Effects of Academic Dishonesty on Higher Education Essay

Academic dishonesty is a vice that is plaguing higher education in today’s society. While lecturers and exam invigilators always seem to be a step behind in catching the culprits, the techniques being invented by the students to beat the system can almost be viewed with grim fascination. The emphasis that has been put on higher education when it comes to job status has totally skewed the moral compass of students and people who were of â€Å"respected character† in their high schools are usually at pains when explaining why the chose to cheat; this is usually after they are caught. The challenges being presented to the young boys and girls in our corridors of higher learning can be tackled the same way these students made the grades in high school. It’s all about commitment and hard work. (Anderman et al, 2007) Reasons for Cheating Students will cheat if they are not adequately prepared or if they believe regardless of their understanding of the course content, they are just not going to pass. Looking at the first reason, failure to adequately prepare for a CAT or an exam yet one has been given all the material can only be blamed on one’s negligence. On the second reason, the students may have reason to believe that there will be a disconnect between the questions being asked and the material they have studied. They could base their suspicions on the previous practices of these particular lecturer or they just do not have faith on the content they have been taught. This rarely happens but what students do not understand is it is not the lecturer’s role to â€Å"spoon-feed† them in the entire course outline. One of the expectations society has on graduates is that one should at least be able to conduct a research independently. Part of the content would therefore not be given in class and the lecturer will expect the students to conduct their own fact-finding missions. Therefore, one should not vilify a lecturer for asking a question that one wasn’t familiar with before looking at the course outline. (Callahan, 2004) Plagiarism, Fabrication and Deception The kind of cheating looked at above focuses on exam-based mode of evaluations. Research work conducted by students or even university faculty has not been spared this vice either. This kind of cheating is characterized by plagiarism, fabrication and deception. Plagiarism is the most common especially with undergraduate students. The internet has proved to be quite resourceful with information about pretty much anything being just a mouse click away. Stiff penalties like being expelled or suspended from the university do exist but there are still a few brave souls who believe they can get away with it. When one moves to the post-graduate and doctorate levels, cases of plagiarism are quite minimal. Having one’s name tarnished with plagiarism is a tag that will follow you for the rest of your career. (Bowman, 2004, p 25) The few cases of academic dishonesty reported usually arise from intentionally presenting false data. Research work is a time consuming process that can take months and even years. It can be quite unfortunate if at the end of your research, the experimental results do not match your hypothesis. Occasionally, some people prefer to fabricate their results instead of repeating the entire process or admitting that their research was inconclusive. You might get away with it if the experts in that particular field are few but the fall-out that would follow when you are discovered has proven to be the greatest deterrent. (Bowman, 2004) Studies in the Unites States show that â€Å"70% of students in high school have cheated† (Anderman et al, 2007) meaning that this vice was not suddenly acquired when these students joined university. It has moved to a point where when students are caught cheating, they are probably mad at themselves because they were caught instead of having remorse. The likelihood that you might actually be caught should be the greatest deterrent to cheating; not the penalty received after you are caught. You will only worry about the penalty if you are not sure whether you will get away with it. (Anderman et al, 2007) Effects on Higher Education Cheating has a negative effect on higher education in that the entire credibility of the system is questioned. Take for instance a student who actively cheated during his time at a particular business school somehow sneaks through the cracks in the system and is employed in the job market. Research has shown a majority of people caught practicing unsound business practices like embezzling of funds most likely participated in academic dishonesty during their time in university. The embarrassment such a person will bring to their learning institution is immeasurable. Furthermore, the credibility of students who passed through this business school will also be brought into question. It is fair to say that a looted business enterprise will think twice before employing someone from that disgraced business school. Majority of universities rely on grants and research funds to run their expensive programs. While funds from local authorities, student fees or even the federal government might be enough to run some programs, a large majority of courses rely on huge cash returns that research programs produce. All this can change if the entire higher education system is brought into disrepute due to widespread cases of cheating. Currently, few universities dare to admit that the problem is more widespread than it is reported. They are aware of the vice and admit to it being prevalent mostly in the undergraduate level. Today, the cost of hiring a university to perform a research on your behalf is a luxury enjoyed by companies or institutions that can afford the high costs. The justification for these high costs is attributed to the level of skill required to conduct this research; and this skills can only be found at our institutions of higher learning. This house of cards could probably come tumbling down if the current levels of academic dishonesty continue persisting. The research work will continue but the revenue being generated will decline. Interested parties will argue that the widespread cases of cheating in your university do not justify the excessive research fees being charged. (Callahan, 2004, p 72) Most academic scholars will never admit it but the prestige that comes with obtaining qualifications from a recognized institution of higher learning played a part when they decided to pursue higher education. Rock stars and established sportsmen and women keep returning to universities to finish their degree courses regardless of the amount of wealth they have amassed. It’s not like getting a degree guarantees you a better life insurance package or longer life expectancy; it is what the degree represents. Ironically, cheaters also realize this. A university degree is a rubberstamp of knowledge in today’s society. Some siblings have complained that their fellow brothers or sisters are held in higher regard by their parents or relatives just because they attended a university (a prestigious one). Is this system fair? Yes it is because being selected to join a university and successfully completing one’s course is not an easy affair. I believe those who have managed this feat deserve every accolade they receive. All this good is however eroded by cases of academic dishonesty. Such people end up tarnishing the names of the institutions plus the people who will pass through its corridors long after they are gone. There is a class system in every society and a large majority of them are segregated by wealth accrued or the level of education attained. Without getting into the pros and cons of a society divided by class, the reality is in every society there will have to be leaders and followers; you cannot have both. A person’s education status has been a barometer for today’s leader. Changing this due to some inept practices of some students who were caught with crib notes does seem far-fetched but is plausible if the problem becomes endemic. (Bowman, 2004, p 26) Conclusion At its current â€Å"manageable levels† academic dishonesty needs to be wiped out since it does affect the morale of students who have chosen to walk the straight path yet they are lagging behind their counterparts who are cheating. The prestige of higher education will be preserved only if its members respect its ideals and principles. Unfortunately, it is these same members who are destroying the system but the buck still stops with them in repairing the tarnished image. (Callahan, 2004, p 78) References Anderman E M, Murdock T B (2007) Psychology of Academic Cheating. Amsterdam; Boston, Elsevier Academic Press, pp 15-18 Bowman V, ed. (2004) The plagiarism plague: A resource guide and CD-ROM tutorial for educators and librarians, New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, pp 25-26 Callahan, D (2004) The cheating culture: Why more Americans are doing wrong to get Ahead, Orlando, FL: Harcourt. Hayden & West Stacks, pp 69-78

Marriage in Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”

In Kate Chopping â€Å"The Story of an Hour, the author uses irony and symbolism in order to emphasize her argument: even the kindest and most loving of marriages can be oppressive. In this short story, Mrs.. Mallard, who Is the main character, is a middle-class woman who has just lost her husband In a terrible accident. Her sister and one of her late husband's friends are there, and It Is they who break the news to her, being careful about It since she has heart problems. â€Å"Knowing that Mrs.. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. (p. L). Knowing about her husband's death, she (Mrs.. Mallard) locks herself in her room to apparently mourn and instead realizes that she has escaped from the grasps of marriage and is â€Å"free, free, free! † at last. She embraces her newly found freedom and triumphantly gazes at the life ahead. Near the end, she comes out of her room and walks arm In arm with her sister down the stairs to find her late husband at the door, which causes her heart to give way, in what the doctors proclaimed â€Å"of heart disease?of joy that kills. When she is first told of her husband's death, she retreats into her room and locks the door behind her, biding to be left alone. Once on her chair, she starts to let her feelings flow through her, at first, there is sadness and mourning, but later on she realizes that she doesn't feel all that bad about her husband passing away, Instead, she feels happy and rejoiced, and starts to look forwards to those days she had dreaded the day before. â€Å"She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long.It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. † She looks out of the open window in her room and sees the permitting in its bloom, with birds flying about, sparrows singing softly, patches of clear blue sky showing here and there. All of these are symbols for hope and freedom. Birds are creatures without boundaries, without limits and unbound to the ground, which we could take to mean marriage. She now feels Like a bird, able to fly off into the sky, leaving her grounding marriage behind.It is basically a symbol of freedom and hope for the future. This also tells us that her marriage, even though it wasn't a violent and unloving marriage was an oppressive one. † She knew that she loud weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. † And â€Å"And yet she had loved him?sometimes. Often she had not. What did It matter! † These unable to do as her heart desires, bound to an unloving marriage forever.Now, she has been given the chance to be free, to choose herself what she truly wants and the open window is the symbol for that. Outside of it lie all of her possible futures. Finally, she finishes by accepting her freedom and whispe rs the words she dreaded o much to say â€Å"free, free, free! † Finally, the cause of her death is her failing heart. She dies when she realizes that all of her dreams of freedom and independence have been shattered by the appearance of her undead husband. There is a kind of sick irony in this.First off, we thought it was he who had died, but at the end their roles are reversed and it is she who ends up dying. Next, the doctors assume that she died of â€Å"Joy that kills†, in other words, she was too happy of seeing her husband well and alive that is was too much of her heart. The reader, who has had access to ere thoughts and desires, knows that she dies of sadness of not being able to carry on living freely and independently without him. She dies because he shatters her dreams, not because he fulfills them.This takes us to Chopping second argument, that death is the only way out of the confinements of marriage. For all we know, Mrs.. Mallard stays at home quite a w hile, since her chair is â€Å"sunken in† which leads us to believe that it is frequently used and therefore she spends most of her time at home. This confinement is what she can't stand of marriage, unable of doing the thing she wants when she wants to do them. The only way she is able to escape this imprisonment is by the death of her husband, which sets her free.Chopin is basically arguing the old saying â€Å"The truth shall set you free†. Knowing that her husband has died, she lets the truth take hold of her, realizing that she's finally going to be happy. But when Mr.. Mallard strides unknowingly through the door, she collapses on the floor and dies. The truth, that he wasn't actually dead has set her free, has parted her from her oppressive marriage. At the very beginning of the story, in fact, the very first thing we know about Mrs.. Mallard is that she has heart problems â€Å"Knowing that Mrs.. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble†¦ In this short story, Mrs.. Mallard's heart disease is a symbol for her marriage and marriage in general in the technetium, in which marriage lies at the heart of society. Marriage is the beating heart of society, what binds it together, and is therefore an unbreakable bond, if you were to go against it you would go against society itself. This, from Chopping (Kate) point of view is unacceptable; marriage should be kept only if there is love, unlike Mrs.. Mallard and her husband. â€Å"And yet he had loved him?sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! The author makes the heart represent marriage, and to show that it is a broken institution she gives Mrs.. Mallard heart problems. This is a clear statement against marriage, telling us that it has lost its meaning and has become a sickly form of binding people together. In the story, it also foreshadows the events that happen later on, namely, her death due to a corrupt and broken marriage. In her short story, Kate Chopin tells us that wome n feel oppressed by marriage whether it is a loving marriage or not, and hey crave for freedom and independence.She does this with the help of symbols such as the open window, representing spring, freedom, hope, independence, and the possibilities of her new life and breaking the bonds of an oppressive marriage, the heart problem that afflicts Mrs.. Mallard which represents how marriage is â€Å"sick† only way a woman can escape marriage by having her die instead of him who supposedly died at the beginning of the story. All in all, she tells us that all marriages confine women and deprive them of their freedom and independence, that oppression is in the very nature of every marriage.

Analysis Of Marketing Mix Of NAPCO Group

Discuss About The Analysis Of Digital Marketing Mix Of The NAPCO Group? Digital marketing can be used a term that collectively includes all the marketing activities that are done utilizing the technology. It uses digital channels such as social media to market its products.   Today’s organisation utilise digital marketing to achieve new heights of success. The major motive of digital marketing is to create brand awareness and engaging the customers. Social media promotions have turned out to be the most important and productive medium of digital communications. This report deeply analyses digital marketing mix of an Saudi Arabian company NAPCO group which deals in packaging. It also studies the marketing mix of its competitor firm. The report involves recommendations for the company that could be taken for the betterment of the digital marketing mix. NAPCO is one of the leading manufacturing groups in Saudi Arabia. As seen in the appendix the company has well designed , simple and   attractive logo. The company has its headquarters in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. NAPCO is a commercial organization working to maximize its profits. Today the company conducts its business around the globe and it is one of the top ranked companies of Middle East. The group owns 10 companies with over 5540 employees. It basically deals in three strategic segments consumer products, flexible packaging, and paper containers. (NAPCO 2017). From the appendix it can be seen that NAPCO’s consumer products brands range from baby care products to family care and household products. NAPCO’s brands are licensed from INDEVCO. NAPCO’s flexible packaging segment serves the Europen, GCC, Middle East in African markets. This segment consists of 7 companies situated in Dammam and Jeddah in Saudi. The paper container segments serve European, GCC and Le vant markets. This section produces a wide range of corrugated containers to serve the needs of various industries. The major competitors of the company are   FIPCO, Saudi Pack, Al Sharq Flexible Packaging Factories, Al-Ghadeer Group, Saudi Arabian Packaging Industry WLL, Noor Carton & Packaging Industry and Gulf Packaging Industries Ltd.   The customer base of the company includes both B2B and B2C companies. The company’s current digital marketing practices include responsive website design and social media presence. The company is does not have well developed digital marketing activities it is working in this field to enhance its digital marketing and grasp more opportunities. The company is a popular name in the Middle East. Middle East is on the verge of digital revolution. Digitalisation has increased with high smart phone adoption rate and increased use of social media. The Middle East companies are ready to lead digitally enhanced lives. Although businesses and government have still not exploited those opportunities (Elmasry, Benni, Patel, Jan and Moore 2016).Three opportunities presented by changes in external environment- This is the most emerging opportunity in Saudi markets. This technology will replace the old search engine optimization. The new SEO trend would provide a better way to target the potential customers (Albhaishi, Wahsheh and Alghamdi 2014). The online audience optimization will encourage the target audience participation by social media networks, innovative and creative blogs and informative online articles. This technology will help not only in advertising but also effectively integrates mobile strategy (Lee, Jalali and Dasdan 2013). This is a kind of new digital platform is an emerging opportunity for NAPCO group. It can implement this technology. This technology provides the benefits of linking to the potential clients more effectively and efficiently. The use of mobile phones has increased worldwide. More and more people now own a smart phone. This provides the businesses and opportunity to do their marketing and reach to the potential customers through smartphones. According to a report, 90 per cent of the sales of the connected device will be smartphones and tablets by 2020 (Lunden 2015). To exploit best from this opportunity the companies should provide a mobile friendly content on their websites. Also, they should approach their customers utilizing this technology. It is necessary to provide a great experience to the customers that are browsing company’s websites through mobile phones. It provides benefits of enhanced customer relation, maintaining a constant touch with the customer and gets more genuine clients than the competitors (prolines 2015). Another opportunity is available in the field of content marketing. To exploit this opportunity company must publish high quality and informative content on popular websites (Jà ¤rvinen and Taiminen 2016). For Saudi markets optimizing unique Arabic content will help the firm to attract more B2B customers. The Arabic content marketing strategies such as press releases, blog posts, articles, newsletters etc. will help to reach millions of customers. This will ultimately enhance the profitability of the firm (prolines 2015). In today’s era customer is considered as the king of the market. Today’s customer does not rely only on to a single firm. He has a variety of options available in the market. The customer does not rely only on the company website and marketing force for getting information about the products of the customer (So, King, Sparks, and Wang, 2013). The customer has various other sources such as review sites, blogs, and social media to gain information about strengths and weakness of the product.   Today’s customers have complete control over the buying process. Therefore today’s marketers need to develop effective digital marketing strategies to create an outstanding experience for its customers. The customers now are now well informed and they have various choices therefore if the company does not want to lose its customers it needs to be customer focused.   Right digital marketing strategies can only be developed if the company is customer focused. It is a lso very important to analyze customer behavior if the company uses customer behavior statistics it will be able to create hyper specific digital marketing strategies. The company’s digital marketing strategies will only be successful if it helps customers to discover the value. To make the appropriate digital marketing strategies for the customers it is required to get insights about customer behavior so that the ideal experience in terms of customers can easily be predicted. NAPCO should identify different needs of its customers both for the B2B segment and B2C segments. This will help the company to build different digital marketing strategies that will effective strive at each of the segments. Also, it needs to develop different digital marketing strategies for markets of Europe, Middle East, Africa and GCC. Consumers in every market have different characteristics and analysis of these character tics is necessary to develop effective marketing strategies.   Analyzing co nsumer behavior is more important for determining effective digital marketing activities because it gives the ideas about the trend in the market (Polizzi 2016). Example: 80% of targeted customers use smartphone they are tech savvy, will help the firm to develop digital marketing strategies taking smartphone as an important tool. Therefore, importance of being customer focused and understanding the consumer behaviour for developing effective digital marketing strategies cannot be neglected. How company uses digital marketing across marketing mix The digital marketing mix of NAPCO can be categorized into 4Ps. The digital marketing mix is simply an adoption of traditional marketing mix it is impacted the growing use of the internet. The company has expanded its product portfolio. Initially, the company just manufactured just paper products but now the company has expanded its product portfolio to consumer products, flexible packaging, and paper containers. The effective product can only be developed by using technology and conducting online surveys (Gruner, Homburg and Lukas 2014). These online surveys helped the firm to know what customers actually want and saves the time and efforts. NAPCO also does research and development using technology. Online sources have given the firms access to know how much the product actually costs and they can also really know the prices of the competitors. NAPCO does not make use of online sources to determine the prices of the products. It has adopted the value based pricing strategy and prices are quoted according to the value that it provides to the customers (Armstrong, Kotler, Harker, and Brennan 2015). Company’s products are available in the Middle East, European and African market. The company takes orders online but it does not have a well-established e-commerce website. It takes B2B orders through emails. The company does not take retails orders online. The company also do not have a proper product catalog with prices on its website. It just sends the catalog to its regular customers. The company makes an effective use of digital marketing activities for the promotion of its products. Apart from the traditional sources such as TV, Radio and print media, it is using various other sources for promotion. The company is shifting its focus from traditional promotional sources to digital marketing. It is using social media, content writing and providing a responsive website to its customers. The digital marketing mix of the company demonstrates although the company is effectively using digital media in research, development and promotional activities it is not using it effectively to determine the price. The customers of the company also expect an online e-commerce website so that it becomes easy to shop for the products but currently the company does not hold any such website. The company should make more effective use of digital marketing to stand up to the customer expectations. Gulf packaging Ltd is the competitor of the company. The digital marketing mix of Gulf packaging is given below: The firm does not have wide product portfolio. It produces all types of BOPP films (gulfpack 2015). The product portfolio of NAPCO is much wider than the Gulf packaging. The company works in its selected portfolio and does not use technology for further research and development. The firm uses the technology to fix the prices of its products. It constantly monitors the prices of its competitors and the market trends and frames its prices accordingly. It charges different prices in the different nation by drawing information about each of the nations.   This helps the firms to generate more profits. The firm sells its products in Europe, North America, and the Middle East. This firm does not accept online orders they accept the big orders from the regular customers over the phone. The company do not provide product catalog to the customers over the website it sends the quotation for different products over the email, on demand. South American Commercial premises of the company are responsible for marketing and promotional activities. The company is engaged in traditional promotional activities basically using print media. The company does not use much digital marketing activities from the promotion. But recently the company has opted for social media marketing as a promotional activity. Gulf packaging Ltd does not make effective use of digital marketing. It has used technology for deciding the process of its products and also uses social media marketing for the promotion of its products. The digital marketing mix of the company is not well developed.   The firm does not sell its products online. The digital marketing mix of the company is just in the growing phase. The digital marketing mix of the company is can be improved in various ways. It can be improved if a company the company learns few things from its competitors. The company should use technology for determining the prices of its products. It should learn from its competitors they use the same strategy to earn its profits. Also, the NAPCO is in the beginning phase of digital marketing. The company should engage in activities such as press releases, use LinkedIn profile this will help to build a network and attract more B2B customers (Hannouz 2015). The customers of the company expect an online website for buying and selling of products. The company should pay attention to this expectation and offer its products for sale online. The other measures that can help the firm to improve its digital marketing strategy are finding creative ways for customer acquisition by using digital media. The company should utilize its data efficiently to create a personalized experience for its customerâ €™s web analytics solution can help the company in collecting and analyzing the data. The firm is already engaged in social media marketing activities, the firm can make use of live streaming to develop its digital market mix. Live streaming is the recent trend in digital marketing but the content chosen in live streaming should be really brainstorming (Shoolian 2017). Another way in which firm can effectively use the ephemeral content. Now a day’s websites such as Instagram, snap chat, and Facebook provide the opportunity to upload data that automatically disappear after a set time period.   This can help the companies to upload special offers and deals. SMART objectives of the company can be defined as the goals which are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time bound (Bjerke and Renger 2017). The two objectives for the company to enhance online customer experience are: Achieve online 10% online revenue contribution within 2 years To increase the online revenue by 10% NAPCO needs to work very hard. First of all, it needs to set up its e-commerce website. The company needs to take feedbacks from the customers about the website and make all the possible changes required. The company needs to effectively manage the delivery time so that the orders are reached to the customers within the time range. The companies should also provide a column for customized orders from the customers. The next step is spreading awareness in the customers about the online availability of products using the digital media for advertisement. The company should also provide some offers at the initial stage when the website is launched. All this will help the company to achieve 10%online revenue contribution. To increase the brand awareness of NAPCO’s product the company needs to increase the number of followers on twitter. It needs to achieve the target of 1000 followers within a year.Twitter is a powerful business tool and could be a great help if utilized optimally (Moody 2016). There are many ways NAPCO can increase the number of followers on twitter by using tools such as Hootshoot and Sproutsocial. NAPCO can also use Twiends to find the new users whom the company can connect. Another strategy that can be adopted by the company to increase the number of followers on twitter is following more people because there is a correlation between numbers of people followed and the number of followers (Demers 2015). The above two stated are SMART objectives that should be the key targets of the company to develop the digital marketing mix. The company should lay emphasis on enhancing customer experience. Suggested digital marketing mix for NAPCO to improve its online customer experience: The company has wide product portfolio. It can enhance its portfolio by using technology for research and development. It can use integrated tool set for SEO, email and lead intelligence tools to get consumer information and design more customized product to satisfy individual customer demands. The firm operates on value based pricing strategy. To earn more profits the company should use technology to determine the appropriate prices. NAPCO should constantly obtain upgraded data by using information technology to gain information about prices of the competitors and current market trends. The company y needs to sell its products on an online platform. The company should sell its products on the online website to reach a large number of customers. The company can use online network partners to enhance the availability of products at various products (Lien, Wu, Chien, and Lee 2017). The company uses digital marketing activities such as social media marketing. The company should adopt more digital marketing promotional activities such as innovative and creative blogs, search marketing Pay-per-click advertising (PPC), Affiliate marketing and email marketing. People are the main aspect for the success of every company. The company needs to hire some specialist from the field of computers and digital marketing. It also needs to provide training to its staff about successfully implementing digital marketing processes in the organization (Parmenter 2015) There is the need to effectively manage old processes and implement some new processes needs to be implemented. The company needs to implement a new process to start the online sale of its new products. It needs to effectively manage the product delivery process to ensure that goods are delivered within the stipulated time (Stadtler 2015). The suggested changes will also help to attain the above stated two SMART objectives for the company the changes made should help to increase the number of followers and also increasing the online revenue generations these changes are directly related to the Smart objectives. These tactical activities will provide direct benefits to the consumer and thus help to improve online customer experience. The company can monitor and control the recommended marketing mix by various metrics and methods. The company can use Google analytics to monitor and control the recommended marketing mix. This tool provides a huge summary of data related to your website (Cain 2012). NAPCO can analyze this data on the weekly or monthly basis to analyze the effectiveness of the recommended marketing mix. For example data about people that visit the website will help to monitor the trend about brand awareness. Another effective method is designing a response-attribution infrastructure to support all channels. Digital marketing mix uses multiple channels, therefore, campaign hierarchy must account for each channel along with the appropriate roll-ups so that measurement aligns with business goals (Ewald and Krishnamurthy 2009). It includes developing a framework to measure each and every step is monitored individually. The company can also use automated tools for analytics and visual reporting. Nowadays there are a variety of tools available in the market that help to regularly track selected metrics. NAPCO can get access to these tools and effectively analyze its reports regarding the operations. The recommended digital marketing mix for NAPCO has suggested changes in the process by using the latest technology these changes can be effectively monitored if the company uses the automated tools. Their company can monitor and control the effects and performance of recommended marketing mix but there is no set unit of measurement for this. Although the measurement can be done on the basis of ROI and online revenues this will only provide with the estimates, not the exact figures (Holloman 2014). This is because the recommended marketing mix involves both qualitative and quantitates terms. After implementing the recommended marketing mix the company should analyse its ROI and online revenues time to time to know the effectiveness of the process. It can be concluded that NAPCO does not have a well-developed digital marketing mix. The company is in its beginning phase regarding the use of technology in marketing. It has grown tremendously but now it has come to a stagnant position. Its customers now demand online selling of products. The company only takes online orders that also through emails, but not it needs to set up its e commerce website for growing further. The company already uses social media marketing but now it needs to design and use social media marketing campaigns more creatively. The company has already adopted the path of digital marketing, now it just needs to make some recommendations efforts to achieve the corporate excellence. Albhaishi, A., Wahsheh, H. and Alghamdi, T., 2014, May. Evaluating Web Ranking Metrics for Saudi Universities. In  Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014  (No. 156988). Zaytoonah University, Amman, Jordan. Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015.  Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education. Bjerke, M.B., and Renger, R., 2017. Being smart about writing SMART objectives.  Evaluation and program planning,  61, pp.125-127. Cain, K., 2012. Measuring Marketing Effectiveness: 6 Metrics You Need to Track, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/10/measuring-marketing-effectiveness-metrics/ Demers, J. 2015. 50 Free Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/06/17/50-free-ways-to-increase-your-twitter-followers/#6d92ab9525a8 Edward, B., and Krishnamurthy, R. 2009. Five Essential Strategies for Measuring Marketing Effectiveness, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://www.marketingprofs.com/9/essential-strategies-measuring-marketing-effectiveness-krishnamurthy-ewald.asp Elmasry, T., Benni, E., Patel, J. and Moore, J.M., 2016. Digital Middle East: Transforming the region into a leading digital economy, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj6pcDRkL3VAhVIFpQKHecwAjkQFghFMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mckinsey.com%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fmckinsey%2Fglobal%2520themes%2Fmiddle%2520east%2520and%2520africa%2Fdigital%2520middle%2520east%2520transforming%2520the%2520region%2520into%2520a%2520leading%2520digital%2520economy%2Fdigital-middle-east-final-updated.ashx&usg=AFQjCNHioXhFY692mS_Qwa6hkBT6UiXYVg Gruner, R.L., Homburg, C. and Lukas, B.A., 2014. Firm-hosted online brand communities and new product success.  Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,  42(1), pp.29-48. Gulfpack, 2017. Welcome to gulf packaging industries ltd website,viewed on 5 August from https://gulfpack.com.sa/ Hannouz, M., 2015. Three Ways to Improve Your Digital Marketing Strategy, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/campaign-management/three-ways-to-improve-your-digital-marketing-strategy/ Holloman, C., 2014.  The Social Media MBA Guide to Roi: How to measure and improve your return on investment. John Wiley & Sons. Jà ¤rvinen, J. and Taiminen, H., 2016. Harnessing marketing automation for B2B content marketing.  Industrial Marketing Management,  54, pp.164-175. Lee, K.C., Jalali, A. and Dasdan, A., 2013, August. Real time bid optimization with smooth budget delivery in online advertising. In  Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Data Mining for Online Advertising  (p. 1). ACM. Lien, C.H., Wu, J.J., Chien, S.H. and Lee, C.Y., 2017. Anxious Attachment, Relational Embeddedness, Trust, Co-production, and Performance: An Empirical Study in Online Business-to-Business Relationships.  Telematics and Informatics. Lunden, I., 2015. 6.1 b smartphone users globally by 2020, overtaking basic fixed phone subscriptions.  Techcrunch. com. Moody, A., 2016. How To Set Digital Marketing Objectives, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://cariadmarketing.com/digital-marketing-objectives/ NAPCO, 2017. About NAPCO group, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://www.napcogroup.com/#works Parmenter, D., 2015.  Key performance indicators: developing, implementing, and using winning KPIs. John Wiley & Sons. Polizzi, M., 2016. Why Your Brand Needs a Customer-Focused Marketing Strategy, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://www.brandfolder.com/blog/customer-focused-marketing-strategy/ Prolines, 2015. 8 Top Online Marketing Trends in Saudi Arabia 2015, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://blog.prolines.sa/marketing-trends-in-saudi-arabia-2015/ Prolines, 2015. Digital Marketing Service – Boost Your Business Online in Saudi Arabia, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://blog.prolines.sa/saudi-arabia-digital-marketing/ Shaoolian, G., 2017. 5 Digital Marketing Ideas That Could Improve Your Brand Growth in 2017. The Forbes, viewed on 4 August 2017 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrielshaoolian/2017/01/11/5-digital-marketing-ideas-that-could-improve-your-brand-growth-in-2017/#686c26a92015 So, K.K.F., King, C., Sparks, B.A. and Wang, Y., 2013. The influence of customer brand identification on hotel brand evaluation and loyalty development.  International journal of hospitality management,  34, pp.31-41. Stadtler, H., 2015. Supply chain management: An overview. In  Supply chain management and advanced planning  (pp. 3-28). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

What does it mean to become a nurse Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

What does it mean to become a nurse - Essay Example The goal of this essay is to clearly define what a â€Å"nurse† really means literally along with his responsibilities and duties. Also, there will be a brief definition on the meaning of a â€Å"nurse† to people according to the common grounds of experience. One can just think of the benefits of having a private nurse inside his home. It is a combination of a mother and a care giver at the same time. It can’t be denied that the certainty of one getting well especially for a person who is sick not only relies on the doctor who gives prescriptions but also to the one who counts the time and gives him the medicine with care and with a longing of him getting, that is none other than a nurse. (AOS, pp 1)But more than the idea or the image of a woman wearing plain white suit who is always beside a doctor or beside a dying person at the hospital, a nurse is also a symbol of charity and true care for more than the issue on salary, the time that they devote into helping patients is more than the time ordinary employees spend in their offices. (AOS, pp. 2)I asked many people (nurses) why they devote time taking care of those who are sick and why can’t they just take care of themselves. The common answer was, â€Å"It feels good to be part of one person’s life in a way that you help them survive from a medical problem.† The vagueness of this answer can of course be told by a nurse and nobody else for the experience is unique and the risks encountered are for the ones who really risk their lives to help others, our nurses. That is just one good reason why anyone would choose to become a nurse. What then are the responsibilities of these nurses in the first place To start with the basic, they do the caring and advising for the sick person. They, just like the doctors maintain the health of their patients so that as much as possible, no further complications will arise. Then, with the prescription given by the physician or the doctor, the nurse takes charge and initiates the continuance of the patient's wellness and examples of this can be through giving the right dosage of medicine to the sick person based on the doctor's advice. The nurse also is the one who takes note or jots down the changes and or result of the drugs that were taken and through this, the doctor can make or can arrive on a decision on the condition of the patient. This isn't easy at all for sometimes, if the condition is critical, the nurse needs to be on call and should be ready anytime to write these changes. That leaves them with no idle time for themselves, although this factor should really be consi dered before entering the said profession. (AOS, pp. 2) In addition to this, the delegation of task is also in the name of a nurse where she can also assign to others the duties that she may not be able to accomplish. In order for the needs to be answered, he also tries to check every single bit of information that may be of use to the patient along with the kinds of resolution being made. If there is a hard condition such as being assigned to a special or intensive care, it is also possible that a nurse may not have enough knowledge on the condition but this is where the nurse's instinct comes in and with the help of her trainings and knowledge learned from experience, she survives along with her flexibility. (AOS, pp. 2) On the other hand, based on the Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses in Australia which contains the standards that are expected to be met by the nurses in the said place, the main idea for a nurse to become who she

Legal Issues Business Torts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Legal Issues Business Torts - Essay Example in Salmon, 2005). The customer is entitled to assume that the proprietor will exercise reasonable care to ascertain the condition of the premises, and if he discovers any unsafe condition he will either take such action as will correct the condition and make it reasonably safe or give a warning of the unsafe condition (qtd in Salmon, 2005). As established in both the above cases and in multitudinous others, a proprietor should exercise reasonable care to ensure the safety of invitees and if the conditions of the premise are such that there is a continued hazard, or the reasonable possibility of a specified hazard arising at any given time, consequent to the conditions associated with the premise, it is incumbent upon the proprietor to either remove the hazard or provide sufficient warning of it. As pertains to Mae Tom's slip and fall claim, the above determines that she is acting within the parameters of her legal rights as an invitee to bring a negligence case against Kresge and make a claim for proven injury damages.

Alcohol Related Violence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Alcohol Related Violence - Essay Example Most of the violence take place when the venues close or when the known figureheads move out of the bar. According to the research, lighting and security staff, taxi ranks and availability of public means of transport are a precursor to liquor related violence. The study recommends frequent revision of licensing terms for setting up liquor venues to reduce the possibility of injury and potential harm. The environment within which the bar needs special consideration since they contribute largely to liquor related violence. Proven evidence shows that change in alcohol price directly affects alcohol consumption. Increased taxation can effectively reduce liquor related violence through reduction of access to alcohol. High taxation of alcohol encourages consumers to turn to drinks with low alcoholic levels of or avoid alcohol. The reduction in alcohol uptake translates to a decrease in alcohol-related violence. The tax earned from increased alcohol taxation can in turn be used to educate the public on the dangers of alcohol as well as treat alcohol-related problems. An increase in alcohol tax will reduce alcohol related violence. Evidence shows that the best way to reduce alcohol related violence involves the local community in addressing the liquor related violence. The community in conjunction with the government and the businessmen can work together towards changing the drinking habits of the people. The empowered community can set code of conducts at the beer dens and agree on violence minimization practices. The community can also come up with measures such as frequent identification at liquor places to know the clients and also spearhead responsible drinking. Research suggests that the government should fund and provide them with the necessary support. Evidence shows that short-term interventions from the community are effective in reducing alcohol-related violence and should be supported. Local

Childhood Obesity in African American Children Research Paper

Childhood Obesity in African American Children - Research Paper Example -2004) found out that 21 percent of African Americans, 23 per cent of Mexican Americans and 14 per cent of non-Hispanic white adolescents aged 12-19 are likely to be overweight. Among children aged 6-11 years, 22 percent of Mexican Americans, 20 percent of African Americans and 14 percent of non-Hispanic white children were found to be obese (Centre for Disease Control, 2000). The main negative effects of the condition include medical, psychosocial and economic problems. Medical impacts include high cholesterol, high blood pressure, metabolic syndrome, sleep apnea and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The condition causes significant economic costs. The 2003 national rate of related expenses on obesity reached 75 billion dollars in the US, with most of the funds being generated towards social programs such as medical care. Hudson (2008) asserts that the related hospital expenses for obesity related diseases among children under the age of 17 years increased from 35 million to 127 million dollars over a period of twenty years. Overweight teens, especially girls; perceive their body size as unfashionable as they cannot conform to the recent changes in lifestyles. Most of the overweight children experience social discrimination and low self-esteem because of the teasing and neglect portrayed by their colleagues. This causes stress that increases the prevalence of th e condition. Obese teenagers significantly exhibit irregular school attendance. According to Geier, Foster and Womble et al. (2007) obese children missed an average of 12.2 days while those with an average weight missed an average of 10.1 days annually. This affects their performance as well as reduces their parents’ work output. According to USA Today (2011), most parents divert most of their attention in taking care of the obese children. The school systems also experience financial losses from taking care of overweight children. The risk factors associated with childhood obesity include genetics,

Implemente an creative idea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Implemente an creative idea - Essay Example To me that was a total waste of time. After watching the activity in the document room I noticed that those currently used documents and incomplete files are returned as all the other files. However, since these incomplete files are needed on a daily basis in order to save time, it is better to put them at a special location instead of placing them with the others. While I watched and analyzed this method of arranging files I remember a scientific method of arrangement for warehouses which I learned in a supply chain management course. Arrange the location of goods according to the frequency. This method saved lots of time walking and searching files in the document room. Based on my observation and analysis of the situation I suggested to the document room manager to place incomplete files and frequently used files in a position near the door, so that time spent walking locating files could be saved. The result of this new method was quite hard to judge. No one was actually timing and calculating it. According to my co-workers the new method seemed more convenient. To me saying that it was more convenient was a simplification of the issue. The idea that I implemented required the application of the scientific method. We could treat more issues and solve more problems using the user friendly scientific methodology. This is my opinion behind this little creative

Proving Myself to My Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 4

Proving Myself to My Studies - Essay Example In the process of this, I was able to learn a valuable lesson as well. This lesson that I learned in high school has since stayed with me, and I have made it a point to put my best foot forward in all that I do. Of course, I know that this doesn’t mean that I will be successful in everything that I ever do in life. I will still fall at times and fail at some endeavors just as all humans do. The point is though that even when I do fail, I remember that I have been successful in the past and that if I keep going, I know I will be successful in the future. If my parents hadn’t inspired me to prove myself to them that I was a good student, I might never have learned this important lesson. In the end, proving that I was a good student to my parents showed me that hard work and effort can lead to a better life, both in terms of self-esteem and success. Such a lesson is invaluable, and one that I would not trade for anything in the world. The beginning of high school is always scary. There are new rules, new teachers, and harder classes to deal with. The first day of ninth grade, I struggled with the fear of letting my parents down again. Eighth grade had proven to be something of a disaster as my grades were far lower than my parents expected. This year, I knew that I needed to prove myself to them, to show them that I could get the grades that they believed I was capable of. When I was young, of course, it could be difficult to concentrate on what I should be doing instead of concentrating on what I actually wanted to do. With that in mind, high school was a very distracting place for me as I tried to focus on my studies. My friends were pressuring me to hang out and have fun, which I desperately wanted to do, but imagine the look on my parents’ face when I came home with a report card full of A’s was a bit more tempting than an afternoon of spending time with my friends. Â  

Why did Islam spread so quicly Essay Example for Free

Why did Islam spread so quicly Essay Classical Empires arose in all cultures, once they had reached a certain level of technology and development. The most famous examples in history are the Persian Empires, the Greek empires of Alexander and his successors, the Roman Republic and Empire, the Mauryan and Guptan Empires in India, and the Chin and Han Dynasties in China. Other classical empires arose in Africa and the Americas, but little is known about these because they lacked a written language or because records were destroyed. They shared similar institutions, policies, histories, and fates. Empires are easier to create than maintain because empires are built on war. Classic empires always began in agriculturally rich areas, and had little need to worry about food. This allowed large populations. The location of their states began on the periphery of more civilized and developed states, but they went on to conquer older civilizations. Their conquests always shifted the focus of civilization and spread its culture. Most classic empires had a society with a strong warrior class and superbly organized and led militaries; their reputations for war and successes in battle served them well. Additionally, classic empires had governmental structures geared for war and were centrally governed. Usually one man made most of the decisions. Once classic empires were established, they had to maintain their conquests. And it is harder to maintain than create. Running empires required the standardization of policies, institutions, weights, measures, laws, and coins. This involved blending the best of the old, new, and foreign traditions and customs. Frequently, this meant road building, suppression of piracy, the building of a bureaucracy, and the construction of buildings to support an empire. The empire was ruled from one large and impressive city, glorified by the rulers. One result was the spread of trade and ideas, and the standardization of diverse cultures into one imperial culture with common institutions. But during the empire, class distinctions were sharpened between rulers, ruled, and slaves. Commerce flourished but was generally limited to two types of commodities – foodstuffs and luxuries. Nevertheless, culturally, classic empires were extremely tolerant – loyalty to the empire was most cherished and state philosophies and ideas were taught to all subjects. Subjects were to pay taxes and not revolt; they were allowed a  measure of self-government. Foreign loyalty to the conquering power was rewarded with admission to the imperial ruling class. And, revolts were punished severely. As historians and texts prove, these conditions made it difficult and taxing to govern such a large state. The ends of classic empires usually occurred in similar manners. The old empire became weak, lazy, and decayed. Old institutions and policies no longer governed well or were even remembered. Frequently, classical empires grew too large to easily maintain. While most empires’ decay began from within, they were destroyed by barbarians, who posed a constant threat to the settled empires. Often barbarians simply walked into the old empires, took the land, and settled. Often few people realized or even cared that the old state was dead. But the imperial culture created during the reign of classical empires always survived and was passed down to later g enerations. This culture became the basis for all modern cultural traditions.

About the recruitment process

About the recruitment process Introduction: Recruitment is a process by which a company gets application for their available vacancies. Good recruitment is important to effectual human resource management. It is valuable like as many others human resource management process, as for example training and selection depends widely of the new employees attracted by the recruitment process. Recruitment is also important for whole society because it manipulate job seekers opportunities to getting a suitable job. Not only has that job it works vital parted most peoples lives. Recruitment Methods: Recruitment can be carried out in numerous ways and generally it happens via both formal and informal processes. An informal process depends on the contacts of active workers or on new applicant. Since they threat being biased, word -of -mouth recruitment is not often suitable in public sector. Within business sector, word of mouth recruitment is well known, especially in those societies rated more socialist by Hofstede. International differences in the exercise of informal are considerable. It is also common all over the globe and especially in the developing nations like as Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda, Bhutan etc. Recruitment of Friends and Family is very easy and cheap as usually. According to Brewster et al (2008), there are four methods of particular relevance to International Human Resource management. Multinational companies follow these methods and recruiting, selecting, employing employees globally.Every recruitment process has some advantages and disadvantages. 1. Headhunting: In this method, recruitment agencies are work as service provider and they supply companies with recruits to put via their own selection procedures. This process is most common for managerial positions in developed countries like as USA, UK etc. Anecdotal data shows that almost 50% of executive searches are now cross-border. The global capability, geographical spread of individual search firms has consequently become difficult. The recruitment agencies may be preferred to internal solutions for many reasons and those reasons given below. a) The recruitment agencies have the specialist nature of recruitment activities. Similarly, its potentially rare use, sometimes mean that almost competent way to start it is to subcontract and it is to expert providers. b) Sometimes multinational companies would like to recruit in a country for the first time where they may not have human resource department to carry on this activity and simultaneously, they may not have local idea that would be essential. For this reason, they take help from the recruitment agencies. c) The recruitment agencies are expert in this section and can do recruitment of higher level or higher skill; employees may take place from a proper prospective employees file. The recruitment agencies operate their activities all over the country or industry. They usually have a list and this is mainly true in the case of multinational companies recruiting in a country where first time. Headhunters is particularly form of recruitment and agencies can be expected to charge a considerable payment for their services. b)Cross national Advertising: Now world is a global village and as part of globalisation, labour migration is more common and accepted all over the world. At present many companies seek to carry out cross border when they recruiting senior staffs. Brewster et al (2008) mentioned that the rising apply of advertising such as targeted outdoor poster sites -airport lounges, airline magazines and journey to work routes. Simultaneously, international, publications like as The Economist magazines, The wall street journals regularly represents some advertisement for high level posts in many organisations all over the world. Although that advertising should consider cultural differences, it may well be the case that the valuable targeting of such advertisement ensures that they are seen more or less totally by people. They are more used to, and accepting of, these multi-cultural messages. c) Internet Recruitment: Today internet is an important source of job and used to cheaply mass market the recruitment messages that organisations interested to forward potential applicants. The electronic recruiting facility is re-shaping the job hunting process and this facility has the likely to cut the difficulty to employment on a worldwide scale. It is proving helpful for global graduate recruitment, attracting MBAs and post graduate level candidates, similarly specific roles such as accounting professionals and IT staff. Brewster et al (2008) mentions some reasons for its popularity in recruitment. 1. Widen recruitment sourcing at relatively low cost a) Fixed cost of designing a website have been incurred, the marginal cost of further website visitor is mostly zero. b) At present internet user has grown highly, not only developed countries but also third world countries .So, now internet allows to firms reach potential applicants anywhere in the globe. c) Similarly, now it is very easy for potential employees to apply for any kind of job and first stage is to fill a web form or email a copy of CV. The main disadvantage of this is that the cheapness of applying by internet sometimes may encourage not only proper applicant but also large amount of unsuitable applicants too. 2. Attract applicant on a more specialised skill match. 3. Target sources of graduate like as MBA career centres. 4. Improve on traditional advertising approaches by targeting particular life style or culture fit groups. Selection Methods: The most common forms of selection methods are given below. Interviews: The way in which interviews are continued are one factor of national culture which radically impact the conduct of the interview and cultural awareness is very essential in this respect. In a simple face to face interview, the assessors may be confronted by considerable problem. As for example can mention here that one American multinational company recruiting managers in South Korea and found that interviewers had to be trained in multicultural awareness. According to the cultural rule of Korea, when asked a good question, to keep silent is known as   sign of respect and similarly the better the question ,the longer period of silence the applicant maintains.Moreover,according to the American culture, if anybody ask a good question and receive silence, it is like as ignorance. Not only that face to face interview may produce fairly warped judgements. 2. The monitoring and targeting of disadvantaged groups: In most countries negative discrimination against the interests of at least some disadvantaged group is not legal; similarly a small number of countries positive discrimination in support of interests of disadvantaged may be allowed or encouraged. Staffing practices are stoutly influenced by norms and morals, not possible by the law. As for example, many European countries do ban discrimination on the basis of age, but the application of age restrictions varies considerably by country. It is not applicable in UK but common in Germany. 3. Assessment Centres: Assessment centres are regarded as one of the most strong and suitable selection techniques and it should be expected that they would be used to assess capability for global manager. The major points of assessment centres are help to client companies to determine which candidates are appropriate to be employed. In this sense they offer their customers level of selection capability the may not take home. Assessment centres tend to use different types of tools and these tools are situational interviews, work stimulations and role -playing etc.Some effort also face that units and the successful utilization of their set of tools requires there tools to be significant for the circumstance like as legislative, cultural economic etc, in which the recruitment is taking place. Thus there cannot be one size fits all approach and this causes extensive troubles for them. 4. Psychological testing: The strength of some psychometric testing process is also uncertain. Psychologists state that variability of across settings for the equal type of work and across different of jobs is small .This testing involves asking candidates to full psychometric tests to allow their potential employer to verify the sort of person they are. Psychometric is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of educational and psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes and personality traits. The field is primarily concerned with the construction and validation of measurement instruments, such as questionnaires, tests and personality assessments. Those who practice psychometric are known as psychometricians and although they may also be clinical psychologists, they are not obliged to be so and could instead be (for example) human resources or learning and development professionals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometrics In the hand of competent professionals psychometric tests present an at times positive nearby into the individual features of prospective employees; in the hands of inexpert they are little more than a hazard to the achievement of a company. The table below represents some indications of comparative use of these selection events in diverse countries in the hiring of an employee for a cleric positions. According to the table, 69.6% of Danish companies report that they use interviews, but a small number (5%) of French companies do it. Simultaneously, 43.7% of Spanish companies like psychometric tests, but only 0.9% German firm prefers it. The uses of Psychometric test and Assessment Centre differs from country to country. A German assessment centre would use much diverse equipment to assess much different stuff than would an assessment centre in Canada.

The Traditional Interpretation Refuted :: Philosophy Literature Papers

The Traditional Interpretation Refuted The psychology of Aristotle has never been understood in a historically correct way. A new interpretation of the De anima will be proposed in which this work can be seen as compatible with the psychology that can be reconstructed from the fragments of Aristotle's lost dialogues and the De motu animalium and other biological works (in which the notions of pneuma and 'vital heat' play a crucial role) and the doxographical data gathered from ancient writers besides the commentators. In De anima, II, 412b5, where psychà ¨ is defined as 'the first entelecheia of a natural body that is organikon,' the words 'natural body' should not be taken to mean 'the body of a living plant, animal or human being' but to stand for 'elementary body.' And the qualification 'organikon' should not be understood as 'equipped with organs' (as it always has) but in the sense of 'serving as an instrument to the soul.' This 'instrumental body' that is inseparably connected with the soul is the seat of desire (o rexis), which physically influences the parts of the visible body. Besides those two corrections there are the words ta merà ¨ in 412b18 that should be taken as meaning not 'parts of the body' but 'parts of the soul.' Aristotle is arguing there that even those parts of the soul that are not yet actualized in the embryo of a new living being can be said to be 'not without body.' Do we really know Aristotle's psychology? This question may sound strange at first, since we have a famous book by Aristotle which is called On the soul and we possess quite a bit of information about a lost dialogue, the Eudemus, which was also subtitled On the soul. Yet I propose to argue that Aristotle's psychology has remained unknown up till now. And this is because since the third century AD the text of his extant work De anima has been interpreted in a way that runs completely counter to Aristotle's intentions. What has been held to be Aristotle's psychology is the result of the interpretation of his work put forward by Alexander of Aphrodisias in the third century AD.(1) The situation is comparable with the imaginary situation that Plato's oeuvre had been lost except for his Parmenides and that we only possessed the information of Plotinus for a reconstruction of Plato's thought. To make a convincing case for this revolutionary theory, I will argue three propositions.

Formatting Requirements for Publications :: Publishing Papers

Formatting Requirements for Publications Abstract. In this paper, we describe the formatting requirements for CSCL 2005 publications, and we offer a number of suggestions on writing style for the worldwide CSCL readership. These instructions pertain to the published component of submissions only. Some submissions may require other documentation in addition to the published paper. Keywords: Guidelines, formatting instructions, author's kit, conference publications INTRODUCTION The CSCL 2005 Proceedings will provide a persistent record of the conference, published in both CD-ROM and paper formats. We hope to give the proceedings a uniform, high-quality appearance. To do this, we ask that authors follow some simple guidelines. In essence, we ask you to make your paper look exactly like this document. The easiest way to do this is simply to download this template and replace the content with your own text and graphics, being careful not to add any new styles or redefine the template styles. You may want to open this document in Word and then Save As â€Å"CSCL 2005 Template.dot† by saving the Change As Type pull-down list to Document Template. PAGE SIZE All material on each page should be centered on an A4 (8.26 x 11.69 inch) page with 2.5cm (or 1 inch) margins all around. It is important to check these margins even if you use this Word template, because they might have been overwritten by your local settings. TOTAL NUMBER OF PAGES Long papers should be 8-10 pages. Short papers should be 4-5 pages. All other published material, including doctoral consortium abstracts and descriptions of interactive events and workshops, should be 2-3 pages. This includes everything: from the title to the references. FORMATTED TEXT Carefully format your submission using the following styles: Title and Authors The title (Helvetica 18-point bold), authors' names (Times New Roman 12-point bold) and affiliations (Times New Roman 12-point not-bold) run across the full width of the page. We also recommend that you add your e-mail address using the affiliations style. If only one address is needed, center all address text. For two addresses, use two centered tabs or a table (as in this paper), and so on. For more than three authors, you may have to improvise. There should be one blank Normal (10 pt.) line between the title and authors. Abstract and Keywords Place two blank Normal (10 pt.) lines after the title, followed by an abstract of about 100 words. The abstract should begin with the word â€Å"Abstract.† in bold, and should be formatted in the â€Å"Abstract† style provided in this template (like Normal, but indented 1cm each side).

My Incredible Stay in Bolivia Essay -- Observation Essay, Descriptive E

My Incredible Stay in Bolivia As I lifted my heavy suitcase off the wheeled cart, my mind soon went to work reviewing everything I had brought. Considering the mad rush I had to get packed for my ten day stay in Bolivia, I knew there was no way I could have remembered to bring everything. I knew for sure that I had remembered my toothbrush, which is the thing I normally forget. I also mentally went through everything I had packed and to my delight realized I hadn't forgotten a thing! I was so proud of myself! I was part of a twenty-one member team from the United States that went to the largest city in Bolivia to provide humanitarian aid, which included eye exams and refractions. From the Santa Cruz airport, I rode in a small green and white taxi to the small church compound, the place I would be calling home for the next ten days. Stepping out onto the hard packed sandy ground, I silently caught my breath. It was amazing! Breathtaking would be a more appropriate word. Surrounding the small church, were so many different shades of green. The palm trees held a deep sea green color, while the small plants lining the walkway showed a lighter forest green. Plants grew everywhere. Everywhere, including the phone lines! I found out later, that because of the moisture in the air, plants could live anywhere without soil. This explained the hanging plant attached to the phone line directly above the church. A sweet, gentle smell hung in the air. Everywhere I turned, it was there. I soon realized that the smell was coming from a small jasmine bush. The bush had many dainty white flowers and each of them were distributing their fresh scent everywhere. Looking across the street, I could see several more varieties of trees and bu... ... I never fully grasped the power of that statement until I met these people. It is so true. Love bridges that barrier put up between the cultures, and that is enough. The church compound was filled and overflowing with the love these people showed, and to me, there is nothing more special than that. Yes, I will admit, the setting was gorgeous and so different from anything I had ever experience, but the people were what made it memorable for me. When I got back home, I was just as nervous about forgetting something there. I knew I had my toothbrush, and then quickly went through everything else in my suitcase. I was sure I hadn't left anything there, and I was so proud of myself! Then it hit me. I realized I had left something very important there. Something I could not live without. I had left a part of my heart in Bolivia, and I know it will always be there.

GEZ Petrol Station Essay

GEZ Bhd is the major oil company in Malaysia has conducted two main businesses, which is the fuel business and the convenience store business. Under the fuel business, the petrol stations sold Petrol Ron 95 (R95), Petrol Ron 97 (R97), and Diesel. Mr Aiman was as an Area Manager is responsible for directing the sales activities of more than twenty petrol stations in the northern region of Malaysia. They are having a difficulty to sustain in the business even though they are in the stable business segment and consistent in the long run. This is due to the lack of knowledge in finance and costing which is it contributed to the business failure. There were disadvantages associated with a petrol station that is the fuel business had a very low profit margin. It was important that operators manage their cash collection very well. Realising the importance of management accounting concepts, Mr Aiman believed that the dealers and their relevant staff should have the knowledge in cost accounti ng. In order to collect data and build financial model, Mr Aiman has sought the advice from Rizal, a trained management accountant. To begin developing a CVP model, Rizal has gathered the necessary data from Baron Service Station (BSS) which is the busiest petrol station in the city. The petrol station had four pumps for petrol and one for diesel and the total number of nozzle was 20. The model that he would develop could be applied by petrol station operators of the same category. Regarding this case, from the cost-volume-profit analysis, Rizal can find that the breakeven point which is how much sales the petrol station of this type should generate from each of the fuel products and the Selesamart. Mr. Aiman also can learn that the importance of differentiate between fixed cost and variable cost so that the petrol stations can sustain their profitable business and growth. DATA ANALYSIS 1. How lucrative is the petrol station business? To determine how lucrative is this business, we need to identified each component with detailed calculation of the income statement which is does include all the revenue acquired, fixed cost and variable cost that related to the both type of the business. Firstly, we required to understand the definition of each component. Fixed costs are defined as expenses that remain more or less unchanged irrespective of the output level or sales revenue, within the relevant period. By definition, there are no fixed costs in the long run, because the long run is a sufficient period of time for all short-run fixed inputs to become variable. Variable costs are defined as expenses that vary depending on the output level or sales revenue of a company within the relevant period. Generally, as a business’s output increases, variable costs also increase. The more products a business sells, the more money it spends on materials and manpower to produce those products. We categorized all the expenses into fixed and variable costs and calculate the net profits of Baron S ervice Station for year 2009. REVENUE VARIABLE COSTS FIXED COSTS INCOME STATEMENTS (Partial) As describe in the Calculation stated above, the total contribution margin of Baron Service Station consists of two parts, which are fuel business and SelesaMart business. Total contribution margin is RM1,166,341.94. Contribution margin of SelesaMart business is about more and less 20% of the total contribution margin, which means that SelesaMart business is doing well, in addition, profit of SelesaMart will be higher if it doesn’t need to pay a 5% royalty to GEZ. From the income statement we can interpreted that this business in lucrative enough with a good control of expenses and Cost related to the operation, where BSS could generate Nett Profit of RM 772,825.94 (Calculation as per as Attachment 1) 2. Since the margin on fuel business is very low (6%) compared to convenience store (20%), do you agree that the convenience store is subsidizing the fuel business? Firstly, the profit margin for fuel business is very low if compared to convenience store. The fuel business only gets about 6% of profit margin for year 2010. Profit = Sales – cost = 100% – 94% = 6% This is because GEZ Petrol only gain a few portion of profit from the sales of each litre of Ron 95, Ron 97 and Diesel. Below is the profit for each litre of fuel sold by GEZ Petrol Station and the profit margin for each type of fuel. Products Price per litre Cost per litre Profit per litre Profit margin (%) Ron 95 RM1.80 RM1.6856 RM0.1144 6.36 Ron 97 RM2.05 RM1.9356 RM0.1144 5.58 Diesel RM1.80 RM1.7388 RM0.0612 3.40 Besides that, the petrol station also cannot increase the price even though the government increase the price of fuel. In the short run, the margin per litre would remain the same. For example, if the government announced there would be a 40 cents increase in the price per litre, then, operators also have to pay 40 cents higher. So, the profit margin will not increase. Products Price per litre Cost per litre Profit per litre Profit margin (%) Ron 95 RM2.20 RM2.0856 RM0.1144 5.20 Ron 97 RM2.45 RM2.3356 RM0.1144 4.67 Diesel RM2.20 RM2.1388 RM0.0612 2.78 From the above calculation, it shows that the profit margin will not increase due to increase in price.   Although the profit margin for fuel business is lower than profit margin for convenience store, but the revenue gain from fuel business is far better than convenience store. For example, from the monthly average sales of RM 1.7 million; where the large portion of this amount is come from fuel business (RM 1.6 million from the revenue), while only RM 0.1 million comes from convenience store. In addition, in year 2009, the sales revenue of the petrol station is RM 20,682,189.60 and about RM 19,251,897,60 of the amount comes from fuel business; which is approximately 93.08% (RM 19,251,897,60/ RM 20,682,189.60) of the revenue. While, only 6.92% (RM 1,430,292/ RM  20,682,189.60) comes from convenience stores. So, in this situation, it show that the fuel business itself are able to sustain the business of petrol station even without convenience store because the convenience store o nly contributed a little portion of their income. Other than that, most of the customers who come to petrol station are to refuel rather than shop at the convenience store. Only a few customers will buy at their convenience store because if someone wants to buy foods or other daily needs, they will prefer supermarket as they have more choices compare to convenience store. So, large portion of revenues or income that flow into the company is from the sales of Ron 95, Ron 97 and Diesel. Even though the profit margin for fuel business is small but the revenue is far better compared to convenience stores. Therefore, the convenience store is not subsidising the fuel business instead both fuel business and convenience store had contributed to sustainability of GEZ Petrol Station. 3. If the government raised the RON95 price to RM2.10, do you anticipate the profitability of the business will be eroded? If the government raised the Ron 95 price to RM 2.1 per litre, the profitability of business will be affected significantly. The changes of RON95 price from RM1.80 to RM2.10 per litre has incremental price of RM 0.3 per litre. In parallel, cost per litre of Ron 95 also will increase RM 0.2788 from RM 1.6856 to RM 1.9644 per litre due to estimation of cost on price proportion of 93.64%. Total Net profit for RM 1.8 (Ron 95) is RM 766,706.02 and had increase to RM 924,046.16 when Ron 95 price increased to RM 2.1. Net profit margin had increase from 3.71% to 3.98%. For Break- even Analysis, the increase of Ron95 price has indicate a better result which only required 3187559.208 litres/ RM 6,936,231.66 compared to 3618188.562 litres/ RM 7,015,784.34 to achieve zero profit. In overall, rise of Ron95 price by government will benefit GEZ petro station’s financial performance. It has higher profitability and capable to achieve Break Even Point with a lower output level compared to prev ious price which RM 1.8 per litre for Ron 95. Below are the changes of GEZ financial performance if Ron95 price changed. RON95 (79%) **Assuming the portion of fixed cost between Fuel business and Selesa Mart is based on the average sales of 2009 Price per litre RM1.80 Total Fixed Cost (RON95) Portion between fuel business and Selesa Salaries RM195,720.02 = 1.6/1.7 =94.12% Utility Cost RM35,550.00 94.12% of amount in fixed cost for fuel business Rental RM5,487.38 5.88% of amount in fixed cost for Selesa Mart Insurance Premium RM1,427.61 Stationeries RM1,784.52 Total Fixed Cost RM239,969.53 RON 95 Fixed Cost -Salaries Amount Salary(RM) Total per year Portion Fixed cost- Salaries Station Manager 1 3206 38472 0.9412*0.79 28605.78 Supervisor 1 1674 20088 0.79 15869.52 Cashier 3 950 34200 0.79 27018 Crew 12 812 116928 0.79 92373.12 Clerk 1 960 11520 0.9412*0.79 8565.67 General Worker 2 805 19320 0.9412*0.79 14365.35 Security Guard 1 1000 12000 0.9412*0.79 8922.58 Total 195720.02 Input changed: (Exhibit 3) Original Price New Price 4. If a credit card sale is reduced from 40% to 20%, what is the effect on overall profitability? Nowadays more and more people are using credit card in their daily life. People prefer credit cards because they are convenient to use and it is easier to take them instead of carrying a lot of cash. And if wallet or purse is stolen, we can simply call the creditor and close the credit card  account before anyone uses the card. In GEZ petrol station, petrol operators had to face was the increasing cost of credit card fees paid to bank as more and more of their customers were starting using credits cards. When a driver pays for gas with a credit card, GEZ petrol station must pay an average 1% of the sales price to the bank to process the payments. GEZ petrol station have accounted that the credit card sales are almost 40% of their total sales. Research are made to the Baron Service Stations ( BSS) , a petrol station that was located in a city, in the northern region of Malaysia. It was one of the busiest petrol stations in the city. In year 2009, BSS generated sales revenue of RM 19,251,897.60, 40% of the revenue RM 7,700,759.04 was come from credit card sales and the bank will charge RM 77007.59 from the credit card sales. Those fees are so high, it already slim profit margins and made it hard for stations to make money on gas sales. Otherwise when the credit card sales is reduce to 20% of the revenue RM 3,850,379.52 was come from credit card sales and the bank will charge RM 3,850,3.80 from the credit card sales. For details as below: Credit Card Fees (40%) Product Sales (Litres) Price/Litres Total Revenues Ron 95 8,459,604.00 1.80 15,227,287.20 Ron 97 174,576.00 2.05 357,880.80 Diesel 2,037,072.00 1.80 3,666,729.60 19,251,897.60 Usage of Credit Card 40% 7,700,759.04 Credit Card Fees Charges 1% Credit Card Fees 77,007.59 Credit Card Fees (20%) Product Sales (Litres) Price/Litres Total Revenues Ron 95 8,459,604.00 1.80 15,227,287.20 Ron 97 174,576.00 2.05 357,880.80 Diesel 2,037,072.00 1.80 3,666,729.60 19,251,897.60 Usage of Credit Card 20% 3,850,379.52 Credit Card Fees Charges 1% Credit Card Fees 38,503.80 Baron Service Station Partial of Income Statement for Year Ended 2009 (20%) Fuel Business Selesa Mart Revenue 19,251,897.60 Revenue 1,430,292.00 (-) Variable Cost Raw Material Cost 18,139,478.60 Evaporation Losses 83,613.27 COGS 1,144,233.60 Credit Card Fees 38,503.80 Royalty 71,514.60 Contribution Margin 990,301.93 Contribution Margin 214,543.80 Total Contribution Margin 1,204,845.73 (-) Fixed Cost 393,516.00 Nett Profit 811,329.73 Based on the calculation above, when the credit card sales been adjusted from 40% to 20% it will affect the overall profitability of the company. The income statement showed the increase of net profit from RM 772,825.94 to RM 811,329.73 of RM 38,503.79.When the credit card sales decrease, a 1% fees was charged by the banks also will reduce and this effect the variable cost for the company from before change cost is RM 18,300,099.46 to after change cost of RM 18,261,595.67. The difference between both of the cost and company managed to save is RM 38,503.79. The increasing of the amount in using credit card to make payment in the  petrol station will also increase the cost of credit card fees that need to pay to banks, indirectly it will give effect to the profitability of the station. The profit of the station will decrease due to the increasing of cost. If increasing of customers chooses to make payment by cash instead of credit card, then the profitability of the petrol station will increases, because the extra cost on the credit card sales that they bear will be reduce. To cover the problem, petrol stations can shift the cost of credit card charge by charges back the customer when they use cards. However petrol stations need to take risk that they maybe will losing customer. Customer maybe will decide to change to other petrol stations that do not have any charge when they use credit card to make payment. Petrol station also can offer a cash-only discount. This may attract more customer make payment by using cash. 5. What is the appropriate basis to allocate the cashier cost between four products Ron 95, Ron 97, diesel and SelesaMart? To assign the costs of products, we use cost allocation as it is a tool that can helps manager to track the cost that associated more efficient. Costs are allocated to obtain desired motivation because it sometimes made to influence management behaviour and thus promote goal congruence and managerial effort. Instead, it is used to compute income and asset valuations and to justify costs or obtain reimbursement because sometimes prices are based directly on costs, or it may be necessary to justify an accepted bid. From the information given in the case, GEZ petrol station conducted two main business which is the fuel business and the convenience store business, known as SelesaMart. Since GEZ provide joint provide, thus the appropriate basis is sales value at split-off point. The table shown below is the summary of monthly average sales. PRODUCTS SALES PROPORTION AMOUNT Fuel Business 94.12% RM 1,600,000 Petrol Ron 95 79% RM 1,264,000 Petrol Ron 97 2% RM 32,000 Diesel 19% RM 304,000 SelesaMart 5.88% RM 100,000 AVERAGE SALES (monthly) 100% RM 1, 700,000 Table 5.1 Monthly average sales in 2009 The total monthly average sales given is RM 1,700,000 with RM 1,600,000 was generated from the fuel business and the remaining from SelesaMart which in RM100,000. The highest contribution in fuel business in Petrol Ron 95 with RM 1,264,000 and follow with Diesel which is RM 304,000 then Petrol Ron 97 with RM 32,000. Then, we need to calculate total revenue for R95, R97, Diesel and Selesamart. Thus we multiply sales per litre with price per litre to get the amount of revenue. As stated in the case the sales revenue that BSS generated is RM20,682,189.60 that are comprise RM19,251,897.60 of fuel sales and RM1,430,292 of SelesaMart sales. The calculation can be summarizes as the table shown below : R95 R97 Diesel SelesaMart Sales (Litres) 8,459,604 174,576 2,037,072 – Price per litre (RM) 1.80 2.05 1.80 – Revenue RM15,227,287.20 RM357,880.80 RM3,666,729.60 RM1,430,292.00 Percentage (%) 73.63% 1.73% 17.73% 6.92% Table 5.2 Total revenue and percentage For BSS, they can allocate more cost to Petrol Ron 95 since it contribute the highest revenue which is RM 15,277,287.20 continue with Diesel with RM 3,666,729.60. For Petrol Ron 97 and SalesaMart, BSS can allocate less cost since it contributed only RM357,880.80 and RM1,430,292. In BSS there were two cashiers working at the sales counter. One will concentrate on the fuel transactions, and one for the shop, even though they handle both transactions at times and overall there were 6 cashiers working for BSS. Monthly salary per person for the cashier is RM950. So BSS shall pay RM5,700 to their 6 cashiers and RM68, 400 in annually. The appropriate basis to allocate the cashier cost between the four products RON95, RON97, diesel and SelesaMart is we calculated the revenue for the four products and we divided with the total sales to find the percentage for each products. So the percentage for product RON95 is 73.63%, RON97 is 1.73%, diesel is 17.73% and SelesaMart with 6.92%. The total revenue for Petrol Ron 95, Petrol Ron 97, Diesel and SelesaMart is RM20, 682,189.60. After we find the percentage, we calculated the cashier  cost for each product. To find the cashier cost, we multiple the percentage with the total annual salary for the cashier which is RM 68,400(RM 950 x 6 x 12). The result is, for the product RON95 the cashier cost is RM50, 359.58 followed by RON97 is RM1, 183.58, diesel is RM12, 126.58 and SelesaMart is RM4, 730.25. The total cashier cost is RM68, 400. The calculations can be summarize as shown in table below : R95 R97 Diesel SelesaMart Percentage (%) 73.63% 1.73% 17.73% 6.92% Cashier Cost RM50,359.58 RM1,183.58 RM12,126.58 RM4,730.25 Table 5.3 Percentage and cashier cost The choice of method for allocating common costs should depend on the ease of application, the perceived quality of information reported to external parties, and the perceived fairness of the allocation when multiple product managers are responsible for joint products. However, as discussed above, the allocation of common costs is arbitrary, and no method is conceptually preferable to any other method. All methods of allocating common costs across joint products are generally useless for operational, marketing, and product pricing decisions. 6. Is utility cost fixed or variable? What difference does it make to the breakeven point of Ron 95 if it is classified as i) fixed cost, and ii) variable cost? In our opinion utility cost is fixed cost. This is because,  the cost will be relatively the same as it was used for all the time. This cost wont effect the unit sold even though it not used. Utility cost as FC Utility cost as VC BEP (RM) 5,024,702.71 4,154,075.59 BEP (UNIT) 2,791,501.50 2,307,819.77 If the utility is fixed cost, the Break Even Point in RM is higher compare to the utility cost as variable cost. Same goes to the Break Even Point in Unit, which is the utility as fixed cost is higher compare to the utility as variable cost. CONCLUSION Regarding this case, from the cost-volume-profit analysis, Rizal can find that the breakeven point which is how much sales the petrol station of this type should generate from each of the fuel products and the Selesamart. Mr. Aiman also can learn that the importance of differentiate between fixed cost and variable cost so that the petrol stations can sustain their profitable business and growth. If the utility is fixed cost, the Break Even Point in RM is higher compare to the utility cost as variable cost which is RM5,024,702.71 compared to RM4,154,075.59 . Same goes to the Break Even Point in Unit, which is the utility as fixed cost is higher , 2,791,501.50 compare to the utility as variable cost 2,307,819.77 To assign the costs of products, we use cost allocation as it is a tool that can helps manager to track the cost that associated more efficient. Costs are allocated to obtain desired motivation because it sometimes made to influence management behaviour and thus promote goal congruence and managerial effort. Instead,  it is used to compute income and asset valuations and to justify costs or obtain reimbursement because sometimes prices are based directly on costs, or it may be necessary to justify an accepted bid. From the information given in the case, GEZ petrol station conducted two main business which is the fuel business and the convenience store business, known as SelesaMart. Since GEZ provide joint provide, thus the appropriate basis is sales value at split-off point

Balanced Scorecard Development

Abstract The balanced scorecard was introduced in 1992 as a performance measurement tool and has developed now to form a strategic management system. This paper uses eight articles, identified in Figure 1 along with extra materials to track and analyse developments in the design and implementation. The paper shows examples of the scorecard in practice and concludes that developments have been beneficial overall. It also highlights problems encountered along the way and further areas for improvement.For years managers have used financial measures to monitor performance however a study carried out in 1990 led to the development of the first generation balanced scorecard (BSC); a strategic planning and management system. By including financial and operational measures,it solved the issue that managers were beginning to reject financial measures during the 1980s and 1990s (Letza, 1996). The BSC originated analysing four perspectives; customer, internal, learning and financial,with focus driven by four questions shown in Figure 2.The BSC encouraged managers to focus on few critical measures to prevent complexity and information overload, however ensured several areas were looked at simultaneously as organisations became more complex (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). Choice around the measures allows adaptability and flexibility when using the model. This is vital in order to keep up with global competition and the ever changing environment. Companies must acknowledge this flexibility and as their strategy changes, so must the measures to stay in line with overall aims. The introduction of the BSC coincided with the recession in the 1980’s and 1990’s.Therefore companies will have been more enthusiastic about performance measurement and seen this as a good way to track progress towards strategy, growth and profit. Today, 20 years on, the core perspectives have stayed with the individual measures being adapted and perspectives added depending on the companyâ€℠¢s strategic goals. The BSC has evolved from a performance measurement tool enforced by few, to a strategic management tool used worldwide; with the main developments being ‘driven primarily by observed weaknesses in the design process rather than in the architecture of the original idea’ (Cobbold&Lawrie, 2002).Financial measures were satisfactory for the industrial era however adapting to change in skills and competencies allowed the scorecard to produce ‘richer and more relevant information about activities they are managing than is provided by financial measures alone’ (Cobbold&Lawrie, 2002). No individual measure produces adequate information to plan. When planning a journey, the objective is to get from one point to another with lots of dials producing information on the likelihood of succeeding. The fuel gage alone doesn't set the scene however collectively the measures allow a judgements and decisions to be made.For example, to increase the likelihoo d of success you may add more oil or fuel. In business with the objective to boost sales you may increase quality and therefore sales. Introducing operational measures to performance measurement, allows these factors be monitored as the drivers of future financial performance. As the number of measures is limited, companies must identify the factors that are key performance drivers in order to achieve successful implementation. With the first generation scorecard, very little was known about the implementation of the BSC.This meant companies were not gaining the full effects of improved performance. ‘What you measure is what you get’ (Kaplan ;Norton, 1992). Therefore if you measure things that have no influence, directly or indirectly to profitability and growth then it will be impossible to improve. Hence the measures must be in line with a company’s strategic objectives. Kaplan and Nortonintroduced the four processes for managing strategy shown in Figure 3 to e mphasise the need for the BSC to be linked to strategy, but there was no clarity to the importance and effect of this.Many would have good measures in place such as customer satisfaction but would not analyse this further to improve profitability, therefore a wasted opportunity as there was no real vision of making it happen. The design however, was taken on successfully by many companies as it brought everything together in one clear report. Words were kept minimal and visual aids were used to represent and explain measures. This proved effective as few words paint huge pictures, and people are designed to accept pictures and often remember these better.The BSC also looks at the whole organisation as opposed to separate departments therefore bringing all silos together. Many organisations have individual cultures within each silo and therefore departments are often driven towards targets at departmental level as opposed to overall corporate objectives. Therefore it is crucial that all measures are monitored to ensure that the targets are met through the right objectives, and not at the expense of another. For example the production department may increase productivity leading to more sales and potentially higher profits however the quality may slack causing customer satisfaction to fall.This could cause reputational damage leading customers to go to competitors who offer higher quality. The second generation scorecard expanded on this highlighting filtering and clustering as areas of concern. This took the BSC from the measurement system to an integrated management system while still focussing on strategy and performance drivers. Often this involved relating measures to key performance indicators. The second generation scorecard introduced strategic objectives and developed causality further.This development addressed the issue of an ‘inability to link a company’s long-term strategy with its short term actions’ (Kaplan ; Norton, 1996). Add ing phrases to the four perspectivesallowed companies to select measures around their strategic vision. This selection method provided more thoroughness and made implementation clearer and more defined. Causality was included in the first generation scorecard with the four statements shown in Figure 4 but the second generation developed this by indicating relationships between the measures across the perspectives shown in Figure 5; as opposed to just vague links between the perspectives.This increased the urge to ‘prove’ links (Kaplan ; Norton, 1996). This could have been bad for companies as employees may have tried to link movements in the performance measures that weren’t related trying to show one as the causation of one another; simply to reach targets. This would be more common when financial rewards were linked to performance. Even with this is mind, the linkage model became an important part of the BSC design. Introduction of software reporting systems im proved managers’ ability to react with fast diagnosis and quick interventions when problems occurred.The early software provided by AT;T, and later by companies including IBM; used email and diary programs to fasten this process. Software caused confusion as many believed it would enable design and implementation of the BSC. However, it is performance management software to use after implementation to ensure performance information gets ‘to the right people at the right time’ (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2013). As it allowed data to be stored, objectives could be allocated to owners and measures to objectives; allowing managers to make historical comparisons to measure performance accurately over time.It also helped communicate the information effectively and enforced more control and organisation. Some packages allow performance to be measured and tracked at departmental level, project level or the organisation as a whole. This only works if there is strategic alignment throughout the hierarchy. Organisations can then narrow down the specific areas that are underperforming in order to increase focus to improve or divest that part. Although the software has many benefits some find it ‘difficult to adapt to the needs of a growing and dynamic company’ (IBM, 2013).Hence, many prefer to use self-developed software however it sometimes lacks required functions and solutions to the cause and effect; as the specialist skills are not there to develop the program. Difficulties still arose in selecting relevant measures and target setting due to conflicting thoughts amongst management. There was also difficulty communicating the linkage model to lower level staff if they did not already have knowledge of the model. This could cause problems when trying to motivate teams as there will be different interpretations of aims and targets; therefore employees working towards different goals.The late 1990’s saw the third generation and the development of the destination statement (Figure 6) in order to achieve clarification through checking the measures, objectives and targets selected. The destination statement is a form of ‘what if’ analysis that brought the tool closer to company strategy, it's management and implementation. By estimating quantified amounts of consequences and achievementsfor a set future period; companies could easily compare actual achievements to targets and benchmark against others externally, in the case it was to stick with objectives from the linkage model.For example the destination statement would predict a rate of customer satisfaction for 3 years that you could check back against annually. This will identify under achievements, perhaps where you can enhance quality to boost satisfaction; and over achievements where you can identify what successful policies to keep. Management teams could easily relate to the statement to communicate down the hierarchy in order to gain a single interpretation, as it did not include looking at complex strategic objectives. Therefore a reversal of design as it was seen as an early stage in the process, as opposed to the final,making selection of measures and ausality easier. Companies have proven success without financial measures. Svenska Handelsbanken, while not disclosing use of the BSC; have gone over thirty years with ‘no budgets, no absolute targets, and no fixed plans' but with specific performance measures in place (Daum, 2001). More recently, in 2003 a new CEO adopted the BSC for Lloyds TSB in order to ‘show employees how their actions impact their colleagues and customers and how this, in turn, translates into our overall performance’ (Lloyds TSB, 2013). This linked objectives of 80,000 employees, emphasizing the advantage of aligning the whole organisation.By involving employees at every level in some aspect of the process generates ‘acceptance of and commitment to the concept' (War d, 2005). Implementation proved successful to drive the company towards growth and away from being sales and cost driven, which had caused them to lose their strong market position. ‘The cause and effect chain of events’ was critical for them to see that would drive the revenue up as opposed to just a target of increased sales (Ward, 2005). As Lloyds are large and have overseas staff they could have faced technical and strategic challenges including cultural conflict and difficulties selecting measures.Companies with a diverse workforce should ensure they measure things that can be influenced and changed by employees. Lloyds also highlighted the point that implementation takes time and resources to ensure thoroughness. A tight deadline imposed ‘danger of completing the task while missing the goal’ (Ward, 2005). They recognized the importance employees understanding the concept before implementation so brought in a BSC specialist, who had worked closely with Kaplan and Norton to run seminars and lectures; in order to reduce this danger.Not only do employees need to understand the concept and accept the process; they should include feedback including how many employees see it as motivational and effective. If employees do not enjoy what they are doing they will be inclined to only meet targets and not excel further. The strong focus of the scorecard encourages companies to focus on what they really need to measure as opposed to what is easy to measure; resulting in all decisions being made around the strategy. The BSC changed the way people looked at performance measurement. Previously it was seen as a method to ontrol employees but the tool encourages targets in order for employees to work towards. The idea was that employees would adapt their behaviour accordingly to reach goals; hence giving them more freedom, motivation and involvement in the process. However, some may argue that the focus has shifted too far towards operational mat ters that there is not financial involvement. Adaptability should allow those companies to change to their needs. The BSC will vary for each company depending on how dynamic the industry is and what the individual aims and strategy include.Lloyds TSB added a fifth perspective as they felt it was a key driver to the company's strategic direction. Although there are BSC failures, the advances in the design have allowed more successful implementations over the years. There is now more knowledge and literature available because more companies have adopted this management tool; but more importantly there are significant successes documented for teams to learn from. With corporate social responsibility being so highly regarded nowadays due to greater awareness and regulation, modern scorecards have seen a fifth sub-perspective introduced; environment/external.This shows the broader impact on society than is indicated through the customer perspective; hence giving more in-depth analysis. A s long as the process is carefully planned, communicated and regularly monitored it should prove successful however there is always room for improvement with the uncertainty in the ever changing environment. The scorecard, instead of providing single destination outcomes could include risk and probabilities related to various possible outcomes.In conclusion, the economic environment is only going to become more dynamic but the last twenty years has proven that continuous developments should ensure the BSC is kept up to date in order to stay a useful management tool. Figure 1 – Main Articles Used Author| Title| Daum. J| Beyond Budgeting: A Model for Performance Management and Controlling in the 21st Century? | Cobbold. I ; Lawrie. G| The Development of the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management tool| Kaplan. R ; Norton. D| The balanced scorecard – measures that drive performance| Kaplan. R ; Norton.D| Transforming the Balanced Scorecard from Performance Measuremen t to Strategic Management: Part 1| Kaplan. R ; Norton. D| Using the balanced scorecard as a strategic management system| Letza. S| The design and implementation of the balanced business scorecard| Schneiderman. A| Why Balanced Scorecards Fail| Ward. A| Implementing the Balanced Scorecard at Lloyds TSB| * Full references for the articles are shown in the reference list at the end of this paper* Figure 2 – Four Perspectives for Balanced Scorecard Perspective| Why? | Customer| â€Å"To achieve our vision, how should we appear to our customers? | Internal Business Process| â€Å"To satisfy our shareholders and customers, what business processes must we excel at? â€Å"| Learning and Growth| â€Å"To achieve our vision, how will we sustain our ability to change and improve? â€Å"| Financial| â€Å"To succeed financially, how should we appear to our shareholders? â€Å"| Figure 3 – The Balanced Scorecard Process Adapted from – Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. , Using the balanced scorecard as a strategic management system, Harvard Business Review, January-February 1996, 75-85. Available from: http://scholar. google. co. uk [Accessed 23 February 2013]Figure 4 – First Generation Balanced Scorecard Source – Antunes. G et al. , Process improvement measures in social area organisations: A study in institutions for elderly: survey results, The TQM Journal. Available from: http://www. emeraldinsight. com [Accessed 15 February 2013] Figure 5 – Second Generation Balanced Scorecard/Linkage Model Source – Cobbold, I. C. and Lawrie, G. J. G. , 2002. The Development of the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management tool, 2GC Website. Available from: http://www. 2gc. co. uk [Accessed 19 February 2013] Figure 6 – Third Generation Balance Scorecard/Destination StatementAndersen. H. , Effective quality management through third-generation balanced scorecard, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Manageme nt, Available from: http://www. emeraldinsight. com [Accessed 21 February 2013] References Andersen. H. , Effective quality management through third-generation balanced scorecard, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Available from: http://www. emeraldinsight. com [Accessed 21 February 2013] Antunes. G et al. , Process improvement measures in social area organisations: A study in institutions for elderly: survey results, The TQM Journal.Available from: http://www. emeraldinsight. com [Accessed 15 February 2013] Balanced Scorecard Institue, 2013. The Balanced Scorecard & Technology: Strategic Performance Management Automation. U. S. Balanced Scorecard Institute. Available from: http://www. bala ncedscorecard. org/software/balancedscorecardsoftware/tabid/61/default. aspx Balanced Scorecard Institue, 2013. What is the Balanced Scorecard. U. S. Balanced Scorecard Institute. Available from: http://www. balancedscorecard. org/bscresources/aboutthebalancedscore card/ tabid/55/default. aspx Cobbold, I. C. and Lawrie, G. J. G. , 2002.The Development of the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management tool, 2GC Website. Available from: http://www. 2gc. co. uk [Accessed 19 February 2013] Daum, J. H. , Beyond Budgeting: A Model for Performance Management and Controlling in the 21st Century? , Controlling & finance, July 2002. Available from: http://scholar. google. co. uk [Accessed 4 March 2013] Drury, C. , 2008. Management and Cost Accounting. 7th Edition. London: Cengage Learning. IBM, 2013. Balanced Scorecard Software. U. S. IBM. Available From: http://www-01. ibm. com/ software/analytics/cognos/balanced-scorecard-software. tml IBM, 2013. Innovation Center. U. S. IBM. Available From: http://www-01. ibm. com/software/ data/cognos/innovation-center/advisors. html Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. , The balanced scorecard – measures that drive performance, Harvard Business Review, January-February 1992, 71-79. Available from: http://schola r. google. co. uk [Accessed 21 February 2013] Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. , Transforming the Balanced Scorecard from Performance Measurement to Strategic Management: Part 1, American Accounting Association Accounting Horizons, 15 (1), 75-85. Available from: http://scholar. google. co. k [Accessed 23 February 2013] Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. , Using the balanced scorecard as a strategic management system, Harvard Business Review, January-February 1996, 75-85. Available from: http://scholar. google. co. uk [Accessed 23 February 2013] Letza, S. , 1996. The design and implementation of the balanced business scorecard. Business Process Re-engineering & Mangement Journal, 2(3), 54-76. Available from: http://www. emeraldinsight. com [Accessed 15 February 2013] Lloyds Banking Group plc, 2009. Annual Report 2008. United Kingdom: Lloyds Banking Group plc. Available from: http://www. lloydsbankinggroup. om/investors/financial_performance/ company_results. asp#2007 Lloyds Banking Group plc, 2013. Performance Management. United Kingdom. Lloyds Banking Group plc. Available from: http://www. lloydstsb-annualreport. com/businessreview/our_people/ performance_management/ Schneiderman, A. M. , Why Balanced Scorecards Fail, Journal of Strategic Performance, January 1999, 6-11. Available from: http://scholar. google. co. uk [Accessed 6 March 2013] Ward, A. , Implementing the Balanced Scorecard at Lloyds TSB, Strategic HR Review, 4 (3), 16-19. Available from : http://www. emeraldinsight. com [Accessed 28 February 2013]