Significant Differences Between Accounting and Oil and Gas Operations and the Conventional Accounting for Manufacturing or Mechanize Operation.

SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACCOUNTING AND OIL AND GAS OPERATIONS AND THE CONVENTIONAL ACCOUNTING FOR MANUFACTURING OR MECHANIZE OPERATION. By Demoore Suleman ———————– Conventional Manufacturing Account 1. Definition: Manufacturing account, the term I use to describe business organizations engaged in the manufacture of goods for sale. These company maintain a manufacturing account. 2. Cost Method: Expenses are the cost of unsold products and are reported as assets. These expenses include wages, electricity in offices outside of the factory (sales and marketing, general administrative offices) are reported immediately as expenses in the accounting period that they are used cost outside of the factory do not become part o the product cost. Under the accrual method of accounting, period cost such as selling, general and administrative expenses are reported in the income statement in the accounting period in which they are used up or explore. Variances from purchase are recorded at that time the raw materials are purchased and re – classified into raw materials inventory, Accounting for oil and gas operation 1. Definition : Oil and Gas Account: The term is used to describe the books of account of companies involved in the exploration an development of crude oil and natural gas. 2. Cost Method Accounting for oil and gas operations follow one of two methods of financial accounting. a. Full Cost Method: All property acquisition exploration and development cost, even dry hole cost are capitalized as oil and gas properties. These cost represent fixed asset, amortized on a country – by country basis using a unit of production method based on volume produced and emaining proved reserves. Acquisition and development activities are capitalized expenses irrespective of whether or not the activities resulted in the discovery of reserve. b. The successful effort (SE) method: allows a company to capitalize only those expenses associated with successful locating new oil and natural gas reserves. automotive, electrical, agricultural, medical and aromatic indu stries. Stocks are recorded as current assets and are classified into i. Raw materials and consumables ii. Work in Progress iii. Finished goods and goods awaiting sale v. Prepayment for stock in transit The Financial Accounting Standard Board issued it concept statement No 6 Element of financial statements which defines terms as expenses, loses, revenues, assets e. t. c 3. Accounting Policies Goodwill is not subject to amortization instead the companies must conduct periodic impairment testing. The Net unauthorized capitalized costs are also amortized on unit of production method whereby property acquisition cost are amortized over proved reserves and property development cost are amortized over proved developed reserves. The Net Unamortized capitalized cost of oil and gas properties less related deffered income taxes may not exceed a ceiling consisting primarily of a computed present value of projected future cash flows, after income taxes , from the proved reserves. Amortization is computed by lease or property) or field. Accounting standard disclose for the petroleum downstream activities engaged in a. Refining and petrochemical b. Marketing and Distribution c. Liquefied Natural Gas Accounting Policies are captioned rather than as notes in the financial statements. ork in process inventory, finished goods inventory, and cost of good sold. Profit margins set are Standardized cost and represented graphically as break even point analysis. 3. Accounting Policies a. Disclosure requirement for balance sheet:- Goodwill are reported in the balance sheet as deffered charges and are long term asset. Accounting policies prominently disclosed as note to individual items in the financial statement of convention al manufacturing accounting. Disclosure requirement refers to the minimum amount of information which should be presented on financial statement. The disclosure requirement for balance sheet and profit and lost account is regulated by the second schedule of the company And Allied Matters Act in Nigeria (CAMA) 1990 while for the others part of the financial statement, it is regulated by the statement of accounting standard issued by the Nigerian Accounting Standard Board. They act under Section 335 sub-section 1 provides: For unsuccessful or (dry hole) results, the associated operating cost are immediately changed against revenue for that period. Acquisition and Mineral Right Prospecting cost associated with pre licensing are incurred in the period prior to the acquisition of legal right to explore for oil and gas in a particular location, such cost include the acquisition of speculative seismic data and expenditures on the subsequent geological and geophysical analysis of the data. Other licensing faces are oil exploration license, oil mining lease license. Oil prospecting license (OPL). In the course of acquiring the right to explore, develop and produce oil or natural gas, expenses relating to either purchase or lease to the right to extract the oil and gas from a property not owned by the company. Acquisition costs also includes any lease bonus payment to the property owner along with legal expenses, and title search, broker and recording cost. Under both SE and FE accounting methods acquisition cost are capitalized â€Å"The financial statement of a company prepared under section 334 of this Decree shall comply with the requirement of schedule 2 to the Decree (so far as applicable) with respect to their form and content, and with the accounting standards laid down in the statement of accounting standards, issued from time to time by the Nigerian Accounting Standard Board.. Provided such accounting standards do not conflict with the provision of this Decree or Schedule 2 to this Decree†. 4. Operations: The manufacturing process result in the continuous flow of intermediate product which serve as industrial input for the production of wide varieity of end product in building, textile, packaging, automotive, electrical, agricultural, medical and aromatic industries. Stocks are recorded as current assets and are classified into i. Raw materials and consumables ii. Work in Progress iii. Finished goods and goods awaiting sale iv. Prepayment for stock in transit The Financial Accounting Standard Board issued it concept statement of Exploration Costs: Typical of exploration costs are changes relating to the collection and analysis of geo-physical and Seismic data involved in the initial examination of a targeted area and later used in the decision of whether to drill at that location. Other cost involved those associated with drilling a well, which are further considered as being intangible or tangible. Intangible cost in general are those incurred to ready the site prior to the installation of the drilling equipment whereas tangible drilling cost are those incurred to install and operate that equipment. Treatment: All intangible cost will be charged to the income statement as part of the periods operating expenses for a company following the successful method . All tangible drilling cost associated with the successful discovery of new reserves will be capitalized while those incurred in an unsuccessful effort are also added to the operating expenses for that period. Capitalized means being added to the balance sheet as a long term assets. Development Cost: Involved in the preparation of discovered reserves for production such as those incurred in the construction or Disclosure Requirement for Value Added Statement Value Added simply refers to the difference between input value and output value. S. 35 (4) of the CAMA 1990 requires that â€Å" the value added statement shall report the wealth created by the company during the year and its distribution among various interest groups such as the employees, the government, creditors, proprietors and the company†, while emphasizing on the importance of the statement as apart of the financial statement, SAS 2 pointed out that the statement will enable companies to ensure the public that they do not exist for the length of their owners only but rather for the society at large. Possible uses to which the statement could be put include: i. Predicting managerial efficiency ii. Indicating the company’s wage paying ability iii. Evaluating the relative rewards of â€Å"shareholders† and other claimants against the company. the construction or improvement of roads to access the well site, with additional drilling or well completion work, an with installing other needed infrastructure to extract (e. g. pumps), gather (pipelines and store tanks) the oil or natural gas reserves both ST and FC allow for the capitalization of all development costs Production cost: Ensured costs in extracting oil or natural gas from the reserves are considered production costs. Typical of these cost are wages for workers and electricity for operating well pumps. Production cost are considered part of periodic operating expenses and are charged directly to the income statement under both accounting methods. Full cost accounting provides more meaningful financial statement. The primary asset of an oil company are the underground oil and gas reserves but not the individual well drill (expenses) in producing the oil. Its been further argued that the amortization of full cost over time produces more meaning income statement through improved matching of cost is to be released revenue. No 6 Element of financial statements which defines terms as expenses, loses, revenues, assets e. t. c Disclosure Requirement for Profit and Loss Account The Profit and Lost Account is an account which report the revenue and expenses of an enterprise for a given accounting period. The objective of the profit and loss account as stated under S. 335 (2) of CAMA 1990 is to give a true and fair view of the profit and loss account of the company for the financial year. The minimum information are disclosed in the profit an loss account are disclosed in schedule 2 paragraph 13 of CAMA 1990. Disclosure Requirement For Fund/Cash Flow Statement Statement of Accounting Standard (SAS) 2 defined a funds flow statement as a statement which provides information on the derivation and utilization of funds during the period covered by the financial; a statement. A funds flow statement show the movement in net current assets of a company Companies are required by law under S. 335(3) of CAMA 1990 to prepare and publish such statements and to give a detailed information on the various sources of funds on its disposition during the accounting period covered. 4. Operation: in the oil and Gas companies are refining which is simply the breaking down of the hydrocarbon mixture of crude oil into useful petroleum products. This is done through distillation cracking, reforming and extraction process these operations can be subdivided into i. Crude oil acquisition, ii. Crude oil storage iii. Processing iv. Blending v. Finished products stages Oil and gas companies are affected by periodic changes for depreciation depletion and amortization (DD &A) of costs relating to expenditures for the acquisition and development of new oil and natural gas reserves. They include the depreciation of certain long – lived operating equipment, the depletion of costs relating to the acquisition of property or properly mineral rights, and other amortization of tangible non – drilling cost incurred with developing the reserves. The periodic depreciation, depletion and amortization expense charged to the income statement is determined by the unit of production method in which the percent of total production for the Note to the account: does not become necessary if the balance sheet profit and lost account provides sufficient disclose in the accounts to give a true and fair view of the company’s state of affairs and the profit and loss position. This is however contained in S. 335 (7) of the CAMA 1990 which states as follows: â€Å"if the balance sheet or profit and loss account drawn up in accordance with these requirements would not provide sufficient information to comply with subsection (2) of this section, any necessary additional information shall be provided in that balance sheet or profit and loss account or in a note to the accounts†. Total production for the period to total proven reserves are the beginning of the period is applied to the gross total of cost capitalized on the Balance Sheet. Depletion is the means of expending the cost incurred in acquiring and developing oil and gas using unit of production method. Depletion rate per barrel is completed as:- Capitalized Cost / output Depletion expense is computed as:- Depletion Rate x No of Out-put Produced |Accounting treatment of cost | | SE FC | |Acquisition | Capitalized |Capitalized | |Geolog & Geophy |Expense |Capitalized | |Explorating dry hole |Expense |Capitalized | |Development Dry hole |Capitalized |Capitalized | |Production cost |Expense |Expense | Expense is associated with income statement, capitalization is associated with Balance sheet extract. References J. Vitalome , Accounting for Differences in Oil and Gas Accounting,http://www. investopedia. com S. Abubakar (2007), Lecture Note Oil and Gas Accounting Department of Accounting Faculty of Administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. Federal Government of Nigeria (1990), Company and Allied Matters Act, Lagos Government Printers NASB(1985), Information to be Disclosed in Financial Statement, Statement of Accounting Standard 2

Art Deco

Art Deco BY grandparents ‘Art Deco' was an art movement that flourished through the sass's and sass's. The decade opened up an extensive variety of original and distinctive styles and still remains to be the foundation of ‘an era so rich and so remote that at times it seems to belong to the unfathomable domain of dreams (Coated, n. D). ‘ Art Deco was a necessity at the time, due to the economic crisis and war. Society needed pop color and creative, eccentric designs to brighten up the dull life they were living. People deed to Escape reality and drown in a world completely unlike their own.Freethinking and creativeness was embraced, not frowned upon. It was revolutionary, the start of something new. The Art Deco movement was a time marked by Fashion Illustrator Paul Ripe as he revived the fashion plate in a modernist style, in order to produce a streamlined natural yet fashionable silhouette. A designer so great, utilizing simplicity as well as developing the aesthe tics of modernism, in order to rename himself in the elite and exclusive world of art. It is exemplified that this erred has helped develop and shape art in general, through merging naturalism and realism as one. Antonio Lopez Garcia' is not only acknowledged as one of the most revered contemporary artists to the Spanish, but to the world. The extreme sense of realism or his so-called hyper realistic illustrations convey his visual sensitivity to the elements of color, space and light. Lopez Garlic's style may be deemed as inquisitive and surreal although highlights irony through the way in which he uses his illustrations to capture the commonplace spaces that instill life in is eyes, to enable the tranquility that allows for the encroachments of everyday life (Lopez Garcia & Serially, 2010). Paul Ripe acknowledged artist, Journalist, fashion illustrator and designer deemed as a pioneer of the Art Deco movement. It was through his originality he was able to gain an international rep utation, which was through designing the layout El Robes De Paul Poorer in 1908. Director and producer Cecil B. Domicile brought Ripe to Hollywood in 1920, where he was a well-recognized designer of fabrics, wallpaper, furniture and several costume designs of Demise's dramas.Ripe was recognized for his clean graphic line, Jeweled-tone palette and his ability to produce exotic silhouettes through the main utilization of line, giving it a sense of naturalism. His designs portrayed naturalistic yet modernistic fashion illustration figures, which enjoyed life in relaxed arrangements. Thus represented elegance, functionality, glamour and modernity. Lopez Garcia, a well-known artist of this present day explores the classical themes of still life, landscape and figure; this was done through the depth insight of his immediate ambiance.Furthermore this ‘created a faithful representation of his simple motifs (Boston Museum, 2008). Lopez Garlic's work comprises of particular combinations of illustrations of backdrops and people, while many of his illustrations resulted in a mysterious yet pragmatic composition. Lopez Garcia deciphered his personal view into ‘poetic canvases, drawings, and sculpture (Boston Museum, 2008). ‘ He is accredited for his astonishing patience which allowed him to create authentic masterpieces, ‘Lopper's work is its timelessness; he is an old master in the contemporary world (Brutal, 2008).Lopez Garlic's relationship with Madrid developed through the extensive periods of observation he put in, in order to complete his work, this resulted in repeatedly visiting the chosen landscapes whether it was days or years. This exemplified his passion and determination for producing precocious works of fine art. The exquisiteness of Lopez Garlic's work begins with the appreciation he has for his personal technique. He believed that every ‘artist [should] work out for [themselves] what technique [they] need for [their] work (Lope z Garcia, 2009).He is perceived as a Versatile realist', who is proficient in the media's of oil painting on board, carved wood sculpture, charcoal, pencil drawing or water colors, pen, ink, Polaroid film and bas relief in plaster. The watercolors seen in an array of Lopez Garlic's work insinuates the transparency and how it allows the light to reflect from the direct surface of the paper, giving it that incandescent look. He uses stick of charcoal or thin pastel to blend and soften his original drawing strokes; this helps furnish his work a bona fide touch.The world comes to life with he stunning pragmatism of Antonio Lopez Garcia, through his depiction of buildings, plants and ‘cluttered interiors (Kaufman, 2009). ‘ His meticulousness can be insinuated as quite invigorating, in which he paints the commonplace with its lingering beauty as it ‘pervades [the simplicity in] life (Kaufman, 2009). ‘LÂ ¶peg Garcia illustrates every aspect and every angle depictin g ‘stains, grime and shadows with a verisimilitude that goes beyond bibliographic realism toward an absolute faith (Daily News, 2010). He is recognized as one of Spain's most revered artists, where his heartsickness of his work, were deemed as the translation of the everyday. You could say Lopez Garcia was an observer, as he painted with an astonished precision of a man perceiving the world for the very first time. He captured the visual and ‘his extraordinary deftness prolongs our attention to these quotidian prospects, disrupting our perceptual complacency and directing us to reexamine forms, often leading us to experience their beauty (Kaufman, 2009). You work until the whole surface has an expressive intensity equivalent to what you eve before you, converted into a pictorial reality (Lopez, n. D). Lopez Garlic's depictions enable him to stand out from other illustrators, as he understands the use of regular proportion in which he uses to pinpoint certain emotions fro m an individual. The proportion he seems to master can be linked with harmony as his art creates specific feelings through the color, lighting and space he uses.The composition combines those elements of color and space to give simplicity to his work. Lopez Garcia is deemed to form composition in methods he uses to create a ensue of delusion, through the ‘planes of color from a monochromatic and subdued palette, a precursor to minimalist aesthetics (Boston Museum, 2008). ‘ ‘He has an uncanny ability to understand light and translate it into color (Brutal, 2009). The techniques which helped Lopez Garcia in producing astounding work, and assisted him with the proportions of creating precise form [and] space and measuring distance between angles was simply ‘a ruler to his cheekbone, and the other end with his hand also holding a compass upright (FAA News, 2009). ‘ To comprehend the effect f light as it touches an object or landscape, he limited his time pa inting in the same spot at the exact time each day, so that he could adapt his work to the weather, which was done without the use of photographs or camera's, giving it a sense of naturalism.The composition of his work can be associated with unity in the way in which it gives his works wholeness, giving his piece the realistic perfection he intended. Subsequently Lopez Garlic's main technique to perfection ‘at a length, is patience, eyes wide open (FAA News, 2009). ‘ In stark contrast to Garcia, Paul Ribbed technique offered as his key method of design was by utilizing the biochip technique in which colors were brushed onto paper through thin copper or even zinc and were cut out stencils were an important boost for the art of fashion illustration.Ripe used this to depict the fashion at the time. Ribbed technique was based on simplicity with the use of simple lines creating flat, broad and abstract expanses of brighter colors in order to capture the Empire dresses, which gave him his creditability and name as a designer. Ribbed designs can be executed as simple yet sophisticated. The way in which he plays with contrast and color and captures the essence of a women's beauty through the simplicity of lines Work brilliantly together. Although Antonio Lopez Garcia and Paul ‘ribbed remain to be designers in stark contrast, you can consider the following designs and they ways in which both the artists translates the fashion realm into something a little less ordinary. The perception of realism is dependent on the time, exemplified through the Art Deco movement simplicity was as real as it got, however because times are changing, so is he art, which is why Antonio Lopez Garcia was able to modernize and evolve through his art.Both their styles remain as limitless and crafts of perfection. The aura of not only fashion is evident through Ribbed art, but life in the self-portraits of Garlic's. Fashion and Life were seen as an art form and both their illu strations capture the idea of what their idea is on life/fashion. ‘For there is beauty in placement and detail as well as skill in the application of color in all the elements of a work of art as there is in fashion. ‘

Analysis of the Significance of Othello’s last speech Essay

This last speech of Othello is his way of expressing to viewers how he would have liked them to see the events of the play. However, his speech, albeit elegant and characteristic of Othello’s extravagant and Romantic use of language, is flawed, ironic and thus it is impossible to see the events of the play in the light that Othello would like us to. His account is merely how he would like the audience to view the play and not necessarily how the events of the play have indeed unfolded. Othello is a man very conscious and in some ways obsessed with reputation. He himself is aware of this, as shown in the preceding lines: â€Å"I pray you, in your letters, / When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, / Speak of me as I am†. Aware of the importance of opinion, which is inevitably affected by one’s reputation, he quickly jumps to tell people of how he would like to be remembered. With this obsession with reputation, it is already clear that Othello has a strong motive to put a positive spin on his actions. Indeed, his preoccupation with his reputation and public image was one of the reasons that he killed Desdemona. Also, it is Iago’s reputation as an honest man which allowed him to deceive Othello without Othello once questioning his words. Thus, Othello has a strong motive not to portray himself as he really is, but how he would want us to see him and so it is already possible to see that his account of his behaviour may not necessarily be an acc urate one. The preceding lines state that he tells the others to â€Å"speak of me as I am†. However, there is great irony in this statement as he immediately goes on to misinterpret himself and his motives in order to retain his noble and righteous reputation. He says that he is â€Å"not easily jealous†. However, the notion that jealousy has the power to destroy is a significant theme of the play. His jealousy that Desdemona might love Cassio is a major part of his downfall. Despite claiming to be one not easily jealous, not only is his better judgement quickly overcome by his jealousy when Iago first begins to make the allegations, but he lets his jealousy take over and his jealousy begins to control his actions. Also, he says that he has been â€Å"wrought, / Perplexed in the extreme†, and although it is undeniable that he has been deceived by Iago, as mentioned above, he lends himself to being â€Å"wrought† as  quickly realises that Othello’s jealousy is his weakness. With Iago quickly realising very early on in the play that jealousy is Othello’s weakness, it is obvious that it is simply a mere attempt to keep his reputation intact that Othello denies that he is not easily jealous and that the opposite is true. Othello also claims that he is one who â€Å"Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees / Their medicinable gum† However, Othello was so consumed by jealousy and thus anger that, although he did love Desdemona, he showed little emotion immediately after killing his wife. He had already set up the murder in an execution-style killing, and was not sorry afterwards until he had found out that he was in fact wrong. Again, we see another misinterpretation by Othello in an attempt to Romanticise and justify his actions. Othello likens his action of killing Desdemona to that of an â€Å"Indian, [throwing] a pearl away / Richer than all his tribe†. Although this is a beautiful metaphor indicative that Othello has once again returned to his mastery of language, it fails to encompass the cruel and gruesome action that Othello had just carried out. Desdemona is represented by the pearl and so once again, there is a biblical resonance, with the pearl, being perfectly spherical and white, representing Desdemona’s purity and perfection. Again, we see Othello downplaying his own actions and representing a gruesome execution with beautiful imagery. Thus, it is very difficult to see the passage as anything but an attempt by Othello to die with some honour and reputation. Despite being filled with beautiful and heroic language and imagery, the passage is ultimately contradictory and misleading and in the end, not an accurate description of the true events of the play. This passage is especially significant in relation to the play as a whole as it is the characteristic â€Å"recognition speech† of a Shakespearean tragedy. Having finally realised, albeit too late, that he has made a mistake for which he must now live with, Othello has finally regained his natural ability with language. No longer is he bumbling along muttering lines such as â€Å"O fool, fool, fool!†, but his language is once again coherent and  elegant. He has regained his composure and sets upon sentencing himself to death, through confessing and then killing himself. This action reiterates in the audience’s mind the sense of tragic loss and thus ends the tragic play.

The Coca-Cola Company Business Environment Term Paper - 1

The Coca-Cola Company Business Environment - Term Paper Example The company is the largest in manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of nonalcoholic beverage syrups and concentrates. It maintains its operations in more than 200 countries. The company thus needs to analyze their internal environments for threats and opportunities in order to maintain their position in the ever dynamic competitive field. These different environments fall under the Pestle analysis that helps the company managers to make macro decisions on policy changes. These include taxes, new laws, trade barriers and government policy changes among others. At the coca cola company, economic challenges are posed by inflation due to the economic crisis in most countries. The customer purchasing power is reducing to high oil and product prices. There is also a high rate of unemployment. Moreover, competition from other brands such as Pepsi is increasing. However, the company does not plan to cut down the price of their products. Socially, the lives of customers especially women is changing. Most of them are going out to work. It has resulted in the need for time management and the preference for healthier foods. Many people currently opt for tea, milk, coffee, and juices putting pressure on the Coca-Cola Company. Consumers between the ages of 37 and 55 are more concerned about extending their lives hence focused on nutrition. Soda and sweetened drinks have been associated with obesity. This has affected sales as consumers have become more aware of healthy lifestyles. Both the legal and political environments affect marketing decisions at the company. These include laws, pressure groups like the â€Å"killer coke† and government agencies. For instance, in the 1970s a subsidiary group in India wanted the company to share their secret formula under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act. They declined and had to halt their operations for 16 years (Kaye, 2006). The producers have been forced to provide exclusive territories to distributors.

Should managers and management students study the history of Essay

Should managers and management students study the history of management from a critical perspective - Essay Example The study of the history of management is the basis upon which the entire profession set, and to deny students the opportunity to study it would also mean that the erosion of the profession has begun. Therefore, students and future managers have to study the history of management from a critical perspective because this is the only way that they can learn how to do better in their jobs. Furthermore, it is also important for a critical study of the history of the profession so that those who study it can not only be able to learn how the different theories of management evolved, but also be able to come up with better theories, which might help future managers. The study of management history from a critical perspective is immensely important for the continued development of the profession. The critical study of management history is extremely important for managers of organizations because of the fact that they get to learn how to better manage the changes that are affecting their or ganizations. It is a well known fact that in most organizations, very few changes are effectively implemented by the managers who attempt to does so, with the success rate being so low that one would say that they are negligible. The reason for these low rates of success is that there is often resistance from the employees because of the fact that the managers do not know how to address these changes before attempting to implement them. The managers of many organizations often ignore the feelings of their employees when implementing changes and when they meet resistance, they often take an antagonistic stance towards it. This is because many managers in the current generation have not had an opportunity to make a critical study of management history and attempted to learn from past management practices how to manage their employees. Many managers view resistance to change from their employees as being a way to sabotage the activities of the organization, and often take an adversaria l approach towards it. These managers are often ignorant of the history of management, because of they had been aware of it, then they would have realized from the mistakes of their predecessors that an adversarial stance against employees does not work. Therefore, it is very important for managers to critically study management history in order to be able to better manage changes within their organizations (Bedeian 2004, p.93). The era of globalization has come about so fast that many companies have come to have a hard time in keeping pace with the sudden expansion of their markets. A large number of companies have expanded worldwide, and with this expansion has come the need for them to adapt to the different cultures that they encounter. Therefore, it is important for managers to get to learn about the history of management from a critical perspective in order to be able to know how to function in different environments. The history of management from diverse sources all over the world, when studied critically, can be most enlightening for managers as well as students of management (Smith 2007, p.523). This is because of the fact that, even in management, there is the need for cultural relativism, especially now when many organizations are operating on a global scale and interacting with diverse cultures. Cultural relativism

Community assigment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Community assigment - Assignment Example Such drugs generally cause the victim to experience illusions and destabilize their mental capacities making them vulnerable to carry out acts that can be seen as immoral or even illegal. In most cases, the community and the family members of the drug addict are the ones most hit. Drug addict parents have been known to subject their children to verbal or even physical abuse. Furthermore, the children might not be able to have that parental connection to their parents that they so much need as they grow up (Cheperon, 2010). There is even a greater potential problem that is bound to happen; kids who grow up in families where parents or guardians abuse drugs are likely to take up substance abuse since they learn to see it as a normal thing to do. The community where such people with substance abuse issues live in will not develop. The development of the communities we live in depends on a number of aspects ranging from moral stands, education, and innovative skills (Cheperon, 2010). All these aspects need one to be able to be in the right mindset, which can be hard if they abuse drugs. Among the problems we face today globally, many of them can be traced back to substance abuse as their root causes. Unwanted teenage pregnancies, new HIV infections, domestic violence and abuse against children are just but a few of these problems. It all goes down to mental incapacitation that is brought about by psychoactive substances. When a teenager smokes marijuana, for instance, their perception of what is around them becomes disoriented; eventually they will lack a physical coordination and make unthoughtful judgments. All this makes them become easy targets for rape, or they might even engage in unprotected sexual interactions, which can lead to either unwanted pregnancies or infection of HIV, and in most cases both (Ann, 2012). Domestic violence and child abuse falls in a more parental level since it

Measuring Business Performance Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Measuring Business Performance - Coursework Example According to Chary (2009: 19.7) efficiency is defined as the ability of a business to produce a desired effect, service or a product with a minimum amount of effort. While effectiveness is defined as the degree or extent to which objectives are achieved, it is being successful in realizing or achieving what is required. Wharton (2012) defines effectiveness as the total output that is generated while efficiency refers to the economy in the utilization or use of resources to perform a task. Assume a lathe operator assigned to make bushes, makes 500 bushes per shift using 25 kilogram of steel rod. The effectiveness is that the operator makes 500 bushes per shift while the efficiency is that the operator produces 25 bushes per kilogram of steel rod. i) Higher levels of effectiveness and efficiency contribute to better results. They enable the company to increase their productivity by producing lower cost goods and services than competitors. This therefore makes the company to make higher profit for each unit sold or offer lower price than competitors to the customers (Wharton (2012: 24). ii) The company is able to develop a competitive advantage over its competitors. Higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness enable organizations to produce high quality goods and services. The organization is able to utilize their resources optimally to achieve desired output thus being ahead of their competitors (Chary, 2009: 19.8). iii) Finally, achieving higher levels of effectiveness and efficiency enables businesses to learn how to energize their workforce to focus on common goals. It helps the organization to manage and direct their human capital towards goal achievement and mission fulfillment. The organization is therefore able to create better communication, leadership, interaction, direction, adaptability as well as positive environment (Chary,

Hindu worship or wedding ceremony Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Hindu worship or wedding ceremony - Essay Example The purpose of worship in Hinduism is to truly to embrace the idea of deity and eternity that centers around the ever-lasting circle of life. Since Hinduism is more focused on sacrifice, the focus of sacrificing animals is prevalent in Hinduism. The name of the God here is Karma. In Hinduism, Karma has become the true essence of the Hindu creed itself. Karma is another focal point that differentiates the two religions. Hindus believe that Gods can only achieve salvation which is clearly depicted in the video. For Hindus, one must undergo a series of events in order to purify himself to achieve salvation. For instance, Hindus worship bhakti-marg, which is the path of surrender and peace. One cannot achieve karma without being in peace with oneself and devoting one’s spirit towards worship. Karma is an eternal aura of enlightenment that is presented in all aspects of life and is a crucial aspect that dictates the lives of all individuals. Another regular yet a powerful ritual th at Hindus practice is the Namaste. The namaste embodies a form of greeting in which modesty and humbleness is portrayed by bringing together the palms. This greeting is very emotional because it is a sign of submission and humility which is what Hindus strive to achieve. These are ritual correlate to the beliefs of the Hinduism religion and are prevalent practiced in India and other

Informal report Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Informal report - Assignment Example HTC Desire HD has a 4.3 inch touch screen. The phone has been designed in such a way that it incorporates a big screen, which can be used to access websites, social media and other modern tasks undertaken by users. HTC Desire HD also comes with an easy grip coating on the phone, so that it does not slip out of the hand of the user too easily (see figure 1). Another main design feature of the phone is the way in which it makes it easier for users to put covers on them. The batteries and digital storage cards (microSD cards) can easily be interchanged. HTC Desire HD comes equipped with the Google Android 2.2 system, which is extremely easy to use. One of the core advantages of this operating system is that the user can easily customize the phone features according to his or her specific use. Another major aspect of the phone is the touch screen. The screen gives an instant response to the user, which enables him or her to learn from mistakes and without any specific need to read complicated manuals. All new HTC Desire HD’s come with a full 1 year manufacturer warranty. The maintenance is low, as the phone is equipped with a lithium ion battery, which lasts at least 2-3 years. Another main feature of the phone is that the battery can easily be changed by the user, as opposed to iPhone batteries which can only be changed by authorized centers. HTC Desire HD is loaded with a number of features which make it highly desirable to the user. The phone enables users to use Active Sync, which integrates email, calendars and contacts from a Gmail or an exchange account. The phone also comes preloaded with a number of social networking applications such as twitter, Facebook and Picassa. The phone also has wifi connection, in addition to the standard Bluetooth and USB cable links. A unique feature of HTC Desire HD is a accomplished camera, which can take pictures of up to 8MB resolution. The camera can also take stunning HD quality videos. Another key feature of the

Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions - Research Paper Example The above practice would help in enhancing the applicability of the human resources practices to help in meeting the needs of the personnel employed in different multinational organizations. The cultural dimensions as generated by the cultural scientist, Geert Hofstede are generated based on the cultural dimensions model which is elucidated as follows. The parameter of individualism or collectivism as generated by Hofstede evaluates the culture of a region based on individualistic and collectivist attributes. People dwelling in regions governed by collectivist approaches operate in a close cultural setting that reflects mutual care and understanding for each other. The collectivist countries also reflect honor for the existing cultural and social norms. On the other hand the regions governed or based on individualistic cultures reflect individuals that tend to take decisions in an independent fashion by not taking into consideration the needs and views of other members in a social group. Thus, decisions though taken by individuals based on social norms are loosely knit to each other thereby affecting the existing social fabric (Piepenburg, 2011). Uncertainty Avoidance tends to be the second dimension of culture as identified by Hofstede. This dimension tends to evaluate the level to which the individuals or groups relating to a specific region avoid the emergence of unforeseen events and unidentified situations. In that a certain level of risk or feelings of being threatened by the upcoming changes requires the individuals to operate based on specific code of conduct that would help in demarcating and governing their actions to achieve stated objectives. Thus, countries reflecting high uncertainty avoidance fail to considerably explore to identify new dimensions or areas of growth and opportunity (The Hofstede Centre , n.d. ). The Power Distance (PD) is identified as the third dimension in the cultural

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely Essay

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely - Essay Example The worst thing about having power by a man is that he tends to forget what the people around him deserve and how he shall be doing his bit to make sure that the condition and plight of the people is enhanced. What he seems to do however is to fill up his own pockets and look after exponentially increasing his possessions and property. This is where absolute corruption starts to come in within the related equations. It is against ethics to manifest such a basis. Similarly, those leaders who believe in getting their own way done through power and misuse it for their own means are the ones who actually misguide the people under their folds. Ethically speaking, they think less of the organization as a whole and more about their own selves. This is an anomaly that needs to be taken care of, at the earliest. The need is to discern where power can be used for the betterment of the people and how it can further be transformed into something of value for all concerned. There are certain leaders who would not mind indulging in acts that go against the organizational practice. They aim to find ways and means through which their personal selves can be benefited the most. The subordinates working under them have to take the brunt, which is something that comes out as a corruption as Lord Acton points out. This corruption tells them that they are indispensable and nothing will be able to make them feel as such. They continue with their norms and create confusions for all and sundry, thus cashing in on the pretext that what has worked well for these leaders to date, will work wonders for them in the future as well (Quah 91-97). When corruption is understood from a management perspective, it is seen from an angle where there is a great amount of understanding available for the ones who would find it hard to do justice to others than to their own

Early Retirement Plan Essay Example for Free

Early Retirement Plan Essay This paper presents early retirement plan, one classical and very popular case which takes place internationally and a part of the business and financial strategy of different kind of enterprises, especially the very large ones. This project entails a detailed discussion and financial or accounting application on the proposed alternative strategies and the data derived by the financial statements. As a reply to the Chairmans memorandum, bearing in mind the academic content of the program of Financial Reporting Management Accounting, the early retirement plan issue in the financial and accounting function of the organization blends with the theoretical aspects with the practical situation that the organization is currently facing. It is said that â€Å"a country, which is unable to develop its people and utilize them effectively in the national economy, would be unable to develop anything else† (Dosi, Winter, 2002). As a new labor economist, let me first define what a human resource is. This refers to the number of people and their level of skills. Human capital is related to this which is defined as the productive investments embodied in human persons, and it includes the abilities, skills, ideals, and health resulting from expenditures on education, training, attitude towards work, among others. In matching employers and employees, employees will try to get to the highest levels of utility possible (Blanchard Katz, 1997, p. 3). They will choose that indifference curve that gives them the maximum level of utility. However, they are constrained by what employers are willing to offer. The less risk the lower the wage and the higher the risk the greater the wage rate. Firms on the other hand try to maximize profits. On the other hand given that the labor market is economical they can not present higher than market rates for the reason that their expenditures will be collegial and they will be driven out of commerce by near to the ground asking price of manufacturers. If they offer to low a wage then they will not be able to attract any workers. Thus their profits are usually normal because of the competitive nature of the market. The net effects for wage increase are the following: if substitution effect is greater than income effect, then hours of work rise, and if substitution effect is less than income effect, then hours of work fall (Aoki Yoshikawa, 2003, p. 39). If a worker is enthusiastic about his or her job, this represents that an increase in the wage rate will cause a person to work more which involves substitution effect. In spite of this, if extended work time turns out to be the custom in a community, these periods in all probability are not intentional and it stands for a lack of spare time. Even though specific people may reduce their hours of work as the market wage rises, labor supply curves of specific labor markets generally are positively sloped over realistic wage ranges. Higher relative wages attract workers away from either household production, leisure, or other labor markets and toward the labor market in which the wage increased. While there are people who have positive relationship of wage rate and work hours and some have inverse relationship of the two, there are also people who have backward-bending labor supply curves. It occurs when the labor supply curve is positively sloped in some ranges of the wage and negatively sloped in other ranges. If the replacement upshot is larger than the revenue consequence, the work supply curve will incline rising to the right side. This person will persist to add to his supply of work services as the pay rate rises up to a position where he is functioning definite hours. Further than this spot he will begin to decrease the quantity of work time he provides. Where the supply curve is sloping upwards to the right, the affirmative salary elasticity of work supply, the changeover outcome is larger than the returns result as stated by Belot and Ours, 2000, p. 76). The opposite upshot occurs when it slopes upwards to the left. The track of incline may alter more than once for a quantity of persons, and the work supply curve is to be expected to be dissimilar for diverse persons. Other factors that have an effect on this choice take in dues, wellbeing or interests, and labor milieu. An example is a student working more, since more work hours means more income or higher wage. A low wage rate means smaller quantity of work chances for young people, who are apt to take part-time jobs to have less of a connection to the work market. Quite the reverse, the result on low-wage elders, who almost certainly have a robust regard to the personnel, chiefly crops up through a decrease in labor time. Either means, nevertheless, the ending of most interest-earned revenue is alike, with off-putting upshots of least amount of pays apparent for those originally were at the smallest amount or salaries just above it. From the strategic market planning, firms may come up with good marketing study. Consumer examination responds to principal inquiries concerning every definite item for consumption or service offered in the market. Crucial contender investigation and SWOT analysis may be applied. By this SWOT study, it characterizes the classification and taking the full advantage of the strengths, curtailing the weaknesses, making the most out of opportunities, and offsetting the threats (Julien, Kennes, King, 2000, p. 619). The yield of a firm SWOT examination will help various business ventures in forming their marketing ideas and purposes. At this instant with the strategic planning tools at hand, primarily, business enterprises can now set up, design, and prepare long term aspects for multi-trained communication and dealings core and project back-office settings or situations; building up most favorable conscription procedures that reduce outlay while coming to get certain objectives and offering supervisors with the facts they must have to go through and hastily consent financial plans, labor force personnel running, optimization, and quality monitoring. Secondly, the firms can now measure or gauge the outfitted and pecuniary paybacks and effects of diverse circumstances ahead of constructing resolutions. Third is that they can already enhance forecasting precision with advanced scrutiny of historical information. They can eventually plan their wherewithal ahead to replicate anticipated client demands and plan their allocation of resources in venturing for other projects in the future. With this, firms can turn out this preparation development a group endeavor. They can now request everybody concerned in putting into practice the strategy for proposition. Strategic market arrangement must be an existing method to occasionally make another study of firms’ standing. They may keep each and every team associates informed of the marketing and administration advancement in and amend the strategy as challenging prospects become apparent to improve the profitability of various business entities. Setting up promptly will very much make better the pecuniary future of the company. It will offer a practical vision of the retirement prospect in respect of how currency and investments will function. The company will realize entirely at what time it is best to displace people or on the other side when an employee must retire. Early retirement plan is not in relation to what time will displace or one will give up work but how the company will displace or the employee will stop working. With some companies becoming less dependable and their retirement’s procedures less advantageous, a firm retirement arrangement is considered necessary at the present more than ever. No one can forecast the future, nevertheless planning can be of great use so either the company or the member of staff will know when to leave and most significantly, will the portfolio last the projected existence. The secret of pragmatic retirement planning relies on the following set of statements. The solution is to be actually transparent regarding the association between the profits supplies, operating costs, price increases rates, and what pertinent individual would like to achieve in retirement. Early retirement planning bids aspects in explicit retirement objectives and requirements, together with a lot of other factors of existence. Early-retirement encouragement agendas are currently the most accepted process which business enterprises employ to attain a diminution in the personnel. And for corporations in the middle of unions, conquests, or cutting back, they have been a method to decrease discharges. When times become shoddier, businesses economize. Early-retirement diplomacies are typically the system that they attempt to accomplish so in as humanitarian an approach as probable. The pros and cons of the strategies are extremely unambiguous and quantifiable for owners or managers. Early-retirement motivation campaigns may appear to be chiefly engaging if times are hard-hitting and people involved sense that there are no assurances that they will be able to maintain the occupation if they do not acknowledge the proposal (Card Hyslop, 1996, p. 5538). The tactics are quite convincing, however then again, several of them proffer a great deal which less than comes across the eye. Crafting subjects worse, odds are that if people are challenged with an early-retirement inducement arrangement, people will have no more than a month or so to appraise the proposition. Even a beefed-up early-retirement annuity is expected to be noticeably lesser than the allowance that could be anticipated if people sustained to labor. That is for the reason that the annuity is almost certainly based on the standard of what is received in the last few periods the people went to work. Even if the early-retirement enticement plot appends bonus periods of service and extra time of age to the allowance method, it would not be adept to build up the discrepancy between the standard pay for the last periods and the probably elevated typical wage for the last years if people were to keep on working. If the additional periods of vacation are worth the abridged reimbursements, in that case the critical matter is not how the early-retirement packet measures up to the usual retirement alternatives but whether the parcel is adequate to come to get the retirement-income requirements. To resolve that, people will have to cast the retirement returns and everyday expenditures. As a fulltime research administrator to direct a study agenda for the next segment in the company, he must take into account the evolution of improvement or restructuring strategy. According to Tesfatsion, (2001), the responsibilities are to envisage, set up, supervise, and accomplish research and logical schemes that speak to business transformation task and take forward line up goals, put up a system of progressive investigation and support associations and persons to prop up business amendment plan, head an alliance study group composed of associate human resources and important followers or allies, back allies with enhanced information to engage in early retirement plan and venture modifications at the federation and local degrees, assist to organize mechanical backing to countrywide, state and district cronies, point and sort out study actions to guarantee that the project of early retirement plan is in advancement: on timetable and within financial statement, act with other business personnel to recognize, expand, and create market suggestions for novel undertaking prospects and financial support, correspond to business in a line of investigation, promoti on, guiding principle, media, and fundraising actions in relation with the early retirement plan (p. 419). Time managing and clerical proficiency are also necessary to maintain equilibrium of the manifold endeavors, associates, at the same time as the aptitude to arrange requests, ranges of job, study blueprints for regulars, cronies, and funders, with know-how in running multifaceted investigation schemes and workforce and familiarity in business or metropolitan guidelines and arrangement, or connected areas such as ecological rules and economic progress. Early retirement plans typically appears to be unsuccessful for three reasons. First is retiring before persons kept an adequate amount of currency to be money-wise self-sufficient. Second is unsatisfactory diversification of the withdrawal assets. Last is undervaluing the yearly livelihood operating costs in departure. With reference to insufficient savings, most individuals who have considered the issue characterize pecuniary autonomy as containing 25 times of the yearly livelihood fixed costs, several fairly more or less. In other terms, a person who will retire with $40,000 in twelve-monthly livelihood everyday expenditures will require a $1 million collection of assets to be regarded as monetarily self-supporting (Flaschel, Kauermann Semmler, 2003). If one is mature enough to meet the criteria for a retirement fund or Societal Safety, that certainly trims down the quantity of currency one requests to obtain from the investments and makes available for fiscal self-determination on a lesser portfolio, he or she may do take the early retirement so. In assets diversification, practically the entire main part of labor on giving up work and speculation preparation puts forward that people who give up work safekeepings in their collection. A small number of market forecasters even recommend toting up supplementary out of the ordinary portfolio types to the assortment for instance independently-possessed authentic land, merchandises, hedge resources, or business enterprise funds collections. There can be found no believable advisors who advice placing each and every part of the investments merely into a single venture whether it be a Reserves bond, a solitary stockpile with a due long-term confirmation of operation. Other investment oversights that can head to an ineffective withdrawal to work consist of dynamic changing of a set of assets, making an effort to phase the market by selecting high points and troughs, and disbursing disproportionate charges and add ons to a consultant. Appearing in the employee’s side, various human resources who leave their jobs under company-sponsored early-retirement policies time and again find out after the event that they would not have an adequate amount of earnings to provide for themselves. Lots of early retirees finish up arranging to cross the threshold again of the labor force in the nick of time. If one would desire to stop working early in life, he ir she ought to seize a firm glimpse at how he or she will be proficient to come to get his or her living fixed costs, not simply the time one leaves, but ten or additional periods from then on. If one seeks to procure premature retirement, price increases is even more of a concern in deciding whether one’s annuity and investments are satisfactory to provide for the person than it would be if he or she gave up work at 65; in view of the fact that he or she will be using up further periods in withdrawal, one will for that reason be more profoundly distressed by inflation. The following description presents a notion of how much extra price increases have an effect on initial person who gives up work. A lot of before time individuals who stop working, typified as the retirees below the age of 65 years old, who overlook to have an account for inflation in their departure preparation are taken precedence for a distasteful bolt from the blue (Fitoussi, Jestaz, Phelps, Zoega , 2000, p. 237). Scores of individuals incorrectly assume that their levy load will make less burdensome considerably at retirement. They as well contemplated that they can keep away from a number of monies, however in contrast, duties could ascend once more and have an asking price on a person more than they perform at the present. One point that an individual can be certain of is that revenue levy charges will by no means be reduced than they are at this instant. â€Å"Development and displacement† by Robinson and company (2002) depicts several growing challenges to the philosophies and practices of progress in the modern-day world, linked with kinds of displacement (156). The general idea of the volume and the technique in which it expands the thoughts about displacement and development is excellent. This work tries to scrutinize the whole extent of topics and other concerns comprising socio-economic and psychosomatic troubles in the progression induced displacement regions. It concentrates on comprehensive prototypes of observable facts such as border line colonization, desertification, environmental discords on poverty, military divergence and populace passages. It is moral to displace individuals for growth of societies; vast statistics of individuals are relocated from their abodes for setting up improvement schemes. These advancement missions head to trade and industry growth, on the contrary it repeatedly debases the socio-economic and living of other subgroups. Despite the fact that one cannot refute the necessity of progress, displacement cannot be defensible on moral ground. As consequences of displacement, fabrication coordination is taken apart, cohesive affinity clusters are strewn, long created dealings are ruined, and customary sources of employment are mislaid. Impression of belongingness and rooted association in a locale that offers the refuge of attachment is habitually dislodged by separation and estrangement in the new place. References: Aoki, M. and H. Yoshikawa (2003) A Simple Quantity Adjustment Model of Economic Fluctuations and Growth, Heterogeneous Agents, Interaction and Economic Performance. Berlin, Springer, p. 39. Belot, M. and J. V. Ours (2000) Does the Recent Success of Some OECD Countries in Lowering their Unemployment Rates Lie in the Clever Design of their Labour Market Reforms? , Discussion paper no. 147, IZA, Bonn, Germany, p. 76. Blanchard, O. and L. Katz (1997) Shifts in the Beveridge Curve, Job Matching, and Labor Market Dynamics, New England Economic Review, p. 3. Card, D. and D. Hyslop (1996), Does Inflation Grease the Wheels of the Labor Market Working paper, NBER, p. 5538. Dosi, G. and S. Winter (2002), Interpreting Economic Change: Evolution, Structures and Games. The Economics of Choice, Change, and Organizations. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishers. Fitoussi, J. -P. , D. Jestaz, E. Phelps and G. Zoega (2000) Roots of the Recent Recoveries: Labor Reforms or Provate Secto Forces?. Brooking Papers on Economic Activities, (1), p. 237. Flaschel, P. , G. Kauermann and W. Semmler (2003) Testing Wage and Price Phillips Curves for the United States. Unpublished manuscript, Bielefeld University, Faculty of Economics. Julien, B. , J. Kennes and I. King (2000) Bidding for Labor. Review of Economic Dynamics, (3) p. 619. Tesfatsion, L. (2001) Structure, Behavior, and Market Power in an Evolutionary Labor Market with Adaptive Search. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (25) p. 419. Robinson, Jenny, Turton, David, Mohan, Giles and Yanacopulos, Helen. Development and Displacement. Oxford University Press, USA 2002, p. 156.

Leadership and Employee Turnover in Hotel Industry

Leadership and Employee Turnover in Hotel Industry With the highest employee turnover rate, the hospitality industry need to encourage employees to voice their opinions, ideas, and any of their other concerns for improving performance and reducing employee turnover. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of different types of organizational culture and different leadership styles on employee voice in the hospitality industry. Hospitality human resource practitioners could modify their organizational culture and leadership style according to the results of the study, in order to encourage their employee voice. The results of this study could also contribute to the literature about factors that influence employee voice. Introduction As according to www.skagitwatershed.org Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills. Leadership is a process of getting things done through people. Leadership is not a science. So being a leader is an adventure because we can never be sure whether we will reach our goal at least this time. The touchdown drive may end in a fumble. The troop may have a bad weekend during the camporee. Or the citys citizens may not be convinced that the mayors policies are right. So these leaders have to try again, using other methods. But they still use the same process the process of good leadership (Orans, 1997). Employee Turnover As according to Wood (1992), defines employee turnover as the rate of change in the number of employees of a concern during a definite period commonly a month. In some other ways it is defined as a measure of the extent to which old employees leaves and new employees enter the service of the concern. Whereas in its sociological context employee turnover implies to a process of change in the size of the work force and this signifies the reasons, which cause this phenomenon to occur in any industrial unit. Employee turnover is in fact movement of employees in and out of firms and the main reasons could be voluntary or involuntary. Rationale Through the ages we have learnt that the only way to put the customer first in the hospitality industry is by putting the employee first. The rationale may not be very obvious, but it is certainly compelling. Satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers. Worldwide researches have suggested that employee turnover is among the highest in the hospitality industry. Studies have shown that average annual employee turnover range from around 60 to 300 % (Mehta, 2005). Hotels spend thousands every year for each new employee they must train to replace a seasoned worker who leaves. It is no longer a startling fact that the cost of losing an employee is between half and one-and-a-half times their annual salary. Background There are studies that support the fact that employees leave an organisation for many reasons, but two common causes are the quality of the selection system and the quality of leadership (Mehta, 2005). Arguably hotels support a culture that fosters dependence and relies on the traditional chain of command, and not all supervisors are good managers and good team leaders that leads high employee turnover. In the light of this proposition, the proposed research plans to examine as whether leadership leads to high employee turnover. The research will be conducted with reference to Delhi based hotels. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The proposed research aims to examine as whether leadership leads to high employee turnover. The research is to be conducted with reference to Delhi based five star hotels. The research will attempt to accomplish following objectives: To examine the degree of employee turnover problem in hotels To identify and evaluate the foremost causes employee turnover in hotels To examine leadership role as causing employee turnover in hotels To investigate what are the causes for the high employee turnover in the hotels. To examine are what the consequences of the high employee turnover in hotels. To study how the reduce turnover and increase employee retention in hotels. RESEARCH QUESTIONS Are qualities of leadership foremost reasons of employee turnover in hotels? Is wrong leadership causes high degree of employee turnover in hotels? Structure of dissertation Author has divided the dissertation in five chapters, in the first chapter author has discuss about the aims and objectives of the report, research mythology in which he has used primary and secondary research. He has discussed about the limitations and background of the dissertation in this chapter. In the second chapter author has given a literature review discussing the meaning of employee turnover and its importance in todays world. Author has also explained leadership and employee turnover and how it can make a difference in successful and not so successful businesses. Also the author has shown different ways to measure employee turnover. Finally, the author has explained how employee turnover is making a difference in a hotel industry and their employee. In the third chapter author has done a research mythology discussing sampling techniques and sample size which is been used for a completion of the report. In the forth chapter author has done findings and analysis based on a q uestionnaire prepared by the author. And finally in the last chapter author has done his conclusion on the report. Literature Review This section presents the theoretical concepts in the context of above mentioned research aims objectives and research questions. Employee turnover is the rotation of workers around the labour market; between firms, jobs and occupations; and between the states of employment and unemployment (Abassi et al., 2000). The term turnover is defined by Price (1977) as: the ratio of the number of organizational members who have left during the period being considered divided by the average number of people in that organization during the period. Frequently, managers refer to turnover as the entire process associated with filling a vacancy: Each time a position is vacated, either voluntarily or involuntarily, a new employee must be hired and trained. This replacement cycle is known as turnover (Woods, 2002). Most researchers (Kalliath and Beck, 2001; Kramer et al., 1995; Saks, 1996) have attempted to answer the question of what determines peoples intention to quit by investigating possible antecedents of employees intentions to quit. To date, there has been little consistency in findings, which is partly due to the diversity of employed included by the researchers and the lack of consistency in their findings. Therefore, there are several reasons why people quit from one organization to another or why people leave organisation. The experience of job related stress (job stress), the range factors that lead to job related stress (stressors), lack of commitment in the organization; and job dissatisfaction make employees to quit (Firth et al., 2004). This clearly indicates that these are individual decisions, which make one to quit. They are other factors like personal agency refers to concepts such as a sense of powerlessness, locus of control and personal control. Locus control refers to t he extent to which people believe that the external factors such as chance and powerful others are in control of the events which influence their lives (Firth et al., 2004). Manu et al. (2004) argue that employees quit from organization due economic reasons. Using economic model they showed that people quit from organization due to economic reasons and these can be used to predict the labour turnover in the market. Organizational instability has been shown to have a high degree of high turnover. Indications are that employees are more likely to stay when there is a predictable work environment and vice versa (Zuber, 2001). In organizations where there was a high level of inefficiency there was also a high level of staff turnover (Alexander et al., 1994). Therefore, in situations where organizations are not stable employees tend to quit and look for stable organisations because with stable organizations they would be able to predict their career advancement. The imposition of a quantitative approach to managing the employees led to disenchantment of staff and hence it leads to employee turnover. Therefore management should not use quantitative approach in managing its employees. Adopting a cost oriented approach to employment costs increases employee turnover (Simon et al., 2007). All these approaches should be avoided if managers want to minimize employee turnover an increase organizational com petitiveness in this environment of globalization. Organizations valuable assets are its high performing employees; and when they start leaving, its an indication that the organization is in trouble.   It appears that organizational management does not care much when low performing employees leave the organization.   In other words, the employers have to understand the damages resulting from high performance employees leaving, and the benefits resulting from poor performance employees leaving. (Hong and Chao 2007, p. 216).Employees may stay longer in an organization if they are motivated and rewarded.   Studies show that a motivated employee is a productive employee; therefore, it is the responsibility of organizational leadership to ensure that all employees are productive.   To be productive means supporting the mission and vision of the organization. Employees may stay longer with organizations if they are well paid and motivated.   Management and leadership motivate and reward high performance e mployees in order to prevent them from leaving. Organizational management and leadership pay particular attention to high performance employees and the attention given them has made them less likely to leave.   The negative relationship between performance and turnover appears to be the major conclusive finding, indicating that high performance employees would be less likely to leave than lower performance ones. (Hong and Chao, 2007 p.217).   Losing high performance employees means higher costs of human resources in form of rehiring, training, and placement.   Management action may cause some low performing employees to leave an organization; this is due to the fact that such employees are viewed as liabilities and may not be contributing to the accomplishment of the organizational mission and vision.   In SLT, leadership effectiveness is thought to be enhanced if a manager uses the style of leadership that best matches the readiness, ability and willingness of subordinates and that a good match between leadership style and subordinate readiness leads to a higher level of subordinate satisfaction and performance. The four quadrants in SLT represent four basic leadership styles: high task and low relationship ; high task and high relationship; low task and high relationship; low task and low relationship, The central precept is that as the level of follower readiness increases, effective leader behavior will involve less structure and less socio-emotional support, A leaders task and relationship behaviors interact with subordinate readiness to significantly influence leader effectiveness, which is defined as the extent to which a follower demonstrates the ability and willingness to accomplish a specific task. According to Hersey et al. (1996), at the lower levels of readiness, the le ader needs to provide direction but with higher levels of readiness, followers become responsible for task direction. There is no one best way to influence people and leaders need to assess the readiness level and then use the appropriate leadership style. Thus, it is the follower who dictates the most appropriate leader behavior. In the high tech hotel industry, a work environment with proper implementation and management of technology is vitally important. Any great manager will agree that human resources still plays the most important role in any successful high tech hotel venture. Employees are the backbone of hotel industry, and they need effective leadership so that they will be motivated to do the best jobs they can do. Today, the high tech industry is beset by several factors that make it difficult to hire and retain good employees. The economy is down and the national unemployment rate is high. Good leadership, however, can inspire employees and motivate them to work harder at their jobs. The question is how. Leadership is not a random event. Rather, it is a dynamic process continually adjusted to an ever-changing environment. A great leader is able to influence the behavior of individuals and groups. Harry Truman once said, Leadership is getting people to do what they dont want to do, and like it. In the past, a leaders personality or charisma was considered key. Leadership effectiveness also was defined in terms of attitudes. The most effective leaders were deemed to be those who placed the greatest emphasis on people and production. Today, this view has been modified. Now the leader needs to vary his style to fit the readiness of his subordinates. A leaders attitude is based on his concern for both his people and their productivity. Leadership behavior also is based on two dimensions: task behavior and relationship behavior. In attempting to lead, an individual always engages in each of these behaviors to some extent. Task behavior involves directing others telling or showing them exactly what to do and how to do it correctly. Typically, direction is characterized by unilateral communication, which may take the form of oral or written instructions expected to be carried out as dictated. Instructions to employees may be explained by saying, This is how you would do this. By contrast, relationship behavior is characterized by more supportive, facilitating actions and by bilateral communication among individuals. Here, direction typically involves dialogue between a manager and his subordinates or between co-workers. The number one reason an employee leaves a company is because of their manager. The leader that employees work for determine who sticks around and who hits the road. Employee turnover costs are substantial ranging from 150% to 250% of an employees annual compensation. That means to replace an employee that makes 100,000 it will cost the company 150,000 to 250,000. If you can reduce your employee turnover then clearly you will reduce your bottom line. Extraordinary leaders make a substantial impact on employee turnover and therefore, the bottom line. How to reduce employee turnover Few things in business are as costly and disruptive as unknowingly having the proverbial revolving door for employees to exit from. While there are many secondary and tertiary items that can influence an employees decision to leave, in this weeks column Ill address the one single factor which constitutes the overarching reason that drives a persons decision to leave their employer. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Leadership Continuity: Great companies have a clear vision, mission, and strategy, which are evangelized by a cohesive leadership team. A crisply articulated vision, and continuity of leadership creates an engaged workforce that understands the business model and key objectives of the enterprise. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ A Planned Transition: Outstanding leadership teams set employees up for success and not for failure. They have an established on boarding process which puts forth an initial roadmap for a successful transition by clearly defining key performance indicators, business objectives, and other key metrics. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Compensation: Great leadership teams understand the value of tier-one talent, and are not afraid to pay-up in order to attract it and retain it. While todays column was a bit of an extemporaneous highlight covering only a few critical issues, I hope it clearly portrayed the value of leadership in employee retention and development. Now that so much is being done by organizations to retain its employees, why is retention so important? Is it just to reduce the turnover costs? Well, the answer is a definite no. Its not only the cost incurred by a company that emphasizes the need of retaining employees but also the need to retain talented employees from getting poached. The process of  employee retention  will benefit an organization in the following ways: Interruption of Customer Service:  Customers and clients do business with a company in part because of the people. Relationships are developed that encourage continued sponsorship of the business. When an employee leaves, the relationships that employee built for the company are severed, which could lead to potential customer loss. Turnover leads to more turnovers:  When an employee terminates, the effect is felt throughout the organization. Co-workers are often required to pick up the slack. The unspoken negativity often intensifies for the remaining staff. Goodwill of the company:  The goodwill of a company is maintained when the attrition rates are low. Higher retention rates motivate potential employees to join the organization. http://retention.naukrihub.com/importance-of-employee-retention.html A career in the hospitality industry can be both challenging and rewarding. The hospitality industry includes restaurant, hotel, and resort positions that cater to serving guests with a smile. However, the staff turnover is high in the hospitality industry, and anyone considering a management position within this segment should understand the reasons people leave their jobs. Common reasons for high turnover include: 1. Seasonality- Many hospitality positions are seasonal in nature. While lay-offs are a necessity for business survival, they are hard for workers who will receive minimal unemployment benefits. It can lead to understaffing during off-peak seasons which has a negative impact on employee morale. 2. Organizational culture Leadership If an organization does not possess a positive culture, the work environment will be unpleasant. With other considerations, this adds to the reasons why employees quit. 3. Labor Pool -The labor pool for the hospitality industry is often untrained, unskilled workers. Higher skilled workers are harder to find, and even those workers are vulnerable as they seek better opportunities. Many employees are young, students, or using hospitality jobs as a fallback or stepping stone to other careers. This increases the chances of turnover. http://www.helium.com/items/1912987-staff-turnover-in-hospitality Five Leadership Fundamentals He then realized that his job as manager became very simple. To motivate high performance and, at the same time, ensure employee satisfaction within his group, he just needed to:   Provide employees with a clear sense of where were going and why. Make sure they have the necessary resources to get their job done. Be attuned to their professional needs and try to provide them with assignments that meet these needs (not always easy but still attainable). Regularly meet with them both formally and informally to give and get feedback on whats going on. Get out of their way and, at the same time, be available when needed. What are the leadership qualities that make all this possible? First and foremost the leadership qualities that build and create a change readiness culture are totally focused on understanding and reverse-engineering the critical disconnects between organizational leadership and management, and the rest of the non-management employees. These disconnects can be summarized as an organizational management and leadership that is detached from direct feedback from the frontline and the human consequences of their decisions. This is all about moving away from the prevalent transactional leadership style with its reward and punishment mechanisms to gain compliance, and moving towards facilitative leadership that engages directly with the informal networks and aspects of the organization. This isnt so hard for organizational leadership to take on board and enact once they realize that in so doing they are dealing directly with the crustacean rock bottom root causes of resistance to change whilst simultaneously unleashing a flood of new innovations and solutions. Implicit or Informal Theories of Employee Turnover Employers and employees share some common causes of employee turnover in India. Among demographic factors, the majority of Singaporeans hold the view that the young and more educated change jobs more often than the old and less educated. Labour shortage (or perceived alternative employment opportunities) and job-hopping among the uncontrollable factors stand out in the perceptions of most people as important factors causing turnover (Debrah, 1993;1994). Further, most Indians consider satisfaction with pay, a controllable factor, one of the most important causes of turnover intention (Debrah, 1994; Koh Goh, 1995). We do not propose any hypotheses on implicit theories of employee turnover. However, we would like to explore to what extent these implicit theories are valid. Specifically, how much of the variance in the turnover model do age, level of education, perceived alternative employment opportunities, job-hopping, and satisfaction with pay explain? If these factors explain a lot of unique variance, we can say that there is a lot of truth in implicit theories on employee turnover held by Indians. METHODS Sampling and Data Collection Data were collected using a questionnaire that contained measures of job satisfaction (satisfaction with pay, satisfaction with nature of work, and satisfaction with supervision), organizational commitment, organizational justice (distributive and procedural), job-hopping, perceived alternative employment opportunities, and turnover intention. In addition, the questionnaire included questions on demographic characteristics of the respondents. The Ministry of Labour, India, publishes quarterly resignation rates by occupations and industries. These quarterly resignation reports provided us the starting point. Both manufacturing and services sectors are important for the Singapore economy. Consequently, we included industries from both manufacturing and services in our sample. Within each sector, we selected one industry with the highest resignation rates and the other with the lowest resignation rates over the last four years. In the manufacturing sector, the food and beverage industry had the highest resignation rates and the marine and shipping the lowest. On the other hand, in the services sector, the retail industry had the highest resignations and the banking the lowest. Employee turnover in hotels has received substantial attention from both academics and managers. Much of this attention has been focused on understanding its causes. Implicit in this approach is the assumption that turnover is driven by certain identifiable characteristics of workers, tasks, firms, and markets, and that, by developing policies to address these characteristics, managers might reduce the occurrence of turnover in their respective organizations. Moreover, Van Vianen, Feij, Krausz, and Taris (2004) distinguished between two motives for turnover; push and pull. Push motives are related to dissatisfaction with ones current work situation, whereas pull refer to available opportunities to improve ones career opportunities on the external labour market. Nevertheless, the job satisfaction-turnover relationship is not stable across different organizations, or that satisfaction may relate more closely to immediate or short term variables such as daily effort, rather than longer term variables such as turnover intention (Ajzen Fishbein, 1977). The research may point out that there are some problems in the hotels in recent years on the employee turnover; generally speaking, employees leave the hotels for some common reasons, such as they are not satisfied with their positions of salary. Pavesic and Brymer (1990) confirmed dissatisfaction with income, mainly in relation to the number of hours worked, to be a primary reason for managers with hospitality administration degrees leaving the hospitality industry. Although the most significant reason is that they want to seize more space for position and trainings. There is unsuitable for the promotion and management system in hotels. Hotels have taken the employee satisfaction system in order to catch up with large scales. While hotels are not marketable enough to compete with other larger scales because of some systematically reasons. In this study, hotels are very cooperative with us, and the management complies with our requirements. Therefore, this research is for the managem ent of the hotel to find out the problems and to solve the problem.

Innocent until Proven Guilty Police Body Cameras

Innocent until Proven Guilty Police Body Cameras All police officers should wear body cameras because it helps to protect the public, it helps with the police officers safety, the back and forth accusing of racial profiling, and also the neighborhood safety. Body cameras can serve as a reliable eyewitness. Without the body cameras, it would be the victims word against the police officers. According to The Daily Beast, These are the Victims of the Dallas Police Massacre Brent Thompson was an officer who died during the Dallas Police Massacre. Before joining the Department in 2009, Thompson trained police in Iraq and Afghanistan while working for a private military contractor. it also states how great of a police officer Thompson was andIn May, Thompson shared a meme that she read, when I die my friends better do this at my funeral written on top of a scene from the show Eastbound Down if worn cameras during the deadliest day for U.S law enforcement since 9/11 maybe the world would know who killed the wonderful officer Thompson. The use of body cameras can protect police officers from being falsely accused of unnecessary actions or brutality against suspected criminals. According to Considering Police body cameras, Marcus Jeter was arrested by New Jersey Police officers during the summer of 2012 and subsequently, charged with eluding the police, resisting arrest, and aggravated assault on a police officer. Parts of this encounter, were caught on tape by the dashboard camera in the officers cruiser. Jeter maintains from the beginning that the officers has used excessive force while arresting him and that he had not acted violently. The Bloomfield Police Department conducted an internal investigation and found the officers did nothing wrong. Jeters arrest, his attorney uncovered evidence that a second police cruiser had been on the scene that night. This shows how police officers are also getting the protection they deserve while using body cameras, without this evidence from the video cameras it would of been the officers word against Jeters. Police officers are more likely to be protected from criminals trying to attack them because evidence is available to contact them. The number of deaths from last year has been outrageous. Many people are concerned about not only the safety of citizens but also the use of guns. Some people feel as if the deaths of most citizens has been because of the use of racial profiling. Veronica Majerol from New York Times Upfront states in the case of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. Some witnesses confirmed Officer Darren Wilsons account that hed shot Michael Brown in self-defense. Others said Brown didnt pose a threat and that the shooting amounted to murder. A jury decided not to charge Wilson with a crime, but what really happened that night? If the encounter had been captured on video, some would have argued wed know After Wilsons innocence and the death of Brown thousands of people looked at this case as the use of racial profiling killing innocent people because of the color of their skin. As stated above people would know more about the case of Browns and hes death if use of body cameras were worn during t his incident. Furthermore, body cameras is also a great way to create safer communities. David French response to Trayvon Martin case An armed neighborhood-watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, shot and killed an unarmed teen, Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman claimed Martin had attacked him without any justifiable provocation. With that being said if Zimmerman was wearing a body cameras during his claim attack by the teenage boy February 26, 2016 this would of shown rather or not Martin did actually attack him. So many thing is going in the world today rather its public safety, the officers safety, the racial profiling, or even neighborhood safety. Cops will be more protected if wearing a video camera, just like the police ovth says you are innocent until proven guilty and the video cameras shows just that, and also more of a suspect and a victim. References 13-Year-Old With a BB Gun Is Shot and Killed by Police in Columbus, Ohio. Daily Intelligencer, 15 Sept. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPSsw=wu=j020902v=2.1id=GALE%7CA463581242it=rasid=cda072b43290f61613c17c1b2ebfa48b. Accessed 9 Feb. 2017. Body of evidence grows, but questions remain about police body cameras. American City County, 28 Sept. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPSsw=wu=j020902v=2.1id=GALE%7CA465071065it=rasid=950657093dd447a10f9907a85c057467. Accessed 9 Feb. 2017. Considering police body cameras. Harvard Law Review, Apr. 2015, p. 1794+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPSsw=wu=j020902v=2.1id=GALE%7CA412800618it=rasid=5a50cce41c3ebfd18f649a9ba6938064. Accessed 9 Feb. 2017. Majerol, Veronica. Should police wear body cameras? While video can tell us a lot about encounters between the police and the public, body cams also raise concerns about privacy. New York Times Upfront, 7 Sept. 2015, p. 6+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPSsw=wu=j020902v=2.1id=GALE%7CA436695119it=rasid=524ebcba9260ccc1380ec5d4a7ecd396. Accessed 9 Feb. 2017.

The Queen Of Air And Darkness Essay -- essays research papers

The Queen of Air and Darkness   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the Queen of Air and Darkness Morgause raises four boys. She is not a good mother, and she does not give her boys a sense of right and wrong. She often ignores them for days at a time and beats them when they displease her. She acts as if they were pets rather than human beings, to be loved or not at her convenience . But despite this common maltreatment, the boys turn out very differently.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Gawaine is the oldest of the boys and in many ways the most normal. He becomes a knight in Arthur's court, fighting for him loyally. The way in which he is affected by his upbringing is his rages. When provoked Gawaine goes into a berserk rage in which he does things he would normally never do. When Gawaine and Agravaine are arguing over whether or not to write a letter to their father about the knights, Agravaine refuses to say he is wrong, so Gawaine goes berserk and attacks him. He does not simply beat him, but chokes him and slams his head against the floor until Gareth pulls him off. If Gareth had not been there, Gawaine very well might have killed his younger brother. Gawaine even kills a women when worked up to a rage. These rages are a product of the unhealthy childhood he endured.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The next child, Agravaine, is probably the least well adjusted of the four. He tends to be sadistic and self-centered. The children were told the tale of the King of Ireland by St...

Scouts Maturation through the Evil in the World Essay -- English Liter

Scouts Maturation through the Evil in the World Harper Lees, To Kill a Mockingbird is a very complex novel that has many plots and many evils. Lee tells of an innocent black man accused of rape by a detestable family. She also tells of a man locked up in his house and isolated from the rest of the world. The narrator, Scout, learns about this turpitude, and this ultimately leads to her maturation throughout the story. The three main heinous acts are the way Tom Robinson is treated, the way Boo Radley is isolated from the rest of the world, and the way Bob Ewell commits the unspeakable. One of the main evils in the story is the way Tom Robinson is accused and convicted of rape. At the start of the book Scout calls those who are black, ''niggers''. This demonstrates that at the start of the book Scout did not consider black people to be as good as white people. Instead, she listened to everything that the town said about black people. This quote shows that Scout was still rather immature and had a lot of growing to do. When the jury walks in from Tom"s trial, Scout says to herself, 'I saw something only a lawyer"s child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a shoulder, and pull the trigger but watching all the time knowing the gun was empty'"' (pg. 211). Scout is finally beginning to feel some compassion for Tom Robinson, a black person, after learning of the evil that has been done to him. She is able to realize that Tom Robinson is going to found guilty and feels horrible about it inside.''Naw, Jem, I think there"s just one kind of folks. Folks (pg. 227).' Towards the very end of the book, Scout has finally matured enough ... ...used for his death. Bob he is the one who ruined Tom"s life and ultimately killed him. Tom was just an innocent person, a mockingbird, who was accused and convicted, of a crime that he most certainly did not commit. This quote of Scout"s was so profound, and it was so amazing that she would understand the concept of a '"'mockingbird'"' at such a young age. Therefore, it is clear that Scout has developed quite a bit since the beginning of the story. Towards the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, it was clear that Scout still had a lot of maturing to do, but throughout the story, she matured quite a bit. The main factor that led to her growing up was learning of all of the corruption in Maycomb. Even though this evil was obviously not good for people such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, Scout would not have grown nearly as much in three years without it.

How Groups Can Influence People in Negative and Positive Ways Essay

How groups can influence people in negative and in positive ways. By definition a group is a number of people who are regarded as a unit. They are united by a shared interest or belief, be that religion, sport, or politics. All groups have their own identity, we as people have multiple ones. From a social perspective, an individual is often defined by who they are and what they do; a parent, a child or a friend, and by what line of work or study they are in. Cultural identity is defined by ethnicity, and group identity comes from having a sense of belonging, having a ‘them and us mentality’. This essay will look at how different roles and identities can influence social behaviour when belonging to a group, both in a negative and a positive way. Tajfel and Turner (1979, cited in spoors et al. , 2011) developed the social identity theory, a theory that describes how belonging to a group forms a significant part in the individual group member’s self-concept. Having a ‘we’ rather than an ‘I’ concept. They suggest there are three key stages to joining a group. The first being social categorisation; this is for the individual to be given a label; Christian, gay, snob, Geordie, disabled are a few examples. The next stage is social identification; where the individual takes on the group’s characteristics and becomes defined by the group’s behaviour. The final stage is social comparison; members of a group view it from a positive point of view, often forming an elevated opinion of the group they belong to. People can take on defined roles when involved in group activity; influence on these roles can be from observing other members of the group’s behaviour, or a personal representation of the defining role. Zimbardo (1971, cited in spoors et al. , 2011) conducted an experiment to determine how roles within a group can influence people’s behaviour. During the experiment participants were given a ‘guard’ or a ‘prisoner’ role. The experiment ended prematurely as participants took their roles to extremes, ‘guards’ became increasingly aggressive, and ‘prisoners’ became withdrawn and emotionally distressed. This could be an example of how people’s expectations of a role they have no experience in can influence behaviour. They may have been influenced by other member’s actions, or by a stereotypical character portrayed by the media, leading them to have behaved negatively and ‘out of character’. Kondo (1990 cited in spoors et al. , 2011) is a Japanese/American student. In her personal account of living in Japan, she writes how she finds the roles and expectations of her by the Japanese family she is staying with became quite challenging and disturbing. She felt her own identity was slowly being replaced with the obligation to act appropriately to whichever role she was playing, be it guest, daughter, student or a Japanese woman. During a traditional tea ceremony Kondo received high praise from her Japanese teacher for her performance. She states she was ‘inordinately pleased’ by the praise but did feel she had to ‘escape’ before she changed completely, this shows both negative and positives to social conformity. Kondo feeling pressured into conforming to set standards and rules can also apply to some group behaviour. In 1997 the ‘heaven’s gate’ cult lost thirty nine members to mass suicide. They believed their souls would be transferred to a spaceship. These members may have become too dependent on the group, maybe so fearful of their leaders to not go ahead, or the sense of belonging and comfort they felt being part of the group; they had such conviction in their beliefs they carried the suicide through. This is group conformity to the extreme, and in this case had a negative outcome, but some form of conformity is necessary in society so it can be a benefit to the majority. Belonging to a group can lead to an in-group out-group culture. With groups being defined and identified by their roles, beliefs and behaviour, comparisons are often made between one group’s identity and others, be it sports teams, gangs, social groups, religion, or different cultures. Having an inflated opinion of the individuals group can encourage them to view any other group as inferior; this can lead to competition and conflict between groups. A good example of a ‘them and us’ situation is the robbers cave experiment conducted by Sherif (1961 cited in spoors et al. 2011) A group of boys staying at summer camp were split into two groups, and a tournament was set up. The good sportsmanship of the group quickly turned into aggression and prejudice. Although once given tasks where the two groups had to work together, they boys worked positively and cooperated with each other. In-group traits can occur even where there is no history of involvement between the grou ps involved. Taifel (1971 cited in spoors et al. , 2011) conducted an experiment where a ‘virtual’ group situation was set up. Participants were given a task believing they were part of a group, but were in fact working as an individual. In-group favouritism was still present. Loyalty and cooperation is a positive outcome for the in-group mentality, but it has its negative traits in the hostility and aggression it can provoke towards the out-group. Emotional values are given to the individual depending on the behaviour of the group; anti-social behaviour would define them in a negative way, just as being seen to belong to a ‘good’ ‘kind’ or ‘charitable’ group would have a positive emotional effect on the individual. To conclude, evidence shows there are many positives to belonging to a group. The individual gains a sense of identity, both within the group and in society. Self-esteem, self-worth and sense of belonging are increased. Close bonds are formed with others who share similar characteristics. Having an elevated sense of status within the group can lead to positi ve behaviour. Self-confidence is increased due to a feeling of safety. Support, praise and encouragement from other group members have a positive impact on behaviour. There are also many negative aspects to group behaviour, members may be influenced to behave ‘out of character’ from their usual identity through controlling methods within the group dynamic, in some cases separating the group entirely from accepted behaviour within society. Prejudice, violence and discrimination can also be a result of the ‘us and them’ situation. The ‘heavens’ gate example could be viewed as both positive and negative, depending on the perspective, the group members and society would have conflicting views.