History 16 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

History 16 - Essay Example The movie specifically dwells on political happenings that were informing the decision making process of the president during the periods of the Cuban Missile Crisis (Kennedy, 45). It is of critical importance to note that the movie â€Å"Thirteen Days† is historically accurate. There are several circumstances captured in the movie that qualifies it for historical accuracy. For instance, the movie depicts one of the periods in history when the president of America, President John F Kennedy met with one of the Soviet ambassadors. This meeting took place at the Justice Department and it is a historical reality. The meeting involved the president and Anatoly Dobrynin ad it took place a certain evening of the 27 October 1962 (Ponting, 37). This makes the movie â€Å"Thirteen Days† historically accurate. It is important to note that the movie may be important to the students in several aspects. It equips the students with knowledge regarding conflict resolution. This is critical in ensuring that each every student becomes well informed in matters dealing with such conflicts in the society. The movie also focuses much on the issue of leadership (Ponting, 53). This is crucial for students since it equips them with the requisite skills and knowledge pertaining to leadership. It sheds more light on how to deal with political unrest relevant to the leaders’ personalities and behavior. This is critical to such students who may have interest of becoming political leaders in

Master Dissertation Proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Master Dissertation Proposal - Essay Example (Jablonski, 1991) This dissertation proposal is about implementation of a TQM structure through information technology. The industry I have decided to choose for this particular proposal is customer service centers/call centers. Call centers are part of the business where workers answer queries of customer regarding products, services, customer service, etc. nowadays these call centers are outsourced to different organizations and in many cases they are located in different countries to save organization costs. (Bateman et al., 1999) Developed countries have seen rise of call centers outsourcing to other organizations and other countries in the past decade. However there are still loads of issues that the call centers need to overcome in terms of quality of service. (Batt and Moynihan, 2002) A lot of research has been carried out on implementation of TQM in the service industry, however little emphasis has been on use of IT in implementation of TQM. Research has confirmed that implementation of TQM and effective use of IT is far from execution in the service delivery sector. (Yasin et al., 2004) The aim of this research is to identify quality issues in call centers delivery of service and also to recommend a total quality management structure though information technology. The call centers are run and they deliver services which are very much based on IT. However little has been done to bring improvements in the structure. (Au and Choi, 1999) The IT structure is scattered and knowledge sharing is an issue in the industry. (Davenport, 1993) The above mentioned problems come from general perception and experience that customers have from call centers. The aim of this research is two sided; it will focus on both customers and staff of call centers to identify the real problems. The objective is to come up with problems that exist on both sides and then suggest a total quality

Sahel Nutrition Development Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Sahel Nutrition Development - Assignment Example used in assessing the nutritional situation of children in the region, Countries most affected by this crisis include Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad, Mali, Senegal, northern Cameroon, and Gambia. This situation has deteriorated rapidly throughout this year. Research has clearly outlined that most of the areas stand to experience acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3) from April to September this year. The nutrition status is quite catastrophic in areas worst affected with severe malnutrition with rates ranging between 10-16%. The drivers of this crisis are eroded resilience, compounded by the sporadic rains, prices increases and insufficient harvests. The agro-pastoral returns of production is reported to have decreased by 50% in the areas that are affected by poverty, and agricultural products market prices, as well increased up from sixty percent to eighty percent for maize and 100 percent for dry cereals. Increased levels of drought in Sahel have caused a reduction in cereal production on average 26% relative to the previous year. Most notable is the fact that Gambia, as well as Chad realized a 50 percent decrease with other countries still experiencing serious localized deficits. The 2012 Sahel’s strategic plan was aligned as a serving response plan to addressing the Food and Nutrition Crisis in the region. This has been developed by the Working Regional Group on Food Security and Nutrition mainly composed of among other organizations, the Red Cross, Crescent Movement, United Nations agency, Non Governmental Organizations and donors. In 2011, IASC (Inter-Agency Standing Committee) launched a strategy that effectively responds to food shortage and nutritional crises in Sahel. The document was done in consideration of joint efforts of the organization of Food and Agriculture of United Nations (FAO), Action against Hunger, the United Nations Child Fund (UNICEF), the United Nation Humanitarian Affairs Coordination Office (OCHA), and the WWP (Word Food

What effects did the Catholic Church have on the world during the Research Paper

What effects did the Catholic Church have on the world during the renaissance - Research Paper Example This is the period which is considered as one of the most important periods during the history of modern Europe. Though the overall benefits of this were not uniformly spread over the whole Europe, however, it started a period which brought important changes that shaped the modern history of Europe. During this era, Christian religion also went through significant changes, and many new sects emerged during this period. This time is also considered as the period of reformations and change: the world witnessed significant changes in the way Christianity evolved during this period. It was also during this era that mass publication of the Bible started to take place due to the invention of a paper machine. Thus, during this era the religion went through drastic changes, and the impact of these changes was enormous not only upon Europe, but on the other parts of the world, too. The reformation process was considered so strong that it almost split the Christianity. The overall influence of the Church during this era started to decline, and the society’s values and needs were changed significantly. This era actually initiated a debate to re-evaluate and re-examine some of the old values and revive them in the society to make them more useful. Therefore, this paper will discuss the effects Catholic Church had on the world during the Renaissance period. Catholic Church and Renaissance The Renaissance was a period of transformation, and it was also during this period that the overall influence of the Catholic

Evaluating websites Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Evaluating websites - Essay Example For academic purposes however, khanacademy.org may not pass as a valid reference because it is not considered a scholarly site but rather just a tutorial. It could however, support as reference to scholarly journals. With Hulu.com, the films and clips that would be shown there can be referenced because it is the film maker that matters in academic citation and not the medium or platform. I chose to evaluate these two websites because they are very popular among teenagers like me and I would like to figure out myself if they are valid and substantive website. I also would like to know if they could pass for academic referencing. After studying that valid academic websites must be supported by scientific methodologies, I concluded khancademy.org may not qualify to be used as a primary reference even if it is very popular among students like me. Of course these websites are very helpful and easy to use especially Hulu.com. Who does not want to watch movies and tv anyway? It is also almost plug and play the moment we have chosen our desired film or tv series so it is very easy to use. It is also very helpful because the interface of the website is very easy to understand and navigate (hulu.com). With regard to khanacademy.org, the website is also extremely helpful with the basics in case we want to brush up with it. The site however is not much of use to college students and especially if the lessons that we are dealing with are quite complex. In addition, it cannot be used as a primary reference and not a site for research. With regard to its ease of use, the website is also easy to navigate and the subjects are logically arranged and categorized so that they can be easily located (khanacademy.org). There are things that could be learned from khancademy.org than Hulu.com. Hulu.com is an entertainment website and in academic sense, there is nothing much to be picked from it. But if we want to have a cost effective

EHarmony Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

EHarmony Case Study - Essay Example The advent of new technologies has facilitated this change in social media and has made it a common activity. By 2005, the number of subscribers and user of social media and internet personals websites had increased with eHarmony recording over 15 million subscribers. This growth was attributed to a change in online dating perception. Currently, the social media industry has become extremely competitive and lucrative with companies employing different strategies to capture the market and increase customer base. Organizations have realized that apprehending the competitive forces and their fundamental roots discloses the causes of the industry’s present productivity (Porter, 2008). By the time online dating was gaining popularity, there had been few internet personals websites. For this reason, there was less competition in the industry. In the contemporary, competitive business environment, publicity is a significant facet of any organization. This therefore poses a great thre at to the existing business as more and more new entries are aiming the market in order to gain a share of the profits. This is therefore threatening the dominance of companies such as eHarmony an aspect that might affect even the overall returns of the company. The marketing strategy in the social media industry determines the profit potentiality of the company. For instance, Piskorski et al (2008) asserts that eHarmony centered on creating publicity through the owners who appeared in TV and radio programs including home news programs. The company focused on selling its unique features which yielded increased number of subscribers. According to Walker et al (2005), this is a competitive advantage that the company used to acquire a greater market share. In addition, eHarmony heightened its advertising campaigns in the radios and TV to capture wide audience. The contemporary social media have been characterized by fraudsters who have made people lose hope in finding serious mates in the internet personals websites. Arguably, social media sites have tried to employ a personality profile based on many questions, which discourage the not serious users from joining the site (Alex, 2010). For instance, eHarmony personality profile contains 258 questions, which portray seriousness of the subscriber. One of the major threats that online dating poses is erosion of culture. Initially, people had the chance to select his/her mate physically. This gave the person a chance to analyze the mate’s behavior and attitudes. With the current technology, this aspect has eroded. In addition young people will be exposed to early relationships an aspect that could expose them to early sex and marriages. This market therefore will lead to increased divorces and abusive marriages due to poor decision making before choosing the partner (Alex, 2010).. Increase of companies such as eHarmony would therefore reduce the time that was previously used to know your partner which is a thr eat to the new families. The company faces a great threat from ghost companies which retrieve money from the customers only to for the client to realize that the site has very few members. This mistrust by people creates a great threat to expansion of the company an aspect that hinders it to reach global standards. Another major threat that if facing companies such as eHarmony is lack of adequate resources to keep up with the increasing technological competition which makes communication easier. This

Budgetary control Essay Example for Free

Budgetary control Essay Nowadays management’s philosophy revolves around the idea of planning. According to McKinsey (1922), chief executives have come to the realization that today’s task can only be properly fulfilled thanks to the meticulous planning of yesterday. The budgetary control framework has been openly accepted and widespread as a tool for management and overall organisation control. Nonetheless, recent evolutions in the managerial sciences have come to jeopardise the reliability of budgeting as an effective method for the control of performance and organisation. The concern of whether budgeting is in fact an apt tool has created mixed views and debate amongst scholars. This essay will aim to evaluate whether budgetary control is concerned primarily with the control of performance, or if it has of late taken on greater importance especially as a more integrative control mechanism for the organisation. In order to do so it will firstly define the meaning of two fundamental concepts such as budget and budgetary control. Secondly it will evaluate the use of budgetary control as a tool for today’s organization. Thirdly it will follow debates and criticisms on its the effectiveness and use and Lastly it will conclude by assessing to what extent budgetary control has become a more integrative control mechanism for organisations. The work of key specialists in management such as Bhimani, Otley, Van der Stede and McWatters, will be drawn on in order to cover the key issues of the discussion. Before commencing on a discussion of budgetary control, it is immanent to clarify and define the two key terms that will be used in this essay: ‘budget’ and ‘budgetary control’. On the one hand, as defined by Bhimani et al. (2008) â€Å"a budget is a quantitative expression of a proposed plan of action by management for future time period and it is an aid to coordination and implementation of the plan†. On the same line McWatters et al. (2008) highlights the importance of budgets as a planning control system for a company, which ‘translate’ organisational objectives into financial terms. Drury (2009) exemplifies the many different purposes that budgets serve, such as: coordinating activities, conveying various arrangements to different responsibility centres, arranging and controlling operations, motivating employees to attain organisational objectives and assessing the execution of managers. According to Johnson (1996), it was in the 1960s that associations started to highly regard the utilization of budgets as tools for performance measurement and the control of managerial objectives. On the other hand, budgetary control is described by Periasamy (2010) as â€Å"a system of controlling costs which includes the preparation of budgets, coordinating the department and establishing responsibilities, comparing actual performance with the budgeted and acting upon results to achieve maximum profitability†. A similar, yet more formal, definition of budgetary control is given by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants of England and Wales (CIMA): â€Å"the establishment of budgets relating to the responsibilities of executives to the requirement of a policy and the continuous comparison of actual with the budgeted results, either to secure by individual actions the objectives of policy or to provide a basis for its revision†. There are two main purposes of budgets which scholars have identified: planning and controlling. The first purpose, which McWatters et al. (2008) discusses, is that budgets have a fundamental role in undertaking planning decisions. In fact, the integration of budgets into a strategic planning of long term and short-term objectives is crucial to the harmony of the project itself. This claim can be explained by Bhimani et al. (2008) who proposes that, budgets provide a more realistic view on the possible outcomes of investments, which consequently leads managers to adjust their strategic goals accordingly. To put it another way, when a company wants to match its potentials suitably with the prospects of the marketplace, it undertakes a strategic analysis to then set several long-run and short-run goals. On this basis a budget is formulated. However, as stated before, once the budget that has been formulated projects a more realistic view on the strategic objectives, these strategic objectives are then readjusted once again. The second purpose that Emmanuel et al. (1990) discusses is to do with budgets as a form of control and a tool for monitoring a company’s performance. McWatters et al. (2008) describe this function by outlining the idea that budgets are frequently used to assign responsibilities by allocating resources to different managers. A budget may be given with more or less flexibility, for example by assigning a large sum of money for ‘advertising’ to be used at the managers discretion, or by highlighting the different ways that this money should be used. The optional flexibility of budgets allows for a company to give the adequate level of responsibility to its employees and thus the organisation is able to maintain a level of control. McWatters et al. (2008) further elaborates on the function of budgeting for control by suggesting that â€Å"the numbers in a budget are also used as goals to motivate organisational members†. This motivational aspect of budgeting can be explained by Bhimani et al (2008) who states that â€Å"the manner in which a budget is administered can adversely impact on the managers’ behaviour†. A manager must believe that the budget is achievable in order to actively attempt to pursue it, Bhimani et al (2008) adds that through the constraints and goals set by budgeting targets, managers are often motivated to â€Å"effect changes in a forceful way†. The way that a budget is formulated, and the demands and pressures that it targets are key in encouraging the right degree of motivation, â€Å"an enterprise can set a difficult to attain budget in an attempt to motivate good performance. This is because, in practice, budgets that are set up to a certain degree of tightness often become stronger motivators† (Bhimani et al. , 2008). A final point to consider with the role of budgetary control is the function that it plays in enhancing communication within a company. Internal coordination between the steps of production , as well as communication among departments are key aspects for a company’s performance. Dury (2009) states that â€Å"the budget serves as a vehicle through which the actions of the different parts of an organisation can be brought together and reconciled into one common plan†. Hence, hierarchical and inter-departmental communication within the organisation is extremely facilitated thanks to the use of budgets. For instance, considering a multinational corporation that, due to its size, has difficulties in communicating between the production department and the sales department, budgets could in this circumstance be the most operational manner of communicating, as they set common goals between different departments. As it is clear form the paragraphs above, the controlling side of budgets play a stronger role than the planning aspect. An example that instead criticise this view can be found in the strategic planning of investments. Maximising performance of a company can be synonymous for maximising the shareholders value. Akintoye (2008) argues that equality in investment decisions are fairly dependent on the solidity of the budgetary control system, which in turn is key to maximise the company’s shareholders value. Therefore, it is arguable that a weak budgetary control system may be the cause of unprofitable investments and consequently may trigger the loss of shareholders value (Akintoye, 2008). There are many examples that reflect this issue, such as one reported by the European Journal of Economics Finance and Administrative Science where the Coca-Cola Company, with the purpose of differentiating production, failed miserably in their investment on food and wine in that the investment rate of return resulted to be beneath their cost of capital. The tremendous loss of money caused by this investment and other failures of this type grab the attention of scholars, raising questions on the salience of the budgetary control system, as well as whether budgets are mainly used to control or plan organisations. Other criticisms towards budgetary control as a main form of performance control, argue instead that the use of budgetary control in performance management has of late taken on greater importance especially as a more integrative control mechanism for the organisation. This stands on the basis of different points of view of the role that motivation and communication play within a company. Bhimani et al. (2008) argues that current speculation concerning budgetary control systems prescribes two inverse perspectives. From one perspective, there is the view that upholds incremental change to budgetary process in terms of interfacing such forms more closely to operational prerequisites, arranging frameworks, expanding the recurrence of plan amendment and the arrangement of rolling budgets. A second perspective supports the abandoning of the budgetary control system as a method of organisational control, and supplanting it with elective systems to empower firms on their adaptability and adjustability. The second perspective arose because of the consequences caused by the conflictual role of budgets between planning and controlling. To summarize; in planning and settling choices, budgets convey specialised information between different departments and hierarchy of the organisation, whereas for control, budgets serve as benchmarks for performance measurement (Otley, 1978). According to McWatters et al. (2008) if too many boundaries are placed into performance targets, then specialised executives will settle down and stop disclosing accurate predictions of prospected occurrences, and instead rely more on budgeted figures, which ease the achievement of the targets. A clear example of this conflict is given by the marketing sector. Salespeople according to McWatters et al. (2008) are usually very specialised and can very well forecast future sales. Their predictions are very important to settle the amount of goods to be produced. Inasmuch budgetary control of sales takes place at the end of the year, and it is used as a tool to evaluate performance. Salespeople are reasonably incentivised to under-forecast future sales in order to assure a positive evaluation of their performance. Nevertheless this behaviour induces the company to have higher production costs, creating counterproductive results. However, this behavioural theory is contrasted by Van der Stede (2000) in his study on the relationship between two consequences of budgetary control: slack creation and managerial short-term orientation. In his experiment he attempts to find the relationship between rigid budgetary control and slack creation, where he defines slack as the action by business unit managers that leads them to â€Å"†¦ exploit their position of superior knowledge about business possibilities vis-a-vis corporate management to get performance targets that are deliberately lower than their best guess forecast about the future† (lukka, 1988). Van der Stede’s (2008) statistical correlation showed in fact that rigid budget control reduced slack. To strengthen his view, Bhimani et al. (2008) states that â€Å"budgeted performance measures can overcome two keys limitations of using past performance as basis for judging actual result†, meaning that, not only budgetary control is a good â€Å"judge† of performance, but it also develops better aspects in comparison to other evaluation techniques. In conclusion, this essay has highlighted the role of budgetary control and it’s functions in terms of planning the organisational control of a company, as well as its role in performance management. Motivation and communication are both key aspects in the management of performance, and both of these functions are met through the system of budgetary control, either by setting achievable incentives, or by providing the necessary requirements to improve communications within a company. Having underlined the role of budgetary control as an enhancer of performance management, it is clear to see how it has become a key mechanism for the integrative control of an organisation. Nonetheless, this essay has outlined some of the key disputes of the reliability and effectiveness of budgetary control as an adequate method of performance management. An example of this is highlighted by the fact that when managers are given strict budgeting figures, they sometimes deem the goals to be too easily achieved, and hence give a lesser input of motivation. Despite the many critics of budgetary control as a tool for the organisation of a company, scholars such as Van der Stede (2000) and Bhimani et al. (2008) have confidently stated that when a budget is set correctly, it can significantly improve an organisations performance, including the integrative function within a company; and is in fact a more effective tool than other existing methods of control.