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

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

Professional Development For Strategical Managers

Professional Development For Strategical Managers According to Guskey (2000) as a consultant of AB management consultant if I want to do my best and if I want to expand my organization consistently I have both skills personal and professional because as per my point of view both skills are complimentary and which can help my organization and I will achieve my organizational goal. With the help of these skills I can contribute to the development of my employees. In this assignment I want to evaluate both professional and personal skills required to meet both organizational and own goals and objectives and also I want to take action on implementation of my goal and objective. I want to determine short, medium and long term goals and also analyse strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore I have to analyze which skill is helpful for our organization: Professional or Personal skill. Lucey (2005) mentions that Personal and Professional Skills form part of Human Resource Management, which is the most important and vital aspect in an organization. The globalization of the business world has caused organizations to compete against one another for their survival. In this regards, the management in terms of strategy, planning and policies play a tremendous and crucial role. Moreover I have to analyze which skill is helpful for our organization: Professional or Personal. According to Mullins (2002), to be a good consultant a person must develop strong personal skills so as to maintain a proper balance between work and pleasure. Professional skills are those skills that help a person manage his/her professional or work life in a more apt way. Professional skills are those skills on how to set and achieve objectives of the business, negotiate conflicts, maintain ethics at workplace and program planning. TASK-1 BE ABLE TO ASSESS PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE STRATEGIC GOALS 1.1:- USE APPROPRIATE METHODS TO EVALUATE PERSONAL SKILLS REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE STRATEGIC GOALS There are some methods to evaluate personal skills required to achieve strategic goals in personal and professional life for example: Hard work/ Dedication: According to Guest (2000) hard work and dedication are two traits of managers. The people who find success become managers and are the ones who are looked to for help. If I want to become a successful consultant of AB Management then I have to put myself out to help other people. Finding success is easier if a distributor is able to find a manager who is willing to take the time and effort to help him do well in the business until he can become a leader in the company. According to Lucey (2005) regardless of whether or not a manager is found to help, however, the distributor himself must be willing to work hard and have the dedication to keep trying until the dream is fulfilled. Every employer wants an employee who is hard worker and they expect form employee to keep it at it until they solve the problem and get the job done. Stress Management: According to stress Guest D (2000) this is very crucial management skill because mentally stress is really not good for any human being or any manager in organization. According to stress management also play big role when we are on managerial level. for example in AB management there are many employees and they have different kind of problems in their life so as a manager I have to sort it out everything and dont have to depress that I got big problem what can I do? I have to sort it out problem and give its solution in particular manner. Stress is a nervous system reaction of our body towards certain stimulus. Guest D (2000) mention that this nervous system reaction could be easily viewed as an unconscious preparation of the body for a certain activity, like for instance releasing adrenaline chemicals onto our muscles whenever we feel alarmed, for example triggering auto response duck and adrenaline rush quickness on the muscles as we hear and process a gunfire shot; or else shutti ng down some of our pain receptors while were in a fight. The problem with stress response is that it also triggers psychologically. Anxiety of approaching deadlines, nervousness over the outcome of a completing project, surmounting unpaid bills, or the nervous anticipation of any event, any situation thats going to happen in the near future may trigger stress response. Over time, these repeated stress experiences can severely deplete energy which could be used for other health functions like digesting meals, functioning body defence system, and such. TIME MANAGEMENT: Evans (2008) claims that for effective management and leadership skill it is very important to manage time if any manger or employee fails to manage time they are never go ahead in their life. Source: http://reviews.in.88db.com/index.php/leisure/casual-entertainment This figure shows that how to use time effectively in this competitive world because time is very important. Time management there are two kinds of people first who have no time they are too busy with their life so they cannot change schedule for learn something which is useful for their organization and the other people in time management are those who have ability to take new challenges in market they get time from their busy schedule and attend workshop. What they got the knowledge from workshop or what they learnt from the trainer they directly implement those ideas and skill to the employees so it can be easy for employee to do their task. Prioritising Work Tasks: According to Mullins (2000) there is no question that all employers desire employee who will arrive at work every day on time and ready to work and who will take responsibility for their action. One thing is the fact that dependable, responsible, contributor committed to excellence and success. Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure. A test is considered reliable if we get the same result repeatedly. For example, if a test is designed to measure a trait such as introversion, then each time the test is administered to a subject, the results should be approximately the same. Unfortunately, it is impossible to calculate reliability exactly, but there several different ways to estimate reliability. 1.2 APPLY TECHNIQUES TO ASSESS THE PROFESSIONAL SKILLS REQUIRED TO SUPPORT THE STRATEGIC DIRECTION OF ORGANISATION: Techniques to assess the professional skills which required to support the strategic direction of organisation is very necessary in this assignment. There are some techniques which are very important to assess the professional skills. Mentoring: Mentoring is also contributing in the achieving goal or objective of an organisation it is a way of overcoming many problems. According to Boxhall (2003) a mentor is someone who can advise and guide us in our carrier. He or she has a number of roles as an appraiser, a supporter, a communicator and a superior and his subordinates and if it is unlikely that a manager can carry these functions. A good mentor has coaching skills is trustworthy respected and is free from major distractions either within or outside the workplace, without a mentor reflection is also not also very productive experience. It can be a bit like looking for piglet. As a Consultant of AB management I can spend time thinking without arriving at a conclusion, it helps of course if I have structure to my thinking, in mentoring the questions are what is happening has happened? What brought this about? What went well and what did not go well? How can the situation be improved? What might we learn form the situation tha t might influence future action? Coaching: Guskey (2000) point out that all human beings are born with a dream, which are there goals in their life. Attaining a goal is not that easy and hence there is a need for a clear and correct path for the easy attaining the goals. This easy attaining of the path can be achieved with the help of a coach and coaching. And so it is said that coaching is the practice of giving sufficient direction, instruction and training to a person or a group people, so as to achieve some goals or even in developing specific skills. Though coaching is a system of providing training, the method of coaching differs from person to person, aim or goals to be attained, and the areas needed. Still there are some common methods in coaching. They are essential part of an effective coaching. Leadership: Guskey (2000) suggested leadership is a key skill, and its one that can make a huge difference to anyones career. At work, problems are at the centre of what many people do every day. As a consultant of AB management either solving a problem for a client internal or external, supporting those who are solving problems, or discovering new leadership skill. The problems we face can be large or small, simple or complex, and easy or difficult to solve. Regardless of the nature of the problems, a fundamental part of every managers role is finding ways to solve and lead them. So, being a confident leader is really important to our success. Much of that confidence comes from having a good process to use when approaching a problem lead. With one, we can solve problems quickly and effectively. Without one, our solutions may be ineffective, or well get stuck and do nothing, with sometimes painful consequences TASK-2 BE ABLE TO CONDUCT A SKILLS AUDIT TO IDENTIFY LEARNING SYTLE 2.1 CARRY OUT SKILLS TO EVALUATE THE STRATEGIC SKILLS NEEDED TO MEET CURRENT AND FUTURE LEADERSHIP USING PERSONAL SWOT ANALYSIS, PSYCHOMETRIC TEST AND SWAG ANALYSIS: There are few skills which evaluate the strategic skills needed to meet the current and future leadership. Communication Skill: According to Douglas (2005) Good verbal and written communication skills are one of the basic management skills. If we will notice some of the good leaders, we would realize that they all had good oratory or written skills. A leader always knows what he wants to say and when he should say it. So as a consultant of AB management I should have a great sense of timing along with communication skills. I should also know how to convey certain messages subtly so that the work is done in an expected and speculated manner. A manager should understand that he is a liaison between the staff and the higher authority and should be able to put the issues effectively in front of both the parties. In that case, he may need to have good diplomacy and negotiation skills that are extremely important. Decision Making: As a good consultant of AB management I also need to have good decision making judgment and ability. Douglas (2005) opined that only decision making power is not enough. A manager should know how to execute his powers for the betterment of the staff and the company. A manager has to go through many stressful situations that are full with moral and ethical dilemma and so he must possess good judgment and analytical ability. This would help him take the right decision. A manager should involve his staff taking major decisions. He must remember that imposing authority or decisions is not leadership in its true sense. APPENDIX B-Skills Audit and SWAG analysis Development Goals-Strengths, Weaknesses, Aspirations and Goals (SWAG) Strength: practical and realistic Like to learn new things, techniques Work autonomously By setting goals, I always try to accomplish it by hard work Like to take chance in experimentation Always come up with new ideas. Weaknesses: Not involved in basic speculation or philosophy Sometimes Impatient Take action without caution Do the tasks without any people Aspirations: Utilization of college services like live campus, technological equipment and library facilities etc. Preparation of time logs during workshops Practical knowledge about meeting, presentation in lecture Group activities in class Goals: Problem solving. Satisfaction. Independent in my work. 2.2 APPLY APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUES TO IDENTIFY PREFERRED LEARNING STYLE: In this assignment it is very important to prefer learning style which is really very important. According Peter Honey and Alan Mumford (2010) also identified another type of learning style preference. They maintained that by identifying preferred style, we could try and apply it to learning new things. Most of us have elements of more than one learning style, so we should think about our strongest and our weakest style to identify how we learn. If we are able to use our natural style, we are likely to find learning much easier and quicker. The four categories Honey and Mumford identified are, Activists, reflector, theorist and pragmatists. According to Neil and Morgan (2003) activists like to be involved in new experiences s as a consultant of AB management I have tend to be open minded and enthusiastic about new ideas but get bored with actual implementation. However, enjoy getting their sleeves rolled up and doing things. It can be impulsive, tending to act first and consider the consequences afterwards. Activists enjoy working in terms but do tend to control the attention. Activists learn most when Involved in new experiences, problems and opportunities Interacting with others in business games, team tasks, role playing Thrown in at the deep end with a difficult task Chairing meetings, leading discussions Activists learn least when Simply listening to lectures or long explanations Reading, writing or thinking by themselves Absorbing and understanding data Precisely following detail instructions The VARK model is a sensory model that is an extension of the earlier neurolingusistic model. The acronym VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read or write and Kineststhetic. Fleming defines learning style as an individuals characteristics and preferred ways of gathering, organizing and thinking about information. VARK is in the category of instructional preference because it deals with perceptual molds, or senses. It does not address are test and smell. The VARK inventory provides metrics in each of the four perceptual modes, with individuals having preferences for anywhere from one to all four. There are also differences in learning approaches for the four VARK Learning Styles. Visual learners prefer maps, charts, graphs, diagrams, brochures, flow charts, highlighters, different colors, pictures, word pictures, and different spatial arrangements. Aural learners like to explain new ideas to others, discuss topics with other students and their teachers, use a tape recorder, attend lectures and discussion groups, and use stories and jokes. Read/Write learners prefer lists, essays, reports, textbooks, definitions, printed handouts, readings, manuals, Web pages, and taking notes. Kinesthetic learners like field trips, trial and error, doing things to understand them, laboratories, recipes and solutions to problems, hands-on approaches, using their senses, and collections of samples. TASK-3 BE ABLE TO IMPLEMENT A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN 3.1 CONSTRUCT A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN USING SMART OBJECTIVES THAT MEETS LEAERSHIP DEVELOPMENT REQUIRED SKILLS AUDIT: Specific:- In this objective my task has to be specific according my skills which satisfaction levels in the learning resources provided by the department. Reduce the amount of time it takes to respond to academic departmental requests for information. Specific means that the objective is concrete, detailed, focused and well defined. The program states a specific outcome, or a precise objective to be accomplished. The outcome is stated in numbers, percentages, frequency, reach, scientific outcome, etc. Measurable:- In each and every task planning should be measurable and achievable. If the objective is measurable, it means that the measurement source is identified and we are able to track the actions as we progress towards the objective. Measurement is the standard used for comparison. For example, what financial independence means to me may be totally different compared to what is means for you. As its so often said if you cant measure it, you cant manage it! Its important to have measures that will encourage and motivate you on the way as you see the change occurring, this may require interim measures. Measurements go a long way to help us to know when we have achieved our objective. Aims:- In this objective to improve personal development skills for leadership in every task aims should be clear and understandable. If you have an aim which is not achievable according the situation and circumstances for that you are not able to use a particular smart objective. Realistic:- Objectives must be realistic Objectives that are achievable, may not be realistic. However, realistic does not mean easy. Realistic means that you have the resources to get it done. The achievement of an objective requires resources, such as, skills, money, equipment, etc. to the task required to achieve the objective. Timed:- Time-bound means setting deadlines for the achievement of the objective. Deadlines need to be both achievable and realistic. If you dont set a time you will reduce the motivation and urgency required to execute the tasks. Timeframes create the necessary urgency and prompts action. Furthermore when I talk about the personal development plan, according to Boxall Purcell (2001) I have to think about myself that what are my weaknesses? What are my strengths? In which area I have to develop? Which can I do best for my organization? For example when we discuss about weaknesses if I have lack of confidence or if I am short-tempered then I have to improve on these areas. In strength aspect if according to Boxall Purcell (2001) if I have good communication power that its good for my personal development. I have to also think about what is my long and short term goal for my organization. For example nowadays consultancy sectors are very competitive in a market so how can I get good profit from all these challenges. Appendix D- Individual Development Plan Name:à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Departmentà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Period coveredà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Objectives/SMART Goals What do I want to be able to do by the end of the period? What do I want/need to learn What will I do to achieve this? What will my success criteria be? Target dates for completion Personal or organisational What do I want/need to learn What will I do to achieve this? What will my success criteria be? Target dates for completion Personal or organisational 3.2 USE SUITABLE METHODS TO ASSESS THE OUTCOMES OF A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN AGAINST PERSONAL WORK OBJECTIVES: According to Guest (2000) in the process, staff members also set personal developmental goals that will increase their ability to contribute to the success of AB Management. The accomplishment of these goals also provides a foundation for career success whether in AB Management or elsewhere, so they ought to be motivated and excited about achieving these goals. Neil and Morgan (2003) point out that performance Management, with the professional development plan process for goal setting and communication, will ensure that we are developing a superior workforce. The only factor that constrains our growth is our ability to hire a superior workforce. Why not grow that talent from within my organization as well? Set some realistic goals for myself. According to these goals must be Kotler, P and Armstrong, G (2001) something we truly wish to experience. Something that will motivate us if we do not set motivating goals then the chances of we are not being able to overcome obstacles when we encounter them increases. Take action. Kotler and Armstrong (2001) mention that once we set our motivating goals, now it is time to begin to take action to move closer to them. Without action we cannot expect to achieve anything different in our life. Be open to opportunities. as we begin to set our goals we will begin to notice opportunities that come our way. According to Lucey (2005) after all what we give our attention to will continue to grow. Always be open to the opportunities; and do not be afraid to take action. When we do take action if do not be afraid to change our course if something does not work out the way we expect it to. Sometimes we must be willing to take detours to reach our destinations. Celebrate our success. We all require acknowledgment for our successes. Foot, M. Hook C., (2006) mention that if we do not receive acknowledgment; we can become discouraged and quit working towards our goals. So we must learn how to celebrate every little success. Even if we are the only one who notices it. Start a success journal. Mullins J. (2002) mentions that one of the things I was taught when I began my personal development journey. One of the most important things to do is to begin writing down all our successes throughout the day. 3.3. EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF OWN LEARNING AGAINST THE ACHIEVEMENT OF STRATEGIC GOALS It is very important to evaluate the impact of own learning against the achievement of strategic goals because Strategic goals are statements of what we wish to achieve over the period of the strategic plan e.g. over the next year, five years, ten years. They reflect the analysis we do that starts with creating a vision, a role statement and a mission statement, and then analysis of our environment, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Leadership Skill: As a consultant of AB Management leadership skill is very necessary when I play a role of consultant. When a consultant has not this kind of leadership skill then he or she is not able to control or handle their employees. So leadership skill is very important in large or small organisation. Neil and Morgan believe that it is a critical management skill, is the ability to motivate a group of people towards a common goal. A leader is like a man who handle whole the team or we can say he handle group of people all have same goal. Guskey T. (2000), Its not easy task because a leader should so many right to do and he must have capability to follow whole group for common goal. A leader some time by born or some time he become leader with experience and with work. According to as a leader in my company I have to do leadership and lead all my staff for a common goal and its a good, excellent customer service. As a consultant I need to have proper management styles in managing different oper ations. My management styles should be autocratic and democratic so I can make my all decisions perfect and in time which is useful to my organization. Professional Skill: Professional skill is as important same like Personal skill. According to Docstoc (2010) in professional skill counselling and mentoring to support staff with their own learning and development requirement, coaching skills, multitasking, leadership skills, theories of leadership, management styles, continuing self-development meet requirements for industry sector professional bodies, leading and meeting, delivering effective presentations. If a consultant have only personal skill but not a professional skill then it is very tough to survive in a market. So a consultant must have both skills personal as well as professional skill. This skill is very important in this assignment because this assignment is about advanced professional development and if a person plays a role of consultant in AB Management he or she must have this skill. Self Development: In self development If anyone works as a consultant they must have good knowledge of market that can be helpful to expand my organization because if I have to data of other companies and I do whatever organization is running its not good for me and my organization. As a consultant have leading and chairing meetings. If as a consultant if I have no leadership power then he cant achieve his goal. So he has to arrange monthly meeting and discuss about what we are what we got what we want to achieve everything he has to manage in this task. Foot and Hook (1999) as a consultant he must have effective presentation skill because a consultant has to give monthly assignment to their employee for example as a consultant of AB Management I have to give monthly assignment to my employee that what they have done last month what are criteria that we have to improve ourselves. How much the budget provided by our employer and what we have already achieved, So employee get the knowledge of their perf ormance and next time they dont made same mistake what they made before. CONCLUSION: This assignment is about the personal and professional skills which is required in personal and professional life. In this assignment I also mentioned the techniques to assess the professional skills required to support the organisation. I also carry out the skill audit evaluate the strategic skills needed to meet the current and future requirements using persona swot analysis. This assignment I have to develop myself as a professional consultant so I used many techniques and methods to improve the personal and professional development plan. personal skill not professional skill or in the other hand if I have only professional skill and not personal skill then it is not good combination of management I must have these both skill. Personal and professional skill includes numerous benefits with an underlying philosophy that emphasizes the achievement of competitive advantage through the efforts of people. I conclude in this assignment that each and every organization they must have kno wledge of personal and professional skill which is really very useful personally and professionally. Every organization has some particular goal and the most common goal of any commercial firm or organization is profit. In this assignment first of all I have to manage myself as a manager because if I am not manage myself then I cannot manage entire organization, it means I have to find out what are my strength what are my weaknesses

Borderline Personality Disorder :: essays research papers

Why Are Women Diagnosed With Borderline Personality Disorder More Than Men? Borderline Personality Disorder is diagnosed predominantly in females. There is approximately a 3:1 female to male gender ratio for this disorder. Theories of why Borderline Personality Disorder occurs more often in women -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sexual abuse, which is common in childhood histories of borderline patients, happens more often to women than men. - Women experience more inconsistent and invalidating messages in this society. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Women are more vulnerable to BPD because they are socialized to be more dependent on others and more sensitive to rejection. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Clinicians tend to be biased. Studies have shown that mental health professionals tend to diagnose BPD more often in women than in men, even when patient profiles are identical except for the gender of the patient. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Men seek psychiatric help less often. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Men are more likely to be treated only for their alcoholism or substance abuse; their borderline symptoms go unnoticed because BPD is assumed to be a women’s disorder. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Female borderlines are in the mental health system; male borderlines are in jail. (www.bpdcentral.com) Skodol, A. & Bender, D (2003) have also addressed several theories as to the gender bias with this diagnosis. Their research on gender bias in borderline personality disorder indicates that: -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The elevated base rate of women in clinical settings may be one of the reasons why clinicians perceive more women to have BPD. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Women and men present with different symptoms patterns, such as the criterion of identity disturbance, which tends to be significantly more common among women. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Female patients tend to receive unwarranted diagnoses of BPD more often when the clinician is a women, which suggests less acceptance of borderline-like traits and behaviors in women by women. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sampling bias in research -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Biological differences in which men show more aggression and externalizing behavior patterns and women show more behavioral inhibition and internalizing. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sociocultural differences Johnson, DM., Shea M.

Sexual Selection of African Cichlids

Sexual selection: it is part of natural selection. Sexual selection acts on an organism's ability to obtain or successfully couple with a mate. Selection makes many organisms go to extreme lengths in order to find a mate such as: peacocks need to develop a beautiful tail, elephant seals fight over territories†¦. Sexual selection is often powerful enough to produce features that are harmful to the individual’s survival. For example, extravagant and colorful tail feathers or fins are likely to attract predators as well as interested members of the opposite sex. In nature females always invest more energy into producing offspring than males invest, and as a result in most species females are a limiting resource that male have to compete for. In most cases it is the females who have a relatively larger investment in producing each offspring and in contrast sperm are cheaper than eggs. There is such a large production of sperm that a single male can easily fertilize all of female's eggs. So clearly female will not produce more offspring by mating with more than one male since her eggs are the limiting factor where in contrast a male is capable of fathering more offspring if he mates with several females. Generally, a male's potential reproductive success is limited by the number of females he mates with, whereas a female's potential reproductive success is limited by how many eggs she can produce. This results in sexual selection, in which males compete with each other, and females become choosy in which males to mate with. As a result of being heterogamy, males are fundamentally less likely to stick to one female, and females are fundamentally selective when it comes down to selecting a mate. Sexual selection takes two major forms one is called intersexual selection and one is called intrasexual selection. intersexal selection is simply males competing with each other to be chosen by females. Intrasexual selection means that members of the less limited sex which are always males compete aggressively among themselves for access to the limiting sex the female. The limiting sex is the sex which has the higher parental investment, which therefore faces the most pressure to make a good mate decision. In his essay Emlen comes up with few hypotheses as to why or how natural selection may have shaped patterns of horn evolution in such a way as to generate divergence in horn morphology, change from one type to another. First we need to understand the benefit of having a particular horn type and how they’re used. One thing he presents is that eetles live underground, in the same cylindrical tunnel no matter if it’s in the hot desserts or tropical area, but male have to keep the tunnels defended against other males trying to invade it therefore horns have defensive and weaponry use. Next important idea that is brought up in his essay is the cost of having certain horns. At this point we don’t care about the benefit or function of the horns, the only thing matters is its trade-offs. The main reason for that is the growth and siz e of beetle horn can stunt the relative size of other morphological structures such as antenna, wings, and eyes. The first identified trade off was that males who possessed long horns also had small eyes. Based on his research he found a correlation between where the horn is located and the adjacent structure to it. After breeding beetles for multiple generations he realized that horns that grow on the center or front of the head affect the size of the antenna, horns that grow on the thorax affect the size of the wing, and finally horns that grow on the base of the head affect the eyes.

Information Literacy for Open Distance Learners Essay

â€Å"Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.† ―Margaret Mead. In this fast moving world education is has become an essential things in human life. And today the technology has evolved so much that information is just a touch away. Narrowing down the technology development to the education nowadays, the students face challenges due to the movement of the technology and communication. The competition has become closer whereby they need to prove themselves to the world especially the distance learners. To ensure they are doing so, the study skills and information literacy applied thorough out their education is essential. Study skills are the abilities that are used by students for learning. It  will help the student to identify their weakness and to brush up on the weakness so as to progress on their learning. Being said so; first the students need to identify the study skills to be applied which will be discussed further below. On the other hand, information literacy also a crucial point for this 21st century. Broadly defined, information literacy is a set of abilities whereby person recognizes when information is needed and how to reach out to the information. This has become important since nowadays there are abundance of information choices – print, image, sound and spatial. It is exactly the opposite of lack of information – one having too much information. The pitfalls and the current information environment by students has been clearly described by Lorie Roth: â€Å"With the explosion of information generated and stored, the unregulated sprawl of the Internet, the shift from a print- to an image-based culture, the development of sound and video archives, and the ease of seemingly infinite reproduction of words and pictures through electronic media, the pitfalls for college students have multiplied geometrically. There is so much information, so much of it of doubtful quality, so accessible through so many different platforms† (Roth, 1999, p. 42). 2.0 Skills Required i. Management Skills Prospective graduates must possess management skills. Through these skills, employers will assess whether the graduate is able to arrange something that will be entrusted to him. In fact, the employer will also ensure that graduates are able to either do the work efficiently and productively, to guarantee the quality of work as well as at the desired level. In these management skills, very important thing also is time management. The ability to manage well, especially in deciding to do the work that needs to be given priority and focus should be resolved over time will also be taken into account by the employer. Good management skills are a bonus for an organization that not only have employees who are able and efficient in  doing their assignment, but also to guarantee the production of quality work, but is capable of satisfying customers. ii. Information Technology Skill Information technology (IT) has changed the way we work (economic aspects), communication (social aspects), and thinking (psychological aspects). Although Malaysia has not yet reached the status of information society, we are already feeling the heat and turbulence of the Information Age. We cannot master the technology with the push of a computer button. We need to have the skills to access the information. Information literacy is a skill to do such things as identify and locate sources of information from reliable sources. After that, we need to assess the quality and organizing information correctly and to use that information effectively. One should understand the nature of information on various subjects or disciplines. Awareness of the existence of various types of reference sources and uses must be known. There are some good study skills and information literacy skill is to be learned by students in order to succeed in education. Those are time management skills and managing real tasks and responsibilities that the extent of distance learning students can use these skills to be discussed in class and team learning. And the third is the skill of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in line with current technology, distance education students have mastered the skills to learn independently through ICT. And the last is the skill of making reference to expand knowledge in a particular subject. iii. Leadership Skills In addition, leadership skills are also needed by future graduates. The success of a business or a rise and fall is based on leadership. This criterion is also very important to be dominated by undergraduates, as one of the few important skills to master. While future graduates will not continue to hold the highest office when venturing in the field of  employment, but they have shown potential as a leader, which can carry a given, next perform the task because of its leadership will be evaluated by the employer. They should also be able to demonstrate the potential to motivate and give impetus to a colleague who will be working with them soon. What is most important in this is the attitude of the leadership, graduates will need to know about the next assignment received perform assigned tasks, judge assignment deadlines and show leadership by giving good examples to others or other colleagues. Leadership skills have actually nurtured while studying at the university among prospect ive graduates, either directly or indirectly. iv. Manipulating Information Skills Manipulating information is one aspect of the main skills. In this case, students are not only able to identify the information to be sought after, but also able to collect, manage and manipulate the information so that the information can be used to meet the needs of learning. These skills must be mastered students so that students can obtain additional information on their studies. This is because students can not solely rely on the information provided by teachers. When students master the skills of information, meaning that students were able to identify learning resources, methods and techniques to get the information either through reference books, reference dictionary or reference through internet sources. Finally, learn how to master the skills either with or without the presence of the teacher, students are able to maximize efforts and optimize the acquisition of knowledge. At the same time, the acquisition of skills can help students learn how to use time effectively. Not only are students able to identify weaknesses and strengths in their own learning process and try to resolve it, but more importantly the students are able to make effective independent learning appropriate to emphasize aspects of lifelong learning by the Ministry of Education. v. Team working skills And skills that must be mastered by graduates and employers is desired Teamwork Skills. Competition is happening in the world job market among prospective graduates who have graduated over the years, resulting in many students who are difficult to get a job. Should the prospective graduates should use the situation to try to collect as many of the skills that should be used after the expiration learn later. Teamwork skills are different than individual work. Teamwork is required, working with more people, but in a group. Commitment is required in teamwork. One has to show he is a player in the team, as well as able and capable to manage and be representative of the responsibilities assigned. In addition, working in a team also demanded that someone be able and be able to build positive relationships with colleagues, as well as to help achieve the goals and objectives of the work undertaken, but also can improve the quality of work. Furthermore, the problems in employment impacts of each process are complex in nature and will involve a number of parts and systems. So logically, problem solving such cases is beyond the ability of the individual. Therefore, it is important for graduates to be able to master the skills of teamwork, so that they can do the job if asked to manage a business group. Disclosure provided or learned in the course of practical sessions should be used by undergraduates, for this practical session they will be exposed to the experience of teamwork and building relationships with others, the colleague. vi. Managing Stress Online courses may not necessarily increase or reduce your stress just because it is delivered online. We must consider our own sources of education-related stress when choosing to take online course. Online course might be suitable for those feel high stress from giving in-class presentations, where it can save them from the stress. However if using lap top and related technology makes you experience excessive stress, students might need to reconsider taking a course online, since most online courses rely exclusively on computer technology. Some strategies for managing course-related stress include: Knowing the deadline: Students need to know their course deadlines and also other important events occurring elsewhere in their life while you are enrolled in the course. Plan ahead. The students need to plan and do their course related activities ahead if they foresee their time being consumed by non course activity. With the technological resources, students should ask for help resources, and have them at hand when you are working on your coursework. Always keep in touch with their instructor. If at all they fall behind, should work together with the instructor to get back on track. vii. Balancing Responsibilities and Setting Priorities For successful online learning experience one has to able to balance the responsibility. Setting priority is the best benefit from online education. The students have to find out what is expected from them at the beginning of the course and plan ahead. Certainly one will have more things to fulfill than they have the time to complete them. During this time students need to determine which course activity is important and focus on those. They should not hesitate to ask for advice from their instructor. viii. Using Search Engines Even though library and catalogue can provide direction and access to scholarly information, the Web itself is a storehouse for billions of documents. For reasons outlined below, one needs to look into information in books and journals first since they go through quality control measures before they are published. However the can also reveal thousands of potentially useful information that’s related to the research.oHhhhesdkkmHO 3.0 Suggestions Based on the skills needed by future graduates as found above, it is necessary for the future graduates themselves, with existing initiatives, in order to increase the equipment inside have those skills. In addition, the parties responsible as government bodies and educational institutions, low  or high to take steps and initiatives in order to prepare future graduates to face the challenges of globalization to compete career search, even comparable to the skilled manpower there are out there as well as expressed by other universities. Generally, prospective graduates and responsible parties should emphasize mastery Soft skills among student, because this skill is the inclusion of aspects of generic skills, the skills that are indispensable aspect in the globalized world of work. Compensation should be for future graduates to assess and meet the needs of an increasingly demanding job market. Furthermore, the technology changes at this time are very fast. Firstly, to carry out the plan of study that requires a schedule that is constantly reviewing and maintaining the schedule to follow in implementing the planning sorted by priority and keep a checklist of completed and outstanding tasks, for example in the information technology era high at the present time there are many options to make a study schedule effective as using a â€Å"smart phone† now has an application â€Å"Android† to schedule a lesson in the mobile phones of students, so students can create a memorial for the study of the set so much time in order to have students study schedule on the phone. Next, not all distance education students proficient in the use of ICT computer, internet portals and institutions. Therefore, students can pursue distance learning courses in ICT for control over the use of ICT. Most of these courses are always offered and can also learn on your own in the Internet network or buy the book for self-study. And the last suggestion is, not all students can master the skill of making a very important reference in learning, the intention is that the institution should give awareness to students of distance learning and briefed the importance of study skills are the skills which make reference to the success of a distance learning student said. Conclusion All the above mentioned skills are important for online learners. It will make the online learning effective. Early preparation is important and also  active participation in online learning such as forum. In general online learning needs the use if latest technology in order for the students to complete their studies. There are certain difficulties faced by students in using the technology such as virus, technical issues, internet traffic and henceforth. Therefore, the online learners do have the freedom to arrange their study by their own and which method to follow. This requires them to have all the skills that is stated above for them to continue the studies and achieve their goals. (Words : 2166) References Available Online : http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/how-students-develop-online-learning-skills Available Online : http://www.ucc.vt.edu/academic_support_students/online_study_skills_workshops/ Available Online : http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2012/01/13/4-time-management-tips-for-online-students Available Online : http://www.military.com/education/keys-to-success/study-skills-for-the-online-adult-learner.html

Humber bridge essays

Humber bridge essays Firstly, in this trip, I learned some basis theory from the talk that provided by the consultant, who is working for maintenance the Humber Bridge. He showed some slides how the engineers design the bridge in order to prevent some natural disaster such as earthquake, typhoon and so on. Secondly, he showed some history information of this bridge to us. For instance, the figure of vehicles, how much is the toll and However, Humber Bridge is built by private company so that they set up a toll in order to recover their capital which they had spent for built the Humber bridge. Thirdly, he also showed some slides about the different elevations of the bridge. From those diagram, I knew why are the engineers designed the bridge like that outlook. They got some information by consulting from different environmental experts. Then, they used that information to design a bridge which can prevent the disaster. Those are the picture that the consultant showed to us. After the briefing, we had to take a look around the Humber Bridge. We went into the tower of the bridge and saw the structure of the bridge. Also, we saw the cables which joined from one side to the other side. And that cables have a total length which can around the world about 2.5 times. And each of the cable is made by 200 little cables. After I saw those cables, I felt that build a bridge is not an easy job. Building a bridge, the engineers have to calculate the force and load for the bridge. On the other hand, the environment experts also have to calculate the change of weather and topography. However, the engineers joined that information together in order to build a safety and useful bridge for public to use. I through this trip was held very successful since we can learn something from the real objects rather than learn the theory only. Moreover, this kind of trip has inc ...

Odile Decq, French Architect for the 21st Century

Odile Decq, French Architect for the 21st Century Odile Decq (born July 18, 1955, in Laval, east of Brittany in France) and Benoà ®t Cornette have been called architectures first rock and roll couple. Attired in Gothic black, Decqs nontraditional personal appearance fit well with the couples curious delight in architectural experimentation with space, metals, and glass. After Cornette was killed in a 1998 automobile accident, Decq continued their rebellious architecture and urban planning business. On her own, Decq continues to win awards and commissions, proving to the world that she was always an equal partner and a talent in her own right. Plus shes kept the funky look and black attire all these years. Decq earned a Diploma in Architecture from the Ecole dArchitecture de Paris-La Villette UP6 (1978) and a Diploma in Urbanism and Planning from Institut dÉtudes Politiques de Paris (1979). She practiced in Paris alone and then in 1985 in partnership with Benoà ®t Cornette. After Cornettes death, Decq ran Odile Decq Benoà ®t Cornette Architectes-Urbanistes (ODBC Architects) for the next 15 years, rebranding herself in 2013 as Studio Odile Decq. Since 1992, Decq has maintained a relationship with Ecole Spà ©ciale dArchitecture in Paris as a teacher and director. In 2014, Decq was not intimidated to launch a new school of architecture. Called Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture and located in Lyon, France, the architecture program is built around the intersection of five thematic fields: neurosciences, new technologies, social action, visual art, and physics. The Confluence program, melding old and new topics of study, is a curriculum by and for the 21st century. Confluence is also an urban development project of Lyon, France, where the rivers Rhone and Saone join. Above and beyond all of the architecture designed and built by Odile Decq, the Confluence Institute may become her legacy. Decq claims to have no particular influence or master, but she does appreciate architects and their works, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. She says ...they were inventing what they called the free plan, and I was interested in this idea and how you pass through a plan without having different articulated space.... Particular buildings that have influenced her thinking include Convent of La Tourette (Lyon France) by Le CorbusierLa Sagrada Familia (Barcelona, Spain) by Antoni Gaudà ­A concrete tower at the Jewish Museum (Berlin, Germany) by Daniel Libeskind Sometimes I am just impressed by buildings, and I am jealous about ideas expressed through these structures. Source of quotation: Odile Decq Interview, designboom, january 22, 2011 [Accessed July 14, 2013] Selected Architecture: 1990: Banque Populaire de lOuest (BPO) administration building, Rennes, France (ODBC)2004: L. Museum in Neuhaus, Austria2010: MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, new wing, Rome, Italy2011: Phantom Restaurant, first restaurant in Garniers Paris Opà ©ra House2012: FRAC Bretagne, Museum for Contemporary Art, Les Fonds Rà ©gionaux dArt Contemporain (FRAC), Bretagne, France2015: Saint-Ange Residence, Seyssins, France2015: Confluence Institute School of Architecture, Lyon, France2016: Le Cargo, Paris In Her Own Words: I try to explain to young women that practicing architecture is really complicated and its very hard, but its possible. I discovered early on that to be an architect you have to have a little bit of talent and a maximum of determination and not focus on the complications.- A conversation with: Odile Decq, Architectural Record, June 2013,  © 2013 McGraw Hill Financial. All Rights Reserved. [Accessed July 9, 2013] Architecture, in a certain sense, is a war. Its a tough profession where you always have to fight. You have to have great stamina. I kept going because I started working as a team with Benoà ®t who helped, supported and pushed me to go my own way. He treated me as an equal, strengthened my own resolve to assert myself, follow my own inclination and be as I wanted to be. I also tell students and repeat at conferences that you need a good dose of recklessness to go down the road of architecture because if you are too aware of the difficulties the profession entails, you might never begin. You have to keep fighting but without really knowing what the fight is. Very often this recklessness is considered folly. Thats wrong; its pure recklessness – something that is socially acceptable for men, but not yet for women.- Interview with Odile Decq by Alessandra Orlandoni, The Plan Magazine, October 7 2005[theplan.it/J/index.php?optioncom_contentviewarticleid675%3Ainte%0Arvista-a-odile- decq-Itemid141langen accessed July 14, 2013] ...stay curious all your life. To discover, to think that the world is nourishing you, and not only architecture, but the world and society around you is nourishing you, so you have to be curious. You have to always be curious about what will happen in the world later, and to be hungry for life, and to enjoy even when its hard work....you have to be able to take risks. I want you to be courageous. I want you to have ideas, to take a position....- Odile Decq Interview, designboom, january 22, 2011 [Accessed July 14, 2013] Learn More: Odile Decq Benoà ®t Cornette by Clare Melhuish, Phaidon, 1998Architecture in France by Philip Jodidio, 2006 Additional Sources: Studio Odile Decq website at www.odiledecq.com/; RIBA International Fellows 2007 Citation, Odile Decq, RIBA website; Odile Decq Benoà ®t Cornette - ODBC : Architects by adrian welch / isabelle lomholt at e-architect; ODILE DECQ, BENOIT CORNETTE, Architectes, Urbanistes, Euran Global Culture Networks; Designer Bio, Beijing International Design Triennial 2011 [Websites accessed July 14, 2013]

What Goes Well with Chicken Soup

What Goes Well with Chicken Soup Lots of writers ask me how to get published in the bestselling, â€Å"Chicken Soup for the Soul† book series. That’s because I’m very lucky to be a frequent contributor. In the past few years, they’ve published 40 of my stories.    Submitting is simple. You go to their website: www.chickensoup.com, fill in your name, address, etc., and then just paste your story. Authors receive $200 plus 10 books per story. CSS editors receive over 5,000 submissions per book. The editors want stories, not essays. I keep the term â€Å"a Chicken Soup moment† etched in my brain. At this point, I’m acutely aware of when I’m experiencing a Chicken Soup moment. Or notice that someone else is. I was reading a friend’s Facebook post. On her FB page, she posted a beautiful picture of a Christmas decoration she kept up all year and wrote, â€Å"I hung these three angels from my dining room chandelier at Christmas two years ago and they have never left.† Her caption for her picture: â€Å"Angels Watching Over Me.† The instant I saw that, I e-mailed her, suggesting that was a perfect Chicken Soup moment. Your life is filled with Chicken Soup moments. You just have to see them. Those moments do not need to be huge, as in a miraculous medical recovery. You can find them in the simplest of experiences. Although I have had stories accepted about my spinal cord injury, simpler topics have included: â€Å"The Appointment,† about my husband falling apart when our dog got groomed for the first time, â€Å"Little Things Matter,† about not celebrating Valentine’s Day because we didn’t want to bother, â€Å"My Husband is on a Diet† about family humor, â€Å"Mud-dling Through,† about how I stopped to help an old dog get up from a mucky sandbar. I’m seeing a slight trend of CSS accepting more humor, as well as just a tiny touch of edginess. In â€Å"Chicken Soup for the Soul: Shaping the New You,† my humor story has the following dialogue. Last night he screamed from the bathtub, â€Å"I’ve got it!† I called out from the den, â€Å"Geez Bob. I hate to think what you mean In another book, â€Å"Think Positive,† I tell a story involving my husband having x-rays. The technician forgot to remove whatever they call those things that are placed over nipples so that nipples don’t show up as suspicious spots on the films. I have this dialogue: â€Å"What are people going to think if you’re wearing nipple buttons?† I grabbed his nipples and started yanking. A year ago, I would have edited those parts out before submitting. Although the editors have published my reprints, as long as the columns ran in a very small venue, they prefer originals. I retain rights to my stories. However I do agree to give permission to CSS to use my story in various venues. That’s part of the contract. This works in my favor. My stories have appeared in www.beliefnet.com, which is a huge inspirational website. Several of my works have been picked up, also via CSS, Your chances of acceptance are increased if you submit something unique. You can predict the most common topics. A terrific writer/friend submitted a story about finishing his first marathon for the book: â€Å"Runners.† He didn’t get accepted. He’s such a great writer, but one’s first marathon was likely the topic of plenty of stories for that book. CSS editors prefer diversity, and your life is full of it, trust me.

Identity development - Edith Piaf- based on the movie La Vie En Rose Essay

Identity development - Edith Piaf- based on the movie La Vie En Rose - Essay Example It is not difficult to comprehend why Piaf suffered so much as an adult, when understanding the loneliness and neglect that she suffered as a child. Edith began her life in Paris but eventually made her way to New York shortly after being accused of the murder of the man who discovered her singing talents. Edith Piaf was indeed fortunate to have an amazing ability to sing and perform, but yet she suffered deeply with issues of inadequacy and abandonment. She fell in love with a married man who was eventually killed in a plane crash. The end period of Piaf’s life was plagued by an addiction to morphine and a series of promiscuous relationships meant to fill the void left within her from her life of tragedy and sorrow. According to the theory of development stated by Freud, there are three components of personality. The Id, the ego and the superego. Freud believed the Id to be a naturally occurring and primal part of the personality which had no real connection to the real world. The ego however could be shaped by outside experiences during development. When applying the life experiences of Piaf to her developmental becoming, it is clear that she was a product of multiple stressors and disappointments. Freud described the ego and the Id as being void of conscience or morality. The superego however was described as the core of one’s conscience. This sense of right and wrong could easily be instilled or manipulated by developmental experiences. Obviously, the sense of right and wrong instilled in Piaf was rather shaky as she quickly justified abandoning her own child just as she herself was abandoned. She had no sense of family or commitment and therefore found an affair with a married father of three to be justifiable as well. Piaf was not shown a strong sense of value or family connection at any point in her life. She was raised eventually by a grandmother who was a prostitute, justifying promiscuous and

Current Ethical issues in International HRM Coursework

Current Ethical issues in International HRM - Coursework Example Furthermore, the task of IHRM is to find, attract and manage gifted employees, which are the most valuable resource for any organization (Kramar et al 2011). a) bribery. When a company appears in the international environment, it can appear in the middle of the conflicts existing in the new society. Bribery is one of them. For example, while the bribery laws in the USA are strong, they are not so strong in Africa or China. The companies which recently faced such problem are: Transparency International Australia  and The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)  (Collings & WoodÐ ± 2009) b) breach of contract. The main task of IHRM is to make employees perform in accordance with ethical norms. Only adhering to ethical rules can increase the standard of living and bring benefits to employees and their families. IHRM has a very difficult task to instruct on the code of ethics and its application in the international environment. The violation of ethical rules can lead to breach of contract. The company, which recently faced such a problem, is Ocean & Earth (Klerck, 2009). c) abuse of human rights. Here the human resources managers meet many challenges and these challenges are much more serious than in those companies, which do not perform internationally. This situation is typical for the work in developing countries. Globe International  Limited faced the situation where the rights of their employees were violated. This negatively influenced the performance of the organization (Klerck

Marketing Communications Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Marketing Communications - Essay Example IMC campaigns became the business necessity to keep their customers loyal and committed to their products in global competitive environment. This paper deals with the brief case studies of three different organizations from the same industry, on use of IMC campaigns, their selected target markets, campaign ideas, tools, themes and comparison of the three companies. The whole essay clarifies the concept of integrated marketing communication tools and objectives of their use. With a clear concept and implementation success of Integrated Marketing Communication tools, certain recommendations are made for the better future use of integrated marketing campaigns. The whole paper also addressed the challenges of Integrated Marketing Communication approaches. Integrated marketing communication With the advent of globalization in business world, businesses need to survive by following a head to head competition, customer loyalty and retention. There came the concept of using all marketing too ls together to get maximum benefit and an edge over competitors. This marketing technique is known as integrated marketing communication. This is a management concept that puts all the marketing communications under one head. Integrated marketing communication works as a unified force to accomplish all the marketing management goals of organization. This concept creates a link among all the forms of marketing through synergistic effect it provides. Many marketplace trends gave emergence to integrated marketing communication. Customers attitude is changing with increase in number of advertisement messages, media fragmentation, audience fragmentation, mergers of marketing agencies, global marketing, follower products, competition of ad agencies; decrease in costs of database management and maintenance of customer relationship. (Thorson, Moore, 1996) Integrated marketing communication process is not a very old concept but getting popularity in the upcoming trends of business needs of m aintaining competitive edge. In today’s environment integrated marketing communication is leading old techniques of communicating with consumers and customers. In near future, IMC campaigns and tools will become the success factors of businesses and their business need. Different IMC approaches There are five different and common and frequently used tools of IMC; Advertising, Sales promotions, Public relations, direct marketing and Personal selling (Kym Gordon Moore, 2009) Sometimes organizations focus on some of them and integrate with each other to get better results in consistency with the organization’s campaign objectives and organization’s resources. Theses all tools are commonly used for marketing purposes. But under integrated marketing communication, these tools are used as a unified force with bigger impact. Selected IMC approaches case studies Integrated marketing communication is a simple but vast concept of management and communication. Three IMC ca mpaigns are selected for a detailed analysis of efficiency in use, similarities in objectives, difference in approaches, ideas,

Greasy Lake - T. Boyle Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Greasy Lake - T. Boyle - Assignment Example I agree with Boyle in that most of the time people have no idea about the reality of what they admire and aspire to be; only when one experiences something can one know the true meaning thereof. In the beginning Boyle romanticizes the â€Å"bad† or â€Å"dangerous† persona that the narrator and his friends aspire to have as their own, or feel is their own. There is a tendency even now, I feel, to make the bad appear good and attractive, whereby young men want to be rebels or bad. Boyle captures this attitude right in the start of his narrative, stating that it was a time â€Å"when it was good to be bad†. The narrator of the story goes on to list quite a few of the â€Å"bad† qualities that his friends have, and which he admires, and which make him think that they are â€Å"two dangerous characters†. Most often such dangerous characters do not have any inkling of what real danger is, and their image is often based on stories they themselves tell, or on feats that are really not â€Å"dangerous† but merely irresponsible. In the story, for example, the two friends of the narrator are â€Å"bad† because not only can they hold their own at a party, but can also roll joints in extremely difficult circumstances. It seems that this is often the truth of life; if you put yourself out to be as someone, more often than not, people will believe you without any evidence, and soon you will start believing it too, that is until you are faced with an event that challenges your claim. When something comes along that actually challenges the claims that you make, it is only then that the truth is known. Only when you are faced with the task of proving yourself to be who you claim to be can you actually prove the same. I completely agree with Boyle on this, because in my opinion very few people turn out to be who they say they are when it comes to putting their claims into action. When they are forced to scatter, with the narrator finding himself in Greasy

Climate change Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Climate change - Dissertation Example There is some disagreement in the literature about the percentage of emissions caused by each sector. Whitaker (2007, p.62), for example, produces a very conservative estimate for transportation fuels, of just 14% of total emissions. Nevertheless, even Whitaker’s figures make clear that urban communities are producing unsustainable levels in other areas – for example, power stations to supply their energy are held responsible for 21.3% of greenhouse gas output, 10.4% are caused by residential and commercial sectors, and a further 3.4% is caused by waste disposal and treatment. The provision of the latter on a large-scale in only necessitated by the large-scale existence of urban settlement patterns. International trade, travel and a growing dependence on motor vehicles has made transportation one of the major sources of greenhouse gases. The growing numbers of people living in urban communities make a major contribution to this. As well as travelling between cities and within cities, they do not, of course, produce their own food and drink. Therefore, all of the necessities of every day life, and much else besides, has to be imported to the urban environment, at great cost to gas emissions. As was pointed out by several sources, the Kyoto Protocol – the landmark international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, did not apply to emissions from international trade and transport by air and sea. Furthermore, as urban settlements grow and sprawl into the previously rural hinterlands, the distances which need to be traversed within cities become greater, which leads to increased ownership of cars and motorbikes. In the United States, for example, 92% of households own at least one car, and transport is the second largest contributor to US gas emissions, and, perhaps more worrying, an astonishing 35% of the world’s total (Dow & Downing, 2007, p.46). The United Kingdom has seen similar patterns, with car journeys increasing by 9% between 1997 and 2004, and expected to grow by a further 26% between 2000 and 2010 (Department for Transport, 2005, p.10). Some sources took a more literary approach to the problems of climate change and urban sustainability, such as the use of a quote from Ehrenburg, penned in 1929, presaging the destruction wrought by the motor vehicle: ‘the automobile†¦can’t be blamed for anything†¦It only fulfils its destiny: it is destined to wipe out the world’ (1999, p.175). Compared to the alternatives, such as using bicycles, trains and buses, which are relatively energy-efficient, using personal motor cars, especially if they are carrying only one or two people at a time, is damaging. However, the most sustainable type of transport – walking, has become less popular. In the past decade, as Monbiot points out, the number of walking trips in the UK has fallen 20% (2006, p.145). At the same time, air travel is becoming ever more affordable, with passenger miles only expected to increase in the course of the next few decades. Dow and Downing provide a useful digest of figures for transport emissions, and their global distribution, and estimate that from 3.9 billion journey by air in 2004, by 2020 there were will some 7.4 billion (2007, p.46). Each of these journeys is responsible for huge amounts of carbon dioxide emissions, with a round trip between Europe and the US by two people producing the equivalent of at least 40 tonnes of carbon

Case Study-Sting Ray Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

-Sting Ray - Case Study Example PoolVac also wishes to use its sales data for the last 26 quarters to estimate demand for its Sting Ray.Demand for Sting Rays is specified to be a linear function as the following: 1. Run the appropriate regression to estimate the average variable cost function (AVC) for Sting Rays. Evaluatethe statistical significance of the three estimated parameters using a significance level of 5 percent. Be sure tocomment on the algebraic signs of the three parameter estimates. (30%) At a confidence level of 95% (5% level of significance), all the three parameters are significant, as they have a p-value of less than 0.05. Notably, a (intercept) has a p-value of 1.96*10-17, while the coefficients b and have p –values of 0.000342 and 0.01299, respectively The model implies that average variable costs is a function of both Q and square of Q. the first parameter, intercept is 152, implying that the expected average cost at constant quantity is 152. As quantity varies, average cost will vary directly with Q2 (positive parameter) and inversely with the quantity (negative coefficient). Notably an increase in quantity does not necessarily increase average variable cost, the effect depends on which variable(either Q or Q2 ) has a greater influence. Evaluate the statistical significance of the three estimated slope parameters using a significance level of 5percent. Discuss the appropriateness of the algebraic signs of each of the three slope parameter estimates.(20%) h= 3.166Ph and p-value of 0.027, implies that holding price and income constant, If competitors reduce their prices by a unit, customers shift from sting ray to its substitutes hence demand reduces by 3.166 units and vice versa. 5. The manager at PoolVac, Inc. believes Howard Industries is going to price its automatic pool cleaner at $250,and average household income in the U.S. is expected to be $65,000. Using the regression results from Question 4, write the estimated demand function (with only P as

Climate change Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Climate change - Dissertation Example There is some disagreement in the literature about the percentage of emissions caused by each sector. Whitaker (2007, p.62), for example, produces a very conservative estimate for transportation fuels, of just 14% of total emissions. Nevertheless, even Whitaker’s figures make clear that urban communities are producing unsustainable levels in other areas – for example, power stations to supply their energy are held responsible for 21.3% of greenhouse gas output, 10.4% are caused by residential and commercial sectors, and a further 3.4% is caused by waste disposal and treatment. The provision of the latter on a large-scale in only necessitated by the large-scale existence of urban settlement patterns. International trade, travel and a growing dependence on motor vehicles has made transportation one of the major sources of greenhouse gases. The growing numbers of people living in urban communities make a major contribution to this. As well as travelling between cities and within cities, they do not, of course, produce their own food and drink. Therefore, all of the necessities of every day life, and much else besides, has to be imported to the urban environment, at great cost to gas emissions. As was pointed out by several sources, the Kyoto Protocol – the landmark international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, did not apply to emissions from international trade and transport by air and sea. Furthermore, as urban settlements grow and sprawl into the previously rural hinterlands, the distances which need to be traversed within cities become greater, which leads to increased ownership of cars and motorbikes. In the United States, for example, 92% of households own at least one car, and transport is the second largest contributor to US gas emissions, and, perhaps more worrying, an astonishing 35% of the world’s total (Dow & Downing, 2007, p.46). The United Kingdom has seen similar patterns, with car journeys increasing by 9% between 1997 and 2004, and expected to grow by a further 26% between 2000 and 2010 (Department for Transport, 2005, p.10). Some sources took a more literary approach to the problems of climate change and urban sustainability, such as the use of a quote from Ehrenburg, penned in 1929, presaging the destruction wrought by the motor vehicle: ‘the automobile†¦can’t be blamed for anything†¦It only fulfils its destiny: it is destined to wipe out the world’ (1999, p.175). Compared to the alternatives, such as using bicycles, trains and buses, which are relatively energy-efficient, using personal motor cars, especially if they are carrying only one or two people at a time, is damaging. However, the most sustainable type of transport – walking, has become less popular. In the past decade, as Monbiot points out, the number of walking trips in the UK has fallen 20% (2006, p.145). At the same time, air travel is becoming ever more affordable, with passenger miles only expected to increase in the course of the next few decades. Dow and Downing provide a useful digest of figures for transport emissions, and their global distribution, and estimate that from 3.9 billion journey by air in 2004, by 2020 there were will some 7.4 billion (2007, p.46). Each of these journeys is responsible for huge amounts of carbon dioxide emissions, with a round trip between Europe and the US by two people producing the equivalent of at least 40 tonnes of carbon

Respond question about reading Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Respond question about reading - Essay Example e texts make that establish a comparison or relationship between Alexie and Superman, and thirdly, why Alexie uses superman and not some other fictional character, in the readings, â€Å"The Joy Of Reading And Writing: Superman And Me†. Superman, a superhero character in comic fiction books, at times, faces dangerous situations, but in the end of the episode, he usually saves the world and he survives. Similarly, Alexie faced a dangerous when he was born hydrocephalic, which forced him to go through a brain surgery when he was only 6 months old. The likeness in the two is based on the fact that, they are faced with a dangerous situation, but ultimately they thrive and overcome the dangerous situation (McQuade & Atwan 27). Furthermore, as Superman grows to be older, his prowess is shown by how he wins various feats involving villains. Similarly, as Alexie, from an inferior Spokane Indian background grows up, his prowess starts to show when he moves from the reservation school and enrolls in a high school. In particular, Alexie’s prowess is seen firstly, when he becomes a star player in his high school basketball team. Secondly, he gets a scholarship to attend Gonzaga University in Spokane. Thirdly, â€Å"after graduation he receives the Washington State Arts Commission poetry Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts poetry Fellowship. Fourthly, he receives a PEN/Hemingway Award for â€Å"Best First Book of Fiction† because of writing a collection of short stories. Fifthly, Alexie’s prowess that make him similar to Superman, continue to be seen, when Granta puts his name as part of â€Å"Best of Young American Novelist†, and his books win different awards such as th e Christopher Award, National Book award for Young people’s Literature and PEN/Faulker Award for Fiction (McQuade & Atwan 28). The major connections in the text that establish a comparison or relationship between Alexie and Superman are the struggles that Alexie and Superman had to go through in

Media Prima and Astro Malaysia: Staff Management

Media Prima and Astro Malaysia: Staff Management 1.0 Introduction Media Prima is the biggest listed media group in Malaysia, owning all main private television stations and having approximately 54 percent of Malaysian television viewers, with its closest rival, the pay-television satellite operator, Astro, which offers over 100 channels or stations, controlling a market share of roughly 29 per cent. RTM controls 17 per cent of the market. Media Prima wholly owns TV channel like TV3, NTV7 and TV9 and holds a 99.5 per cent interest in 8TV. TV3, Media Primas flagship television station and the number one free-to-air television station in the country, finished the 2007 season dominating the years top 20 programmes (The New Straits Times, 4 January 2008). TV3 recorded a 33 per cent share of viewers in 2007 among over a hundred channels available on satellite and FTA TV (The New Straits Times, 4 January 2008). The group also controls radio stations Fly FM and Hot FM, with a combined listenership of 3.5 million. Besides that, Media Prima has a 43 per cent stake in the equity of The New Straits Times Press, which has four newspapers in its stable. Media Prima is said to reach 22 million Malaysians daily: about 11 million television viewers, seven million newspaper readers and four million radio listeners. Malaysias population is a little over 25 million. Astro All Asia Networks Plc, the group that has the monopoly over Malaysias subscription television operation, reaches about 10 million viewers in some two million homes representing a penetration rate of approximately 38 per cent of Malaysias TV households in 2010. (Astro Annual Report, 2010) Astro began operating in 1996 and today offers over 100 channels with a wide mix of foreign and local programmes. Its sister company Airtime Management Programming runs the eight radio stations in its stable, include Hitz, Mix, Light Easy, Era, My, Xfresh, THR, and Sinar. 2.0 Training and Development Conduct a Training and Development in an organization is essential where it needs is identified during each employees annual career development review. From this process, the acquisition of new skills, competencies, attitudes and knowledge will lead the employees to changed behaviour from reactive to proactive, greater maturity and critical thinking. In Astro, employee satisfaction survey was carried out to complement existing communication channels. Opinions of 3,054 employees were collated through online survey forms. The survey sought employees views on 13 major categories covering various aspects of their jobs. (Appendix B) The total favourable for Training and Career Development where employees think about Astro is doing are 65 percent. This figure is considered moderate where it should take further action to improve. Thus, in 2009, Astro convened two full-scale Town Hall meetings to share latest developments and discussed the Companys direction, 48 training seminars on topics ranging from leadership courses to safety and health trainings as well as introduce new high definition service which is branded as Astro B.yond. Information that had transpired was recorded in DVDs, and will send to Astro offices across the country in future for training and development purposes. Realities in economic and advances in technology cause the availability of jobs in TV station have changed rapidly. Therefore, there were several training initiatives designed to increase the number of skilled people in Media Prima. In 2009, the organization invested about RM1.14 million for staff training which involved 3,615 man-days in total in the organization. A summary of the organization training breakdown for 2008 and 2009 is shown in Appendix C. The majority of the training is provided to technical staff which conducted at the organization itself. This is to ensure that the organization maintain the best quality and keep up to date with the latest technology and techniques available in media production. Although both organization utilize Training and Development, but the ways of conduct is very different. Astro adopt an audiovisual method where used of DVDs for training and development will helps the organization to reduce cost, manpower and not time consuming. On the other side, Media Prima utilize apprenticeship training where the employees enter the skilled trades given through instruction and experience in the practical and theoretical aspects of work. When employees face problems in workplace, they can solve it based on their experience gained during the training. 3.0 Performance Management System A new performance evaluation system in Astro consists of a 360Â ° feedback mechanism to get a balanced assessment of the employee own peers. The need for this balance is also reflected in a revised Performance Review Form. One significant aspect of the new performance evaluation is the Relative Ranking Rating which rewards high performing employees in a transparent manner. Employees who fall under the lowest of the three-tier scale will be coached and guided via a Low Performance Management Process (CAP) system. (Appendix D) At Astro, employees are given clear expectations of the accomplishments desired of them as well as the ways to perform and achieve these expectations. This is done through the Performance Management System (PMS) under which periodic performance evaluation exercises are conducted to review employees performance. With this system, employees are aware of their strengths and also given ample room to work on improving their performances. The reviews run in 2 cycles in the span of the financial year; a year end review in January followed by a midyear review in July. Media Prima has introduced a 360 degree feedback system which is also referred to as the multirater or multisource feedback. It provides employees with performance feedback from supervisors, co-workers, peers, customers and reporting staff. It also includes self-assessment. We implemented this system as we take human capital management and development very seriously. 360 degree assessment is a process whereby the company takes stock of its capability once every two to three years to meet business challenges. The process begins with the company putting in place a competency framework which is aligned to the business direction of the company. The competency framework is used as a guide to recruit, develop, assess and compensate the employees based on performance and capabilities. In the case of Media Prima, an external consultant was hired to conduct the data collection process as well as the feedback and the follow up process. 4.0 Compensation and Rewards The Group operates a performance based bonus scheme for all employees, including the executive directors. The criteria for the scheme is dependent on the achievement of key performance indicators (KPI) set for the Groups business activities as measured against targets, together with an assessment of each individuals performance during the period. Bonuses payable to the executive directors are reviewed by the Remuneration Committee and approved by the Board. Employees compensation is determined by their performance which is measured across various Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Media Prima uses a point-based system which ranges from 2 to 5 in determining the weight of the bonus (5 being the highest performing). This process is used to assess all employees (100%). The percentage of employees achieving each performing level and the entitlement of each level is listed in Appendix E. Exploring the Four Stages of the Audit Process: Case Study Exploring the Four Stages of the Audit Process: Case Study Internal Audit is an independent function that provides an objective assurance and consultancy activity to improve and add value on an organizations operation. The auditors aim to help the Merami Berhad accomplish its objectives by evaluating the effectiveness of its risk management, control, and governance processes by bringing a discipline, systematic approach. The audit process is divided into four stages which are Planning (Preliminary Review), Fieldwork, Audit Report, and Follow-up Review. One of the main key objectives to carry out an audit is to minimize the time and avoid disrupting ongoing activities. As we are a public accounting firm for Merami Berhad for the past five years. Meramin Berhad is a public listed company, whose sales for the year 2009 were over RM 25 million. The audit fees we normally charge to Merami Berhad are RM 50,000. Before an audit is assigned to staff, the auditor must consider a few matters such as the size of the company to be audited. If it is a Public Listed Company, 3 or 4 staff will be required. Besides that, the budget is very important as the auditor are always advised to stay within the budget so that the audit fees is sufficient to cover all the cost incurred especially the disbursements. The auditor should also consider about the deadline. An audit assignment usually has very tight deadlines and therefore staff must ensure that the Audit Report is submitted to the Partner of Review on time so that the signing of accounts is not delayed. When the audit manager assigns a job to the senior, the first thing the senior does is to meet with his team members to discuss about the job and to delegate duties to the respective members. The audit assistant will normally be asked to retrieve the previous years file of the company from the filling room. The previous year file is always used as a guide only. Staff must always tailor-make the audit for the year according to the events that occurred during the year. Once the last years file is retrieved, a new file will be opened for the current years audit. STAGE 1: PLANNING (PREMILIRARY REVIEW) Planning is essential as this is the first time we understand Merami Berhad business and their controls in the company. During the planning stage of the audit, the auditorwill contact the client to notifythem of an upcoming audit and to schedule a time during the year that is most convenient for the audit to commence and take place. The auditor will send them a preliminary checklist. This is a list of documents (e.g. organization charts, financial statements) that will help the auditor learn about their unit before planning the audit. After reviewing the information, the auditor will plan the review, conduct a risk workshop primarily to identify key risks and raise risk awareness, draft an audit plan, and schedule an opening meeting. Engagement Letter Merami Berhad is informed of the audit through anannouncement or engagementletter from the Internal Audit Director. This letter communicates the scope and objectives of the audit, the auditors assigned to the audit, the audit methodology used in the audit and other relevant information. This letter serves as a contract which outlines the responsibilities of the auditor and client to prevent any unnecessary misunderstanding of what is expected or required of the other party. The auditor and the client must also agree on the terms of the engagement. Opening Conference Nearer the start of the audit, the auditor will arrange a meeting with Merami Berhad to discuss the scope and objectives of the audit. The opening conference should be held to gather information about the mission, critical processes, and control procedures of the unit to be used in the preliminary survey process. The opening meeting should include senior management and any administrative staff that may be involved in the audit. Merami Berhad describes the unit or system to be reviewed, the organization, available resources (personnel, facilities, equipment, funds), and other relevant information. The audit senior usually discusses with the client about the companys performance for the year in terms of increase or decrease in profitability. This may due to factors ranging from launching of new products during the year to high-position staffs leaving the company. These will all be documented in the Business Understanding Document. The internal auditor meets with the senior officer directly responsible for the unit under review and any staff members he wishes to include. It is important that the client identify issues or areas of special concern that should be addressed. The time frame of the audit will be determined, and we should discuss any potential timing issues (e.g. vacations, deadlines) that could impact the audit. The opening conference is an important step in a regular audit. It is an opportunity to establish the proper tone and to begin building good relationships. Preliminary Survey In thisphasethe auditor gathers relevant information that they have gained from the opening conference is used in conjunction with other relevant information about the unit in order to obtain a general overview of operations. He talks with key personnel and reviews reports, files, and other sources of information. This may include information on budgets and strategic plans as well as past audit reports. There are certain risks that the auditor will always review to ensure that they are being adequately controlled and managed these include financial transactions, local risk management and business continuity planning. Internal Control Review All of this information is then used to make a preliminary assessment of the risks and controls for Merami Berhad unit. The auditor will review the units internal control structure, a process which is usually time-consuming. In doing this, the auditor uses a variety of tools and techniques to gather and analyze information about the operation. The review of internal controls helps the auditor determine the areas of highest risk and design tests to be performed in the fieldwork section. In the interests of quality and consistency, the Head of Internal Audit reviews this work and agrees the scope of work to be carried out. Audit Program Preparation of theaudit programconcludes the preliminary review phase. The audit program establishes theproceduresnecessary to complete an efficient and effective audit. It includes a detailed plan of the work to be performed as well as the steps required to achieve the audit objectives. There should be sufficient detail for less experienced staff to perform the steps however it should not be overly detailed whereby it might cause auditors to execute steps routinely and override their judgment. STAGE 2: FIELDWORK Transaction Testing Revenue Cycle Sales procedure and cash receipt transaction are the 2 checking procedures under revenue cycle. Sales Procedure A sales quotation provides a pre-sales processing environment which allows prospective buyers to examine the costs involved for a completion of work. A sales quotation typically consists of information like quantity, item and its description, unit prices and etc. Many businesses cannot have an upfront price for the service they provide. Thus, sale quotation should be provided by companies to its customers to give them an estimate of the cost involved. In addition, a delivery order is written directions from a consignor or shipper of a shipment to a carrier or freight forwarder to release the shipment to the named delivery party in freight-prepaid shipment. It allows direct delivery of goods to the carrier or warehouseman. Invoices are essentially a detailed bill left by vendors and outside supplier for goods or services rendered to a company under sales procedure. The document may be called a Sales Invoice, from the point of view of the vendor, or a Purchase Invoice by the buyer. A typical invoice might list the quantity of each item, prices, billable hours, service description and a contact address for payment. While some expenses may be paid through an accounts payable department by the posted due date. Besides, cash sale can be used in several different contexts. A cash sale has to do with the purchase of goods or services and involves the immediate possession of the new owner, without any delay in time between purchase and assuming full ownership in just about every situation. In the world of finance and in retail situations, people are engage in cash sales on a delay basis, Segregation of duties is critical to effective internal control. It reduces the risk of both erroneous and inappropriate actions. The handling of cash receipts and accounting for such receipt need to segregate. This is to reduce the likelihood that errors will remain undetected by providing an accounting check over the receipt of cash. For example, those who handle cash receipts would not have the authority to prepare or sign cheques, would not have access to accounting records and would not be involved in reconciling bank accounts. If a person has access to both the cash receipts and the accounts receivable records, it is possible for cash to be diverted and the shortage of cash in the accounting records to be covered which can result in theft of the entitys cash. In the other hand, for those who perform sales activity including those who maintain contact with customers and issue sales orders, would not perform any credit approval, billing, shipping, credit memo, cash receipts and a ccounting activities. Cash Receipt Transaction Most business customers pay by cheque or electronically. Cash receipts are only given to acknowledge cash payments; which are rarely made by business customers. Cash register and lockboxes are often used as safeguards here. In order to prevent fraud and error, different employees should be responsible for receiving and recording cash collections here. The purpose of preventing fraud and error is the validity, completeness, timeliness, authorization, valuation, classification, posting and summarization. Its very important to the cash receipt transaction. The auditor can check monthly bank reconciliation to prevent any recorded cash receipts not deposited in order to ensure the validity of the cash receipt transaction. For instance, misstatement in sales that may occur includes fictitious sale being recorded in the account o f a regular customer. Expenditure Cycle There are two checking procedures under expenditure cycle, which are purchasing procedure and cash disbursement transaction. Purchasing Procedure A purchasing transaction normally begins with a purchase requisition generated by a department or support function. A purchasing order is then the purchase of goods or services from a supplier. As soon as the goods and services have been rendered, the entity records a liability to the supplier and pays later. Basically, there are three types of for purchase transactions which are the purchase of goods or services on cash or credit, payment of the liabilities arising from such purchases and return of goods or services. The second type is cash disbursement transaction to clear liabilities resulting from purchase of goods or services. The final type is a purchase return transaction which involves the return of goods previously purchased to supplier for cash or credit. Good segregation of duties must be done in order to prevent embezzlement or any fraudulent activities. Firstly, a purchaser who orders should not be the person who receives goods. This can prevent the purchaser from placing excessive orders and keeping the rest of goods. Next, a person who purchases items should not be the person who writes the cheques for it. This can avoid the person from creating orders and make payments to fictitious companies. Then, the person who writes cheques should not handle the reconciliation. This is because nobody will aware even if he writes cheques to himself or relatives. Cash Disbursement Transaction Cash disbursement can be defined as paying out of funds in a discharge of a debt or expense. Transaction Related Audit Objective (TRAO) is used here to evaluating the existence and quality of controls. The auditors transaction-related audit objectives follow and are closely related to management assertion. That is because the auditors primary responsibility is to determine whether management assertions about financial statements are justified. These transaction-related audit objectives help the auditor accumulate sufficient competent evidence required by the standard of fieldwork and decide proper evidence to accumulate for classes of transactions with a framework. In order to ensure the validity of the cash disbursement transaction, the auditor tests the validity of purchase transactions whether there is any fictitious or non-existent purchases may have been recorded in the clients records. Assets or expenses will be overstated if fraudulent transactions are recorded. As for Completeness, auditor must ensure that purchase that has been made in recorded accordingly. If fail to do so will lead to understating of assets or expenses, and the corresponding accounts payable will also be understated. As for Timing, a timing error occurs if transactions are not recorded on the dates the transaction took place. As for Authorization, the person who has authority to approve purchase should not have access to cash disbursement for the purchase. As for Valuation, appropriate methodology is used to calculate transactions and to review various reconciliations. The valuation of accruals depends on the type and the nature of the accrued expenses. As for Classifications, the major issues related to the presentation and disclosure assertions are identifying and reclassifying any material debits contained in accounts payable. For instance, segregation of purchasing and cash disbursement journal is crucial to ensure that correct amount would be allocated properly. If purchase transactions are not properly classified, assets and expenses will be misstated. As for Posting and summarization, control tools should be used to reconcile vouchers to the daily accounts payable listing or else the daily postings to the purchases journal should be reconciled to the accounts payable subsidiary records. Income Statement or Profit and Loss Account First of all, the auditor should determine and try to find out the major changes or the modification that would affect the normal relationship has been made in the production and sales area. Audit assistant are responsible to handle on detect the significant adjustment in the policies of company that would affect the item stated in the income statement. After analyze on such adjustment to ensure that no material error is found then it will continue proceed to the final stage of the audit section. For example, significant changes in employee benefits might affect salaries and employee compensation and have an effect on the income statement. Other than checking in the income statement of a company, the auditor would also look into the balance sheet on the assets and liabilities. Before the auditor start to work on it, a copy of clients balance sheet should be prepared to working papers. There are procedures of carrying out an audit on assets and liabilities. Auditors should categorize each item in the balance sheet accordingly to the audit checklist. Assets All of these are the components of assets. For Cash in Bank To ensure the information that stated in the column of the balance is complied what it really had in the bank, a confirmation request letter will be sent to all the related bank which the entity had dealing with within the financial period. In addition to get confirm to relevant bank that the balance in the bank of the company, the auditors also can get an opportunity to request the bank to provide other information such as the securities that the company held in the safekeeping. The response from the bank give the company a gold evidence to prove that cash at bank that stated in the balance sheet is complied with the real amount in bank at the balance sheet date. With the cooperation of bank, the confirmation of cash on deposit provides evidence to the existence of cash at bank and as to rights and obligations. If the balance per bank statement is different, bank reconciliation would have to be done by the audit assistants. For Account Receivable A details list of account receivables balances of the customer should be obtain before the auditor and access to the balance. The auditor will trace totals to comparative summary of accounts receivables balance and randomly select customers account from the listing to send itemized statements to get the response or confirmation of the balance. Review the confirmation replies letter from them and test accounts where there are no replies. Keep track with the potential bad debts to be written off, if exist, check the opening balances again. For Inventories When inventory is material to the financial statements, the auditor is required to attend the entitys physical inventory counting unless it is impracticable. Examine clients physical inventories count determine whether the clients counting methods are effective. The purpose of inventory attendance is to enable the auditor to obtain audit evidence regarding the existence and condition of the inventory and consider if there is any obsolescence in it. The auditor may select a sample of inventory items from the client count records and trace them to the perpetual inventory records for checking purposes. For Prepayment expenses Randomly choose the official receipts or documents that can support prepayment expenses and test on it. Then, send conformation letter to conform the amount due. For Non Current Assets The auditor should obtain a list of fixed assets expenses that register under the clients company such as depreciation charges, loss or gain on the disposal of the fixed asset, net book value, revaluation amount and etc. The revaluation done should be back by the evidence or documentation authorized by the professional. Check to invoice and agree to the description, price, date and etc. The physical existence and the condition of the assets should be check and determine whether it is located at companys premises. As for disposal of fixed assets, ensure that there is proper authorization and that profit or loss on disposal is properly recorded. Liabilities For Short Term Notes Payable A bank conformation letter should be sent out to inquire loan balance status of the company. Auditors have to calculate the principal and interest paid to check whether it comply with the figure in the balance sheet. For Long Term Debts Review the loan agreement and direct the attention to the relevant information to acquire the accurate interest charged based on the nominal interest rate calculation and auditor have to be ensuring that the interest rate stated in the income statement same with the result of calculation. For Income Tax Account The documentation of the transaction of the company is required to keep for minimum 7 year required by law. Client is required to show documentation and support for every aspects of companys tax return. For example, if the client claims itemized deductions, receipts for those deductions must be produced. In addition, to justifications for why the taxpayer felt that those deductions were legitimate. Besides that, taxpayers must open their accounting methods to inspection and demonstrate that all of their income was in fact properly documented and claimed on the tax return. This can be done through proper recording and classification for provision for taxation and deferred taxation. Advice Informal Communications As the fieldwork progresses, the auditor discusses any significantfindingswith the client. Hopefully, the client can offer insights and work with the auditor to determine the best method of resolving the finding. Usually these communications are oral. However, in more complex situations, memos and/or e-mails are written in order to ensure full understanding by the client and the auditor. A lot of information is shared via e-mail, of course, but there is more face-to-face conversation.Other than that, I would like to mention for this communication question is language. Most communications with a greater group of people (and formal meetings) are held in English; however it depends a lot on who is speaking if you will understand that person. Also if it is only me and, says, two other Indians, it is very likely that they switch to Hindi or Kannada (local language) without noticing. I then sometimes have to remind them to stay with English. Distinguishing between first and surnames is als o impossible for me, same with deciding if a name is male or female I just have to guess or find some neutral ways to address or ask for people. In particular cases, we may also provide drafts of organizations charts, proposed forms or modifications to forms, financial data or other statistics, or drafts of findings and recommendations that later may be incorporated into the formal audit report. These are all considered informal communications between the auditor and the client. Their purpose is to promote constructive communication and avoid misunderstandings. Our goal: NO SURPRISES. Audit Summary / Financial Monitoring Upon completion of the fieldwork, the auditor summarizes the audit findings, conclusions, and recommendations necessary for the audit report discussion draft. Write a summary memo to document the results of fieldwork. Conclude as to whether the information reported by the state agency in the Section 1512 reports is accurate, reliable, and timely. The audit summary gives an overview of all work done sheets according to their topics. The audit summary template gives the title, the audit number, the topic of the summary and of the work done sheets, and the creation date. In addition to the work done sheets, the audit summary also contains a summary of the observations and findings as well as an overall assessment and conclusion of the audit result. Before writing the audit summary, auditors should agree the working papers on which the summary is based with their audit lead. Working Papers Working papers are a vital tool of the audit profession. They are the support of the audit opinion. They connect the clients accounting records and financials to the auditors opinion. They are comprehensive and serve many functions. The result of audit activities must be documented truthfully, consistently, clearly, and completely, with a comprehensible description of all material details. This involves both the contents of a fieldwork activity and the procedure itself. This documentation of fieldwork activities is referred to as working papers to express its connection with the work results. The basic requirements for proper documentation apply to all types of fieldwork activities, although there are different types of documents, depending on the nature of the audit. In addition to the working papers which are mandatory, other documents can be created as optional extras; they contain information beyond the minimum information requirement. The working papers are an indication of the audit quality in general. This needs to be considered because queries by different groups of addresses or their requests for information may often require access to this documentation. Accordingly, the working papers may serve as discussion or evidence documents, for example for queries from the Board, the unit requesting the audit, Internal Audit Management, the Audit Committee, or the external auditors. The preparation of working papers is subject to certain organizational requirements. Each auditor always has the main responsibility for preparing the documents, both during and immediately after fieldwork. Even though the audit lead and Audit Manager have ultimate responsibility for quality assurance, each auditor has to prepare and maintain the working papers with the necessary attention to detail. Working papers may be compiled by hand or entered directly into a system (which is normally more expedient, because it makes it easier to access the information again). STAGE 3: AUDIT REPORT The third stage of carrying an audit is to prepare an audit report. After all the evidence for each of the item in the financial statement have been collected and proven, the senior audit and the audit assistant is going to check the closing balance amount of the balance sheet and the trial balance with the ledger account whether they are compatible with each other and to ensure that each figure is agreeing with the previous year audit account in order to prepare a working trial balance and the working paper. After this all procedure has been done, our audit assistant will prepare an audit report which expresses the opinion of the auditor, evidence of audit and recommendation for the information improvement. Discussion Draft In order to implement this process, first the auditors will discuss to prepare a draft for internal audit report to outlining the audits work, recommendation for the information that should provided and the timeframe to complete the report. The draft that prepared by the management department will show that who will responsible to implement the job, the action to be taken and the timeline to do the job. After the draft has been discussing, a meeting among the auditor will be held in order to assign the job to the person selected for preparing the report and meanwhile the draft will be sent to the particular auditor. Formal Draft The report will become the final report if the response of the management is integrated with the audit report draft. The important information that present in the report includes the title of the report, the duty of the management and the auditor in preparing the report, the scope paragraph that show the evidence of the examination and the accounting principles use to prepare the report, the opinion paragraph which expresses the opinion of the auditor and whether the financial statement is complying with the statutory requirement and the name, signature and address of the auditor who preparing the report. This is to make sure that if there is any fault present in the report, it is the responsibility of the particular auditor to in charge with the case. Final Report After that, the auditor will present the final report to the audit committee and the copies of the report will sent to the senior auditor, the management department of the audit firm and our client, Merami Berhad to review and get the approval. Client Response In our report, we could include or attached the client response in the audit finding prior to issuance of the final report. The client should highlight how report findings will be determined and include an implementation timetable in the response. However, some managers may likely to make a decision which not to implement an audit recommendation and to accept the risks that might occur with an audit finding. For example, the treasury balances are reconciled monthly instead of reconciled daily. The differences are out of the way and have been controlled since that date. The adjusting entries are made with proper documentation and review. Client Comments In our report, we always include the clients comment on our Internal Audits performance as it is part of the Internal Audits self-evaluation program. The feedback has proven to be very beneficial to us as we improve our procedures due to clients suggestion. STAGE 4: FOLLOW-UP Followed-Up Review These required certain actions taken to resolve the audit report findings may be tested to ensure the desired result were achieved. For each item included in the follow-up, review status information provided by management to determine if information addresses all parts of finding and if a corrected date or revised due date has been provided. During this stage, we will contact unit management to obtain any missing information. We also evaluate action reported as taken in response to each finding to see whether the finding has been satisfactorily corrected. If necessary, develop audit tests to prove that the finding has been corrected based on the nature of the finding and responses. The Director of Internal Audit or the auditor in charge of the follow-up review will prepare a memorandum for senior management that notifies them that audit activities are underway and describes the follow-up process. This memo should include timeframes for the project, a copy of the outstanding findings relating to areas reporting to that senior manager, a request that they distribute the findings to these areas and ask the managers to provide Internal Audit with the information requested, a statement that these comments were previously distributed as part of an audit report or close-out letter, and notification that the results will be reported to the Chancellor and Board of Trustees. Followed-Up Report In the follow-up report, it lists all of the actions taken by the client to resolve the original report findings. Unresolved findings will also appear in the follow-up report and will include a brief description of the finding, the original audit recommendation, the client response, the current condition, and the continued exposure to board of company. A discussion draft of each report with unresolved findings is circulated to the client before the report is issued. The follow-up review results will be circulated to the original report recipients officials as deemed appropriate.