefore, I would state that they this is clear fiction. ( About.com ) In the conflict scene where Benjamin is watching through the farmhouse ‘ window and we can see that Redcoats bayonet charge the Rebels. The soldiers ran across several hundred paces of unfastened land while Redcoat ground forces was good trained ground forces. During that clip military personnels were really of import therefore it was non good thought that parts of the military personnels would merely running about across the battleground. In world, they would hold charged Bayonets and travel towards the enemy. When they are about 50 paces away they would hold marched rapidly and decelerate sufficiency to stay a line. This would treat would do possible to hold control over way in the instance where needed to alter or to call off the order. And when the military personnels reach really near so military personnels could prosecute the enemy. ( sbroome ) In another scene in which Gabriel returns to the Martin plantation with blade lesion from Battle of the Waxhaws, he said that Gates ordered them to process heterosexual at the lobsterbacks. In world, Gates was non present nor the commanding officer at the conflict of Waxhaws. Furthermore, they were processing off when the British attacked. ( sbroome ) In this film, I would state that they tried to flim-flam us, when the British housebreaking to the Charlotte ‘s plantation, Tavington was seeking for the kid that was concealing under the tabular array and when Tavington looks beneath the tabular array to look into if anyone is concealing under or non and at the same clip, Nathan moved out from the underneath the tabular array on the right side and Tavington did non see him. The tablecloth on the table bents several inches from the floor so when Tavington tried to look child under the tabular array he should hold seen the Nathan from the spread that was between the tabular array fabric and floor but he did non saw the kid. Based on this point, it is clear that in this film they tried to flim-flam audience. ( sbroome ) The concluding conflict in the film is the conflict of Cowpens and it seems really large conflict while in world, merely 12 American died and was largely cavalry matter and it was all over in less than an hr. During this conflict there was scene in which cannon ball comes from enemy side and it rolls on the land and cuts the leg off of a figure of soldiers in its way, in which we can clearly see that one of the soldier ‘s leg falls apart good before the ball even touch his leg. Besides in this conflict Tavington and Martin seems contending where Martin foremost attack Tavington with a indicating tool on the terminal of the musket. And he besides attacks into Tavington ‘s pharynx right after first onslaught and we can see that Tavington was falling on the land but in the following onslaught we can see him still standing. The last scene was really confounding so it was difficult to do sense. ( sbroome ) During the American Revolution British were the Masterss of the sea. But in the film they had played with natural Torahs. During the scene of party where we can see that British ship was blown up in the seaport. But the Torahs of natural philosophies describe that behind each action there is an equal and the opposite reaction. When the ship was targeted and destroyed we see the large detonation with fire distributing all over the ship. However, although there was detonation on the ship, ship remains in its original place in the H2O therefore, it did non moved side to side or drop in the H2O it is impossible because based on natural philosophies jurisprudence ship should hold been moved or sunk in the H2O. As we can find that some of the scenes were non accurate hence, there is no drouth that narrative of this film would include fiction. ( Marts.com ) I besides figured geographical mistake in the film, in the scene in which Benjamin and his two of the younger boies were running and go throughing through the forests to disrupt the British who captured their older brother. They seem leaping and concealing around the stones to acquire in place. While in South Carolina it was ne'er glaciated in the portion of the country where this narrative took topographic point. In another scene where Tavington is looking for Martin ‘s kids at the Charlotte ‘s plantation, Susan seem to look out the window covered with Venetian blind. The Venetian blinds was non invented until the 1800s or approximately 100 twelvemonth after the timeframe of the film. To be more descriptive, the recorded innovation of blinds is holds by adult male from Chile named Hernando de Venuto and it was invented on May 20, 1857. ( sbroome ) About every knows that slaves did non like white people during the clip of revolution or any clip during the bondage hence, in the one scene after their place was destroyed, Benjamin Martin direct his household and his friend ‘s household to a slave settlement and they were welcomed at that place and had small jubilation at that place in the consequence of arriving of Benjamin Martin ‘s household. My point is that they should non hold been welcomed to their settlement because during that clip there were really few slaves settlements existed and ointments did non liked the white people. ( chccs.k12.nc.us ) In decision, I would state that even though the film Patriot include many fictional narrative in it but the manager of this film did many of the turn in the existent history to do it look more interesting to audiences and do narrative retrieve. This film besides gives audiences at least small spot of experiencing about American Revolution war. Although I found many mistakes in the film it contains really of import portion of our history and by watching this film, people can larn more about our history and seek to retrieve it as our yesteryear.

Bruce Lee Speech

Gangs ruled the city streets and Lee was often forced to fight them. Bruce’s street fighting began to escalate * Eventually, Lee’s father decided for him to leave Hong Kong to pursue a safer and healthier avenue in the United States New Life in America While in the United Lee abandoned thoughts of a film career in favor of pursuing martial arts but a martial arts exhibition on Long beach led to the invitation for the role of Kato in the Green Hornet and many other movies including the big Boss which was a big success and catapulted him to stardom. Followed by Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon where he was given complete control of the film’s production as the writer, director, star, and choreographer of the fight scenes. * In 1964 Lee had met Karate champion Chuck Norris. * In the movie Way of the Dragon He introduced Norris as his opponent in the final death fight. Today considered one of Lee’s most legendary fight scenes and one of the most memorable fight scenes in martial arts film history Essentially bruce lee became obsessed with martial arts and fitness FITNESS AND NUTRITION * HIs interpretation of keeping in shape was constant daily workouts. His workout consisted of three categories: martial arts sparring, weight training, and extensive AB training. * The workout first consists of hours upon hours of martial arts sparring. Secondly, a series of heavy weight training of his main muscles. Finally, is his extensive workout towards his ABs. Bruce Lee’s favorite muscle was his ABs and whenever he had time, such as watching TV, he would do sit-ups or crunches. Bruce Lee had what most people called â€Å"washboard ABs† and was not afraid to show it, you can see this in almost every fight scene he had in his films. * PHYSICAL FEATS: Lee could land a punch in around five hundredths of a second (0. 05 second) from 3 feet away * Lee could snatch a dime off a person’s open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind * Lee performed one-hand push-ups using only the thumb and index finger Bruce not only took care of his body by working out but as well as having a proper nutrition. Lee took nutrition seriously and his diet consisted high-protein drinks, vitamins, mineral supplements, green veggies and fruit every day. UNFORTUNATELY HE SUFFERED A SUDDEN DEATH ON DEATH AND LEGACY: * On July 20, 1973, just one month before the premiere of  Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong at the age of 32. The official cause of his sudden and unexpected death was a brain edema, found in an autopsy to have been caused by a strange reaction to a prescription painkiller he was reportedly taking for a back injury. Controversy surrounded Lee’s death from the beginning, as some claimed he had been murdered. Summary: * Bruce Lee, pound for pound, was arguably the greatest fighter of our time. Twenty-four years after his death, he remains the standard by which all other fighters are measured. His passion, skill, charisma, philosophy, and innovative martial arts concepts brought him worldwide acclaim– incredibly, all by the age of 32. In such a short span, Lee managed to accomplish more than most of us will ever achieve in our lives. Bruce Lee Speech Gangs ruled the city streets and Lee was often forced to fight them. Bruce’s street fighting began to escalate * Eventually, Lee’s father decided for him to leave Hong Kong to pursue a safer and healthier avenue in the United States New Life in America While in the United Lee abandoned thoughts of a film career in favor of pursuing martial arts but a martial arts exhibition on Long beach led to the invitation for the role of Kato in the Green Hornet and many other movies including the big Boss which was a big success and catapulted him to stardom. Followed by Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon where he was given complete control of the film’s production as the writer, director, star, and choreographer of the fight scenes. * In 1964 Lee had met Karate champion Chuck Norris. * In the movie Way of the Dragon He introduced Norris as his opponent in the final death fight. Today considered one of Lee’s most legendary fight scenes and one of the most memorable fight scenes in martial arts film history Essentially bruce lee became obsessed with martial arts and fitness FITNESS AND NUTRITION * HIs interpretation of keeping in shape was constant daily workouts. His workout consisted of three categories: martial arts sparring, weight training, and extensive AB training. * The workout first consists of hours upon hours of martial arts sparring. Secondly, a series of heavy weight training of his main muscles. Finally, is his extensive workout towards his ABs. Bruce Lee’s favorite muscle was his ABs and whenever he had time, such as watching TV, he would do sit-ups or crunches. Bruce Lee had what most people called â€Å"washboard ABs† and was not afraid to show it, you can see this in almost every fight scene he had in his films. * PHYSICAL FEATS: Lee could land a punch in around five hundredths of a second (0. 05 second) from 3 feet away * Lee could snatch a dime off a person’s open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind * Lee performed one-hand push-ups using only the thumb and index finger Bruce not only took care of his body by working out but as well as having a proper nutrition. Lee took nutrition seriously and his diet consisted high-protein drinks, vitamins, mineral supplements, green veggies and fruit every day. UNFORTUNATELY HE SUFFERED A SUDDEN DEATH ON DEATH AND LEGACY: * On July 20, 1973, just one month before the premiere of  Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong at the age of 32. The official cause of his sudden and unexpected death was a brain edema, found in an autopsy to have been caused by a strange reaction to a prescription painkiller he was reportedly taking for a back injury. Controversy surrounded Lee’s death from the beginning, as some claimed he had been murdered. Summary: * Bruce Lee, pound for pound, was arguably the greatest fighter of our time. Twenty-four years after his death, he remains the standard by which all other fighters are measured. His passion, skill, charisma, philosophy, and innovative martial arts concepts brought him worldwide acclaim– incredibly, all by the age of 32. In such a short span, Lee managed to accomplish more than most of us will ever achieve in our lives.

Training Project Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Training Project - Assignment Example n resource managers, leader leaders and departmental heads due to their day-to-day interactions with employees and their roles in job design and job allocation in the organization. The program is tailored to meet the needs of employees in establishing work/life boundary and considers various aspects of work and personal life that contribute to physical and social well-being of an individual. The program caters for both the organizational needs and individual needs of each employee. By the end of the training program, the managers and team leaders should understand how to create a work/life boundary, how to help their employees in time management and stress reduction strategies. The participants should acknowledge the importance of work/life boundary in improving organizational productivity and increasing employee retention. The participants should be capable of designing a work/life boundary training program for their subordinates. The training program will enable both lectures and case study analysis. The training will entail one-hour lecturers everyday for a period of five days. The lecturers will be conducted inside the company premises. The costs associated with poor work/life boundary are high for both the company and the employees. The program is designed to enable managers know how to help their employees on different aspects of work/life boundary such as improving time management, eliminating burnout, reframing stress, improving health and wellness, and attainment of personal

Experiential Family Therapy with Case of Child with School Phobia Assignment

Experiential Family Therapy with Case of Child with School Phobia - Assignment Example Experiential and Structural Family Therapies will have certain similarities and differences with regard to viewing and understanding of the problem, which refusal by the 7 years old child to attend school. According to Nichols (2013), Experiential Family Therapy believes that family problems are products of emotional denial and suppression by a certain member of the family. Structural Family Therapy argues that families are structures with subsystems controlled by interpersonal boundaries. As elaborated by Nichols (2013), Experiential Family Therapy clarifies that emotional denial and suppression may be due to the belief of the family that every member should adhere and conform to the existing social standards despite having other alternative views of life. A therapist applying Experiential Family Therapy may begin by tracing the nature of the relationship that the child has with the family and school environment while maintaining focus on emotions. Even though Experiential Therapy d oes not focus on relationships leading to the problem, it is worth acknowledging that emotions of individuals have an attachment to a dysfunctional relationship. In case the child is not cooperating, Experientialist may have to interrogate about any inefficient relationship within the child’s environment that is responsible for the emotions leading to rebellion. Experientialist may suppose that the child’s refusal to attend school is due to an uncomforting school environment that results in the buildup of negative emotions. Alternatively, an Experientialist may view the problem as resulting from emotions caused by the failure of the mother and grandmother to provide certain needs that the child sees school colleagues having. In case of this proposition, the emotion may be due to feelings of seclusion and outcast among the school colleagues. Treating the problem will  require that the concerned Experiential Family Therapist interrogate the child and the family but with a special focus on emotion(s) of the child.

Introduction to Economics Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Introduction to Economics Assignment - Essay Example Free Market Economy is also characterized by the rights of individuals to buy and hold private property (Lipsey & Chrystal 2003). This characteristic is an incentive for both buyers and producers. It allows both buyers and producers to make bold and brave decisions. Since producer knows that he can own land, capital and other factors of production, he invests money into the system. Buyers also know that they can acquire goods, property or other thing of value now and can either consume it or store it for future consumptions. This moves the wheels of the economy and leads to equilibrium quantity demand and quantity supplied in the market. It also leads to price adjustments in the economy at a point where the motives of the buyers meets the motives of the sellers or producers. This is also called market creation or market searching. Market searching is the process when the market is trying to adopt or settle at the equilibrium price. Eventually market settles down at equilibrium becaus e in over priced market supply is greater than demand which eventually leads to price going down. If the market is under priced demand is going to be higher than supply and this will result in price hike and eventually equilibrium will be reached. Free Market Economies encourage the process of market searching through market forces working without any intervention from government or other control factors. (Brue & McConnell 2006) Adam Smith also pointed out an interesting phenomenon in the system. He laid the foundations for the concept of â€Å"Invisible Hand† in the free market economy. He was referring to the fact that everything changes in response to the movement in prices. In essence, he was telling the world that in order to achieve their own motives, buyers and producers end up doing good for the system. This interesting fact can be explained in the following example. When a person earns income in this system, he spends it on his necessities, needs and wants. The money spent in the economy changes hand and transfers from the hand of the person spending the money to the producers of goods and services wanted by that person. This encourages producers of these goods and services to employ more resources and produce more goods and services. This leads to employment generation in the economy and when people are employed they tend to invest and save more. This leads to further employment generation and the cycle continues. The focus in this example is on the trickledown effect in the Free Market Economy. Many countries where the socialism dominated previously have realized the importance of Free Market Economic System and are opening up themselves for more private investment and encouraging the development of private entrepreneurs that will provide the impetus for high economic growth rates. The debate here is not about how good or bad the free market system, but it is more about why aren’t countries adopting the model of free market economy in its perfect sense. Even USA is not a totally Free Market Economy. Government controls and regulates the economy in the United States of America as well. The reason for this is simple. Extremism in any system is bad. If a system is totally dominated by private sector without any government regulation of the economy, then there are chances that private businesses might exploit the resources, consumers and the environment. This would lead

The employment effects of the minimum wage Term Paper

The employment effects of the minimum wage - Term Paper Example Beneath the antagonistic claims on both sides bordering on sound political and philosophical principles are assumptions loosely hinged on individual interpretations of the time series of increasing inequalities. Indeed, there are no doubts that the magnitude of the inequality gap widened further over the past decade alone. Nonetheless, questions abound as to whether the statutory minimum wage settings do have any profound effect on the same. This short paper endeavors to highlight the controversy of the current debate and subsequently ascertain with facts the effects of the Minimum Wage on employment. Supportive Evidence: Decent Pay and the Job Loses The employment effect of the minimum wage is by far one of the topics in economics mostly researched and deliberated upon with an effectual outcome of scholarly arguments and counterarguments that boarder more on the authenticity of data used. A statutory minimum wage, by definition, refers to a legal binding remuneration threshold at wh ich employers may buy labor services from prospective workers or workers may sell their labor services to prospective employers (O'Sullivan and Sheffin 130). Although such laws are effective in many jurisdictions, scholars offer varied opinions on the theoretical models that have stood the tests of time, though challenged by a myriad of data collections that continues to this day. Legally sanctioned statutory minimum wage at predetermined levels bears a strong social appeal in manipulating market labor prices to ameliorate the social income iniquity for the vulnerable members of the workforce, particularly the unskilled workers. For many, a fair distribution of the national cake can only be achieved by some political manipulation of the wage structure; a policy argument judged against the sticky poverty statistics (Eatwell, Milgate and Newman 476). Indeed, given that proliferation of industrial working environments where employers pay little attention to workers’ wellbeing, t he establishment of minimum wage legislation is well in order. Entrepreneurial ventures such as the multinational corporations operating in the developing countries have long been blamed for unfair bargaining power over their workers. Clearly, the institutionalization of minimum wage laws in such countries goes a long way in ensuring that workers get at least some decent pay commensurate to the labor services they offer. Even though the above objective is widely popular with the public as a morally justifiable political course, for economists, statutory minimum wage legislations represent a challenge of price distortion within the labor markets, yet with questionable attainment of the intent stated above. From inception, minimum wage laws have received less support from economists than from the enthusiastic public poor/lower cadre workers/unskilled workers who gullibly feel they stand to benefit over their employers. Despite decades of economic research augmented by scientific princ iples, the employment effect of minimum wage legislation remains a contentious policy. A classic exposition of the minimum wage's inability to substantially reduce the income inequality gap by

Topic 2 Eco Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Topic 2 Eco - Essay Example This notwithstanding, another concern that continues to be raised by experts in the field has to do with the cost associated with the use of these tools, where there continues to be debate as to whether or not these state-of-the-art screening and diagnostic tools would not lead to an increase in the rate of growth of healthcare expenditure. Taking a stand on the issue, it would be said that there are two broad financial impacts of the current situation on the rate of growth of healthcare expenditure. These are short term impact and long term impact. Short term impact of the use of state-of-the-art screening and diagnostic tools refers to the financial outcomes of using these tools from the time the spending is made to the next financial seasons when financial season when budgets are prepared. What is noted is that most health facilities purchase these tools not as part of their daily consumables but as lifetime purchases. This means that when they buy them once, they hardly buy them again in a very long time. The prices of these tools are however very high. In the short term when the health facilities would have to made huge financial allocations to make purchases, it can be said that the impact on expenditure will be massive in terms of growth. This is because the current healthcare budget is already plagued with very high demand from the need to achieving quality healthcare delivery (Henderson, 2012). Greater parts of the budgets of health facilities have tried to focus on human resource development in the past and even thoug h this form of spending has not ceased, there has been this new form of spending. The other form of impact is the long term effect of this form of spending, which looks at the results that the screening and diagnostic tools will have on healthcare delivery after about a year of their usage. From this context, it can be said that the usage of these tools promotes quality healthcare delivery, greater part of which focuses on

Strassfeld Shavuot Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Strassfeld Shavuot - Assignment Example The most concrete expression of this imagery is the Sephardic writing of the ketubah between God and the Jewish people. The promises of the bridegroom are to remain loyal to the bride, and carry them in favor. They were to reciprocate this through his love. Because of the peoples’ eager attitude to receive Torah on the morning of Shavuot, people stayed up late at night. Even those who did not stay up arose early in the morning for the shaharit morning service. The rereading of the Ten Commandments in the morning of revelation to the Torah service over shaharit portrays the interest of the people to hear them. This is different from other events such as the Shabbat or the festival. A custom observed during the Shavuot is the shift from the norm culture of carrying the Torah scroll in procession around the synagogue. On this particular day, the scroll passes from one hand to another. Not until everyone touches the scroll, it cannot rest on the reading table. The depiction of God as the groom and the Israelites as the bride is a form of imagery that shows the actual relationship existing between God and people. The condition of a marriage is for the wife to remain loyal to the husband, who provides her with anything she requires. This in actual sense is what God does to people. His expectations are that people will respect the Ten Commandments, which is a symbol of union in the marriage. After they honor the commands, God then shows unwavering love to His people. Just like a wedding scene, full of romantic moments and events, God held Mount Sinai over the Israelites, thus creating the romantic moment in his wedding with the people of

Admission Seeking Interviews Essay Example for Free

Admission Seeking Interviews Essay There are several reasons why a person would consider and actually go through with committing fraud. It could be due to a perceived pressure, for example financial problems, abuses like drugs or alcohol, pressure from superiors, or simply because the individual is a disgruntled employee who thinks the company â€Å"owes them†. Or the reason could be they want to increase their lifestyle like â€Å"keeping up with the Joneses†. Other pressures could come from superiors who coerce employees to go along with the fraud or lose their jobs. Fraudsters rationalize their misdeeds with thoughts like; they will replace the stolen asset in the near future before anyone notices, or maybe the boss is doing it so why can’t I? Higher level employees like the CEO may rationalize that stock prices will be higher if they manipulate the financial statements, after all who they are hurting? It all comes out in the wash, right? Creative accounting is all it takes and adjustments could be made in the future to remedy this year’s fraud. Individuals who do a fraudulent act typically have the opportunity to commit the fraud. It could be because of shoddy internal controls; even with good internal controls a determined person could find a way to override them. A CEO or manager may think they are high enough on the totem pole that no one would question their antics. Once a fraud has been discovered or reported the fraud examiner must do his/her homework. They must secure data and documents to determine if a fraud has actually happened. Once all the evidence has been gathered about the crime and the subjects background has been determined the fraud examiner sets up an appointment which could be a planned or spontaneous event. He/she would interview the interviewee using a variety of techniques and executing objectivity, fairness and professionalism at all times. The subject who thinks the interviewer is out to help them and does ot judge their misdeeds would be more forthcoming with information so it is important that the interviewer thanks the person periodically offers breaks and concessions lie coffee or a drink. Once it has been determined that the subject was involved through investigation and preliminary interviews the examiner would sympathize with the subject stating such things as â€Å"anyone would do that in your position†. It is important that they establish a rationalization and motive for the fraud. The fraud examiner could produce other witness’ statements to try to get the subject to reveal their motive. Once the motive or rationalization is uncovered it would be important to discover how the act took place. What opportunities did the subject have to commit the crime? Examples could be poor internal controls, management that was lax, or the fraudster was capable of outsmarting his superiors. There are many recommended methods to have a successful interview. Each case is unique and has to be handled in a different way, but the outcome is pretty much the same. The purpose to an admission seeking interview is to determine how it was done, opportunity, why it was done, rationalization, and finally what made the person do it, perceived pressure. In closing, people are complex and unique in their make-up; there is no mold or template that determines who will commit a fraud or why they may do it. Not all people that have pressures for example sole providers of a struggling family, or can rationalize a reason, or have the opportunity will commit a fraudulent act. Basically we all have to live our lives under a certain code of conduct. People who deviate from the honest worker lack morals in my opinion. It is up to the examiner to uncover the truth. The fraud triangle is a helpful tool that gives a standard of the typical fraudster. Classifying potential pressures, opportunities, or probable rationalizations and by using the techniques of a successful interviewer one should net the desired result in determining if the subject is indeed guilty or just being set up by the whistleblower for whatever reason.

Lives of Athenian and Spartan Women

Lives of Athenian and Spartan Women Athens and Sparta were known as the famous Greek city states. The two governed their city state differently in political system, social life, economy, education, religious view, and so on. Another main difference was the womens rights and power. Athenian women were horribly treated. They were highly kept and protected at home because the belief to Athenian men was that women were highly sexual beings who could not control their sexual urges and therefore had to be restricted for their own benefit. On the other hand, Spartan women enjoyably live with their status, rights, power, and respect which the women of another Greece city states werent lucky to be delight with those freedom. Spartans realized that regardless of gender all Spartan people had an obligation to serve the militaristic end of Sparta.(Gaughan) This essay mostly focuses on how Athens and Sparta differently and similarly treated their women to the following questions: How were Athenian and Spartan women educated? How did they get married? Could they women divorce their husband? What did they do when they become a mother? How did Athenians and Spartans judge their women? How sociable were Athenian and Spartan women? Did they have right to own property? How did they receive citizenship? What are the similarities between both of them? Athens was a powerful capital and the largest Greece city state. It was a heart of economic, political, financial and culture life in Greece. Athens represented freedom, art, and democracy. Athens was given its name from Athena goddess who is the goddess of wisdom and knowledge and won the competition with the sea god  Poseidon. Furthermore, the government of Athens was limited democracy. And Athens economy mostly depended on trade. Sparta was a well known city state in Greece, and located on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. When Sparta invaded Dorians, and brought both the local and non-Dorian population under control, it appeared as a political entity around the 10th century BC. Later on, it became a strong and dominant military land-power in ancient Greece. It considered itself as the Greece protector, providing expert armies to Greece whenever needed. The political system of Spartan government was a monarchy ruled by two kings. Moreover, economic in Sparta mainly focused on agriculture rather than trade. How were Athenian and Spartan women educated? Athenian women werent expected to get education from school such as how to write and read. However, they were taught reading at home. They were also taught necessary household skills such as spinning, weaving, and sewing, cooking, cleaning and managing other domestic duties by their mothers, and even the slaves whom their families had. Furthermore, they got education about facts on mythology, religion and occasionally musical instruments. On the other hand, since the Spartans believed that if their women are educated and are able to protect themselves; Spartan women could also manage property of their husband while he was gone. As the result, most of Spartan women are literate. At the age of seven, Spartan women were both academically and physically educated. But they didnt receive any knowledge related to domestic work as Athenian women such as weaving, cooking, sewing, and others because these kinds of work were responsibilities of helots and slaves in Sparta. For academic education, they were taught to read, write, and protect themselves. They got cultural education including poetry, social and religious customs, choral recitation, dance and music. In addition, music was a main section in religious festival. Spartan women, therefore, learned to sing and perform dance. For physical education, Spartan women were trained in athlete competitions such as running, wrestling, and javelin throwing. Moreover, they were well known  with their great knowledge in not only breeding and training but also riding horseback and driving small horse-driven carts. How did they get married? Since birth, Athenian girls were highly protected and kept at home. Athenian fathers arranged and married of their young teenage daughter at early age, normally at the age of thirteen or fourteen; to men who were 30 years old and sometimes from prominent families in Athens society. The brides father celebrated a marriage ceremony call gamos, which the aim is to show that the bride was passed to the groom. Athenian bride couldnt meet her groom until the contracts had already been approved. The process of marriage was quite very long and complicated. After the marriage Athenian women were supposed to join or move to live in their husbands family though they werent considered as full member of the new family until they birthed the first child. Unlike Athenian women, Spartan women had non-ceremonial for their marriages. Commonly, they got married at the age of eighteen years old. A Spartan woman was assigned to married a man who came and abducted her at mid night from her family. After that, she shaved her head and wear mans clothes. Then she was able to meet her husband, mostly for children purpose. After marriages, husband and wife lived separately. If husband joined war for too long time, Spartan woman could find a new husband. Could they women divorce their husband? Women in Athens couldnt divorce their husband without providing any reasonable evidences to public official and agreement from their husband. Though they successfully divorced, they would lose all rights to their children. Oppositely, Spartan women could divorce their husband without losing any wealth, properties, and even rights to children. What did they do when they become a mother? Athenian women were supposed to give healthy son who would be strong soldier. Thus they werent allowed to take parts in sport, competition, and military. On the other hand, being a healthy mother producing strong and brave son to serve in Spartan armies was a primary purpose for Spartan women since Spartan was known as strong militaristic city state of Greek. Thus, Spartan women involved in  military training, did exercises, and join athletic competition to make their bodies fit, strong and healthy. How did Athenians and Spartans judge their women? Athenian women were strongly determined on their artificial beauty rather than natural beauty. They liked wearing valuable and elaborate jewelry and nice clothes for being attractive and other purposes. On the contrary, Spartan women were well known for their natural beauty. Consequently, they were forbidden to wear or use any kinds of cosmetics or makeup, especially jewelry, which was a serious avoidance for them. How sociable were Athenian and Spartan women? Athenian women had very less freedom. They had a secluded life since they were forced to stay at home most of the time. They would lose their status if they failed to do so. Since Athenian women were educated, they couldnt have carriers or hold office in society such as prostitute, market seller, flute players, dancers, nurses, and mid wives. Only freewomen of poorer classes could do trade in market places, and went outdoor much more than wealthy women. More than this, women from rich family were physically protected by their slaves or male relatives, and they had to maintain and protect their reputation by not talk closely with men. Though Athens was a democracy, Athenian women still couldnt join public activities such as voting or taking part in state operation. They could neither watch nor participate in the Olympic Games, military training, and even athletic competitions. But, they could leave the houses to join religious festival. Spartan women, on the other hand, lived freely and left the house whenever wanted. They were strongly given confidence to speak in public. They could join group discussion in public. They could involve in military and also politics. Did they have right to own property? Spartan women were allowed to own wealth and property. After married, women in Sparta could own both her husbands land and hers, but her land couldnt become her husband land. Aristotle stated that, by the fifth century B.C., Spartan women owned two-fifths of the land. Spartan women had authority to control, manage and, abandon the land they owned whenever they wished. They could legally  pass their land to sons and daughters. In addition, they could also get income earned form their land. Even thought Athenian women could own jewelry, clothes, inexpensive things, they couldnt get the kind of ownership as Sparta such as owning land, luxuries, or any things that put into contract. In short, they didnt have financial independence. How did they receive citizenship? In idea of Athenian men, women were less necessary. Thus, Athenian women werent offered Athenian citizenship. Unlike women in Athens, women in Sparta were considered as Spartiates and also citizens of Sparta thought they couldnt join public assembly. Receiving citizenship in Sparta, one had to withdraw profit from owning land to pay for government. As what mentioned above, Spartan women could own land, so they could be awarded the Spartan citizenship. What are the similarities between both of them? According to what shown above, the life of Athenian and Spartan women are different from each other. However, they still had several commons. Both of them were required to get married. And the marriages were arranged by fathers. More than this, the two were expected to give strong and healthy sons. The two had to bear their children. They couldnt join assembly. They could own property. In short, women status in Sparta and Athens are quite different from each other. As we see, while Spartan women were educated to write, read, and know about cultural knowledge, Athenian women were taught managing household duties. For marriage, Athenian women were expected to get married in early age, and the process of getting married seemed be complicated. But in Sparta, women got married unless they were eighteen years old. Moreover, Athenian women were judged on artificial beauty, but Spartan woman were judged on natural beauty. And Spartan women were very active in the public. Contrast of Spartan women, Athenian women stayed at home most of the time. Last but not least, Athenian women didnt have valuable property ownership as Spartan women. Comparing ancient Athenian women to women nowadays, there are both similarities and differences. For similarities, both of them were pressed to produce  children and take care them, looked after home, and increased their beauty and attractiveness by wearing additional jewelry and beautiful clothes. One more similarity is that marriage is an important thing for their lives. Though they are similar, they are still different from each other. In contrast to ancient Athenian women, present women can go to work and do their own careers. They are sociable; they can go wherever they want, do whatever they prefer, and talk with whomever they like. Moreover, the marriages of modern women are mostly not arranged or chosen by their parents. Another difference is that women nowadays can involve or have status in politics and government. They also have right to education, and to own property as men have. However, most of what modern women can do is the same as what ancient Spartan could do. Consequently, we can assume that modern women and ancient Spartan women share many similarities. In my own view, if I had been born in ancient Greek, I would have preferred to be a woman of Sparta.

Project Management Essay -- Careers Employment Essays

Project Management Project Management is quickly becoming a field of study and importance in the business world. A search on the Internet of the title â€Å"Project Management† yields hundreds or results including forums, training manuals and job openings for related positions. Project Management is a broad term referencing the necessary steps taken by management to ensure a product is feasible before and during implementation. According to Project Management Learning Objectives, the steps to achieve success in this area include: testing and measuring products, evaluating and managing the product cycle, comparing costs and benefits, measuring product worth, economic analysis, product analysis, teambuilding and leadership, and budgeting and cost control (Project Management Outline). Project Managers oversee many different areas of the business and are responsible for project success. Importance of Project Management Since the concept of Project Management is broad, many different aspects of a business rely on successful Project Management. â€Å"Projects† can include product line development, attaining company goals, boosting employee morale, and product costing, to name a few. This area of business is important because it determines every minute detail required to get the product produced and to the consumer. There are several steps required to assure project success. These steps are briefly outlined in the following paragraphs. Step 1: Determine project goals. It is important to define what the project is, as well as what the expected inputs and outputs are. According to Project Management Tutorial Online, in order for project goals to be accomplished, this must be a team oriented decision. â€Å"Give everyone the opp... ...p together to create a quality product. However, if implemented incorrectly, project management can upset employees, break team bonds and result in a poor product, if any. Project Management can be used in all different businesses, it is a way to bring together employees to work towards the same goal. It has been proven that if employees are involved in the project decision making they feel confident and excited about the project results. Thus, they are more willing to dedicate quality time and effort into the process. The size of the project is not an issue, the concepts in project management should be used every time there is a task that needs to be completed by the help of a few employees. Through the research or project management it can be learned that you can have a bad project, but with the proper implementation, that bad project can come out a success.

Symbols and Symbolism in Hawthornes Scarlet Letter - The Symbol of Pearl :: Scarlet Letter essays

The Symbol of Pearl In Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, Pearl, is the human symbol of the sin of adultery in the fact that she leads her mother, Hester Prynne, and Arthur Dimmesdale to accept and admit to their sin. Pearl is the beautiful daughter of Hester and Dimmesdale. She is the living symbol of the scarlet letter and has unique traits that make her sometimes appear as a demon. Her love for nature and freedom, her spirit, her wildness, her loneliness and separation from the world, her curiosity, and her innocent but symbolic comments reveal her distinct personality. Pearl senses and knows things she should not, making her a symbol. Pearl is also the living symbol of Hester and Dimmesdale's connection, as displayed in the following passage. "In her was visible the tie that united them. She had been offered to the world, these seven years past, as the living hieroglyphic, in which was revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide, -- all written in this symbol, -- all plainly manifest, -- had there been a prophet or magician skilled to read the character of flame! And Pearl was the oneness of their being"(Hawthorne 141). Pearl is a beautiful, misbehaved child. The first thing that Pearl ever notices is her mother's 'A' across her chest. As a child, Pearl throws rocks at the scarlet letter, making a game out it. Growing up, Pearl is not accepted by anyone. She screams at other children, knowing that they do not accept her. Not knowing what a true friend is, she makes imaginary enemies to fight with. In The Scarlet Letter, Pearl is referred to as "one of those naughty elfs or fairies or...a little bird of scarlet plumage" (Hawthorne 97). The comparison of Pearl to an elf or fairies adds a sense of alienation and myster y to her personality. When she is compared to a red bird, the emphasis of color increases the visual sense of Pearl's character, and the comparison to a bird indicates that she is full of wild energy. (Chiquita) Initially Pearl symbolizes the shame of Hester's public punishment for adultery. Then as Pearl grew older, she symbolizes the wreck of Hester's life and mental state by harassing her mother over the scarlet 'A' which is embroidered on her dress (Yang). Pearl is a symbol for Hester's scarlet letter.

TS Eliot paper -- essays research papers

â€Å"Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?† T.S. Eliot (T.S. Eliot Quotes.) TS Eliot was not only a poet, but a poet that wanted to change his world. He was writing in the hopes that it would give his society a reality check that would encourage them to change themselves and make their lives more worthwhile. Through his themes of alienation, isolation, and giving an example of a decaying society, TS Eliot wanted to change his society. Alienation is a common theme that consistently runs throughout TS Eliot’s poetry. Eliot knew how alienation felt first hand through his experience of being born in Missouri and later moving to Boston to go to college. He described himself as feeling like a New Englander in the Southwest, and a South westerner in New England (Bush, TS Eliot’s Life and Career). Knowing this feeling made it easy for him to write many poems concerning this idea such as Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Half-past two, The street lamp said, "Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, Slips out its tongue And devours a morsel of rancid butter." So the hand of a child, automatic, Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. I could see nothing behind that child's eye. (Poetry Archive) This poem doesn’t deal with alienation where a person is all alone and there is absolutely no one around. In fact, there are people present but they ...

Mid-Term Break Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney ‘Mid-Term Break’ The main theme of ‘Mid-Term Break’ is the tragedy of the death of a young child, whose life ‘break[s]’ when he is only four years old; this tragedy also ‘break[s]’ the lives of others, specifically the child’s parents and brother. The tone of the poem is very sombre, as it explores the manifold ways in which lives are broken and shattered by death. In literal terms, the title refers to the ‘Mid-term Break’ of a school vacation; in this sense it is highly ironic, as the holiday the poem’s narrator gets from school after ‘six weeks’ of classes is not for a vacation, but for a funeral.However, as indicated in reference to the theme, ‘break’ has other meanings relating to the broken life of the dead child and to the broken life of those close to him. Additionally, ‘Mid-Term’ can be read not just as referring to a school holiday, but to a ter m of life; thus the child’s life has been broken prematurely, in ‘mid-term. ’ So while on a literal level the title refers to a school vacation, on a metaphoric level it refers to a life which has been broken before its natural span.Though the poem is set out in even three-lined verses, except for the anomalous last line, it is actually structured around three geographic locales, locales which are also distinguished from each other in temporal terms: the ‘college,’ location of the first verse, in which the narrator remains ‘all morning’ until ‘two o’clock,’ the narrator’s house, mainly the front porch and front room, where the narrator remains until ‘ten o’clock’ at night when the body is brought home and, finally, the upstairs room where the corpse is laid out, which the narrator visits the ‘Next morning. The movement is one from the exterior world of school and non-familial acquainta nces, to the interior world of the house, friends and family, and finally to the upstairs room where the narrator stands alone with the body of his brother. This movement can reflect the way in which death isolates us and sets us apart: as the narrator is increasingly isolated, finally left alone with the corpse, so death separates us from normal human interactions and leaves us alone to confront our mortality. This sense of increasing alienation from the world of normative human existence is marked throughout the poem.The first people the narrator refers to, in the first verse of the poem, are the ‘neighbours’ who drove him home; however, once at home, he is disconcerted to find his ‘father crying,’ an action which the narrator regards as disturbingly abnormal for a man who ‘had always taken funerals in his stride. ’ The baby’s actions in ‘coo[ing] and laugh[ing] and rock[ing] the pram’ also disturb the narrator, as he clea rly finds them incongruous; he is further ‘embarrassed/By old men standing up to shake [his] hand//And tell [him] they were ‘sorry for [his] trouble. ’ Alienation is increased as the narrator now uses personification to create a sense of disembodiment: ‘Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest;’ he is further distressed by his mother’s reaction, as she ‘coughed out angry tearless sighs. ’ Here, the unusual collocation of ‘coughed’ and ‘sighs’ works to create a sense of disturbance and discord: it is almost as if the mother’s actions make no logical sense.Finally, the narrator feels alienated even from his young brother: it is not his brother who is brought home at night but a ‘corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. ’ Thus the narrator feels increasingly set apart from the world around him, even distanced from the body of his brother, profoundly alienated and intensely self-con scious of his own alienation. This self-consciousness, finally, is emphasised by the extensive use of the subject pronoun ‘I,’ the object pronoun ‘me’ and the possessive determiner ‘my’ in the first six verses of the poem.The narrator declares ‘I sat all morning;’ ‘our neighbours drove me;’ ‘I met my father;’ ‘I came in, and I was embarrassed;’ ‘to shake my hand;’ ‘tell me they were ‘sorry for my trouble;’’ ‘I was the eldest;’ ‘my mother held my hand;’ ‘I went up into the room’ This extensive self-reference is only abandoned in the last few lines of the poem, when the narrator finally looks at the body of his brother, ‘him,’ as ‘Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,/He lay in the four foot box as in his cot†¦. the bumper knocked him clear. ’ From a state of almost morbid self-aware ness, therefore, the narrator is brought into a contemplation of his brother’s body, a contemplation that leads him to reflect not just upon the subjective embarrassment he feels, but upon the objective tragedy of his brother’s death.

Ethical Leadership in Organizations Essay

Ethical leadership is leadership that is involved in leading in a manner that respects the rights and dignity of others. As leaders are by nature in a position of social power, ethical leadership focuses on how leaders use their social power in the decisions they make, actions they engage in and ways they influence others. Leaders who are ethical demonstrate a level of integrity that is important for stimulating a sense of leader trustworthiness, which is important for followers to accept the vision of the leader. Leaders who are ethical are people-oriented, and also aware of how their decisions impact others, and use their social power to serve the greater good instead of self-serving interests. Motivating followers to put the needs or interests of the group ahead of their own is another quality of ethical leaders. Motivating involves engaging others in an intellectual and emotional commitment between leaders and followers that makes both parties equally responsible in the pursuit of a common goal. Ethical leadership falls within the nexus of inspiring, stimulating, and visionary leader behaviours that make up transformational and charismatic leadership. Ethical leaders assist followers in gaining a sense of personal competence that allows them to be self-sufficient by encouraging and empowering them. What is Ethical Leadership? One typical response to the â€Å"ethics crisis† in business is a clarion call for more â€Å"ethical leadership,† yet there are few explanations of what exactly is meant by the term. Many executives and business thinkers believe that ethical leadership is simply a matter of leaders having good character. By having â€Å"the right values† or being a person of â€Å"strong character,† the ethical leader can set the example for others and withstand any temptations that may occur along the way. Without denying the importance of good character and the right values, the reality of ethical leadership is far more complex and the stakes are much higher. Over the past 25 years, in talking to executives in a number of industries about the problems of how to lead in a world of great change—globalization, democratization, and incredible technological advances—we have identified a number of touchstones for the idea of â€Å"ethical leadership.† Our experience is often contrary to the picture of business executives one finds in public discussion where they are often seen as greedy, competitive, and only concerned with compensation. In fact most executives want to be effective in their jobs and to leave their companies and the world a better place, creating value on both fronts for those whose lives they affect. Our view of ethical leadership takes into account not only the leader but also his constituents (followers and key stakeholders), the context or situation that the leader and constituents face, the leader’s processes and skills, and the outcomes that result. Leaders are first and foremost members of their own organizations and stakeholder groups. As such, their purpose, vision, and values are for the benefit of the entire organization and its key stakeholders. â€Å"Leaders see their constituents as not just followers, but rather as stakeholders striving to achieve that same common purpose, vision, and values. These follower and stakeholder constituents have their own individuality and autonomy which must be respected to maintain a moral community.† Ethical leaders embody the purpose, vision, and values of the organization and of the constituents, within an understanding of ethical ideals. They connect the goals of the organization with that of the internal employees and external stakeholders. Leaders work to create an open, two-way conversation, thereby maintaining a charitable understanding of different views, values, and constituents’ opinions. They are open to others’ opinions and ideas because they know those ideas make the organization they are leading better. Characteristics of Ethical Leaders In today’s turbulent world, ethics and values are present at a number of levels for executives and managers—leaders who devote their time and energy to leading the process of value creation. This broader concept of ethical leadership empowers leaders to incorporate and be explicit about their own values and ethics. The following list provides a framework for developing ethical leadership. It is based on the observations of and conversations with a host of executives and students over the past 25 years, and on readings of both popular and scholarly business literature. Written from the perspective of the leader, these ten facets of ethical leaders offer a way to understand ethical leadership that is more complex and more useful than just a matter of â€Å"good character and values.† â€Å"It is important for leaders to tell a compelling and morally rich story, but ethical leaders must also embody and live the story. This is a difficult task in today’s business environment where everyone lives in a fishbowl—on public display. So many political leaders fail to embody the high-minded stories they tell at election time, and more recently, business leaders have become the focus of similar criticism through the revelations of numerous scandals and bad behaviours. CEOs in today’s corporations are really ethical role models for all of society.† 1. Articulate and embody the purpose and values of the organization. Following a series of unethical activities by Citigroup employees in Japan in 2004, new CEO Chuck Prince fired several executives, publicly accepted responsibility and bowed apologetically to Japanese officials. Not only did Prince’s message resonate within Japan, but it also signalled a new era of â€Å"shared responsibility† within the culture of Citigroup where every employee was expected to take ownership for their decisions that affected the enterprise. 2. Focus on organizational success rather than on personal ego. Ethical leaders understand their place within the larger network of constituents and stakeholders. It is not about the leader as an individual, it is about something bigger—the goals and dreams of the organization. Ethical leaders also recognize that value is in the success of people in the organization. In 1998, in a bold gesture demonstrating how he valued the company’s line employees, Roger Enrico, former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, chose to forego all but $1 of his salary, requesting that PepsiCo, in turn, contribute $1 million to a scholarship fund for employees’ children. In a similar manner, the founders of JetBlue began a process of matching, from their salaries, employee donations to a charity. Today, their entire salaries go to the JetBlue Crewmember Catastrophic Plan charity, to assist staff with crises not covered by insurance. The point of these examples is not that ethical leaders donate their salaries to charities, but rather that ethical leaders identify and act on levers, such as employee loyalty, that drive organizational success. 3. Find the best people and develop them. This task is fairly standard in different models of leadership. Ethical leaders pay special attention to finding and developing the best people precisely because they see it as a moral imperative—helping them to lead better lives that create more value for themselves and for others. Finding the best people involves taking ethics and character into account in the selection process. â€Å"Ethical leaders pay special attention to finding and developing the best people† Many CEOs have said to us that judging someone’s integrity is far more important than evaluating their experience and skills. Yet, in many organizations, employees are hired to fill a particular skill need with little regard to issues of integrity. 4. Create a living conversation about ethics, values and the creation of value for stakeholders. Too often business executives think that having a laminated â€Å"values card† in their wallet or having a purely compliance approach to ethics has solved the â€Å"ethics problem.† Suffice it to say that Enron and other troubled companies had these systems in place. What they didn’t have was a conversation across all levels of the business where the basics of value creation, stakeholder principles and societal expectations were routinely discussed and debated. There is a fallacy that values and ethics are the â€Å"soft, squishy† part of management. Nothing could be further from the truth. In organizations that have a live conversation about ethics and values, people hold each other responsible and accountable about whether they are really living the values. And, they expect the leaders of the organization to do the same. Bringing such a conversation to life means that people must have knowledge of alternatives, must choose every day to stay with the organization and its purpose because it is important and inspires them. Making a strong commitment to bringing this conversation to life is essential to do if one is to lead ethically. Most people know the story of Johnson and Johnson’s former CEO Jim Burke and the Tylenol product recall in the 1980s in which, at a great short-term financial cost, he pulled all potentially tampered-with products off the shelves, thereby keeping the public’s trust intact. The less well-known background to this story, however, is critical to understanding the final outcome. Well before the Tylenol crisis hit, Johnson & Johnson had held a series of â€Å"challenge meetings† all around the world, where managers sat and debated their â€Å"Credo,† a statement of their purpose and principles of who they wanted to be as a company. The conversation about ethics at Johnson & Johnson was alive, and in many ways made Jim Burke’s choice about handling the situation clearer than it otherwise would have been. 5. Create mechanisms of dispute. This needs to be made part of the organizational culture, not just a line item in a compliance program document. Some companies have used anonymous e-mail and telephone processes to give employees a way around the levels of management that inevitably spring up as barriers in large organizations. Many executives also have used â€Å"skip level† meetings where they go down multiple levels in the organization to get a more realistic view of what is actually going on. General Electric’s famous â€Å"workout† process—where workers meet to decide how to fix problems and make the company better—was a way for front line employees to push back against the established policies and authority of management. All of these processes lead to better decisions, more engaged employees, and an increased likelihood of avoiding damaging mistakes. In a company that takes its purpose or values seriously, there must be mechanisms of pushing back to avoid the values becoming stale and dead. Indeed, many of the current corporate scandals could have been prevented if only there were more creative ways for people to express their dissatisfaction with the actions of some of their leaders and others in the companies. The process of developing these mechanisms of dissent will vary by company, by leadership style, and by culture, but it is a crucial leadership task for value creation in today’s business world. 6. Take a charitable understanding of others’ values. Ethical leaders can understand why different people make different choices, but still have a strong grasp on what they would do and why. Following twenty-seven years in South African prisons, Nelson Mandela was still able to see the good in his jailers. After one particularly vicious jailer was being transferred away from Robbins Island because of Mandela’s protest and push back, the jailer turned to Mandela and stated â€Å"I just want to wish you people good luck.† Mandela interpreted this statement charitably as a sign that all people had some good within them, even those caught up in an evil system. Mandela felt that it was his responsibility to see this good in people and to try and bring it out. One CEO suggested that instead of seeing ethical leadership as preventing people from doing the wrong thing, we need to view it as enabling people to do the right thing. 7. Make tough calls while being imaginative. Ethical leaders inevitably have to make a lot of difficult decisions, from reorienting the company’s strategy and basic value proposition to making individual personnel decisions such as working with employees exiting the organization. Ethical leaders do not attempt to avoid difficult decisions by using an excuse of â€Å"I’m doing this for the business.† The ethical leader consistently unites â€Å"doing the right thing† and â€Å"doing the right thing for the business.† The idea that â€Å"ethical leadership† is just â€Å"being nice† is far from the truth. Often, exercising â€Å"moral imagination† is the most important task. Mohammed Yunus founded the Grameen Bank on such moral imagination. By taking the standard banking practice of only lending to people with collateral, and turning it on its head, Yunus spawned an industry of micro-lending to the poor. The Grameen Bank’s motto is that poverty belongs in a museum. In addition to having one of the highest loan repayment rates in the banking industry, the bank’s program of lending to poor women in Bangladesh to start businesses has helped millions of them to be able to feed themselves. 8. Know the limits of the values and ethical principles they live. All values have limits, particular spheres in which they do not work as well as others. The limits for certain values, for instance, may be related to the context or the audience in which they are being used. Ethical leaders have an acute sense of the limits of the values they live and are prepared with solid reasons to defend their chosen course of action. Problems can arise when managers do not understand the limits of certain values. As an example, one issue common to the recent business scandals was that managers and executives did not understand the limits of â€Å"putting shareholders first.† Attempts to artificially keep stock prices high—without creating any lasting value for customers and other stakeholders—can border on fanaticism rather than good judgment. Ethics is no different from any other part of our lives: there is no substitute for good judgment, sound advice, practical sense, and conversations with those affected by our actions. 9. Frame actions in ethical terms. Ethical leaders see their leadership as a fully ethical task. This entails taking seriously the rights claims of others, considering the effects of one’s actions on others (stakeholders), and understanding how acting or leading in a certain way will have effects on one’s character and the character of others. There is nothing amoral about ethical leaders, and they recognize that their own values may sometimes turn out to be a poor guidepost. The ethical leader takes responsibility for using sound moral judgment. But, there is a caution here. It is easy to frame actions in ethical terms and be perceived as â€Å"righteous.† Many have the view that ethics is about universal, inviolable principles that are carved into stone. We need to start with principles and values, and then work hard to figure out how they can be applied in today’s complex global business environment. Principles, values, cultures, and individual differences often conflict. Ethical leadership requires an attitude of humility rather than righteousness: a commitment to one’s own principles, and at the same time, openness to learning and to having conversations with others who may have a different way of seeing the world. Ethics is best viewed as an open conversation about those values and issues that are most important to us and to our business. It is a continual discovery and reaffirmation of our own principles and values, and a realization that we can improve through encountering new ideas.

Gender stereotypes are still pervasive in our culture Essay

TOPIC AND RATIONALE Gender stereotyping is a topic we find all around us and without exception in early years settings. There is a set of notions about how girls/women and boys/men are expected to behave in society, therefore is very difficult not to transmit those ideas in Early Education. Often we find children which already have implemented a gender role and behave based on our assigned sex. I have chosen this subject because I am aware, as I have to deal with that every single day, of how gender stereotype affects people. I believe the best way to fight this issue is through education and promoting gender equality in early childhood settings. At my placement I have already seen several situations where girls dress in pink as they consider is their favorite color, draw and wish to be princesses and would like to be ballerinas when they grow up. Boys spend all the playground time playing football or using their imaginary gangs, dressing in dark colors or not allowing girls playing in the building construction area claiming that is not a game for them. Being personally affected and observing this conduct in young children at the childhood practice setting and in the nursery where I work, was my motivation to write about this interesting topic, which in some situations touch children subtlety, and in others can trigger a negative impact affecting in many ways their being. AIM AND OBJECTIVES My target is to find out if gender equality is promoted in early years settings. RELEVANT THEORIES AND APPROACHES to children’s learning and development and links with knowledge acquired through the HNC HOW TOPIC LINKS TO CHILDREN’S INDIVIDUAL NEEDS, RIGHTS, AND INTERESTS Gender Equality is at the core of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which outlines in a few articles the relevance of the equality rights for all children independently of their gender. The Article 2 is directly related to the topic chosen and promotes non-discrimination. The Article 12 and 13 determinates the respect for the views of the child and their freedom of expression. Both of them encourage children to express their thoughts and feelings freely. Those right are important in the subject because their voices can be taken seriously if they feel affected by gender discrimination. The Articles 28 and 29 talk about rights and goals of education. Those articles promote education with the respect of the human rights including themselves, addressing gender discrimination and supporting equality among girls and boys. Finally, we have to have into consideration Article 4 which states that governments have to create systems and laws to promote and protect children rights, enabling all the above rights possible. Here a summary of the articles mentioned are shown: †¢ Article 2 – â€Å"The Convention applies to every child without discrimination, whatever their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities or any other status, whatever they think or say, whatever their family background.† †¢ Article 12 – â€Å"Every child has the right to express their views, feelings, and wishes in all matters affecting them, and to have their views considered and taken seriously. This right applies at all times, for example during immigration proceedings, housing decisions or the child’s day-to-day home life.† †¢ Article 13 – â€Å"Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information, as long as it is within the law.† †¢ Article 28 –â€Å"Every child has the right to an education. Primary education must be free and different forms of secondary education must be available to every child. Discipline in schools must respect children’s dignity and their rights. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.† †¢ Article 29 – â€Å"Education must develop every child’s personality, talents, and abilities to the full. It must encourage the child’s respect for human rights, as well as respect for their parents, their own and other cultures, and the environment.† †¢ Article 4 – â€Å"Governments must do all they can to make sure every child can enjoy their rights by creating systems and passing laws that promote and protect children’s rights.†

An Investigation Into the Factors Influencing the Implementation

Chapter One Introduction 1. Introduction This chapter will cover the background of the research problem, purpose of study, hypotheses, importance of the study, and the scope of the study. The chapter introduces the major concepts of the study of strategic alliances and agent banking models. 1. 1. Background 1. 1. 1 Strategic Management Process Although most can agree that a firm’s ability to survive and prosper depends on choosing and implementing a good strategy, there is less agreement about what constitutes a good strategy (Barney, 2008).However, there seems to be an agreement as to what a strategy really means: a firm’s theory about how to gain competitive advantage. The strategic management process is a sequential set of analyses and choices that can increase the likelihood that a firm will choose a strategy that generates competitive advantage (Hesterly, 2008). The first step is mission (long term purpose) definition, followed by setting of objectives, that is, sp ecific measurable targets that a firm uses to evaluate the extent to which it is realizing its mission.The next phase are the internal and external analyses, where a critical evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats is done in regard to both the internal and external environments. Once a firm establishes a sound balance between internal capabilities and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats, the management is in an informed position to select strategies that presents the best way possible to achieve the firm’s objectives. Barney (2008) categorizes strategy choices into business level strategies and corporate level strategies.Business-level strategies are actions a firm takes to gain competitive advantage in a single market and includes cost leadership, differentiation and focus. Corporate level strategies are actions a firm takes to gain competitive advantage in multiple markets and includes vertical integration strategies, strategic all iances, mergers and acquisitions. This study draws its subject on strategic alliances as a corporate-level strategy a firm may choose to achieve its broad objectives. 1. 1. 2 Strategic AlliancesA strategic alliance exists whenever two or more independent organizations cooperate in the development, manufacture, or sale of products or services. These alliances can be groped into three broad categories: nonequity alliances, equity alliances, and joint ventures (Barney, 2008). In a nonequity alliance, the cooperative relations are managed through the use of various contracts: licensing agreements, supply agreements, and distribution agreements. For instance, in the banking industry, agent banking falls under distribution agreements since agents are contracted by banks to offer banking services on behalf of the banks (C.G. A. P, 2009). 1. 1. 3 Agent Banking In a growing number of countries, banks and other commercial financial service providers are finding new ways to make money and deli ver financial services to unbanked people (Lyman, 2009). Rather than using bank branches and their own field officers, they offer banking and payment services through third parties. For poor people, â€Å"branchless banking† through retail agents may be far more convenient and efficient than going to a bank branch (C. G. A. P, 2009).For many poor customers, it will be the first time they have access to any formal financial services—and formal services are usually significantly safer and cheaper than informal alternatives. Two models of branchless banking through retail agents are emerging: one led by banks, the other by non-bank commercial actors (Lyman, 2009). Both use information and communication technologies, such as cell phones, debit and prepaid cards, and card readers to transmit transaction details from the retail agent or customer to the bank (C. G. A. P, 2009).Branchless banking through retail agents appeals to policymakers and regulators because it has the p otential to extend financial services to unbanked and marginalized communities. But it also challenges them to ask: What are the risks of these new approaches, and are they different from those of conventional branch-based banking? How should banks respond to these risks, so as to permit branchless banking with retail agents to operate safely and expand access to finance (C. G. A. P, 2009). Agency banking can be understood by examining the experience of five ioneering countries— Brazil, India, South Africa, the Philippines, and Kenya—where agent-assisted branchless banking that targets poor customers is already a reality (Kumar, 2009). Some models of branchless banking—for example, Internet banking and automatic teller machines (ATMs)—can be seen as modest extensions of conventional branch-based banking. Other models offer a distinct alternative to conventional branch-based banking in that customers conduct financial transactions at a whole range of retai l agents instead of at bank branches or through bank employees (Staschen, 2009).Agent-assisted branchless banking is relatively new. Among the countries studied, the phenomenon ranges in age from only a few months (in the case of Kenya), to a few years (in the case of Brazil and some services in India). Outside of Brazil and the Philippines, branchless banking through retail agents reaches relatively few customers with a limited range of financial services (C. G. A. P, 2009). As compared with conventional branch-based banking, both models of agent-assisted branchless banking touch on issues that lie at the heart of traditional bank regulation and supervision.One set of issues, common to both models, arises from the outsourcing of substantially all direct customer contact to a potentially infinite array of different types of retail agents (Lyman, 2009). According to F. S. D/Kenya, key issues to be considered are: authorization of agent network managers, establishment of a register of agents, review of agent licensing requirements, competition & agent exclusivity, and need for consumer protection arrangements covering agents.Coupled with the risks associated with new operational platforms, these issues are likely to be of major concern to commercial banks and may indeed hamper the implementation of agent banking. 1. 2 Problem Statement In the year 2009, C. B. K became one of the founding members of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (A. F. I) in September 2009. Through A. F. I, C. B. K conducted a study tour of Brazil and Colombia to gain an understanding of Agent Banking. This model introduced through the Finance Act, 2009 entail the use of third parties by banks to extend their outreach cost effectively.The National Financial Access Survey released in 2009 indicates that 32% of Kenya’s bankable population remains totally excluded from any form of financial services. The Central Bank has therefore continued to promote policy solutions geared towards en hancing financial inclusion, with the introduction of agent banking being one of the initiatives. In a growing number of countries, banks are finding new ways of delivering financial services to unbanked people. The introduction of agent banking is intended to enable institutions to provide banking services in a more cost effective way which is equally cheaper to the customers (C.G. A. P, 2009). It is further intended to enhance financial access especially for those people who are currently unbanked, while giving banks an opportunity to increase their market shares (F. S. D/Kenya, 2009). Despite the strong presence of retail outlets showing interest to work with banks as agents, the adoption of this model is rather slow. Since the coming into operations of the Guidelines on Agent Banking, only six banks have applied to the C. B. K for Agent Network approval (C. B. K, 2010).Of these, only two applications had been granted approval by end of September 2010, while the other four were s till in the early stages of review. As at 30th September 2010, CBK had approved 5,892 agents of which 4,392 of these agents are telecom related with 1,500 comprising other types of enterprises. In addition, 66% of the approved agents are in the rural areas while the rest are in urban areas. (C. B. K, 2010). This study therefore seeks to find out the factors influencing the implementation of agent-banking by commercial banks in Kenya. 1. 3 PurposeThis study aims at discovering the factors behind the sluggish pace of agent banking implementation in Kenya, with emphasis on the position taken by commercial banks in Kenya towards agent-assisted banking models. The results of the study will include comprehensive recommendations to both commercial banks and the industry regulator on possible strategies of making agent banking, as an alternative service delivery channel, a success in bringing financial services closer to the poor and currently unbanked population. 1. 4 Objectives of the stu dy 1. 4. 1 General objectiveThe general objective of the study is to determine factors influencing the implementation of agent banking in the Kenyan Financial Services Sector. 1. 4. 2 Specific objectives The study aims to achieve the following specific objectives; i. To determine how consumer protection influences the implementation of agent banking by commercial banks in Kenya ii. To determine how laws and regulations influences the implementation of agent banking by commercial banks in Kenya iii. To determine how risk appetite affects the implementation of agent banking by commercial banks in Kenya iv.To find out the effect of overall business strategy on the implementation of agent banking by commercial banks in Kenya. 1. 5 Hypotheses Table 1. 1 Hypotheses sets |Set |H0 |HA | |1 |Consumer protection requirements influence the |Consumer protection requirements have no influence on the | | |implementation of agent banking by commercial banks in |implementation of agent banking by c ommercial banks in | | |Kenya. Kenya. | |2 |Unfavorable legal and regulatory guidelines on agent |Legal and regulatory guidelines on agent networks have no | | |networks affect the implementation of agent banking by |effect on the implementation of agent banking by commercial | | |commercial banks in Kenya. |banks in Kenya. | |3 |Low risk appetite influences the operationalization of |Low risk appetite has no effect on the operationalization of| | |agent banking by commercial banks in Kenya. |agent banking by commercial banks in Kenya. |4 |Lack of an elaborate business strategy on agent banking|Business strategies have no effect on the adoption of agent | | |affects the adoption of agent banking models among |banking models among commercial banks in Kenya | | |commercial banks in Kenya | | 1. 6 Scope The study will cover duly registered commercial banks in Kenya, with information being gathered preferably from the headquarters of the institutions.Respondents will be individuals hold ing managerial position related to retail banking, channels management, risk management and marketing or strategy functions. All aspects of service delivery by third party agents will form the main subject of the study. 1. 7 Significance of the study 1. 7. 1 To regulatory authorities The study will be of major use to the CBK, Central government and other oversight bodies as it will give insights on the unique attributes of the Kenyan banking sector and identification of potential problem areas in the quest of increasing financial inclusion through alternative channels.This will go along pay in guiding policy decisions that can be exploited to make banking services conveniently available all segments of the population. 1. 7. 2 To commercial Banks The study is important to Commercial bank managers since it will help them appreciate the magnitude of potential loss of business opportunities to their competitors due to lack of flexible strategic planning. The report will also produce val uable industry data that can be used by commercial banks to develop comprehensive business strategies on agent banking as key potential problem areas in the banking model will be identified and quantified. . 7. 3 To academicians and researchers The study will be a source of reference material for future researchers on related topics; it will also help other academicians who undertake the same topic in their studies. The study will highlight important relationships that require further research; this may be in the areas of relationships between firm’s performance and delivery channels’ dynamics. 1. 8 Limitations of the study This study will be confined to the headquarters of 12 Commercial Banks in Kenya.The responses given might be inadequate to make generalizations for the whole banking sector. This problem will however be averted by stratifying the population into three categories based on asset book size and market reach, and in line with the classification provided by the industry regulator, followed by random sampling. This will ensure that the sample will indeed be a true representative of the population. 1. 9 Assumptions The study assumes that consumer protection requirements, low risk appetite, cumbersome regulations and restrictive business strategies have a negative influence on the adoption of agent banking models in Kenya.The study further assumes that middle and top level bank managers in the areas of retail banking, marketing, strategy and risk management are conversant with the subject of service delivery through third party agents. 1. 10 Definitions Strategy- a firm’s theory about how to gain competitive advantage Strategic management process – sequential set of analyses and choices that can increase the likelihood that a firm will choose a strategy that generates competitive advantage Strategic alliances – arrangements where two or more independent organizations cooperate in the development, manufacture, or sa le of products or servicesAgent banking – a banking model where commercial banks offer their core services through third party intermediaries Consumer protection – set of guidelines a firm/industry employs to cover its customers from any form of exploitation due to their vulnerable position in a business transaction Risk appetite – the amount of loss a firm is ready to absorb due to risk events Risk – uncertainty in the occurrence of loss or gain Reputation risk – risk of loss resulting from compromised external opinion towards a firm Operational risk – risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems, or from external eventsLiquidity risk – risk that an imbalance between cash inflows and outflows will result in insufficient cash reserves to meet all demands of the depositors. Chapter Two Literature Review 2. 0 Introduction This chapter presents the literature review and theories, and conceptual framework adopted in the study of strategic alliances and more specifically, the evolution of agent banking. In addition, an empirical work has been reviewed with the final presentation of conceptual and operational frameworks of the study. 2. 1 Theoretical Literature ReviewThe sections analyses current theories related to strategic management process, strategic choice, strategic alliance threats and opportunities, and their relevance in the agent banking models. Research gaps and theoretical weaknesses have also been identified. 2. 1. 1 Strategic Management Process Although most can agree that a firm’s ability to survive and prosper depends on choosing and implementing a good strategy, there is less agreement about what constitutes a good strategy (Barney, 2008). However, there seems to be an agreement as to what a strategy really means: a firm’s theory about how to gain competitive advantage.The strategic management process is a sequential set of analyses and choices that can increase the likelihood that a firm will choose a strategy that generates competitive advantage (Hesterly, 2008). The first step is mission (long term purpose) definition, followed by setting of objectives, that is, specific measurable targets that a firm uses to evaluate the extent to which it is realizing its mission. The next phase are the internal and external analyses, where a critical evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats is done in regard to both the internal and external environments.Once a firm establishes a sound balance between internal capabilities and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats, the management is in an informed position to select strategies that presents the best way possible to achieve the firm’s objectives. Barney (2008) categorizes strategy choices into business level strategies and corporate level strategies. Business-level strategies are actions a firm takes to gain competitive advantage in a sin gle market and includes cost leadership, differentiation and focus.Corporate level strategies are actions a firm takes to gain competitive advantage in multiple markets and includes vertical integration strategies, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions. This study draws its subject on strategic alliances as a corporate-level strategy a firm may choose to achieve its broad objectives. One major weakness of this framework is that it presents strategic management in a form of series while in real sense, management decisions are made within a network of closely interwoven and interrelated activities. For instance, S. W. O.T analysis is done at every stage in the strategic management process 2. 1. 2 Strategic Alliances A strategic alliance exists whenever two or more independent organizations cooperate in the development, manufacture, or sale of products or services. These alliances can be groped into three broad categories: nonequity alliances, equity alliances, and joint ventur es (Barney, 2008). In a nonequity alliance, cooperating firms agree to work together to develop, manufacture, or sell products or services, but they do not take equity positions in each other or form an independent organizational unit to manage their cooperative efforts.Rather, these cooperative relations are managed through the use of various contracts: licensing agreements, supply agreements, and distribution agreements. For instance, in the banking industry, agent banking falls under distribution agreements as agents are contracted by banks to offer banking services on behalf of the banks (C. G. A. P, 2008). The classification according to Barney (2008) is in agreement with that given by Day (1990) and gives a clear distinction between strategic alliances and mergers and acquisitions.However, other writers have questioned this classification as merger could be indeed be a form of strategic alliances involving capital. 2. 1. 3 Strategic Alliance Opportunities Strategic alliances c reate value by exploiting opportunities and neutralizing threats facing a firm. Opportunities associated with strategic alliances fall into three large categories. First, these alliances can be used to improve performance of a firm’s current operations. Second, alliances can be used to create a competitive environment favorable to superior firm performance.Finally, they can be used to facilitate a firm’s entry into or exit from new markets or industries (Hesterly, 2008). Indeed, the major reason why most firms cooperate is to increase efficiencies and open more avenues of improving firms’ performance. However, Hesterly (2008) has not clearly whether opportunities of strategic alliances attract firms or it is the business needs that compel firms to initiate alliances in the market. 2. 1. 4 Strategic Alliance Threats Just as there are incentives to cooperate in strategic alliances, there are also incentives to cheat on these cooperative agreements.Indeed, research shows that as many as one-third of all strategic alliances do not meet the expectations of at least one alliance partner (Barney, 2008). In the case of distributor agreements (nonequity alliance), the producers often evaluate the threats of the alliance using a framework of risk. The risk based approach has particularly been adopted in the financial services contracting in countries like Brazil and Mexico. (C. G. A. P, 2006) Hesterly (2008) has highlighted four issues of concern to forming strategic alliances: consumer protection, legal / regulatory implications, competitive networks, Reputational and operational risks.In addition, an organization needs to have an overall business strategy that is open to strategic linkages with other entities. Lyman (2009) has brought these threats into perspective while studying the branchless banking model in Brazil, Kenya and the Philippines. 2. 1. 4. 1 Consumer Protection And Resolution Of Grievances According to Lyman (2009), any of the foreg oing categories of risk triggers consumer protection concerns if the resulting loss falls on customers. Use of retail agents may also increase the risk that customers will be unable to understand their rights and press claims when aggrieved.Customers are protected against fraud by laws and regulations in the countries studied. But it is not always clear to customers how they will be protected against fraud when they use retail agents to conduct financial transactions. 2. 1. 4. 2 Legal / Regulatory Risks Since industry regulators have had little experience with agent banking models and are still adjusting existing rules to address them (or had yet to begin this process), some level of legal and regulatory uncertainty and ambiguity for both the banks and nonbanks (and to a lesser extent also for retail agents) has remained.Once a model becomes widely used in a country, these uncertainties and ambiguities could take on a systemic dimension if, for example, several banks with significan t operations conducted through retail agents suddenly face an unfavorable interpretation that challenges their authority to transact business through retail agents or the enforceability of related legal agreements (Lyman, 2009) 2. 1. 4. 3 Operational Risk Operational risk refers to potential losses resulting from â€Å"inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems or from external events. For banks and nonbanks that use retail agents and rely on electronic communications to settle transactions, a variety of potential operational risks arise. For example, customers or retail agents could commit fraud, or a bank’s equipment or other property could be stolen from a retail agent’s premises. Financial loss for banks or nonbanks (and also potentially for customers) can also occur from data leaks or data loss from hacker attacks, inadequate physical or electronic security, or poor backup systems (Lyman, 2009). 2. 1. 4. 4 Reputation Risk When retail agents under perform or are robbed, banks’ public image may suffer.Many operational risks mentioned (such as the loss of customer records or the leakage of confidential customer data) also can cause reputational risk, as can liquidity shortfalls in the retail agent’s cash drawer. Moreover, reputation risk can spread from one bank or nonbank to another and take on systemic dimensions (Lyman, 2009) 2. 1. 4. 5 Liquidity Risk Retail agents, especially those that are relatively small, unsophisticated, and remote, may not have enough cash to meet customers’ requests for withdrawals and may lack experience in the more complex liquidity management required for offering financial services.To manage liquidity effectively, retail agents must balance several variables, including turnover of cash, ease of access to the retail agent’s bank account, and processing time of transactions, among others (C. G. A. P, 2008). 2. 1. 4. 6 Business Strategy Although most can agree that a firm ’s ability to survive and prosper depends on choosing and implementing a good strategy, there is less agreement about what constitutes a good strategy (Barney, 2008). According to Aaker (1998), t is usually very difficult to predict how competition in an industry will evolve, and so it is rarely possible to know for sure that a firm is choosing the right strategy and this is why a firm’s strategy is almost always a theory. However, this theory sets the tone at which competition evolution is handled in the future. For a firm to make the choice of making strategic alliances, the overall business strategy must be open to the formation of strategic linkages with other entities.This fact has been acknowledged by the Central Bank of Kenya which has directed that for any commercial bank to be allowed to offer services through third party agents, it must have an elaborate business strategy on agent banking (CBK guidelines on Agent Banking, 2010). In summary, the classification of threats in agent banking models as given by Lyman (2009) appears to be widely accepted by industry players as the framework was drawn from case studies done in the banking industry in the pioneering countries.However, the framework fails to suggest possible avenues of avoiding or at least neutralizing these threats to be used as a guideline by financial institutions which are interested in agent banking models. More research is indeed required to meet this gap if agency banking is to be the new frontier of increasing financial inclusion. 2. 2 Empirical Review The concept of agent banking has only taken momentum in the twenty first century, with Brazil being a success story of branch-less banking. Other countries where the banking approach has been implemented are South Africa, India, Mexico, Kenya and the Philippines.In Kenya, the idea of agent banking evolved from the innovations of the mobile telecommunications company, Safaricom Ltd, with its innovative and transformative mon ey transfer service, ‘M-PESA’. In 2009, the Banking Act was amended to allow commercial banks use agents in their outreach to extend the formal financial services access frontier. Three organizations have been instrumental in studying agent banking models and their contribution to the universal goal of raising financial inclusion among the poor. These organizations are F. S.D/K (Financial Sector Deepening, Kenya), C. B. K (Central Bank of Kenya) and C. G. A. P (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor). In an effort to promote financial access by the majority of Kenyans, the Central Bank and the banking sector continued with initiatives to put in place a credit information sharing mechanism which would enable individuals to use their information capital as â€Å"collateral† to access bank services. Further, the amendment of the Banking Act to permit banks to use agents in their outreach would also extend the formal financial services access frontier.In 2009, banks p ursued revenue growth strategies based on their ability to acquire new customers and cross-selling more products and services to existing customers by leveraging on technology (C. B. K, 2010). In a growing number of countries, banks and other financial service providers are finding new ways to make money and deliver financial services to unbanked people (C. G. A. P, 2009). Rather than using bank branches and their own field officers, they offer banking and payment services through third parties.For many poor customers, it would be the first time they have access to any formal financial services—and formal services were usually significantly safer and cheaper than informal alternatives. Two models of branchless banking through retail agents have emerged: one led by banks, the other by non-bank commercial actors (Lyman, 2009). Both use information and communication technologies, such as cell phones, debit and prepaid cards, and card readers to transmit transaction details from the retail agent or customer to the bank (C. G. A. P, 2009).For example, customers of Caixa Economica Federal, a Brazilian state-owned bank, could open and deposit money in a current account, make person-to-person transfers, and get loans—all using simple bankcards and card readers at over 12,000 lottery outlets, supermarkets, and even butcher shops (Lyman, 2009). In Kenya Customers could use their phone to send and receive â€Å"M-PESA,† make payments to other people and shops, and store money for future use (F. S. D/K, 2010). Branchless banking through retail agents appeals to policymakers and regulators because it has the potential to extend financial services to unbanked and marginalized communities.But it also challenges them to ask: What are the risks of these new approaches, and are they different from those of conventional branch-based banking? How should banks respond to these risks (C. G. A. P, 2009) F. S. D/Kenya and C. G. A. P have done immense research and advocacy on agent banking. Agency banking can be understood by examining the experience of five pioneering countries— Brazil, India, South Africa, the Philippines, and Kenya—where agent-assisted branchless banking that targets poor customers is already a reality (Kumar, 2009).Branchless banking represents a new distribution channel that allows financial institutions and other commercial actors to offer financial services outside traditional bank premises. Lyman (2009) has outlined two models of agent banking. One model of branchless banking—for example, Internet banking and automatic teller machines (ATMs)—can be seen as modest extensions of conventional branch-based banking. Other models offer a distinct alternative to conventional branch-based banking in that customers conduct financial transactions at a whole range of retail agents instead of at bank branches or through bank employees (C. G. A.P, 2009). This concept has introduced new risks and other regulatory issues in the industry. For regulators, the task is not to try to eliminate these risks, but to balance them appropriately with the benefits of branchless banking—including expanded outreach of financial services. Of the countries so far studied, Kenya may best reflect the situation of most developing and transition countries (F. S. D Kenya, 2010). Policymakers and regulators have greeted branchless banking with a mixture of great enthusiasm for its potential to expand access and real concern about new risks for vulnerable customers and the financial system.The case for accepting bank agents in Kenya has already been accepted by policy makers and regulators in Kenya; the question is how to regulate and supervise this (FSD Kenya. 2010). In addition, it is left to the individual banks to decide whether they will use the model to meet their strategic objectives. The Central Bank of Kenya has indeed placed a requirement for an elaborate business strategy on agent banki ng before any approval is given for agent networks. Section 2. 3. 2. f CBK guidelines on agent banking approval requires the applying institution to have a delivery channel strategy and how agents fit in the strategy, feasibility study of the global view of future operations and development of the agent business for a minimum period of three years and a business strategy for agent banking (C. B. K, 2010). According to FSD-Kenya, key issues to be considered are: review of agent licensing requirements, risk management, and need for consumer protection arrangements covering agents.These issues are likely to be of major concern to commercial banks and may indeed hamper the implementation of agent banking. The threats associated with agent banking have not gone unnoticed. Indeed most commercial banks are taking a rather conservative position regarding the implementation of agent banking model. Like F. S. D/K, C. G. A. P (2009), has identified three issues that agent banking, as a strateg ic alliance orientation, poses to both the regulator and the market players: reputational and operational risks, consumer protection, regulatory framework and business strategies at the institutional level. On its part, C. B.K has alluded that any bank wishing to operate through agents must have an elaborate business strategy on agent banking before any approval is given. 2. 3. 1 Conceptual Framework [pic] Independent Variables Dependent Variable Figure 2. 1: Conceptual framework Source: (Author, 2010) 2. 3. 2. Operational Framework: [pic] Dependent variable Independent variables Parameters Figure 2. 2: Operational framework Source: (Author, 2010) Chapter Three Research Methodology 3. 0 Introduction This chapter presents the methodology that will be used to carry out this study.Research methodology is defined as an operational framework within which the facts are placed so that their meaning may be seen more clearly. The task that follows the definition of the research problem is th e preparation of the design. The methodology of this research includes the research design, population to be studied and sampling strategy, the data collection process, the instruments to be used for gathering data, and how data will be analyzed and presented. 3. 1 Research Design In this study a survey design will be used. This research problem can best be studied through the use of a survey.This method portrays an accurate profile of persons, events, or situations. Surveys allow the collection of large amount of data from a sizable population in a highly economical way. It allows one to collect quantitative data, which can be analyzed quantitatively using descriptive and/or inferential statistics. 3. 2 Population The population of study will consist of 46 commercial banks in Kenya. Target population in statistics is the specific population about which information is desired. A population is a well defined set of people, services, elements, and events, group of things or households that are being investigated.This definition ensures that population of interest is homogeneous. Population studies, also called census are more representative because everyone has equal chance to be included in the final sample that is drawn. The target population of this study will be all the 46 commercial banks in Kenya registered under the banking act. The study will focus on the headquarters of the banks, especially risk, marketing, strategy and retail divisions since they are the most conversant with the strategic directions of the banks in regard to the subject of the study. Table 3. 1 Target Population Class |Net Assets |Population |Percentage % | | |(‘000,000’ KES) |(Frequency) | | |Large Banks |> 15,000 |19 |42 | |Medium Banks |5,000 – 14,999 |14 |32 | |Small Banks |< 5,000 |12 |26 | |Total | |45 |100 | Source: (C. B. K, 2010) 3. 3 Sample size The sample size in this study will consist of 12 commercial banks in Kenya. The researcher will involve the mar keting managers, retail banking managers, and risk/compliance managers (preferably two managers from each of the mentioned functional areas) from each bank.This means that the total respondents in this study will be 72 in number. 3. 4 Sampling technique The researcher will use stratified random sampling to select 12 commercial banks out of 46 banks. The researcher will in this case consider all the commercial banks and choose 12 of them in a manner that will make the sample a true representative of the population. The population will be stratified into three categories according to the market shares and in line with the CBK classification of financial institutions. In each class, the researcher will select a random sample so that each item in the population has the same probability of being selected as part of the sample as any other item. Table 3. 2: Sample size Classes |Respondents |Target Population (2/Bank)|Sample size (2 |percentage | | | | |respondents * 4 | | | | | |banks per class) | | |Large |Marketing/strategy Managers |38 |8 |21% | | |Retail-Banking Managers |38 |8 |21% | | |Risk/Compliance managers |38 |8 |21% | |Medium |Marketing/strategy Managers |28 |8 |28% | | |Retail-Banking Managers |28 |8 |28% | | |Risk/Compliance managers |28 |8 |28% | |Small |Marketing/strategy Managers |24 |8 |33% | | |Retail-Banking Managers |24 |8 |33% | | |Risk/Compliance managers |24 |8 |33% | Source:(Author, 2010. ) 3. 5Instruments. The researcher will use primary data (questionnaires) to carry out the study. The questionnaires will include structured (close-ended) and unstructured (open-ended) questions. The structured questions will be used in an effort to conserve time and money as well as to facilitate in easier analysis as they are in immediate usable form; while the unstructured questions will be used so as to encourage the respondent to give an in-depth and felt response without feeling held back in revealing any information.With unstructured questions, a resp ondent’s response may give an insight to his feelings, background, hidden motivation, interests and decisions and give as much information as possible without holding back. 3. 6 Validity and Reliability The questionnaires to be used are estimated to be reliable as sets of questions measuring a single concept have been groped together, resulting in a high degree of internal consistency. In addition, the instruments will be subjected to a test-retest procedure before being distributed to the main respondents. The variables have been operationalized into parameters that represent issues which are handled on a day to day basis under normal business activities in the industry being studied.Besides, the selected respondents have been drawn from personalities with knowledge, experience and influence on matters forming the subject. This will ensure that the instrument actually measures the true situation, opinions and predictions on agent banking in Kenya. A survey designed will be u sed in this study because of its strength associated with collecting data in a real life situation. In addition, the sampling technique (random stratified) and the proposition of drawing respondents from relevant divisions in the head offices of commercial banks will increase the external validity as the results could be generalized to the entire banking sector in Kenya. 3. Data Collection Data will be collected using the drop and pick method. The method is deemed appropriate as all respondents are expected to be found within a small geographical area, that is, the city of Nairobi. This is coupled by the possibility of face to face interaction with the respondents which is likely to increase the response rate. 3. 8 Data Processing and Analysis Once the completed questionnaires have been received, the raw data will be edited to ensure accuracy, completeness and consistency as well as identifying cases where a respondent may give more than one response in a question that would otherwi se generate a single answer.A codebook of questionnaire items will then be developed and used to enter responses into a computer spreadsheet which would then be imported by S. P. S. S. Data will be analyzed using a multiple regression model. This will enable the researcher to make possible predictions about the study. A multivariate regression model will be applied to determine the relative importance of each of the three variables with respect to the implementation of agent banking by commercial banks in Kenya. The regression model will be as follows: y = ? 0+ ? 1X1 + ? 2X2 + ? 3X3 + ? 4X4 + ? Where: Y = Implementation of agent banking ?0 = Constant Term ?1, ? 2, ? 3, ? 4 = Regression coefficients associated with consumer protection, risk appetite, laws & regulations and restrictive business strategy respectivelyX1= consumer protection X2= risk appetite X3= laws and regulations X4= Restrictive Business strategy. 3. 9 Presentation of Findings The findings will be presented using tab les and charts. Tables will be used to summarize responses for further analysis and facilitate comparison. This will generate quantitative reports through tabulations, percentages, and measures of central tendency. 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Vol. 59, July, pp. 63-74 ———————– Consumer protection Regulatory issues Risk appetite Business strategy Agent Banking Implementation Grievance Handling Information Confidentiality Fraud & employee theft Reputational risk Operational risk Liquidity Risk Agent Registration Agent control & monitoring Conflict resolution Channel strategy Feasibility studies Technical Expertise Consumer Protection Risk Appetite Laws & Regulations Restrictive &'e†#(2CUVCO > business strategy Agent Banking Implementation (Number of banks)