Crime Lab Scandal Essay

The Effects of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab Scandal The most important quality a law enforcement officer can have and should preserve at all cost is integrity. Regardless of what discipline they are employed in whether it be investigations, patrol or forensics an officer’s credibility is their most critical attribute. Thesis: As a result of unethical, fraudulent conduct by North Carolina SBI Crime Lab Agents several individuals were wrongly convicted of major crimes such as murder and rape and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. The effects on law enforcement collectively have been a loss of confidence and an overall sense of distrust from the citizens of North Carolina in law enforcement officers and the state’s judicial process system. Possible resources: News media including but not limited to The Huffington Post and The Raleigh News & Observer. Criminal Justice, Volume 27, Number 1, Spring 2012. Â © 2012 by the American Bar Association An Independent Review of the SBI Forensic Laboratory by Chris Swecker, Attorney at Law and Michael Wolf, Consultant. Specific case reports and reviews from the North Carolina Administration of the Courts (NCAOC) online records (if available). This topic relates specifically to Chapter 5, expert witnesses and Chapter 6, credibility. It will also relate to Chapters 3, 12 for discovery issues and 13. The main issue in this paper will be the focus on ethical misconduct in presenting false information, or in some cases excluding exculpatory evidence to the jury. It will also point out the unjust ramifications on innocent defendants as well as the effects such actions have on law enforcement’s credibility as an honorable institution.

New Land Essay

When Europeans settled in the â€Å"New Land†, they had hard time adapting living with the Indians. However, the Indians feared what Europeans brought such as weapons. There was a huge difference between the tribes’ weaponry and the European because of their powerful advances with the most progressive rifles. The flintlock rifle was a new weapon that the Indians had managed to use, which proved to be â€Å"too heavy, cumbersome, and inaccurate to be useful in the kind of combat characteristic of Anglo-Indian struggles† (Brinkley 50). Later on they wanted the Europeans to behave as â€Å"fathers† to help them in their disputes and conflicts (Brinkley 60). Progressively, Europeans learned to fulfill some of their expectations. The Indians didn’t understand the meaning of the relationships between societies, furthermore Europeans â€Å"thought much more in terms of ceremony and kinship† (Brinkley 60). The Indians were quite satisfied to form closer relationships and doing marriage ceremonies. After 1776, the balance of power between Europeans and Natives Americans loosened because of the presence of British and American (Brinkley 61). It began to weaken the strength of their relationship because it was difficult for the newer settlers to give gifts to them and the mediations (Brinkley 61). The â€Å"middle grounds† were destroyed replacing other constructed buildings by the Europeans. It created other conflicts that led to once again difficult to adapt. It seemed that both Native Americans and early Euro-Americans had a love-hate relationship that made their relationship so hard to establish peace and conformity. At the beginning the tribes were afraid of the advances Europeans had with their weapons, but they had the chance to be taught by them on how to use the weapons. By the time Europeans were trying to gain trust to them, Indians were in the need to be protected and to form new relationships. Thus far, they both ended up having issues one more time because Europeans were ambition to acquire more land in Tribal territory.

Seminar unit 5 public health Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Seminar unit 5 public health - Term Paper Example The examples of non-communicable diseases are obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer which can be modified through lifestyle change (Kotecki, McKenzie & Pinger, 2011, 98). Identification and treatment of multiple risk factors will help in addressing the burden of communicable diseases. Non-communicable diseases can be prevented by reducing or totally eliminating the risk factors that contribute to the illness. Multiple risk factor reduction is a special form of intervention that aims in helping in the reduction in a series of risk factors that contribute in a particular disease, such as cardiovascular and respiratory illness. The strategy is most effective if the sequences of risk factors are cluster together in a certain group of people or population (Riegelman, 2010, p. 90). For instance, in asthma cases the different factors involved are air pollution, cockroaches, allergies, and non-compliance to medication tend to occur together and effectively to address at the same time. In addition, health teaching, screening and the multiple risk factor reduction are the key approaches and are part of the intervention of preventing non-communicable diseases and other illnesses (Riegelman, 2010, p. 91). Clinicians, physicians and even researchers had several interventions and approaches in treating the disease, but the question is: Are the methods and interventions cost effective and net effective? Multiple risk factor reduction techniques has advantages and benefits and with less financial costs in dealing with non-communicable diseases. For instance, increase exercise and diet modifications are the key interventions to solve obesity. Similarly, mammography, childhood vaccinations and immunizations, cigarette cessation program and other public health programs are found out to be cost effective (Riegelman, 2010, p. 93). Kotecki, J.E. McKenzi, J.F. & Pinger, R.R. (2011).

Part of Report of Strategic HRM in Mater Hill Hospital Essay

Part of Report of Strategic HRM in Mater Hill Hospital - Essay Example At the same time, employees are becoming attracted to the element of control. For example, at the moment, most employees prefer to exercise some degree of influence over when and how they work. If implemented effectively, e-rostering can create safer, sound, and more dynamic schedules (Sharma & Goyal 2013: 65). In spite of these benefits, research and the experiences of nurses show that e-rostering can also be exploited by management as a way of discouraging employees and limiting their potential (Maitland & Thomson 2014: 16). In fact, despite the limited effectiveness of modern systems, they are the precursors to more advanced systems that will completely revolutionise how nurses work. However, the final resting position of the pendulum will determine whether such a transformation will benefit or hinder the effective execution of nursing processes. According to Mello (2014: 35), manual scheduling mechanisms have occasionally failed to meet expected staffing standards. This has opened the door for e-rostering, which is viewed as a solution to this problem (Vincent & Beduz 2014: 57). In spite of this, a professional (nursing) standpoint reveals that e-rostering creates some dilemmas that must be handled discretely to avoid compromising the potential benefits of the system (Mcdonnell 2012: 1 508). Some of these dilemmas include inflexibility, fairness, borderlines between staffing and rostering levels, incorporating changes that are made after the approval of the schedule, and whether promote employee empowerment or managerial control (Smith 2014: 193). In reality, e-scheduling alone cannot improve nursing outcomes. It can, however, develop trust to comprehend the challenges confronting nurses and establish how best practices in nursing care can be instituted (Watson 2014: 150). According to Cushway (2014: 38), e-rostering systems enable nurses to design schedules by supporting numerous vital functions,

Corporate Social Responsibility always adds value to the brand Essay

Corporate Social Responsibility always adds value to the brand - Essay Example Whether reacting as a result of peer pressure or because of basic human decency, corporations that choose to implement corporate social responsibility initiatives improve their image and increase their brand value. This increases their competitive advantage and can enhance their image thus attracting talented or skilled workers who may wish to be hired by respected companies. The improved image will also positively affect the attractiveness of the organization’s goods or services. In all circumstances, CSR initiatives that are meant to improve the community or preserve the environment also generate environmental as well as social value, while simultaneously supporting the organization’s corporate objectives, improving relationships with all stakeholders, and reducing overall costs. In modern times, the trend of social consciousness is affecting every facet of public life. The business scene has particularly been impacted by the notion of giving back to the community that has given its support. Being socially conscious basically has to do with having additional commitments other than just meeting financial organisational objectives. The push for businesses to take on more socially-related responsibilities has produced a noticeable change in organisational stakeholders like workers, customers, contractors, and shareholders in most industries. This is because these stakeholders are usually vested in ensuring that their brands remain in the minds of present clients as well as potential customers. For brands to be marketable in Western nations today, they have to be linked to some type of socially conscious agenda. Organisations can no longer create interest by defining their brands in terms of their functions or abilities; they also have to include culturally rela ted, environmentally-related, or socially-related statements in their marketing messages in

Final Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Final - Personal Statement Example The employees got a chance to know each other better while they shared food in those short breaks. There are many theories of motivation that can be used to increase employee performance. Three theories of motivation that can help increase employee performance are Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, equity theory, and expectancy theory. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is based on a pyramid that ranks the five most important needs of workers. The five needs in order of important from least to most important are physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. By identifying the needs that drive each employee a manager can better find the things that motivate each of his employees. Equity theory was developed by John Stacey Adam in 1963. Equity theory states that, â€Å"when people feel fairly or advantageously treated they are more likely to be motivated; when they feel unfairly treated they are highly prone to feelings of disaffection and demotivation† (Yourcoach, 2010). Eliminating income discrepancies among workers with similar work experience and educat ional credentials is a great way to motivate workers since the staff will feel they are equally valued. Vroom’s expectancy theory is based on the assumption that motivation is associated with the belief of the employee in regards to effort and performance considerations. I was in the middle of an ethical dilemma a few years ago due to misbehavior by my supervisor. There was a promotion in the firm and several in-house candidates applied for the position including myself. A rumor surged that the son in law of one of the executives was going to get the job due to preferential treatment based on family connections. The supervisor denied the rumor, but at the end of the day he gave in to political pressures within the firm and gave the job to the son in law of the manager. I did not like the lack of ethics illustrated by this firm. When my contract expired I stopped working for that firm. In the

Finance - Audit and Assurance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Finance - Audit and Assurance - Essay Example Thus, this difference in the interest of the auditors and the clients makes it tough for the auditors to remain ethical while dealing with the clients (Rennie & et. al., 2006). Accountancy and auditing have been referred as complicated as well as practical procedures. In comparison to these characteristics, ethics could be considered to be far less complicated. Ethics can be described to be the honest, loyal, truthful and reliable way of performing an action. It is considered to be significantly important for auditors to perform their actions and their ways of working in an ethical manner. Ethics is required to be paid attention in case of auditing for the reason of reducing risk with regard to grave illegal actions (Campbell & Houghton, 2005). Auditing is concerned with dealing with financial statements and accounts of an organisation. Therefore, this process needs adequate compliance with ethical manners or specification. This is important as this would help to keep away the audito r from getting involved into any kind of legal liabilities or earn a bad reputation (Campbell, 2004). Unethical dealing by an auditing firm named Arthur Andersen gave rise to the scandal of Enron who was one of the firm’s client. The revelation of the corruption and the deliberate fraud proved fatal for both the company, Enron as well as for Arthur Andersen. The company was compelled to declare itself to be a bankrupt and the subsistence of the ace auditing firm came to an end with the exposure of this scandal (Cunningham & Harris, 2006). Difference of Interest in the Auditing Profession It has been already mentioned earlier that corruption is considered to be a result of difference of interest between the clients and the auditors. However, it requires to be mentioned in this context that there could be various kinds of differences of interest in the profession of auditing. A proper analysis of the Enron case would assist in providing a lucid understanding of this fact. The b usiness model of Enron was stated to be quite complicated as it involved a broad range of products from trading functions, physical assets as well as going beyond the national borders. All these factors extended the boundaries of accounting. Enron took the opportunity of exploiting these accounting boundaries to the maximum in controlling its revenues along with its balance sheet so as to depict a favourable performance scenario. However, in this case two matters emerged out to be extremely problematic for the company. The company’s transactions related to trading engaged complicated contracts which involved extended time period. The form of accounting followed by the company compelled the management of the company to predict its future prices related to the energy operations along with the rates of interest. It was also found that the company depended broadly on the financial dealings that were considered to be quite controlled and engaged in developing or creating ‘sp ecial purpose entities’. These particular dealings involved sharing the possession of particular flows of cash as well as risks with lenders as well as investors from outside. The

Billy Graham and His Impact Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Billy Graham and His Impact - Research Paper Example He has dedicated and devoted his whole entire life since he felt the calling of the Lord in the middle of the 1930s, and continues to touch and inspire the hearts and the spirits of millions of people to come to the Lord. Leading an extraordinary and remarkable life, Billy Graham’s name will forever be remembered as the man who has influenced and shaped the world of Evangelism and Christianity in all of the United States of America. His life is the account of the impact he has made in the world. Born as the eldest on the seventh day in the month of November in 1918, Billy Graham was raised on their family’s dairy farmland in close proximity to the largest city in the state of North Carolina by his parents, William Franklin Graham I who was a successful cultivator and entrepreneur and Morrow Coffey. As he was growing up with his four other siblings namely Katherine, Melvin and Jean, he was already surrounded by the Christian upbringing in the Associate Reformed Presbyter ian Church. When the Noble Experiment was imposed in 1933, when he was only a young man at the age of about fifteen years old, Graham’s father had forced him as well as his sister Katherine into drinking and engaging in alcoholic beverages to the point where they would start throwing up. This event that happened early in his life, only as a young teenager, has caused him and his sister a strong feeling of hatred and abhorrence for alcohol and intoxicating drinks and beverages as well as drugs. Graham, a year after the incident, was converted when he was only sixteen years of age at that time when he was attending a series of several revival and renewal meeting in which Mordecai Fowler Ham an American Independent Baptist evangelist and temperance movement leader, a social movement that insist on the reduction of in taking and drinking alcoholic beverages, was in charge of. He enthused up quite a number of different issues and controversies when he was charged and accused for e thical negligence and lack of discipline while he was attending and studying at his local high school. While he continued to be present and attend the meetings in Charlotte, the young Billy Graham was guided and was led, while listening to one of the sermons and lectures of Mordecai Ham, which resulted in the intensification and the increase of Graham's guilt of the outcome of his sins that he has committed in his life. Because of this, he soon after, committed and decided to give over his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. He wanted to put his name down for membership in the youth but was turned down and rejected since they thought of him as â€Å"too worldly.† Through the encouragement and persuasion of one of the dairy farm’s employees, Albert McMakin, Graham went to go and talk to Ham. Billy Graham, in the summer month of May of 1936, graduated from Sharon High School and went off to college and started attending the fundamentalist Bob Jones College, which has changed its name and is now presently called Bob Jones University, which was located in the city of Cleveland in the county of Bradley, Tennessee. He did not stay for a long while and after about a couple of months, only staying for one semester, because of not being able to adapt and adjust to the school’s environment, he transferred. He thought of the school as being too strict in both the coursework and the regulations and rules stringently implemented and followed by the school. At that particular moment in time, a pastor from Eastport Bible Church, Pastor Charley Young was able to inspire and had some bearing on Graham. Although he was nearly expelled and forced

Issues in Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Issues in Management - Essay Example Investigation was carried out before Houston offered to purchase the company. Although the deal failed, Enron assets were made the largest corporate bankrupt in the history of United States’ corporations. The collapse of Enron serves as a lesson for managers and all sub-versions of company management controls. The meteoric rise and down fall of the company astonished groups of people thereby becoming a dream for researchers to unveil what led to such misfortunes; however, the entire ordeal has ever since remained a nightmare for all former and current stakeholders of the company. The company’s downfall is associated with individuals born with greed and in atmospheres on corporate arrogance. However, many people kept on buying stock; thus, making it buy risk deals. After some time, Enron was then bought from the union of Houston Natural gas. In the union process, the company incurred huge debt and lost its rights to pipeline. To revive its operations, the company decided to initiate new ideas and formulate new strategies that would help to generate cash flow and good profits. On the other hand, to regain its stability, the company hired Jeffrey Skilling, a young consultant with good skills in banking and liability management who created gas bank whereby, Enron could buy gas from suppliers and sell it to consumers. This activity brought about huge profits and created new product as well as new paradigm for the company. Under the leadership of the young consultant, the company’s finance corporation soon dominated the market with many contracts and good access to suppliers. The number of customers was also seen to multiply. Its gained market power was utilized on predicting future prices with accuracy. Skilling begun to change the culture of the company to much its transformed image as a trading business entity. For instance, he

Relationship between organizational leadership, culture and Dissertation

Relationship between organizational leadership, culture and performance in family businesses - Dissertation Example However, there is a dearth of research regarding the extent to which the founder is able to embed strategic behaviors into family firm management and culture or the degree to which these behaviors impact the financial performance of these firms (Sorenson, 2000). Some effort has been made to examine the leadership styles of family firm leaders and the relationship of these styles to family and non-family members (Kellerman, 2008). Aldrich and Cliff (2003) suggested that entrepreneurial leadership attributes likely influenced family firm strategies, processes, and structures. Sorenson (2000) found that participative leaders achieved high performance in both the family and the business dimensions of the firm. The findings of the test hypotheses regarding performance outcomes in these studies were not conclusive regarding the effects of leadership styles on performance. Research on the leadership styles of the founder and their effect on family and non-family members may provide insight into family firm performance (Sharma, 2004). Purpose/Research Questions The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between organizational leader’s thinking and behavioral styles, its culture, and financial performance. Three family firms will be selected for this study. Participants will include current owners, founders, and family member and non-family member managers and employees. ... Preliminary Literature Review The Family Firm Although family firms have played an integral role in world economies throughout history, research into family businesses did not begin to come into prominence until 1975 (Handler, 1989). Handler's attempt to integrate the field around a common purpose by defining a family firm as "an organization whose major operating decisions and plans for leadership succession are influenced by family members serving in management or on the board" (p. 262) is characteristic of such ventures in its difficulty to operationalize. Furthermore, Astrachan, Klein, and Smyrnios (2002) have defined family business along a continuum measuring the levels of family influence across the dimensions of power, experience, and culture. Their intent is to provide an objective and standardized measurement of family involvement allowing comparison along a broad spectrum of family businesses. Sharma (2002) developed a typology which creates 72 categories of family firms b ased on the possible levels of family and non-family involvement in seven areas as identified on a firm's stakeholder map. Her intent is to develop a mechanism for differentiating between family businesses along the continuum from the publicly traded international corporation to the mom and pop enterprise. Leadership Styles For this study leadership styles specifically refer to the thinking and behavioral styles of family firm leaders. Leadership styles are divided into three composite orientations with each orientation consisting of four styles each. The constructive orientation (achievement, self-actualizing, humanistic-encouraging, and affiliative) characterize thinking and behavior that

Management Study Guide Essay Example for Free

Management Study Guide Essay Commanding Heights: Episode 3 (Chapters 11-14); available at online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/story/index.html With communism discredited, more and more nations harness their fortunes to the global free-market. China, Southeast Asia, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America all compete to attract the developed worlds investment capital, and tariff barriers fall. In the United States Republican and Democratic administrations both embrace unfettered globalization over the objections of organized labor. But as new technology and ideas drive profound economic change, unforeseen events unfold. A Mexican economic meltdown sends the Clinton administration scrambling. Internet-linked financial markets, unrestricted capital flows, and floating currencies drive levels of speculative investment that dwarf trade in actual goods and services. Fueled by electronic capital and a global workforce ready to adapt, entrepreneurs create multinational corporations with valuations greater than entire national economies. When huge pension funds go hunting higher returns in emerging markets, enterprise flourishes where poverty once ruled, but risk grows, too. In Thailand the huge reservoir of available capital proves first a blessing, then a curse. Soon all Asia is engulfed in an economic crisis, and financial contagion spreads throughout the world, until Wall Street itself is threatened. A single global market is now the central economic reality. As the force of its effects is felt, popular unease grows. Is the system just too complex to be controlled, or is it an insiders game played at outsiders expense? New centers of opposition to globalization form and the debate turns violent over who will rewrite the rules. Yet prosperity continues to spread with the expansion of trade, even as the gulf widens further between rich and poor. Imbalances too dangerous for the system to ignore now drive its stakeholders to devise new means to include the dispossessed lest, once again, terrorism and war destroy the stability of a deeply interconnected world. The Bush Bailout Plan (Rounds 1 and 2) Round 1: Allow the Treasury to borrow up to $700 billion to buy mortgage-related assets from US financial institutions over the next 2 years. –May stabilize the capital markets ( could protect investment and retirement funds) – MAY stabilize housing prices. Consequences of doing nothing: -Small businesses will fail. -Companies may not be able to make payroll -People, even those with good credit records, may not be able to get credit for mortgages, car loans, student loans, or credit cards. -People will lose jobs. Round 2: Same deal: with same possible benefits. House version of the bill: $350 billion upfront; $350 billion later unless congress holds it back. -NO new golden parachutes if the institution sells more than $300 million in assets -Must try to â€Å"claw back† past bonuses if based on misleading financial statements -No golden parachutes when the treasury has ownership stake in the firm (.ie., it is failing). Defined Contribution Retirement Plans – A defined contribution plan provides an individual account for each participant. The benefits are based on the amount contributed into the plan and are also affected by income, expenses, gains and loses. There are no promises of a set monthly benefit at retirement. Some examples of defined contribution plans include 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, employee stock ownership plans and profit sharing plans. Contagion The tendency to spread, as of a doctrine, influence, or emotional state. When one nations economy is negatively affected because of changes in the asset PRICES of another country’s financial market Foreign Direct Investment – Is when a firm invests resources in facilities to produce and/or market a product in a foreign country. Horizontal FDI versus Vertical FDI Horizontal FDI: investment in the same industry in which a firm operates at home. Vertical FDI: investment in an industry that provides inputs for a firm’s domestic operations or that sells the outputs of the firm’s domestic operations. Backward Vertical FDI versus Forward Vertical FDI- Backward vertical FDI: an investment in an industry abroad that provides inputs for a firm’s domestic production processes. Forward Vertical FDI: an investment in an industry abroad that sells the outputs of a firm’s domestic production processes. BACKWARD vertical means that there are more places to help build the product. Stock versus Flow of FDI – Stock flow is the total accumulated value. Flow of FDI is the value over time. Gross Fixed Capital Formation GFCF is a flow value. It is usually defined as the total value of additions to fixed assets by resident producer enterprises, less disposals of fixed assets during the quarter or year, plus additions to the value of non-produced assets (such as discoveries of mineral deposits, or land improvements). Greenfield Investment – Establishing a new operation Acquisition – When one firm buys an interest in another firm Merger – When two firms agree to integrate their operations on a relatively co-equal basis. Exporting – The sale of products produced in one country to residents of another country Licensing – when one firm (the licensor) grants the right to produce its product, use its production processes, or use its brand name or trademark to another firm (the licensee) Tacit versus Codified Knowledge – Tacit knowledge: information that is intuitive and difficult to articulate or codify in writing. (Can be gained through personal experience or interaction. Shared knowledge might be dispersed throughout the company.) Theoretical Explanations for FDI: Transportation Costs, Market Imperfections, Strategic Behavior, Product Life Cycle, and Location-Specific Advantages Impediments to the Sale of Know-How Impediments to the sale of know-how explain why firms prefer horizontal FDI to licensing. These impediments arise when: (a) a firm has valuable know-how that cannot be adequately protected by a licensing contract, (b) a firm needs tight control over a foreign entity to maximize its market share and earnings in that country, and (c) a firms skills and know-how are not amenable to licensing. Multi-Point Competition Arises when two or more enterprises encounter each other in different regional markets, national markets, or industries. The Radical, Free Market and Pragmatic Nationalism Views of FDI Benefits and Costs of FDI for a Host Country – Resource transfer effects, employment effects, balance of payments effects, effect on competition and economic growth. Host country benefits from initial capital inflow when MNC establishes businessFINANCIAL CREDIT Host country benefits if FDI substitutes for imports of goods and servicesCURRENT ACCOUN TCREDIT Host country benefits when MNC uses its foreign subsidiary to export to other countriesCredit on CURRENT ACCOUNT Resource-Transfer Effects: Capital, Technology and Management Employment Effects: Direct, Indirect, Substitution, and Acquisition Restructuring – -Mergers and acquisitions are quicker to execute. -Foreign firms have valuable strategic assets that would be risky and time consuming to develop. -Acquiring firm believes it can use its core competencies to increase the efficiency of the acquired firm. Balance-of-Payments Effects of FDI for the Home and Host Countries – Home country – The balance of payments account is improved by the inward flow of repatriated earnings. The balance of payments account is improved if the foreign subsidiary needs home country equipment, component parts, etc. National Sovereignty Sovereignty is the exclusive right to control a government, a country, a people, or oneself. A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority. Benefits and Costs of FDI for a Home Country – Balance of payments effects, employment effects. Home Country Policies to Encourage and Restrict Outward FDI – Restrict: Limits on capital outflows, tax incentives to invest at home, Nation-specific prohibitions Encourage: Foreign Risk Insurance, Capital Assista nce, Tax Incentives to Invest Abroad, Political Pressure. Host Country Policies to Encourage and Restrict Inward FDI – Restrict: Ownership Restraints Encourage: To gain from the resource-transfer and employment effects of FDI, to capture FDI away from other potential host locations. Performance Requirements – An expectation placed on a foreign direct thingy requiring them to do certain things like having some local employees. Basically, this puts restrictions on them like local production requirements. Regional Economic Integration –refers to agreements among countries in a geographic region to reduce and ultimately remove, tariff and non-tariff barriers to the free flow of goods, services, and factors of production between each other. Levels of Economic Integration: Free Trade Area: Remove internal Barriers Customs Union: Common External Barriers Common Market: Free Movement of Factors Economic Union: Common Economic Policy Political Union: Political Integration The Case for and the Case against Regional Integration â €“ For: Increases world production, stimulates growth, regional economic integration can provide additional gains from free trade beyond the international agreements such as GATT and TWO. Against: a regional trade agreement is beneficial only if it creates more trade than it diverts. Impediments to Regional Integration – Nation as a whole may benefit but certain groups within countries may be hurt. Concerns about loss of national sovereignty and control over the nation’s sovereignty and control over the nations monetary, fiscal and trade policies. Trade Creation versus Trade Diversion – When an inefficient non member nation replaces an efficient member nation (NAFTA). Like Mexico replacing China in the textile business. Creation: occurs when free trade leads to the substitution of inefficient domestic production for efficient production in another member country. Diversion: Occurs when efficient non-member production is replaced by inefficient production by a member nation as a result of high trade barriers for non-members. The European Union (EU) – is composed of 27 member countries, covers an area of 4 million square kilometers and has approximately 460 million inhabitants. The EU’s member states combined represent the world’s largest economy by GDP, the seventh largest territory in the world by area and the third largest by population. Political Structure of the European Union: European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Parliament and Court of Justice Optimal Currency Area In economics, an optimum currency area (OCA), also known as an optimal currency region (OCR), is a geographical region in which it would maximize economic efficiency to have the entire region share a single currency. It describes the optimal characteristics for the merger of currencies or the creation of a new currency. Copenhagen Criteria – are the rules that define whether a nation is eligible to join the European Union. The criteria require that a nation have the institutions to preserve democratic governance and human rights, a functioning market economy, and that the nation accept the obligations and intent of the EU. The Lisbon Treaty The Treaty of Lisbon (also known as the Reform Treaty) is a treaty designed to streamline the workings of the European Union (EU) with amendments to the Treaty on European Union (TEU, Maastricht) and the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC, Rome), the latter being renamed Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) in the process. The stated aim of the treaty is to complete the process started by the Treaty of Amsterdam and by the Treaty of Nice with a view to enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union and to improving the coherence of its action. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): Pros and Cons of NAFTA – Pros: Labor intensive industries move to Mexico, resulting in better resource allocation, Mexico gets investment and employment, increased Mexican income to buy US/Canadian goods, demand for goods increases jobs, consumers get lower prices. Cons: Loss of jobs to Mexico for people who don’t have other employment options, Mexican firms have to compete against efficient US/Canadian firms, environmental degradation, loss of national sovereignty. The Andean Community The Andean Community is mainly a trade block formerly called the Andean Group (Grupo Andino, in Spanish) which saw light after the Andean Pact (Pacto Andino) or more formally the Cartagena Agreement (Acuerdo de Cartagena) was signed in 1969, in Cartagena (Colombia). Mercado Comà ºn del Sur (MERCOSUR) Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuala. Was originally envisioned as a common market but has yet to reach that goal. Critics contend the agreement results in more trade diversion than trade creation as a result of the high external tariffs. Free Trade Area of the Americas –was a proposal to expand NAFTA to include all countries in the Western Hemisphere, except Cuba. This region has 850 million people and a $13.5 trillion economy. Talks are stalled and stronger support would be needed by the USA and Brazil for this agreement to become a reality. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) / ASEAN Free Trade Area – Indonesia, Malaysia , Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Total population of 500 million, GDP of US $740 billion, and a total trade of US $720 billion A free trade area among some of the nations exists, but several nations are refusing to lower all tariffs. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) – Founded in 1990 to promote open trade and economic cooperation. Currently has 21 members including the United States, Japan and China. Members account for 57% of the world’s GNP and 46% of global trade. Despite little progress, it could potentially become the world’s largest free trade area. Fiscal versus Monetary Policy Market economies have regular fluctuations in the level of economic activity which we call the business cycle. It is convenient to think of the business cycle as having three phases. The first phase is expansion when the economy is growing along its long term trends in employment, output, and income. But at some point the economy will overheat, and suffer rising prices and interest rates, until it reaches a turning point a peak and turn downward into a recession (the second phase). Recessions are usually brief (six to nine months) and are marked by falling employment, output, income, prices, and interest rates. Most significantly, recessions are marked by rising unemployment. The economy will hit a bottom point a trough and rebound into a strong recovery (the third phase). The recovery will enjoy rising employment, output, and income while unemployment will fall. The recovery will gradually slow down as the economy once again assumes its long term growth trends, and the recovery will transform into an expansion. Foreign Exchange Market –a market for converting the currency of one country into the currency of another. Exchange Rate – the rate at which one currency is converted into another. Foreign Exchange Risk – the risk of an investment’s value changing due to changes in the currency exchange rates. Arbitrage – the purchase of a product in one market for immediate resale in a second market in order to profit from a price d iscrepancy. Currency Speculation – short-term movement of funds from one currency to another in hopes of profiting from shifts in exchange rates. Spot Exchanges –the exchange rate at which a foreign exchange dealer would convert one currency to into another currency on that day. Forward Exchanges – the exchange rate at which a foreign exchange dealer will agree to convert one currency into another currency on a specific date in the future. Hedging: Forward Contracts versus Options Selling on a Discount versus Selling at a Premium Currency Swaps A currency swap (or cross currency swap) is a foreign exchange agreement between two parties to exchange a given amount of one currency for another and, after a specified period of time, to give back the original amounts swapped. Economic Theories of Exchange Rate Determination – Law of One Price The law of one price is an economic law stated as: In an efficient market all identical goods must have only one price. The intuition for this law is that all sellers will flock to the highest prevailing price, and all buyers to the lowest current market price. In an efficient market the convergence on one price is instant. Purchasing Power Parity The purchasing power parity (PPP) theory uses the long-term equilibrium exchange rate of two currencies to equalize their purchasing power. Developed by Gustav Cassel in 1920, it is based on the law of one price: the theory states that, in an ideally efficient market, identical goods should have only one price. Big Mac Index The Big Mac Index is an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and provides a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries. As stated in The Economist, it seeks to make exchange-rate theory a bit more digestible In 120 nations the big mac is the same. How Increasing the Money Supply Impacts Exchange Rates Price Discrimination Price discrimination or yield management occurs when a firm charges a different price to different groups of consumers for an identical good or service, for reasons not associated with costs. Fisher Effect / International Fischer Effect Real versus Nominal Interest Rates 8% interest + 2%inflation = 10% nominal interest. $100 on $1000 loan. Investor Psychology and Bandwagon Effects The Efficient Market School versus the Inefficient Market School – Efficient: Those who believe the foreign exchange market actually predicts things accurately. Fundamental versus Technical Analysis Currency Convertibility: Freely, Externally, and Nonconvertible Currencies Capital Flight Capital flight, in economics, occurs when assets and/or money rapidly flow out of a country, due to an economic event that disturbs investors and causes them to lower their valuation of the assets in that country, or otherwise to lose confi dence in its economic strength. This leads to a disappearance of wealth and is usually accompanied by a sharp drop in the exchange rate of the affected country (depreciation in a variable exchange rate regime, or a forced devaluation in a fixed exchange rate regime). Transaction versus Translation versus Economic Exposure – Economic exposure: the extent to which a firm’s future international earning power is affected by changes in exchange rates. Lead versus Lag Strategies – Lead: an attempt to collect foreign currency receivables when a foreign currency is expected to depreciate. Lag: An attempt to delay the collection of foreign currency receivables if that currency is expected to appreciate. Delay paying foreign currency payables if the foreign currency is expected to depreciate. International Monetary System – are institutional arrangements countries adopt to govern exchange rates. Exchange Rate Regimes: Formal Dollarization, Fixed, Currency Boards, Pegged, Dirty/Managed Floats and Independently Floating – The Gold Standard – Pegging currencies to gold and guaranteeing convertibility is known as the gold standard. Gold Par Value – The amount of a currency in an ounce, one ounce of gold was referred to as the gold par value. The Bretton Woods Exchange Rate System Created a fixed exchange rate system where the countries agreed to peg their currencies to the US dollar which was convertible to gold at $35 an ounce. Countries agreed to defend the value of their currencies to within 1% of par value. Currency, Banking and Foreign Debt Crises – Currency speculators believed that the devaluation of the dollar was inevitable. President Nixon dropped the gold standard conversion and the dollar was devalued. Following a second round of speculative attacks, the US dollar was allowed to float against other world currencies. Concerns about the IMF’s Policy Prescriptions – The system of adjustable parities allowed for the devaluation of a country’s currency by more than 10 percent if the IMF agreed that a country’s balance of payments was in â€Å"fundamental disequilibrium.† Moral Hazard – arises when people behave recklessly because they know they will be saved if th ings go wrong. Capital Market The capital market is the market for securities, where companies and governments can raise longterm funds. The capital market includes the stock market and the bond market. Financial regulators, such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, oversee the capital markets in their designated countries to ensure that investors are protected against fraud. The capital markets consist of the primary market, where new issues are distributed to investors, and the secondary market, where existing securities are traded. Cost of Capital The cost of capital is an expected return that the provider of capital plans to earn on their investment. Initial Public Offering Initial public offering (IPO), also referred to simply as a public offering, is when a company issues common stock or shares to the public for the first time. They are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking capital to expand, but can also be done by large privately-owned companies looking to become publicly traded. Commercial Banks versus Investment Banks Equity Loan: An equity loan is a mortgage placed on real estate i n exchange for cash to the borrower. For example, if a person owns a home worth $100,000, but does not currently have a lien on it, they may take an equity loan at 80% loan to value (LTV) or $80,000 in cash in exchange for a lien on title placed by the lender of the equity loan. Debt Loans: A loan is a type of debt. This article focuses exclusively on monetary loans, although, in practice, any material object might be lent. Like all debt instruments, a loan entails the redistribution of financial assets over time, between the lender and the borrower. Corporate Bonds A Corporate Bond is a bond issued by a corporation. The term is usually applied to longer-term debt instruments, generally with a maturity date falling at least a year after their issue date. Systematic Risk In finance, Systemic Risk is that risk which is common to an entire market and not to any individual entity or component thereof. It can be defined as financial system instability, potentially catastrophic, caused or exacerbated by idiosyncratic events or conditions in financial intermediaries[1]. It refers to the movements of the whole economy and has wide ranging effects. It is also sometimes erroneously referred to as systematic risk. Portfolio Diversification – By using the global capital market, investors have a much wider range of investment opportunities than in a purely domestic capital market. The most significant consequence of this choice is that investors can diversify their portfolios internationally, thereby reducing their risk to below what could be achieved in a purely domestic capital market. Drivers of the Global Capital Market: Information Technology: Financial services is an information-intensive industry. It draws on large volumes of information about markets, risks, exchange rates, interest rates, creditworthiness, and so on. It uses this information to make decisions about what to invest where, how much to change borrowers, how much interest to pay to depositors, and the value and riskiness of a range of financial assets including corporate bonds, stocks, government securities, and currencies. Deregulation: Many restrictions have been crumbling in the US since the early 80s. In this part, this has been a response to the development of the Eurocurrency market, which from the beginning was outside of national control. Hot Money: In economics, hot money refers to funds which flow into a country to take advantage of a favorable interest rate, and therefore obtain higher returns. They influence the balance of payments and strengthen the exchange rate of the recipient country while weakening the currency of the country losing the money. These funds are held in currency markets by speculators as opposed to national banks or domestic investors. As such, they are highly volatile in Mexico and East Asian financial crisis. Patient Money: Selling land in large blocks under frontier conditions is to sell at a time before it begins yielding much if any rent. It is bid in by those few who have large discretionary funds of patient money. Eurocurrency Eurocurrency is the term used to describe deposits residing in banks that are located outside the borders of the country that issues the currency the deposit is denominated in. For example a deposit denominated in US dollars residing in a Japanese bank is a Eurocurrency deposit, or more specifically a Eurodollar deposit. Attractions and Drawbacks of the Eurocurrency Market Attractions: Lack of government regulation. Drawbacks: When depositors use a regulated banking system they know that the probability of a bank failure that would cause them to lose their deposits is very low. Secondly, borrowing funds internationally can expose a company to foreign exchange risk. Reserve Requirements The reserve requirement (or required reserve ratio) is a bank regulation that sets the minimum reserves each bank must hold to customer deposits and notes. These reserves are designed to satisfy withdrawal demands, and would normally be in the form of fiat currency stored in a bank vault (vault cash), or with a central bank. Foreign Bonds vs. Eurobonds: A Eurobond is an international bond that is denominated in a currency not native to the country where it is issued. It can be categorised according to the currency in which it is issued. London is one of the centers of the Eurobond market, but Eurobonds may be traded throughout the world for example in Singapore or Tokyo. Attractions of the Eurobond Market – Absence of regulatory interference. Less stringent disclosure requirements than in most domestic bond markets. A favorable tax status. The Impact of Exchange Rate Risk on the Cost of Capital Benefits and Costs of Financial Globalization Inter-Temporal Trade – Consumption smoothing usually between advanced economies and developing economies. Developing economies need money NOW. Capital Mobility The ability of money to cross national borders. The free flow of money in and out of a country. Impossible Trinity The Impossible Trinity (also known as the Inconsistent Trinity, Triangle of Impossibility or Unholy Trinity) is the hypothesis in international economics that it is impossible to have all three of the following at the same time: Exchange Rate Stability, Independent Monetary Policy, and Capital Mobility. You can only have 2 of these 3 things at the same time ever. The Exchange Rate is simply the relative price of currencies. For example: It tells you how many Euros you can get for a dollar. A government has to main monetary policies it can use: The Fiscal Policy, or the Monetary Policy The Fiscal Policy concerns government expenditures and tax collection The Monetary Policy concerns the interest rate in the economy. The interest rates are established to help stabilize the economy.

PRACTICAL REPORT ON THE ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF CODEINE AND PARACETAMOL Essay Example for Free

PRACTICAL REPORT ON THE ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF CODEINE AND PARACETAMOL Essay Codeine or methyl morphine, an alkaloid, was first isolated in 1832 from raw opium. It concentration ranges from 0.2% to 0.8%. Mostly used for its analgesic, anti-tussive and anti-diarrheal capabilities (Tremlett, Anderson and Wolf, 2010). Paracetamol also known as acetaminophen (n-acetyl-p-aminophenol, APAP) on the other hand, is a useful non- steroidal anti- inflammatory drug (NSAID). It is commonly used in the management of pain and fever in a variety of patients (Kamberi, et al., 2004). Fig 1: Codeine[NCBI, 2009] Fig 2: Acetaminophen[NCBI, 2009] One of the technique involved in the extraction of codeine and paracetamol from its matrix, is the solvent extraction otherwise known as liquid – liquid extraction. This process entails the use of two immiscible liquids usually chloroform and water; in dissolving the sample for two distinctive layers to form after the mixture had been thoroughly shaken together (Rubinson and Rubinson, 1998). Separating the components of the extract, is done through the use of Thin Layer Chromatography. It is one of the standard procedures used in many forensic laboratory when analysizing unknown drugs or mixtures (Howlett and Steiner, 2011). Separation of the mixtures occur based on the pH, polarity of its components, solvent and the thin layer stationary phase (Howlett and Steiner, 2011). METHODS: The finely divided sample was dissolved in 20ml of distilled water. This was then basified with NaOH solution to pH 12 using litmus paper. The resulting solution was later filtered. 1.0ml of chloroform was pipetted into the filtrate. After shaken and combined, two distinctive layers was observed. The bottom layer was extracted thrice using a micro- pipette. On a thin chromatography plate, five spots were placed ( as shown in table 2) and the  plate was developed using chloroform/methanol. This was later visualized with dragendorff’s reagent under the UV light. All separated components were observed, identified and recorded. RESULTS: Table of observed pH SOLUTIONInitial pHFinal pH Basified sample1012 TABLE 1 Table of Retention factor (RF value) Rf = Distance travelled by the substance (cm) Distance travelled by the solvent (cm) SUBSTANCEDistance travelled by substance (cm)Distance travelled by Solvent (cm)Retention factor value (Rf) Chloroform extract3.04.00.75 Codeine positive control3.04.00.75 Paracetamol positive control4.04.01.00 Chloroform (negative control) 3.54.00.86 Diluted sample4.04.01.00 TABLE 2 DIAGRAM: Fig 3: The Developed Chromatographic Plate. DISCUSSION: Running the chloroform extracts and diluted sample together with two positive controls and a negative control on a single chromatographic plate simultaneously, the retention factor(Rf) of five different samples were determined. The RF value of the chloroform extract(0.75) tallied with that of the codeine positive control and that of diluted sample(1.00) with the paracetamol positive control. This tentatively shows that, codeine and paracetamol were present in the sample. The solvent front(i.e distance travelled by the mixed solvents) is 4cm, this is quite close to the distances covered by all separated components(between 3 – 3.5cm), which makes the retention factors, not a true representative of their actual values. It was later discovered that, this is due to not allowing the  chromatographic plate to develop for a longer period of time in the solvent tank. The solvent front also dried up quickly when the plate is taken out., making drawing a line at that point quite diffic ult. Fortunately, this was overcome by the use of visualizing spray and UV lamp. Solvent extraction(liquid-liquid), involved selective movement of components of a substance in microgram to gram quantities between two immiscible liquid phase; its separation and selectivity is based on solubility differences and pH control respectively (Fifield and Kealey, 1995). This was observed when chloroform was added to the basified filtrate. After vigorous shaking and settling down, chloroform being more dense, composed the bottom layer, with the aqueous phase up. Liquid-liquid extraction often involved high volume of organic solvents and poor resolution of mixtures of organic materials (Fifield and Kealey, 1995). Thin Layer Chromatography is usually employed in the qualitative analysis of mixtures of non-volatile compounds like pharmaceuticals (Skoog, et al., 2000). TLC can also be used to confirm the identity of an unknown sample ( Lewis and Evans, 2011). Dissolution of the codeine and paracetamol tablet in distilled water without weighing, shows that, TLC was never designed for semi- quantitative analysis. This is due to difficulties in reproducibly applying aliquots of the mixture to the plate and then recovering all of the separated components from the plate (Skoog, et al., 2000). CONCLUSION: Using the Rf values obtained in the table 2 above and t he visual indicator reaction with the substances under the UV light, codeine was extracted to a high degree during the solvent extraction, tentatively identified by TLC (due to its positive control having the same Rf values with the chloroform extract(0.75) and both were the only one that were seen under the UV light) while paracetamol was extracted to a low degree (due to its positive control having the same Rf with the diluted sample). Multiple compounds can share the same retention factor(Rf) or produce similar chromophores when sprayed with detection reagents (Howlett and Steiner, 2011). The study by Lewis and Evans( 2011) shows that if a spot from an unknown substance is developed on a TLC plate together with a spot from a substance that is suspected to be the unknown, and the two substance are found to have the same Rf value, they are probably the same substance. FUTURE SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Due to the limitation that is associated with using TLC to exactly identify a given sample, minimum standards for drug testing and reporting in the forensic community are recommended by the Scientific Working Group for the Analysis of seized drugs (SWGDRUG) (Howlett and Steiner, 2011). In order for a drug identification to be confirmed to SWGDRUG specification, additional tests must includes, Infrared spectroscopy and GC-MS (Howlett and Steiner, 2011). REFERENCES: Fifield, F. W. and Kealey, D. 1995. Principles and Practice of Analytical chemistry. (4th ed) Glasgow, Blackie Academic and professional. Howlett, S. E. and Steiner, R. R. 2011. Validation of Thin Layer Chromatography with AccuTOF-DARTâ„ ¢ Detection for Forensic Drug Analysis*. Forensic Sciences [e-journal] 56 (5), pp. 12611267. Available through: Anglia Ruskin University Library website http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk [Accessed on 11 March 2014]. Kamberi, M., Riley, C. M., Huang, C. C. and Xiaoyan, M, 2004. A validated, sensitive HPLC method for the determination of trace impurities in acetaminophen drug substance. Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis [e-journal] 34 (1), pp. 123128. Available through: Anglia Ruskin University Library website http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk [Accessed on 18 March 2014]. Lewis, R. and Evans, W. 2011. Chemistry. 4th ed. Hampshire, Palgrave Macmillan. NCBI, 2009. National Library of Medicine. [online] Available at : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pccompound [Acc essed 7 April, 2014]. Rubinson, J. F. and Rubinson, K. A. 1998. Contemporary chemical analysis. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall. Skoog, D., West, D., Holler, F. and Crouch, S. 2000. Analytical Chemistry- An introduction. (7th ed). Boca raton, Thomson Learning Inc. Tremlett, M., Anderson, B. J. and Wolf, A. 2010. Procon debate: is codeine a drug that still has a useful role in pediatric practice? Pediatric Anesthesia [e-journal] 20 (2), pp. 183194. Available through: Anglia Ruskin University website http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk [Accessed on 29 March 2014].

The implementation of strategic change at Microsoft Canada

The implementation of strategic change at Microsoft Canada The Organization Development literature has directed appreciable attention at in being able to lead and manage change. The major portion of the material is highly normative, advising managers about how they should be planning and implements organizational changes. For example, one study suggested that successful managers in ceaselessly changing organizations should first; provide clear responsibility and priorities with extensive communication and freedom to improvise. Second, explore the future by experimenting with a wide variety of low cost probes; and thirdly, link current projects to the future with predictable intervals and choreographed transition procedures. Traditionally the main focus of change management is on identifying sources that resist change and offers ways to overcome them. Most of the recent contributions have been challenging the focus on resistance and have shifted the aimed at creating vision along with gaining political support for them, and managing the trans ition of the organization toward them. The various ways in which managing change can be classified are in figure below. MOTIVATING CHANGE Creating Readiness for Change Overcoming Resistance to Change CREATING A VISION Describing the Core Ideology Constructing the Envisioned Future EFFECTIVE CHANGE MANAGEMENT DEVELOPING POLITICAL SUPPORT Assessing Change Agent Power Identifying Key Stakeholders Influencing Stakeholders MANAGING THE TRANSITION Activity Planning Commitment Planning Management Structures SUSTAINING MOMENTUM Providing resources for Change Building a Support System for Change Agents Developing New Competencies and Skills Reinforcing New Behaviors Staying the Course The above mentioned activities contribute a lot to effective change management and have been listed in the order in which they usually are performed. The first amongst the activities involves motivating change and also includes creating a readiness for change amongst the members of the organization and which indeed helps them to address resistance to change. Initially motivation is a critical issue for change process because a lot of evidence indicates that people as well as the organizations want to preserve the status quo and are willing to change only when there are strong powerful reasons to do so. The next activity is considered with creating a vision and is closely alignment with leadership activities. The vision has the sole purpose of providing a purpose and lay out for change and it describes the desired future state of the organization. The next activity involves the task of developing political support for the change. Organizations of all kinds are composed of powerful ind ividuals as well as groups that can either block or promote change, and it is the task of the leaders and the change agents to gain the support and permission of the higher authorities in order to implement changes. The fourth activity is concerned with managing movement from the current state to the desired level in the organization. It involves designing a plan for managing the change activities as well as planning particular management structures for working of the organization during this transition. The next and the final activity involve sustaining the flow or momentum for change so that it is being able to be carried to completion. The final activity includes task such as providing resources for implementing the changes, building a support system for change agents, developing new competencies and skills needed to implement the changes. Unless man-to-man are motivated and bound up to change, unfreezing the status quo will be very difficult. Without vision, chances are there th at change will be disorganized and diffused. Along with the fast moving pace of global, economic, and technological development change becomes an inevitable feature of the life of the organizational. But change that happens to an organization externally by the environment is quite different from the change that is planned and incorporated by the members of the organization. The main motive of Organizational development is to bring in changes in the organization in a planned manner so as to be able to increase its effectiveness and this organizational change is usually initiated and implemented by managers, with the help of professional OD practitioners. Conceptions of planned change have tended to focus on how change can be implemented in organizations. In order to implement change in any organization, certain frameworks are used as models that describe the activities that must take place to initiate and carry out successful organizational change. Let us now discuss change that Microsoft Canada tried to implement in its organization by implementing Strategic Change. MANAGING STRATEGIC CHANGE AT MICROSOFT CANADA Microsoft Canada is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation responsible for the service, marketing and the sales of the full range of software products, including the Windows operating system, the office productivity suite, a variety of Net products, and the Xbox game console. The organization marketed to a variety of segments, such as software application developers, small and medium business and large enterprises, through a broad range of partners that worked directly with the client organizations to install and optimize the software used. A small service organization provided consulting support to clients with the partner. Before 2001, Microsoft Canada had been part of North American subsidiary. Under this structure, large US market was clearly the focus of attention from Microsoft server, desktop, other software products. However, Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada, argued that the Canadian market was different and under developed. It had a different mix of customers that did a United States, different competitors and different growth opportunities. Moreover, software sales and personnel computers shipments as a percentage of markets size and growth were below worldwide averages. These differences, Clegg argued warranted a specialized strategy. As the fiscal year ended Clegg and his newly appointed Director of Strategic Planning, Sandra Palmero, wanted to cease the opportunity to define a uniquely Canadian strategy. Before becoming Director of Strategic Planning, Palmero had been Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications in Microsoft Canada. There with Richard Reynolds, her Senior Marketing Manager, they had planned and implemented a participative process of strategic planning. Sandra conducted the OD practitioner who had worked with them and contracted to design and implement a Strategic planning process for the Canadian organization. Over a 2 month period, Sandra conceived of a series of workshops involving the Canadian leadership team. This team represented a broad cross section of the organization including representatives from legal staffs, human resources, service business and Microsoft consultant, marketing managers, customer support and managers responsible for different segments of Microsoft business inclu ding enterprise customer, small and medium business, the Microsoft Network and the Xbox. The strategic analysis phase consisted of preliminary work by several members of the Canadian leadership team as well as initial exercises during the first workshop. Member of Canadian Leadership team each prepared an analysis of their respected areas of responsibilities. For example, the enterprise sales manager provided historical growth rates in the revenue, developed forecast for market growths and Microsofts share, described current levels of Customer satisfaction and technology road map of products being developed by the Redmond headquarters organization. In addition to this specific analysis, Sandra contracted with a market research firm to provide overall description of Canadian information technology market. Finally a competitor analysis was performed to develop and understanding of likely strategies, goals, and initiatives from key competitors such as IBM, Sun Micro System, and Oracle as well as competitive threat posed by the Linux Operating System Software. During first workshop the Canadian Leadership team used the pre work data to perform an environmental scan. They discussed, debated, and ultimately came to some agreements about the trends affecting the organization. Based on that scan, the group engaged in a vision and value formation exercise and set out an initial list of short and long term goals. These activities let to several important decisions for new marketing organizations. For example, the vision and values exercised produced important insight about what the Canadian organization stood for, its uniqueness compared to the marketing subsidiaries within the Microsoft Organization, and its strengths in competing as a Canadian organization. The values also informed discussion about future goals and strategy to achieve them. Importantly, the Canadian leadership realized that customer loyalty would and should become a driving force for the organization. This realization led to passionate discussions about the relative emphasis i n the organization on revenues versus customer satisfaction and loyalty. It also led to development of Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) that the members of the Canadian Leadership Team believed would be challenging but achievable. The first workshop ended with a number of assignments, unresolved issues, and excitement about the future. In between the first and second workshops, members of the Canadian Leadership Team worked with their own organizations. Issues, decisions and questions that were addressed within the Canadian Leadership Team were discussed throughout the organization. The most important discussion concerned the Big Hairy Audacious Goal and the relative emphasis of revenues and customer loyalty over the short and long term. A consensus began to emerge that the right and proper strategy for Microsoft was to argue for a slower growth rate in revenues the short term, invest in customer satisfaction and then leverage that loyalty for a more secure stream of revenues in the future. Frank Clegg took this idea to the executives in Redmond and discussed the implications of this strategy, including revenue projections, risk involved, the budget implications, and how the strategy aligned with corporate and other marketing organizations initiatives. The result of these conversations became the subject of opening discussions at second workshop. The cautions but positive support from the corporate organization allowed the Canadian leadership team to move forward on its strategic intent. In second workshop, the organizations mission and values were finalized; year by year revenue goals were agreed upon to achieve the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, and these goals were broken down and assigned to specific groups and managers. Finally, key customer and partner loyalty programs were established and outlined. Ownership for different initiatives was assigned and a strategic change plan originated. Frank Clegg pressed the group on its decision to emphasize customer loyalty and challenged the group with several scenarios that tempted them to trade off satisfaction for revenue. These scenarios helped fix the Canadian leadership teams commitment to their strategy. The important part of the strategic change plan that came out was a discussion and decision to tie the individual performance appraisals of Canadian leadership team as a whole also staked their end of fiscal year bonuses to the achievement of customer satisfaction, instead of revenue goals. The strategic change efforts at Microsoft Canada are important for few reasons. First, the Canadian organizations realization of the benefits of customer satisfaction and loyalty was influential in moving the larger Microsoft Corporation to examine its values in this area. Business Week reported on the changes Steve Ballmer was making in the organization; they reflected the increased importance of customer loyalty in Microsofts strategy and structure changes. Second, the organization learned how to organize a strategic planning effort. In the second year since this effort began, Sandra Palmero did built a stronger strategic planning organization and taken more and more responsibility for driving the strategic planning process. Even as the corporate Microsoft organization was making important changes in its reporting structure, business process, financial systems, the Canadian organization was able to adapt using its own resources and knowledge. Finally, the Big Hairy Audacious Goal h as become an institutionalized part of the organization that drives thinking and decision making in the organization. In context with the case in hand we are suppose to work on a few task related to the case in hand. Firstly, let us discuss the history of the organization in hand, which is Microsoft Canada. Microsoft Canada Inc. was established in 1985. It is the Canadian subsidiary of Microsoft Corp. the worldwide leader in services, software and solutions that help inhabit and small business realize their full potential. Microsoft Canada provides nationwide sales, marketing, consulting and local support services in both French and English. It has its headquarters in Mississauga and has nine regional offices across the country dedicated to empowering people through great software- anytime, anywhere and on any devise. Secondly, let us now discuss the circumstances that led the organization to undergo strategic change. Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada, argued that the Canadian market was different and under developed and it had a different mix of customers. Thus it demanded for different co mpetitors and different growth opportunities. Another circumstance was that the percentage of markets size and growth of software sales and personnel computers shipments were below worldwide averages. These circumstances demanded a specialized strategy. Thirdly, the type of change that was implemented in the Microsoft Canada was basically strategically. The change has been incorporated in such a way that every aspect of the organization starting from legal staffs, human resources, service business and Microsoft consultant, marketing managers, customer support and managers responsible for different segments of Microsoft business including enterprise customer, small and medium business, the Microsoft Network and the Xbox were taken into consideration. The senior members of the organization have tried its best to formulate and design the strategically change in such a manner that it helps Microsoft Canada to increase its percentage market share and gain better growth. Fourthly, in orde r to incorporate the strategically change into the organization the involvement of every member of the organization is very necessary. The strategically change was initiated by Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada and Sandra Palmero, Director of Strategic Planning. Sandra Palmero along with Richard Reynolds, her Senior Marketing Manager, had crafted and implemented a participative process of strategic planning. Sandra conducted the OD practitioner who had worked with them and contracted to design and implement a Strategic planning process for the Canadian organization. Fifthly, the methods used in implementing the strategically change were basically workshops, assignments and discussions of issues related to work. Canadian Leadership Team was formed by members of various departments of the organization that were focused on developing and implementing strategically change in the Microsoft Canada Organization. During the first workshop the Canadian Leadership team used the pre w ork data to perform an environmental scan. They discussed, debated, and ultimately came to some agreements about the trends affecting the organization. Based on that scan, the group engaged in a vision and value formation exercise and set out an initial list of short and long term goals. These activities let to several important decisions for new marketing organizations. The Canadian leadership realized that customer loyalty would and should become a driving force for the organization. A consensus began to emerge that the right and proper strategy for Microsoft was to argue for a slower growth rate in revenues the short term, invest in customer satisfaction and then leverage that loyalty for a more secure stream of revenues in the future. In second workshop, the organizations mission and values were finalized; year by year revenue goals were agreed upon and these goals were broken down and assigned to specific groups and managers. The important part of the strategic change plan that emerged was a discussion and decision to tie the individual performance appraisals of Canadian leadership team as a whole also staked their end of fiscal year bonuses to the achievement of customer satisfaction, rather than revenue goals. Steve Ballmer increased the importance of customer loyalty in Microsofts strategy and structural changes and also the organization learned how to organize a strategic planning effort. Microsoft organization has made important changes in its reporting structure, business process, financial systems; the Canadian organization was able to adapt using its own resources and knowledge. Big Hairy Audacious Goal has become an institutionalized part of the organization that drives thinking and decision making in the organization. Finally, the main changes that have been seen in the performance level of the employees getting better along with rise in the percentage of market share which led to its growth both internal as well as external. Also, the Canadian Leadership Team and the Big Hairy Audacious Goal was permanently incorporated in the structure of the organization. (b) Strengths of Bureaucratic organizations are as follows: Higher level of consistency is maintained in decisions and implementation of projects. The control exerted by the head quarters or top level management ensures that the systems and delivery of services to the beneficiaries are in line with the laid down procedures. The major and important final decisions made by top management, considering various perspectives of organization. In this aspect the powers and interests of various stakeholders also taken care in delivering the final outcome. Another benefit is better cost control and management. Weaknesses of Bureaucratic organizations are as follows, The higher level of bureaucracy leads to lack of innovation and development in the organization, which leads to loss of competitive advantage in certain circumstances. Another disadvantage is that higher the structure and communication ladder impedes the speed of communication and decision making, and speed of response in emergency situations. The motivation of employees drops because of the lower level of delegation of duties and responsibilities and lower empowerment.. What must be realized is only that the strait jacket of bureaucratic organization paralyzes the individuals initiative, while within the capitalist market society an innovator still has a chance to succeed. (c) Managing change is an inevitable part of Organizational Development. Organization Development is about how people and organizations function and how to get them to function better. The field is based on knowledge from behavioral science disciplines such as psychology, social psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, organization theory and management. OD programs are long-term, planned, sustained efforts. Various definitions of OD are: Organization development refers to a long-range effort to improve an organizations problem solving capabilities and its ability to cope with changes in its external environment with the help of external or internal behavioral-scientist consultants, or change agents, as they are sometimes called. (Wendell French) Organization development is a system-wide process of data collection, diagnosis, action planning, intervention, and evaluation aimed at (1) enhancing congruence among organizational structure, process, strategy, people, and culture; (2) developing new and creative organizational solutions; and (3) develop the organizations self renewing capacity. It occurs through the collaboration of organizational members working with a change agent using behavioral science theory, research, and technology.(Michael Beer) Thus, Organization development is a system based and wide application that transfers behavioral science knowledge to the planned improvement, and reinforcement of the process that lead to effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. All OD programs have three basic components: diagnosis, action and program management. The symptomatic component represents a uninterrupted collection of data about the total system, its subunits, its processes, and its culture. The action component consists of all the activities and interventions designed to improve the organizations functioning. The program management component encompasses all activities designed to ensure success of the program. The process of Organizational Development is quite complicated and the completion of the change process consumes a lot of time with a minimum of one year and sometimes keeps indefinitely. There are different approaches to the process but the usual process consists of seven steps, which are initial diagnosis, data collection, data feedback and confrontation, action planning and problem solving, team building, inter group development and evaluation and follow up. organizational development process The following steps are vital steps taken into consideration while implementing any alternative forms of organizational development: Communications patterns, styles and flows. Goal setting. Decision making, problem solving, and action planning. Conflict resolution and management. Managing interface relations. Superior- subordinate relations. Technological and engineering systems. Strategic management and long-range planning. Vision/ Mission formulation. Organizational learning. Task 2 (a) The key stakeholders in Microsoft Canada can be people from any of the departments and levels of the organizations. But in general, the following people are the stakeholders of Microsoft Canada: Financial analysts Business analysts Forecasting or sales individual contributors Controller IT specialists and administrators. Legal staffs Human resources Service business and Microsoft consultant Marketing managers Customer support Managers responsible for different segments of Microsoft business including enterprise customer. Etc. (b) As discussed already it has been seen that the above cited stakeholders are the main members of the Canadian Leadership Team and plays a very significant role in the successful formation and implementation of Strategically Change in Microsoft Canada. The stakeholders, most of whom are also the members of the Canadian Leadership Team have played important role in the workshops, assignments, and discussions that was basically done to decide upon implementing new strategically changes required by Microsoft Canada to achieve its long term and short term goals. Also in the beginning of this report we have discussed three different models that are usually used in any organization as models for implementing and managing change, which are, Lewins Planned Change Model, Action Research Model and Positive model. After going through the entire case in hand it is seen that the Action Research Model best suits the procedure in which implementation of strategical change was carried out in Microsoft Canada. As the Action Research Model of change suggests, Microsoft Canada firstly, identified the problem that the organization was facing and having done that it was discussed upon by the experts of the organization and data was gathered from various sources to analyze the problem in order to be able to provide with the best possible solution. Finally, The Canadian Leadership Team acted as the Action team that helped to implement the solutions and bring in the Change in Microsoft Canada. Thus, the above report is a good example of implementing and managin g change in an organization. Task 3 (a) UnfreezingLewins Planned Change Model Refreezing Movement Action Research Model Data Gathering after Action Action Joint Action Planning Joint Diagnosis of Problem Feedback to Key Client or Group Data Gathering and Preliminary Diagnosis Consultation with Behavioral Science Expert Problem Identification Positive Model Design and Deliver ways to create the Future Envision a Preferred Future Discover Themes Inquire into Best Practices Initiate the Inquiry There are various types of change that an organization may implement. (b) It is often remarked that the only constant thing in the world is Change and having said that in todays so fast moving world and economy, every organization needs to implement change in its working structure and structure to be able to cope up with the changing environment. Today, organizations basically go for a change in order to be up to date with the current world and also are able to cope up with the increasing competition. Change suiting to the organization helps the organization to attain better brand name and a increased market share. Also change in the structure and working environment usually helps the organization to provide its employees to be happy and satisfied working in the organization and give maximum effective result to the output of the organization. Thus there may be a number of reasons that might have led to any organizations decision to implement change in the organization. In case of Microsoft Canada, Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada, argued that the Canadian market was different and under-developed and it had a different mix of customers. Thus it demanded for different competitors and different growth opportunities. Another circumstance was that the percentage of markets size and growth of software sales and personnel computers shipments were below worldwide averages. These circumstances demanded a specialized strategy. Thus this was the major reason that led Microsoft Canada to decide to implement Strategic Change in the organization.

W.B. Yeats and the Importance of Imagination Essay -- Biography Biogra

W.B. Yeats and the Importance of Imagination The poetry of the Irish writer WB Yeats celebrates how the human imagination gives meaning to life's struggles. Yeats's vision of human creative power evolves with his writing, broadening from seeing the imagination as the embodiment of human desires to understanding the power of the imagination to inspire others and immortalize the creative spirit. Yeats's work, by embracing this power, embraces the human condition itself, giving dignity to hardships and suffering by transfiguring 'dread' into 'tragedy.' The inevitable suffering described in poems like "Adam's Curse," "The Wild Swans at Coole," and "The Circus Animals' Desertion," is transfigured into works of art which immortalize the human spirit, as in "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "A Dialogue of Self and Soul," and "Lapis Lazuli." In Yeats' poems, human life is an experience wrought with sorrow and suffering. "Adam's Curse," for example, defines the human condition in terms of the twin hardships of labor and mortality. Just as the Biblical Adam was cursed with toil and death when he was exiled from Eden, all people in "Adam's Curse" must struggle to live, only to ultimately die. Like the "old pauper" who must "scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones" to survive, all people labor in life, especially when making a work of beauty: the poet, for example, works "hours" at "stitching and unstitching" lines in order to create "sweet sounds," only to be called an "idler," and every woman is "born...to know" that she must "labour to be beautiful." The "curse" of labor is made more bearable when it informs the creation of beauty, as in a poem, a woman's "sweet and low" voice, or a "love...compounded of high courtesy," but the curs... ...g the inflexible realities of life, Yeats's works come to appreciate the greater powers of the creative soul to inspire others to embrace their own suffering, to see and balance all parts of the human experience and transfigure even hardship into art. The imagination thus empowers man to defy with his spirit what his body cannot- he finds spiritual timelessness, perfection, and immortality in a world where he will decay, fail, and perish. It is the imagination which allows this discovery, transfiguring the deepest anguish of bounded life into free and eternal "gaiety." Works Cited Finneran, Richard, ed. The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats. 2nd ed. New York: Scribner, 1997. Frye, Northrop. The Educated Imagination.Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964. Parkinson, Thomas. W.B. Yeats: The Later Poetry. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1964.

Essay --

Elaine Tyler May’s Homeward Bound addresses two ideologies that ran rampant during the 50s, just after the conclusion of World War II. These Ideologies were anti- communism and suburban domesticity, both of which were sought to be resolved by the Americans through marriage and parenthood in a suitable and stable household. May discovers that domestic revival was key in addressing the ‘cold war ideology’; her book seeks to discover why post war Americans looked unto household stability as a means of solving the threat of communism at the time. It was, as she describes; â€Å"postwar Americans' intense need to feel liberated from the past and secure in the future." She believes that â€Å"Domestic containment† originated from the 30s and 40s, where people started to view the family structure in two different ways, â€Å"one with two breadwinners who shared tasks and the other with spouses whose roles were sharply differentiated." Society at the time chose the latter. Things like new deal programs aimed to improve employment opportunities for men. The American dream was at this time available to whit...

Transnational Social Movements, International Nongovernmental Organizat

Transnational Social Movements, International Nongovernmental Organizations and Our State-centric World The 1999 Seattle protests brought the apparent proliferation of anti-globalization grassroot sociopolitical movements into the limelight of the world stage. Transnational social movements (TSMs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), as well as the loose transnational activist networks (TANs) that contain them—all these came to be seen as an angry and no less potent backlash that's directed at the powerful states and increasingly towering economic IGOs such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. In the field of international relations, some regard this as a prophetic watershed event that signals the weakening and perhaps even collapsing of the state-centric system of international relations, while many others insist that Seattle is but an eventually insignificant episode in the book of globalization and state power, as evidenced by the Doha success. This paper attempts to address two questions that are at the heart of this dispute: Do TSMs and INGOs have any real power in today's international political arena against the traditional view of state dominance? And, if the answer to the previous question is yes, then does such a change merit a fundamental revision of the state-centric model of international relations? My answer to these two questions is threefold: First, I assert that TSMs and INGOs can and have posed substantial normative challenges to state hegemony, most commonly the notion that the state enjoys a monopoly on representation of its citizens and their interests. Furthermore, TSMs and INGOs that employ the use of violence (particularly terrorism) breach the conventional notion that states... ...ed Arjomand, Said Amir. â€Å"Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective.† World Politics, Volume 38, Issue 3 (1986. 4), 383-414. Griffith, William E. â€Å"The Revial of Islamic Fundamentalism: the Case of Iran.† International Security. Volume 4, Issue 1, 1979, 132-138. Khashan, Hilal. â€Å"The New World Order and the Tempo of Militant Islam.† British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Volume 24, Issue 1 (1997. 5), 5-24. O'Brien, Robert, et al. Contesting Glboal Governance. Cambridge, 2000. G. Hossein. â€Å"Legitimacy, Religion, and Nationalism in the Middle East.† The American Political Science Review, Volume 84, Issue 1 (1990. 3), 69-91. Tarrow, Sidney. â€Å"Transnational Politics: Contention and Institutions in International Politics.† Annual Review of Political Science, 2001.4. Weaver, Mary Ann. â€Å"The Real Bin Laden.† The New Yorker, January 24, 2000.

Animal Cruelty in China Essay

Now our eyes are lashed by animal-abusing events nearby: Liu Haiyang, a Qinghua University student, hurt bears by sulphuric acid; tigers in circus troupe died of tiredness; thousands upon thousands of pet dogs in Guangzhou have them vocal cords cuthere are still countless such examples too tragic to look upon. The lesson we learn from that is not the transaction to individual event, but the need of some deep-going thinking: why does China have no related laws to ban and penalize similar commitment, when our society is increasingly developed; and why can our citizens turn blind in front of such atrocities when they are kept in a nation with profound Buddhism origin. Few people in China care about the feelings of animals or possess the concept of animal welfare. Some traditional factors play a positive role in this field. From childhood, anything about animals, most Chinese children get in touch with has undoubtedly put man above them. Even some of the children songs have described the nature of animals as malicious, such as slippery fox and ruthless wolf and so on, which not only casts a dark shadow over their hearts, but also leaves a wide gap between animals and children. These can all be taken in at a glance at the old saying: Man is the master of the universe. Disdain in spirit may lead to cruelty in action. As a result, man endows himself the natural rights to dominate the universe at the thought of human rights is gifted by the God, and take the life of animals as trifling matters. The civilized man always divides creatures into mankind and animals. The reason is no doubt that man thinks high of himself. Then is the deep-rooted human priority really true? Why should we insist on the inferiority of animals? Darwin has particularly compared the intellect of man and lower orders animals. He hold the opinion that we now know that the sensory organs, intuition, all kinds of emotions and functions, such as, love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitating and reasoning abilities, etc. Scientists have proved that animals possess sense perception as man does, which makes us have to ask ourselves a question: in the past 200 years, why did men keep extending the idea of ethics from state to nation, then to race, and finally to all individuals? Of course, morality has economic limitation. The reason because we found the former practice unfair. History shows that the category of ethical ideas is continuously expanding, and its extent keeps deepening. Man will finally break each kind of discovered unfairness, but we still exclude most perceptive species. Man could not communicate with animals in language, nor could they by other means. Therefore, man could not understand their agony and thereby took it as granted that animals could not sense pain. But now, man can measure whether an animal is suffering pain by some quantified standards. Experiments also proved the ability of animals to sense pain. If man still disregards their feelings in such a case, then it can by no means be considered a noble thing. A Chinese proverb says that never give anything to the others unless you like the thing. It may be changed into never give anything man dislike to them. Then how should we judge the suitable category of ethics at present level? I believe that the profit of each object involved in an action should all be considered. Therefore, we should extend the category of ethics to all species that are able to sense pain, joy and happiness. Why cannot man recognize animals in real life? The reason is that morality also has limitation of society. In reality there are usually conflicts between man and animal. Once man thinks an animal is harmful to him, he will show defense and hostility, considering not at all its welfare. Humans treat other humans still like this, let alone towards animals incapable of communicating in human languages. Therefore, powerful binding force is needed to seek welfare for animals. From the legal point of view, the inheritance of excellent Chinese traditional morality should be absorbed by newly discussed Chinese Animal Welfare Laws. Although it is easy to learn from abroad, it still needs persevering efforts of several years to really make the idea of animal welfare go deep into the hearts of most Chinese citizens. Since China has now been one of the members of World Trade Organization, the legal system and civilization level must catch up with the steps of economy linked to international developed countries. Thus, the development is wholesome, up-going and full-scale. It will be a great victory of global animal welfare cause to realize its popularization in China, a country that takes up one fifth of the world population. Up till now, most countries have enacted related laws and regulations. Many experience shows that in a society, the more advanced the economy, and the deeper the democratic idea goes into people heart, the much easier the concept of animal welfare is popularized and accepted by its citizens. Whether a person owns a kind heart can also be judged by his treatment toward animals. It is said that some criminologists point out that the maltreatment toward animals in childhood is a sign of the risk of committing crimes after grown up. Law is the minimal morality. The love and attention to animals should be from the bottom of hearts, instead of the regulation at legal levels. Maybe when human society reaches the stage of, in the word of Confucius, every life being equal, it is the time that animals finally be liberated. Universal love has no distinction between species. This is a world shared together by man and animals. China has started fairly late, but we may not escape or be absent in the trend of universal love. The future is bright but the way is zigzag. I would like to cite this Chinese proverb to describe the situation of Animal Welfare Law in China and I hope all the animals live happier life in the future, in China.

Privacy and Security Breaces at Acxiom

concealment and Security Breaches at Acxiom Case appear Chapter 4 Privacy and Security Breaches at Acxiom Case Study Chapter 4 Acxiom magnate be the more or less measurable organization that most of us restrain never heard of. They be the worlds largest processor of consumer entropy, collection and analyzing more than a billion records a day (Bigdoli, 2012). Acxiom was founded in 1969, and its headquarters is situated in Little Rock, Arkansas ( active Acxiom, 2013). Its customers all in allow in nine of the countrys top ten credit-card issuers, as soundly as nearly all the major retail banks, insurers, and automakers (Behar, 2012).Unfortunately, Acxiom has been faced with rough breaches of certificate that wear led the connection make some important shelter changes/upgrades. In 2003, Daniel thick, a 24 stratum old computer-systems administrator was found to have stolen the data of millions of individuals from Acxioms databases. He worn-out(a) two years collectin g this study and stored it on compact discs (Behar, 2004). He broke into their system by simply snap bean passwords (Behar, 2004). Bass was non the only literary hack to crack Acxiom however. date authorities were investigating Bass, they at last discovered an additional hacker chemical group from Boca Raton, Florida, who had cracked the passwords for the same server that Bass had gotten into as well. While they entrywayed selective cultivation for millions of lot it did not appear that either hacking happening resulted in the defrauding of any of the individuals whose data was stolen (Behar, 2012). Acxiom unquestionably needed to do something to beef up their security measures and protect their customers data.They first hire a chief security officer, which had not been a position until these incidents. The chief security officer instituted mandatory encryptions, as well as working to prevent cybercrimes. Acxiom to boot began to conduct security audits (both conducted from inside and outback(a) firms) to test for weaknesses in security. As removed as secretiveness is concerned, Acxiom is considered to have single of the most stringent privacy policies there are. You can read it here http//www. acxiom. com/about-acxiom/privacy/.They had a privacy officer tenacious before they had a security officer. In terms of privacy, we are left sceptical whether the government should have introduction to the information that is collected. I believe that the government should have only limited access. Acxiom was able to support the government with the investigation of the terrorist 9/11 attacks (Behar, 2004). The government should only be apt(p) access to information relevant to important cases, not just have bump reign to interpret all of the data any way they pass fit.Other organizations might also find out they need access to this tete-a-tete data for security reasons. While I do not see how this could ever happen, the possible organizations th at might feel they need access to such information might be school districts, private security firms, real estate professionals (especially luxuriously end), colleges and universities. While safety is an important issue at all of these places (and most others), having access to this sort of information does not secure safety, but in fact places raw targets on many harmless individuals.References About Acxiom. (2013). Retrieved from Acxiom http//www. acxiom. com/overview/ Behar, R. (2004, February 23). Never comprehend Of Acxiom? Chances Are Its Heard Of You. How a little-known Little Rock companythe worlds largest processor of consumer datafound itself at the center of a very tough national security debate. Retrieved from CNN Money http//money. cnn. com/magazines/ quite a little/fortune_archive/2004/02/23/362182/index. htm Bidgoli, H. (2012). MIS2. Boston Cengage Learning.