Greece Crisis - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 1 Words: 238 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2017/09/12 Category Advertising Essay Did you like this example? THE CURRENCY CRISIS IN GREECE Greece Greece is a high developed country, with a high standard of living and with very high human development index. According to the data given by the IMF (International monetary fund) Greece economic ranked 25 th among the world countries and 33 rd in purchasing power parity during the year 2007-2008. The main industries in Greece were Tourism, shipping, food and tobacco processing, textiles, chemicals, metal products, mining and petroleum. In the year 1999 Greece adopted the EURO as its currency. THE CRISIS In 2008, Greece borrowed heavily in international capital markets to fund government budget and current account deficits. This resulted in accumulation of high levels of maturing international debt obligations in the year 2009. The economy of the Greece government decreased rapidly. The government did not take its European membership serious. It just produced falsified budget figures like the actual GDP was 6. 7% the government showed it’s GDP as 12. 6%. It misused the benefits of EU membership by financing the government debt at much lower interest rates. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Greece Crisis" essay for you Create order THE CAUSES FOR THE CRISIS The domestic cause for the Greece crisis were, * High government spending – where the government expenditures increases by 87% the has resulted in only 31%. * Corruption in structural reforms * Tax evasion * Insufficient bureaucracy * Over staffing and poor productivity in the public sector * Rising unemployment The following are some of the international cause for the crisis, * The adoption of Euro * Enforcement of the European members to limit the debt

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray...

Of all the qualities in a hero, the ones that make helping a heroic act are honesty, wisdom, dedication and conviction, which John from Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher and Clarisse from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury portray. John and Clarisse are both honest about everything no matter what anyone says or thinks. They also take the wisdom they gain from their experiences, and use it to create a positive impact on those that they are helping. The level of dedication that John shows is one side of a pole while Clarisse’s level of dedication is on the other. Clarisse puts more conviction into changing perspective, since she does this just by staying true to her opinion. John and Clarisse both show honesty and wisdom in their actions when they†¦show more content†¦I really, thought you were having fun at my expense. Im a fool†¦ Lets talk about something else,’†(Bradbury, 13). Clarisse knows that the subject is making him uncomfortable and is wise enough to apologize and move the subject to something he is comfortable with and happy about. John and Clarisse both take what they learn from their influencing experiences and apply this wisdom into their actions in the process of helping, whether it is protecting or changing perspective of Heidi and Montag. Although Clarisse and John are both honest and wise, they go about helping with extremely different levels of dedication, with John putting complete dedication into saving Heidi from her abusive dad. Because of the same experience of running over a baby, he puts all his dedication into protecting every form of life that he sees from danger and death to make up his sin (Crutcher, 52). So, when trouble comes along for Heidi and she is placed in his house, he puts all his focus on keeping her father away. When Heidi’s dad keeps calling his house even after Heidi’s mom takes her children to see him by violating rules, John immediately drops what he is doing and goes out to record Heidi’s dad breaking the no-contact rule as well as give him a warning that he will definitely give the evidence to the police if he does not stop shadowing his family (Crutcher, 154-155). John takes the time to do what

The Architecture of the One New Change in City of London Free Essays

â€Å"Stealth Fighter† was the ocular inspiration for Atelier Jean Nouvel who invited by Land Securities to a limited competition for the redevelop of the One New Change Site. The site is located in a really critical and historic point in London and in the bosom of the City of London. City of London is a alone country taking London economic sciences by giving work to more than 370. We will write a custom essay sample on The Architecture of the One New Change in City of London or any similar topic only for you Order Now 000 people. The 70 % of the edifice in the City of London are Offices for Financial and Business Services. Although the City is a place of about 10.000 occupants, a acquisition centre of over 29.000 pupils, a national centre, a house for art and cultural heritage but besides a finish for every visitant by giving a high quality of environment through its development. The One New Change’s location is something really sensitive as the site is lied straight face-to-face of the St Paul’s Cathedral. A 1950s Portland rock and ruddy brick building was occupied before the site. The edifice was designed by Victor Heal and was originally constructed for the Bank of England. Although it had been criticized for being out of day of the month and when they asked to go a listed edifice it described as â€Å" the worst provincialism † . Besides a missive to the Times signed by many outstanding art historiographers said that it would do â€Å" a really bad neighbour for the St Paul’s Cathedral † . In 2003 Land Securities the proprietor of the site arranged a competition for the redevelop of the One New Change Site. Atelier Jean Nouvel, which supported by Arup, won this competition and the design of the new undertaking started in serious in 2004. The new design of the One New Change is situated to the E of St Paul ‘s Cathedral and it is bounded by Cheapside to the North, Bread Street to the E, New alteration to the West and Watling Street to the South of the Site. The proposed strategy of the new edifice is a new mixed-use development with retail and offices. The new development design embodies the rules of high quality design, that attract the people to a well-designed and sustainable topographic point where could work and loosen up. A new 6 floors constructing with more than 20 000 m2retail topographic point, stores and associated installations designed at the cellar, land and first floor degrees and with more than 30 000m2floors of offices above up to about 51.80m tallness. Besides on the top eating house, cafe , saloon and unfastened public infinite designed carefully for the roof degree. The new retail stores unfastened seven yearss a hebdomad giving life to the City of London as during the weekend the most of the stores are close. Besides it offers a shelter infinite for the tourers who visit the City of London, as it is located between the St Paul’s Cathedral, Tate modern, the Millennium Bridge, the Barbican and Bank. As the edifice was criticized during the design procedure that a new shopping promenade will construct following to the St Paul’s Cathedral ; Peter Rees the City’s of London main contriver answered that: â€Å"This isn’t a shopping promenade. This is a high street reborn.† He is right as the new design is location among three alive streets in the fireplace of the City of London and the purpose of the designer was to make a assorted community of stores, eating houses, coffeehouse, office workers, shoppers and tourers. The design represents the modern-day metropolis centre where young person, elderly, workers and households could all portion the high quality designs. In 2003 when Land Securities asked from the Atelier of Jean Nouvel to take part in the limited competition for the redevelop of the One New Change some inquiries were critical for the design and development of the site: â€Å" Therebuilding of the block bounded by New Change, Cheapside, Bread and Watling Streets must enrich the full vicinity. There are inquiries to reply: how makewefinish the bing system of shopping streets? How do we construct following to St. Paul’s Cathedral In a manner that pays court and is in duologue? How do we make a roof landscape, worthy of being viewedfromthe Dome, anattractive,sober, roof landscape that is â€Å" initstopographic point † in harmoniousness with the environing rooftops? † The location of the site is so of import as the site is situated merely 60m to the E of the St Paul’s Cathedral so some issues took into history during the construct and develop design. One of the vital and large issue was the â€Å"St Paul’s Heights† and protected position ordinance. The new design respect the ordinances for the â€Å"St Paul’s Heights† and protected position and a new 6 floors constructing about 51.80m height that it is merely the one tierce of the Cathedral tallness, It is proposed and designed carefully for the One New Change Site. â€Å"In response to turning concern that of import positions of the Cathedral would be obscured by the exalted constructions being erected in the vicinity.† The concluding proposed design creates two prosaic back streets in between the new edifice. These prosaic back streets are chiefly associating Cheapside with Watling Street and Bread Street with New Change ; with the New Change being unfastened to the sky. The two back streets meet in the centre of the edifice, making a cardinal point to the dome of the St Paul’s Cathedral. The stores and offices are organized around, where a lift gives to the populace a bird’s-eye entree to the roof through the cardinal atrium that is besides provides natural visible radiation to the office floors. The Atelier of Jean Nouvel had clever used this ordinance of â€Å"St Paul’s Heights† to carve an unfastened public roof patio that gives to the populace wholly new positions of the St Paul’s Cathedral and the City of London. This ordinance is good known to anyone involved with any edifice in the City of London. However, this ordinance is straight related with the demands of â€Å"St Paul’s Depths† as London was an outstation of the Roman Empire and this heritage is protected the resistance. In 1935 the Act3was passed for the protection of the St Paul’s Cathedral, because through the old ages, some amendss had happened to the Cathedral as a consequence of some foundation motions from different beginnings. This was statute law in relation to deep basis with the â€Å"St Paul’s Depths† to protect and safe the cloth of the Cathedral from farther amendss. The One New Change needs to follow the ordinances of the â€Å"St Paul’s Depths† as is located merely 60m E of the St Paul’s Cathedral, but when the building phase started the site was founded in shallow foundations. The cellar of the new design had to widen down to the London Clay encroached the statute law and the Act3about the â€Å"St Paul’s Depths† . It was the first clip where the diggings in such deep proposed with in the country. So it was truly of import from the design squad and the client to proof that no harm will do to the Cathedral after the completion of the diggings will hold the minimum consequence to the Cathedral’s foundation. After a batch of observations and surveies one of the cardinal inquiries was if there would be any alteration in the groundwater government at the Cathedral’s foundations. So a batch of appraisals and studies of land motion during the diggings and motion monitories took topographic point and eventually they proofed that no effects will happened to the Cathedral’s foundation. However in the phase of the developed design a missive from the Prince of Wales to the Land Securities about the design of the new proposed edifice created a batch of treatments for the design and the stuffs, that the designer chosen for the edifice. The Prince made clear to the client that the Atelier Jean Nouvel approached wrong the site and he called for an alternate house to take over the sensitive site paces of the St Paul’s Cathedral. The reply from the designer Jean Nouvel was that: â€Å"What you regulate is what you get.† How to cite The Architecture of the One New Change in City of London, Essay examples

How important is the theme of conflict in the play of Romeo and Juliet Essay Example For Students

How important is the theme of conflict in the play of Romeo and Juliet? Essay The play Romeo and Juliet is based on a love-hate theme which forms an ideal setting for intriguing and violent conflicts. Conflicts have wider ramification in personal, political, community and social lives. As this pertains to our lives the audience try to find similarities and follow the unravelling of consummate interest. Many successful dramas like Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, and Where Eagles Dare, etc. use conflict as the main theme. Conflict is important in Romeo and Juliet because it makes their relationship exceptionally special and establishes victory of love over hate. The story revolves around conflicts between two feuding families, The Capulet and The Montague. The skirmishes lead to unwanted killing of Tybalt by the hands of Romeo, which made him a sworn enemy of the Capulet. This hatred and enmity becomes deeply rooted and entwined as the story unfolds. In the follow up I am going to discuss the conflict in the Prologue, Act I Scene I and Act III Scene V. The prologue in Romeo and Juliet is an introductory speech in a sonnet form calling for the attention of the audience to the theme of the play. Written mainly for the theme of love, sonnet form is best for this play. It also precedes the first act of the play. The sonnet is a form of poetry written in blank verse which contains ten syllables called the Iambic pentameter. Each verse allowed the actors to give their own rhythm and find their own interpretation of the meaning. Prologues were often used to give an outline of a plot because in Shakespeares day and age the vast majority of the audience were illiterate and reactive who would spoil a play if they failed to understand it. So the prologue built them up for a good story which they could understand better and be excited for. Although the modern audiences might find it contrary to their interest if a prologue gives away the ending of a story. The idea of conflict occurs in the prologue. The quotation From ancient grudge breaks to new mutiny refers to a long-standing ill-feeling and grudge between two families which leads to new conflicts and confrontations. It relates to fresh outbreak of fights that resulted in death to members from both families. It mentions Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean meaning two families of good standing and equal status engage in heinous brawls and fights. They drag their reputations through the mud. Then the prologue mentions about the climax of the play saying A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. This quote refers to the ill-fated children Romeo and Juliet from the two feuding families who become lovers and chain of unfortunate events lead there to commit suicide. This draws a tragic end to the play. Do with the death bury their parents strife tells the audience how the unfortunate and sad death of Romeo and Juliet brought an end to their parents quarrels. The shadow of painful early demise of their children left the two families so aggrieved and confounded that they were able to overcome their differences. They came to their senses and realisation that it was pointless and insensible to hate and fight each other. Finally near the end of the prologue the quotation And the continuance of their parents rage emphasises the long drawn out anger and rage of the elders from the two families. However prolong and intense this rivalry and hatred was, it was finally defeated by the overwhelming power of love shown by Romeo and Juliet. Through sacrificing their lives managed to put an end to the continuance of their parents anger. The prologue relates to the audience, the main theme and events that will unfold in the play. It generates interest and curiosity in the audience by creating contrasting views between the beautiful city of Verona and the violence that erupts between two long-standing feuding families. This mood gets poignant when the pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. Initially the mood of audience is of excitement and expectation on hoping to see the affluence of a beautiful city and its people. In the middle past the mood is one of suspense, thrill and confusion as they are told of violence and blood bath. At the end of the play the mood is sombre and melancholic when the tragic death of Romeo and Juliet happen. The tone in the prologue gets across the contrasting message of the play loud and clear to the audience. Initially the tone is flamboyant praising the beauty of Verona and the dignity of its people. Then the tone gets cynical describing the evilness of hatred and this lowness of violence. In the end the tone is poignant and sombre when it talks about the tragic death of the star crossed lovers. As a whole the prologue succeeds in creating of feeling of love, distrust, hate, suspense and ambivalence among the audience. Conflict structures the play. It forms the set and platform on which all the character and story builds up. Act I Scene I opens with a brawl on the streets of Verona between servants from different Montage and Capulet households. The props such as colourful flowers and a beautiful background of the city of Verona contrasting with what is actually taking place. The audience expect to see the male characters from the two feuding families enter the stage and engage in conflict and skirmishes resulting in fatalities. The families clad in colourful dresses as they belong to dignified families. Actors representing the members of the two families could enter from either side of the stage, emplacing the differences in their relationship. Only male actors would be expected to fight because of their dominancy. It was considered improper for woman to even raise their voices in public at that time. Female role were also played by male actors in female makeup and attires. Romeo And Juliet - Chain Of Human Actions EssayJuliet is lamenting Romeos departure but tells mother she is unwell. Madam, I am not well. Her mother misunderstands and thinks that Juliet is sad over the death of Tybalt. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss. Juliet is weeping because she is experiencing the loss of touching Romeo. Well girl, thou weepst not so much for his death. As that the villain lives which slaughtered him. Lady Capulet is aimed on taking revenge and assumes Juliet feels the same way. Though Juliet says to herself, Villain and he be many miles asunder, then says to her mother, God pardon him I do with all my heart, And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart. Juliet meant that Romeo is far from being a villain. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands; Would come but I might revenge my cousins death!. Lady Capulet thinks Juliet would kill Romeo herself. Lady Capulet says she will send a person to Romeo with a bottle of poison that would kill him. Indeed, I shall never be satisfied. With Romeo, till I behold him -dead-, Is my poor heart for a kinsman vexed. Juliet says she would temper it (replace poison with a something to put Romeo to a light sleep). She is told that on coming Thursday that Paris will wed her at St. Peters Church. Juliet says Now by Saint Peters Church and Peter too. He shall not make me there a joyful bride. She could not imagine marrying anyone other than Romeo. Capulet enters the scene feeling sympathy for Juliets grieving, supposedly over Tybalt. In order to ease Juliets sorrow he arranges for her to marry Paris and when faced with Juliet outright rejection a new conflict over disagreement arises. Juliet pretends to go along with the advice but will also go to Friar Laurence for help. If he cannot do so she will commit suicide. Before Capulet begins the conflict between himself and Juliet he thinks that Juliet is crying over Tybalts death. Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have. Proud can I never be of what I hate. But thankful even for hate, that is meant love. Juliet means that she cannot be proud to be Paris wife and she is thankful to her father for arranging the wedding with good intentions. How, how, how, how, choppd logic! What is this? Proud, and I thank you, and I thank you not. And yet not proud. Mistress minion, you, Thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds. Capulet orders her to fettle your fine joints against Thursday next, To go with Paris to Saint Peters Church, Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. Fettle is like telling an animal to prepare. Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage! You tallow-face! He tells her go away, Green-sickness carrion saying she looks as green as mould when dead, she is useless and has the sickness that comes from being a girl, not a married woman. Her father tells her not to speak otherwise that will give him a reason to slap her. Speak not, reply not, do not answer me. My fingers itch. An you be mine, Ill give you to my friend. And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets if she is his daughter, marry Paris and if she refuses, she is not his daughter and that he wouldnt care the least about her. Capulets sudden eruption from concerned Juliets father into someone who didnt care the least about her shows his unkind and vile behaviours which Shakespeare uses as one of the strings to hold the ancient fued. As of this Juliet status and domination in the situation is no comparison to Capulets and so her voice is not heard during the conflicting argument. This also explains why as the Nurse and Lady Capulet defend on Juliets behalf their views were not taken into account. Western society no longer categorises fixed or arranged marriages as a norm. It accounts on mainly culture and belief in todays day and age. A girl in Juliets situation now would flee though in Shakespeares day that was not an option. So Juliet has to ask the Nurse for advice and help which would different for a modern audience. From what modern society does hold about arranged marriages is the desperateness of the girl in the situation when the marriage is not accepted and the talk of self-harm and even suicide comes to play. This would not be that different to watch for a modern audience. In Act III Scene IV the conflict is also developed by the actors every move. Directing the scene would involve make every move of the characters the right one. Tone, volume and language would play a part if conducted correctly. The language, tone and volume of high-status characters (such as Capulet) are very rhythmic, clear and his use of poetic language all characterise him. He would be seen towering over Juliet, Lady Capulet and the Nurse to show just the reign over status. The Nurse, very different in a status match against Capulet, would likely to have a murmured speech and would be out of the way in most conversation. Juliet may be on her knees or sat down uncomfortably when the conflict with her father begins. Lady Capulet and female characters in general are lower to the ground to further emphasise this. To the end, a Romeo and Juliet act without the conflict discussed has no story. Love has the foundation which conquers all literally. The play would still appeal to a modern audience as it has the element of both comparison and surprise, which will always make this love-hate story a truly special one. Show preview only

Examples of Punctuality in the Workplace

Rainforest Biomes essays

Rainforest Biomes essays Tropical rainforests cover about 6% of the Earth's total land surface. They are mainly located around the belt at the equator. The climate of the rainforest is warm most of the year and has a lot of rain through most of the year. The climate is perfect for animals and plant growth. Even though the rainforests cover such a little amount of land mass of the Earth, they are home to the largest number of plant and animal species in such a concentrated area. Scientists believe that the tropical rainforests of the world might hold up to ninety percent of the plant and animal species on earth. The Amazon River drains the world's largest tropical rainforest, the Amazon. It is thought to have about 3000 species of fish, more than are contained in the entire North Atlantic. It is estimated that a typical patch of rainforest just six kilometers square contains as many as 1500 species of flowering plants, 750 species of tree, 400 species of bird, 150 species of butterfly, 100 species of reptile, and 60 species of amphibian. There are so many insects that scientists can only estimate that, every two and a half acres may contain as many as 42,000 species. Tropical rainforests cover about six percent of the Earth's total land surface area. They are mainly located around the belt at the equator, in the Amazon basin in South America, the Congo basin and other lowland regions in Africa, and they are both on the mainland and the islands off of Southeast Asia. They are especially abundant on Sumatra and New Guinea. Small areas are also found in Central America and along the Queens land coast of Australia. The tropical rainforests climate is very warm, it has an average annual temperature of greater than 20 degrees Celsius. They also have very little seasonal variation in temperature or day length, which is very favorable for plant growth. The tropical rainforest's temperature ranges from 20 to 25 degrees Celsius and they have more than 250 c...

The debts deal's failure by Fareed Zakaria Essay

The debts deal's failure by Fareed Zakaria - Essay Example The paper tells that one must note before reading the aforementioned article that Mr. Fareed Zakaria is not your run of the mill reporter, observer, or opinion columnist. He is a highly regarded member of the journalistic field whose credentials include being the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria, editor at large of Time Magazine, an all too important columnist of The Washington Post, and author of such famous works as The Post American World and The Future of Freedom. Mr. Zakaria started off his argumentative essay by presenting the facts as he knew them to be true to his readers. The information that he presented, about the filibustering in the legislative house and the constant bickering between the Republican and Democratic parties on the floor was information that could easily be gleaned from reading the newspapers or watching the daily news shows. The information that our debt ceiling was being held hostage by politics was something that came as surprisingly new for most of us. Main ly because we had always been used to seeing these two parties managing to find some middle ground within which to work from for the benefit of many. Sadly, it seems that the era of old, open communication, and amicable settlement politics is now an era of the past. These days, our national politics is, according to Zakaria has become a world wide failure because we can no longer make our political system work for ourselves. He continues to explain how our debt crisis would have been solved during the time of Reagan, Clinton and other previous American leaders: This is how Congress used to work: grand bipartisan bargains to solve difficult problems with compromises by both sides. This is not nostalgia. It is how the system worked in the 1980s and '90s to save Social Security, reform the tax code, rationalize immigration policy and close hundreds of military bases. (Zakaria, Fareed, The Debt Deal's Failure) Mr. Fareed does his utmost best within the article in order to present even t he most complicated of economic discussions in terms that lay people such are ourselves can easily understand. He has a grasp of the current economic situation that allows him to present a highly readable and focused piece that in the end, allows the reader to contemplate the reality of our economic situation locally and its effects on our nation worldwide. That is not an easy task for somebody as highly educated as Mr. Fareed and yet he manages to pull it off with each written paragraph in his commentary. He does not try to sway his reader towards one politicial inclination or another, he merely provides all of the information that he has on hand to help his reader come to certain conclusions on his own. The Debt Deal's Failure (Zakaria, Time Magazine) does its best to present an unbiased opinion on the topic. It however, fails dismally in that aspect because Mr. Zakaria makes it very clear from the get go that he is a firm believer in the economic programs of the Democrats and tha t the Republicans should be viewed as the bad guys who ran our economy into the ground. He often does argumentative analysis of the performance of the presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and finally Barack Obama in relation to increasing our countries debt woes. I find it quite disturbing that he was able to present factual data on the spending and borrowing for the Republican presidents but then failed to do the same for the Democrat president. It is highly impossible that our debt managed to balloon into the

Indigenous Australians Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Indigenous Australians - Essay Example The constitution grants the rights to all citizens and it is designed to ensure that that equality and equity prevail among all citizens regardless of race disparities. However, it has been realised that the indigenous Australians have been sidelined in the country’s constitution on the basis of racial bias. As such, it has been realized that there is need to achieve full inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution. This can be done through removing the notions of racial bias towards the indigenous people while at the same time recognising their heritage, culture as well as language. On the other hand, it can be noted that Langton (2008) states that people are still disillusioned by the widely held perceptions they have about the aborigines who are often viewed as backward and primitive. In many people’s minds, the indigenous Australians are not equal to other people as a result of their backwardness. Constitutionally, the indigenous people have often been viewed as second class citizens while they are the original people in Australia. This view is also supported by Behrendt (2010) who argues that the constitutional gap between haves and have notes (Indigenous people) is wide hence concerted measures should be taken in order to bridge it. This is mainly as a result of inequality that was created when the Australian constitution was adopted. Poverty is high in reservations which are often home to indigenous people since they are structured in such a way that discourages investment. As noted by Kristof (2012), the level of poverty in reservations like the sprawling Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is high and this can be attributed to factors such as lack of education and alcohol abuse and dysfunctional families. This situation is also resembles the case of indigenous Australians, the aborigines who for a long period of time have been

'The Human Aspects of Project Management and its Influence on Project Essay

'The Human Aspects of Project Management and its Influence on Project Performance' - Essay Example A project can best be understood as a one time undertaking or endeavor in response to a need. But although a project begins as a response to a need, the manner in which it evolves is not always disciplined, due to its human elements that leave scope for errors to occur (Heerkens, 2003). According to LaBrosse (2007), projects are short term efforts that are undertaken in order to meet the strategic objectives of the organization. But in managing a project effectively, human elements are the most diverse and complex elements that must be managed. There are various human interfaces that may form part of a project, such as the project manager, project team members and stakeholders. (Rao, No date). A project team may comprise members drawn from various cross sections of society, belonging to different ethnic groups and with different temperaments and skill levels. The difficulties in successful implementation of a project may be increased when these different human elements are unable to coordinate together effectively, which in turn can impact negatively upon the progress of the project.(Rao, no date). Heerkens(2003) has set out four ways to measure the degree of success in executing a project (a) meeting project targets in terms of cost, quality and functionality (b) project efficiency or how well the project was managed (c) user utility or the extent to which the project addressed the need that gave rise to the project and (d) whether there was improvement in the organization as a result of the project? He points out that in all of these four aspects, the human elements impact significantly on the degree to which the project is successful. For instance, the achievement of the project targets will depend upon how well the project manager executed what was expected. LaBrosse (2007) points out human elements can impact upon the speed of completion of the

Changes to the Role of the Management Accountant

Changes to the Role of the Management Accountant Using appropriate academic literature, critically evaluate the argument that the role of the management accountant has changed in recent years from traditional accounting functions to that of a strategic planner and a business partner. Introduction When it comes to the change of management accounting or management accountant, several researchers and scholars have stated the similar view that people cannot describe the management accountants as the bean counter, the scorekeeper or the corporate cop in the contemporary age, their new role are performed as a strategic planner and a business partner within the organization. (Anastas, 1997; Bromwich, 1990; Burns et al., 1999; Byrne and Pierce, 2007; Johnson, Kaplan , 1987; Roslender and Hart, 2002) This essay is aiming to find out how the bean counter, the scorekeeper and the corporate cop become to the internal consultant, the strategic planner as a business partner. Before the main body of this essay, the writer makes a hypothesis that there is an inference procedure that causing the change of the management accountants role. It is widely appreciated that the business environment has greatly changed in the recent years. Thus that the traditional management accounting is not suitab le for the contemporary business, a new management accounting system was generated. Following that there are many new management accounting techniques are required, it directly change the task of management accountants. Finally all these process have caused the change of the role of the management accountant. In the following parts of this essay, the writer will analyze all the parts of this process respectively refer to the other scholars research findings, this is for examine and certify the hypothesis in the last paragraph. The changing business environment It is not deniable that the business environment has already dramatically changed during the last decades, which is toward a more competitive orientation. It includes many external and internal factors. In the general economic area, the globalization is integrating the world into a global market. It could lead it to an increasing competition. Companies have to pay more and more attention on the customer and market orientation. The development of technology is another factor both in the information system and the methods of production with the widespread use of enterprise resource planning systems (ERP). The change of organizational management structure could affect the business as an internal factor.(Burns et al., 1999) The development of digitisation could also change the business environment, for example e-mail has already replaced the traditional postage and fax to a great extent, which is benefit from the wide spread of the internet. It could reduce the cost and enhance the compa nies efficiency. The new technology could also be applied to the monitoring performance area. For instance, factories could profit from the use of beepers and mobile phones to monitor workers performance, while restaurants could benefit from the use of beepers in their operating system.(Zimmerman, 2009) There are also many other elements could cause the market condition changing, such as the commencement of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) could decrease companies cost among Mexico, Canada and the United States. American and Canadian companies may set their factories in Mexico for the lower labour cost. The same situations have also emerged in China, Vietnam and some other developing countries.(Zimmerman, 2009) The new business environment also bring a huge revolution in the other fields, for example the demand of more quality control, customer-focused, the intellectual capital, automation, increasing overheads, decreasing direct labour cost and more emphasis on envir onmental and external issues. The drawbacks of traditional management accounting The traditional management accounting was driven by the external financial requirements but not the internal or actual need. For instance, it fails to compare the cost with the competitors, which is a fatal factor in the business competition. Tends to be too technical Many accountants focus on their contribution only in the financial numbers, but ignore the other useful information which the users may require. (Pierce and ODea, 2003) Most companies still use single overhead allocation base Time Limitation Pierce and ODea (2003) found that most managers complained that the traditional information system cannot provide timeliness information to the users. For example, some managers reflected that even though the financial information could cover almost all they needed, but they cannot use it timely cause the information lag. It could extremely influence their decision making process. Mainly focus on the internal performance of the organization but ignoring the other activities, such as external and social issues. Paying too much attention on the manufacturing but neglecting the high cost post-conversion activities. The change of management accounting A UK research project claimed that management accounting had not changed over six decades in Britain. (Burns et al., 1999) Despite there are some substantial improvement in the technological and environmental areas.(Johnson, Kaplan , 1987) Several studies revealed that the traditional management accounting system and techniques were still valuable and some new management accounting techniques were not widely used as expectation, such as activity-based costing (ABC) and strategic management accounting. (Burns et al., 1999) However, the advancement of information technology could enhance the management accounting into a higher level, which means that managers could have a direct and real time access to the information instead of waiting for the accountants sort it out.(Burns et al., 1999) It could make managers conducting the accountants task by themselves, for instance budgeting, analyze and calculation. (Burns et al., 1999) This change has brought a more significant effect on forecasting rather than budgeting.(Hope and Fraser, 1997) This means that managers could forecast by themselves, while budgeting was accountants traditional work. The commercial orientated gave the British managers a further view on the potential factors which could making profit in a long term.(Burns et al., 1999) It could be considered in the management strategy and interpreting by the non-financial terms.(Burns and Scapens, 1997) It implied that financial information could only provide limited picture, not the whole. Thus there are two possible solutions. The first one is that some new techniques could be used by management accountants to provide a comprehensive view, such as ABC system. Alternatively, the financial information could be kept in a simple way but could be interpreted in the wider background.(Burns et al., 1999) Based on the previous analysis, the form of management accounting has been changed, but there is no huge difference on the management accounting techniques. Strategic Management Accounting The strategic management accounting has already introduced in the accounting literature more than ten years. (Berverley R, 1996)It is defined as The provision and analysis of financial information on the firms product markets and competitors cost and cost structures and the monitoring of the enterprises strategies and those of its competitors in these markets over a number of periods (Bromwich, 1990) The Charted Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) also defined it as A form of management accounting which emphasis is placed on information which relates to factors external to the firm, as well as non-financial information and internally generated information. The majority of literature in the United Kingdom stress that the strategic management accounting extends the traditional management accounting from internal factors to the external competitors information.(Berverley R, 1996)Comparing with the traditional management accounting, it has more external, forward-looking and longer -term orientated and the strategically driven.(Roslender and Hart, 2002) There are three main characteristics of the strategic management accounting were summarized, which are the collection of competitor information, exploitation of cost reduction opportunities and the matching of accounting emphasis with strategic position.(Berverley R, 1996) Some scholars describe the strategic management accounting as a specific form of approach to the provision of accounting information to management'(Roslender and Hart, 2002) The new requirements to management accountants As the previous analysis, the traditional management accounting techniques is still essential skills that management accountants should grasp. However, in the contemporary age, there are several new tasks that management accountants should perform. Before 1980s, the majority of the managers expected the management accountants roles performed as a service staff who can provide the satisfying such managers information.(Hopper, 1980) The requirements to management accountants are not only about becoming an expert in the financial matters, but also having a broad view in business and good teamwork capability with their collegues.(Burns et al., 1999) Pierce and Bernard (2003) have concluded that the management accountants should have the knowledge and skills in three domains. Firstly, they have to be the master of the essential technical knowledge which could make them have the ability to modify information. Secondly, they also need to learn the other business knowledge, such as IT, marketing. Lastly, a well developed interpersonal relationship skills is necessary by the reason that the accountants have increasing number of cooperation with other staff within the organization. Anastas (1997) has also stated that management accountan ts have to handle the new information technology software, achieving an average understanding of the business and fluently express their idea both in writing and speaking in order to interact with their colleagues. Anastas (1997) stressed that to achieve the success in the role of internal consultants; management accountants must improve their interpersonal skills and the knowledge of productivity and administration. The strategic management accounting provides management accountants an opportunity to get a position in the decision making team.(Roslender and Hart, 2002) The strategic management accounting requires management accountants having techniques, such as competitor position analysis, target costing and life cycle costing.(Roslender and Hart, 2002) The role of the management accountant in organisations Management accountants role in an organization has been considerably changed in recent years.(Anastas, 1997; Burns et al., 1999; Byrne and Pierce, 2007; Johnson, Kaplan , 1987; Pierce and ODea, 2003; Zimmerman, 2009) Several literature have stated the same views. In the past, when people were thinking of management accountant, they always associated it with some words, such as the scorekeepers, the bean counters and the corporate cops.(Byrne and Pierce, 2007; Zimmerman, 2009) This is because management accountants were not the decision-makers or decision participants; they always played the role as assistants or financial information providers to the real or actual managers in the decision making process. But in 1999, the situation has changed. Increasing managerial accountants began to help their companies to analyze the business as an interior consultant. With the development of the technology, they do not need to use the majority of their working time for preparing the financial r eports. They therefore have more and more time to explain or translate the accounting information to the people who need to use these within the organization as a member of the decision making team. Siegel (1999) remarked that the role of management accountants has evolved from serving internal customers into being a business partner. Some accountants even changed their title from corporate controllers to business analysts (Burns et al., 1999) A key role of the management accountant is that interpreting the financial information to a more readily comprehensible perception to the internal and external users.(Burns et al., 1999) As it was depicted Information technology is pushing management accountants and financial managers up the ladder as they become advisors or internal consultants to other manager in the company who have access to software manage cost and budgets.(Anastas, 1997) Pierce and ODea (2003) have interviewed many managers with an opened question that sharing their views of the future role of the management accountants. Their responses were highly consistent that management accountants role will be the business partner. Management accountants should interact with management within several aspects, including the raise of their physical location, the requirement of their team work capability and the understanding of business. There will be fewer management accountants but they will be at the higher level of management in the organization as a member of the cross-functional team share their view in the decision making process.(Anastas, 1997) The evolution of the information technology liberated management accountants from the bean counter, corporate cop to a higher level role internal consultant or strategist who make the recommendation to guide the decision making process (Anastas, 1997) CONCLUSION The analysis in the main body reflects the consistency with the hypothesis in the introduction section, but not completely same. To start with, the business environment is changing as the assumption. The business environment is changed to a more competitive, customer-oriented due to the globalization, digitisation and some other changed business conditions. In addition the writer analyzes the disadvantages of the traditional management accounting, which is not applicable for the present system and fulfil the requirements in the new business environment. Following that the analysis of the change of the management accounting shows that although there is a new business environment, but the basic management accounting techniques is still required, it is still necessary. But due to the development of the business, the requirements of the management accountants are not only demand the accountants have the traditional and basic management accounting techniques, but also some new task of the understanding of knowledge in the other business area and a good interpersonal skills for the increasing teamwork opportunities. Hence, the role of the management accountants has been changed from the financial information provider (the basic role) to the internal consultant in the organizations as a business partner. The strategic management accounting system could provide management accountants a higher level to perform their new role to satisfy the new requirements. As Burns (1999) founded that although the role of the management accountants is changed, but they still have to use the traditional management accounting system, some people called it antique.

Existence Of God :: essays research papers

Existence of God   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The truth behind the existence of god. As a flesh and blood we seem to aspire to be ultitmley immortal, we have created stories guidelines ways in which we our able to become immortal. Christins call it jesus others call it alla or buddua. Does this make one better then the other or is just a set of rules that we all follow just so mankind can prosper. Is faith a trait that is leared or is it a proptey that we our all born with the ability to belive.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The questions we have this is a trait the abilitty to reason is a trait, but what scares us so terribly bad is whaen we cant answer a question. We study we learn but the idea that many of us have not leared is that faith is not imortality or heaven or hell but our faith in ourselves and faith in our fellow man.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What scares me so bad is the fact that many people hide in this world of god. God is what created us what made us it is what we must ultitmley answer to. We answer as not flesh and blood but as a spirit we choose long before our mortal body goes where we go. We leave behind our bodys and enter into a realm to which we cannot comphrend. Our minds well never allow us to comprhend immortality but our souls can that is faith.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This faith belongs to no clan of self righteous humn being that think that becuse there rules that they follow our better then another. Se the truth is god does not have a check list of whos good and whos bad but rather he make the decision we have morals or as some calit a concous. This world is about the first stepping stone that we take this is a test can you live in an imperfect world and handle without cheating your fellow man. This is faith in yourself this life.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  God gave us life it is our choice wether we use it to its follow view or we cash in early and take the easy way out. Is a gamble much like a stock in a company we own our own stock we have a value this is a value that we place. The question that you must ask yourself what value is yours. Our you a sellout our you willing to give up everything you have for an easy buck or our you willing to ride the rollercoaster of life following it rules so you can exsisit.

Pre and Post M&a Performance in Accounting Ratio Essay

There are loads of tools to measure the performance of a financial performance of an entity but financial ratios is probably the best known tool which is mainly to analyze the performance of an entity by comparing the present to the past relative figures taken or composed from the financial statement . The few categories of ratios are liquidity ratios, profitability ratios, efficiency ratios, debt ratios and market ratios which will be able to describe the entity’s characteristics. Ratios show the true performance and position of the entity. In order for investors to determine their choices of entity to invest in, financial ratios play an important role in providing sufficient information to users about the entity’s characteristic. We predict that companies are performing better after merger and acquisition and there will be an increase in profit of companies pre merger and acquisition compare to post merger and acquisition activities. However, the global merger and acquisition (M&A) market is expected to experience a modest increase this year following significant revisions in earnings expectation for 2009. Studies relatively prove that ratios are important but which ratios, among the loads of ratios which can be computed easily from the available financial statement, should be used to analyze to obtain a wise decision (Kung & Thomas, 1981); (Maretno & Howard, 1996). Problem statement Accounting ratios usage in merger & acquisition are not understood very well as to whether companies or investors are using accounting ratios to analyze performance pre and post decision making for M&A. Therefore, this study will try to find out as to whether merger and acquisition activities are caused by the use of accounting ratio when management tries to expand a company’s operation. Accounting ratios is wide in variety and is known for its diversities in calculating different ratios, which makes selecting the right ratio to do analysis on is difficult. Every company when making merger and acquisition decisions will have to go through different decision making process in their organization and not based solely on accounting ratios when taking actions. Things such as relationship of merging companies, financing matter or management efficiency are often overlooked in previous studies, therefore, apart from addressing the use of accounting ratio in making merger and acquisiti on, we will also address on other matters that are affecting merger and acquisition decision making. Companies that have made merger and acquisition in the few years will be analyzed whether merger and acquisition has benefitted the company. This analysis will have to be based on companies that have made merger and acquisition for few years so that analysis could be made to ascertain whether merger and acquisition has improved the company’s performance. The data that is collected could be redundant as the data collected could only be analyzed from the past. Apart from that, companies that are engaged in merger and acquisition will tend to keep their methods in acquiring companies as a secret; therefore, there is no information that will be disclosed to us when we are doing research. We will only be able to get information based on announcement on the Bursa Saham Malaysia and also annual report analysis on the companies that we will base our study on. Based solely on the annual report, we will have to analyze companies that have been engaged in merger and acquisition is perfor ming better as a company before merger and acquisition or after merger and acquisition. Studies that have addressed the problem Several past studies have shown several findings. There were significant improvements in the liquidity, leverage and profitability position of most studied companies. Normally, total assets consist of equity, debt and retained earnings to finance the corporation. In the study, it was found that total assets were always less than the debt plus equity for pre acquisition period, but after acquisition, it is positive. All the units selected for the study were sick, but after takeover five out of eight revived (Rao & Sanker, 1997). The acquiring firms had performed above the industry average and the acquired firms were below the industry average in term of size and profitability (Cosh et al., 1998). The firms recorded meaningful increase in their net earnings, and those with the successful merger of the firms, the return on capital employed and return on total assets, increased substantially with a significant percentage. The variability in the earnings (risk) of the pre-merger firms was significantly higher than that of post-merger firms (Agundu & Karibo, 1999). Pilloff (1996) finds no significant change in post merger ROE, however, when he utilizes operating income before provision instead of net income to calculate ROE, there is a significant increase in post-merger returns. Deficiencies in studies Unfortunately, most studies do not distinguish between healthy and troubled companies due to the relative scarcity of outright failures as an indicator of the latter. Data are not readily available to every person and critical data is only available to top level management, which causes analysis on company performance not accurate. Accounting ratios usage in studies are not standardized for number of ratios used and types of ratios used, making comparisons of this study to previous studies almost impossible. Some of the studies only find out accounting ratio performance before and after merger and acquisition, but they did not take into account the management performance improvement. Importance of the study Basically, the compelling reason for merger and acquisition is to make more money. This study analyses the pre and post performance in accounting ratio of various entities in Malaysia which involved in merger and acquisition. Therefore, it seeks to contribute to entities which look forward to expand their businesses by merging and acquiring entities in order to broaden their sources and to increase their performance as well as position of the entity. This study also justifies the importance of financial ratios as a tool in decision making for most users to merge and acquire entities. Besides that, this study further proves that financial ratios could be used to speculate and estimate the future of the entity’s development and growth by developing ratio values to be compared with the normal or regular value. Furthermore, the global merger and acquisition market is expected to experience a modest increase this year following significant revisions in earnings expectation for 2009. According to KPMG International’s Global merger and acquisition Predictor, modest increases are expected in both deal-making appetite and capacity globally. Therefore, it is hoped that the result of this study is valuable to entities for the purpose of merging and acquiring. Purpose statement The purpose of this study is to determine whether financial ratios contribute to the decision in merging and acquiring another entity. For this purpose, we analyze the performance of the entity before and after merging or acquisition of the holding or parent entity across industries to identify the status of the performance and position of the entity currently. We would have to identify the entity’s characteristics in terms of their operating and accounting performance by comparing to their values before the merger and acquisition. In our analysis, we also focus on the use financial ratios as a mechanism to compare the pre and post-acquisition performance. Furthermore, we also use financial ratio to predict the performance of the acquired entity as well as the growth of the entity. Organization of the study The rest of the research is organized into chapters as follows. Chapter 2 review about the literature regarding the accounting ratio performance before and after merger and acquisition would be provided. The topic and the arguments from researchers will be discussed. Justification of the research objectives would be provided with all the relevant literatures. Chapter 3 describes and provides detailed explanation on the method used in collecting the relevant data, the desired sample design, appropriate methodology employed in this study and also the data analysis method. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.0 Introduction In this chapter, further discussion on the topic will be done based on prior empirical studies and a derivation of hypothesis will be done. To be able to evaluate the post and pre merger and acquisition deal by companies in Malaysia, a concept is to be conceived with prior literature that is related to the performance of firms that has been acquiring other firms. 2.1 Theory/Concept Foundation Shareholders of a corporation that is involved in Merger & Acquisition activity would like to see their value of stock in the acquiring corporation to rise post-M&A compared to pre-M&A. Therefore, it is important that an M&A transaction done with the shareholders in mind, this theory of maximizing shareholder value is fairly new as it is introduced by William Lazonick and Mary O’Sullivan in year 2000. Shareholder value should be used regularly when decisions are made to be able to regulate how a company operates for the sake of the shareholders. For a shareholder to have his value increased, all the activities from the factory workers to top level management should work together to find the best way to increase the value of the company. To increase shareholder value, restructuring of companies are needed to be able to sustain the changing economic climate according to time development. Evaluation of companies performance will be done to ensure shareholders value do increase po st-M&A. From the theory we could derive that performance of a company depends on the value that they would like to preserve for their shareholders. For every shareholder that would like to expand the company operation and size, they will have to be able to provide funds for the company in the form of investment. Apart from that, trend evolution plays a part in a merging or acquisition decision. An acquirer may look at the performance of the company that they are trying to takeover. The acquirers look at the financial feasibility of acquiring the company on the share price and value for money. If a value is low, they will be able to takeover the company at a lower price. And it is known that M&A deals are done so that a company could expand into a new market segment or improve their current segment. Apart from that, it should be noted that there are several types of mergers and acquisition. It should be noted that firms that are acquiring are larger if not significantly larger than the acquired firms. 2.2 Review of Prior Empirical Studies Life cycle of a firm will accelerate the need for M&A deals as firms grew older, they could be expanding their size and because of this, and M&A will be done to be able to involve themselves into different segments of businesses. According to (Sian Owen & Alfred Yawson, 2008), they propose that in certain life cycle of a company, they will engage in some kind of M&A activities. This is because there is a need to grow their company or to decrease the involvement of the owner by giving up the power of the company to another firm. Therefore, it should be noted that companies will go through M&A at different life cycle to develop their performance even further or simply to pull out of the company ownership. The data that they use to examine this is based in the US, therefore, it may be not practical to be used here, but this is an opportunity for us to examine the life cycle factor in the pre and post M&A performance figure. The main objective for merger and acquisition activities is to increase the return of the equity shareholders who are considered real owners of the company. Shareholders are also takes the responsibilities to bear maximum risk of the company. Different impact (positive, negative and mix) either success or failure will occur for different M&A deals. Since we cannot make any conclusion based on only one ratio. So, different ratio are using in this article to measure the company performance in term of liquidity position, operating efficiency, overall efficiency, return to equity shareholders and financial composition. By looking at single ratio, it is hard for researcher to determine whether acquirer company success or failure to make M&A deals? Because a high rate of return showed on acquiree company such as consulting firms doesn’t means they make a good investments, since they require no assets. There are more than half of the 74 merger and acquisition cases showed an improvement in the financial performance in post time period of this article. However, 15% out of these cases had increase their working capital and debt to equity, which means that the company suffer long term financial burden of current assets and long terms funds which use to finance current assets. Small sample size was used by this researcher. Although there are 200 deals of M&A in India but only 74 companies can provide the available financial data which require by researcher. So, there was reliable issue of this research outcome. Except ratio, there are many issues must be takes into consideration by making M&A decision such as by predicting future prospects, company past performance, law and regulations of the country which can help to reach a better conclusion. So researcher can’t make exact and absolute conclusion by only interpret financial ratio of company (Kumar and Bansal, 2008). Those are significant difference between merger and acquisition. Misleading conclusions may be made by those researchers who combined these two different terms. Acquisitions is a more successful way to bring positive effects to the company compared with mergers in term of generate greater profitability, return on investment or equity, increased in operating performance, etc. This might due to the way the merger or acquire. Acquirer may acquire a small division, patent or the company which use for the purpose of strategic alliances and value added to current business. In contrary, merges activities become less attractive to the potential shareholder due to reduce return or shareholder wealth or even negative return and decrease in profitability or even suffer losses of the company (Hassan, Patro, Tuckman & Wang, 2007). The theoretical models of liquidity stresses the degree of trading stock, adverse selection, stock volatility, and competitiveness of market making (Lipson & Mortal, 2007). According to the prior review, the degree of trading interest in a stock has a positive relationship with the level of trading activity. Therefore, the fixed trading costs can be spread out over a larger number of trades. The adverse selection cost incurs when negative action is taken to counter an adverse situation of trades. For example, if stock traders have relatively more information compare to the liquidity providers, liquidity providers will recover their losses from trading with better informed counterparts by increasing their average revenue. Stock volatility affects the trading cost positively as well. When stocks are more volatile, the holding cost of the stock would be relatively higher and the cost would be passed on to buyers when being traded. The competitiveness of market making affects the trading cost negatively. When the market makers are less competitive, the increase in competition will reduce the trading cost. Besides that, the firm’s characteristics also affect the accounting ratio after M&A. Prior studies noted that M&A increases the liquidity of firms on average but the improvements are fully explained by the accompanying changes in firm characteristics (Lipson & Mortal, 2007). Firm characteristics such as sizes of the firm, volume and number of shareholders are taken into consideration in prior studies. Relatively larger firms will have greater trading interest since more positions are offered in the firm. Benston and Hangerman (1974) also acknowledge the effect of firm size and volume to M&A. Therefore, the sizes of the firm are expected to affect the decision M&A of a firm. The increase in adverse selection can be seen in Heflin and Shaw (2000) where they argue that the effect of a blockholder ownership is a result of superior blockholder information. The results are consistent with the results in Lipson and Mortal (2007). Past studies document that larger firms tend to be followed by a greater number of market makers (Wahal, 1997), which he attributes to increased c ompetition among market makers. Also derived in Lipson and Mortal (2007), the increased in market making reduces order processing cost, hence reducing trading cost. According to (Arturo Bris, Neil Brisley, Christos Cabolis 2008), M&A is done following the corporate governance decision as legal rules or accounting standard. The countries difference in degree of investor protection as well as firm value, ownership structure. When we are merger and acquisition usually adopts the accounting standards. This implies that, the corporate in a country can adopt difference level of investor protect. If corporate governance have set the legal rules then the corporate follow it. Therefore, the corporate investments losses or change operation performance. The legal rule can protect shareholder and investors so that they will not have legal liabilities. The corporate governance quality is follow shareholder protection and accounting standard when we are merger and acquisition can test corporate worsening and preserving acquisitions. If we are test pre merger and acquisition performance not efficiency then corporate governance quality also will not good. The corporation will easy give large corporate takeover or the corporation will bankrupt. However, the corporation operation quality good will not let large corporate takeover the firm. The corporate governance quality well can enhance merger and acquisition value and good performance. According to Holger Breinlich (2008), merger and acquisition become industrial restructuring after trade liberalization. It is can increase merger and acquisition activities and merger and acquisition transferred resource from less to more productive firms. It is because pre corporation not efficiency performance source make it loss. Therefore, after merger and acquisition the corporate efficiency performance source make it earning profit and improvement the corporate. Merger and acquisition not just to transfer source, it is also can qualitatively difference from other adjust form. Before merger and acquisition is not well make the workers becoming unemployed and also will make economic recession. When new ownership takeover the corporate then worker has working already and economic also will slowly become good. However, the larger corporate takeovers corporate better the corporate bankrupt and as such no need face unnecessary legal restriction. From the past studies, Letho and Lehtoranta (2004) study that M&A synergies can be realized by owing unique technology and knowledge and then transferring these intangibles to the target firm. The industrial organization (IO) literature states that both horizaontal and industry-diversifying acquisitions might affect R&D. When firms are active in the line of business, economies of scale in R&D input can be occurred because of M&As. Besides, value can created also by M&As from uniting complementary know-how (Cassiman B, Colombo M, Garrone P, Veugelers R, 2003). Similarly, intangibles could matter in domestic as well as cross-border takeover (Kang and Johansson, 2000). The ratio of intangible assets (goodwill paid in earlier M&As has to be minus first) to total assets is used to examine these ideas. The financial synergies are realized by looking at the capital structure of potential acquirers. The idea is that when firms relying heavily on bank loans, it is risky to the firm and also acquirers will have less interest on the firm. Therefore, firms that relying heavily on bank loans will quickly seek to reduce their overall risk and recognize a lower cost of capital by engaging in industry-diversifying and in cross-border M&As. Indeed, cost of capital can be reduced when cash flows from target and bidders are not highly correlated. Besides, additional borrowing capacity post-M&A can be created and this is a good performance for a firm after M&A. If stock prices of a firm are down, the takeover of a firm can constitute a bargain relative to investing in new facilities in order to recover from scratch. Furthermore, the valuation of private targets is lower once stock market sentiment is down, through the use of a lower multiples or higher risk premium when valuing target stock. This under-valuation hypothesis suggests that stock prices and M&A decisions are negatively related. In contrast, soaring stock prices can facilitate the financing of M&As in which they using bidder stock to pay for these deals. When firms consider that their stock to be over-valued, they tend to issue new shares (Shleifer and Vishny, 2003). There will be positive relationship between stock prices and external growth. However, the positive relationship may be difficult to observe when a sample is dominated by private enterprises. This is also because of those non-listed bidder stock is unwilling to be accepted by target investors. The average market-wid e price earnings (P/E) ratio at the M&A announcement date is used to capture stock market conditions, given that private firms dominate the sample. 2.3 Hypothesis Development The first hypothesis comes from our own assumption to examine how does a company perform post-M&A compared to pre-M&A. The assumption is that a company could perform better in the form of ratios because their capital has increased due to increase in non current assets. If a company obtains another company through M&A, it is expected that they have certain amount of capital available to expand their firm size; therefore, there will be increase in capital in the form of ROE and ROA ratios once a firm is engaged in M&A activities. H º =After M&A, there will be increase in ratios of ROE and ROA H ¹=Before M&A, asset ROA and ROE are higher From previous study of (Moeller, Schlingemann & Stulz, 2004), it is known that they examined for the below hypothesis in their research. And this hypothesis will be tested in Malaysia context so that we will be able to measure the level of performance compared to the size of the firm. H º=Small firm perform better after M&A H ¹=Acquirer’s firm perform worse after M&A 2.4 Model/Framework Negative relationship Positive Relationship As proposed, the relationship between pre-M&A is a negative relationship to the ratio. And it should be lower than post-M&A ratio as after M&A activities, the ratio should increase and higher. Positive relationship Negative relationship As proposed, the larger firm will adapt less well after M&A compared to smaller firm. Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design The research will be carried out as an explanatory study. This study method is used for our research because this study will explain how M&A affects performance of a company. The design will be carried out by using pair sample T-Test testing the relationship of the variables of performance of the company and the pre and post M&A activities. The research will be carried out to test whether an M&A activity does increase the performance of a company or it does not accelerate the activity of the company. Archival research will be used thoroughly to understand the improvement or deterioration in the firms post-M&A compared to pre-M&A. 3.2 Population, Sample and Sampling Procedure For our research for M&A companies in Malaysia, a census will be conducted as it is expected that there are only several hundreds of companies that have conducted M&A locally. The census data will be collected by using the Bursa Malaysia website via manual search and the usage of Osiris database. Therefore, the data will be collected through these 2 ways. 3.3 Data Collection Method As it is said, the data to be used will be secondary data. Documentary secondary data will be collected and used throughout this research. The data will be consisted of written materials which are companies’ annual reports. The annual report will be compiled based on the activities that are involved by the respective companies with a view that M&A deals are conducted by the company within the years of investigation which range from year 2001 to 2005. References Rao, K.V., & Sanker, K.R. (1997). Takeover as a Strategy of Turnaround. UTI edited book. Cosh, A., Hughes, A., Lee, K., & Singh, A. (1998). â€Å"Takeovers, institutional investment and the persistence of profits†, in Begg, I. and Henry, S.G.B. (Eds), Applied Economics and Public Policy, Department of Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Agundu, P.C., & Karibo, N.O. (1999). â€Å"Risk analysis in corporate mergers decisions in developing economies†. Journal of Financial Management and Analysis, 12(2), 13-17. Moeller, S.B., Schlingemann, F.P., & Stulz, R.M. (2004). â€Å"Firm size and the gains from acquisitions†. Journal of Financial Economics, 73, 201-28. Pilloff, S.J. (1996). Performance changes and stockholder wealth creation associated with mergers of publicly traded banking institutions. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 28, 294-310. Bris, A., Brisley, N., & Cabolis, C. (2008). Adopting better corporate governance: Evidence from cross-border mergers. Journal of Corporate Finance, 14, 224-240. Breinlich, H. (2008). Trade liberalization and industrial restructuring through mergers and acquisitions. Journal of International Economics, 76, 254–266. Kumar, S., & Bansal, L.K.(2008). The impact of mergers and acquisitions on corporate performance in India. Management Decision, 46 (10), 1531-1543. Hassan, M., Patro, D.K., Tuckman, H., & Wang, X.L. (2007). Do mergers and acquisitions create shareholder wealth in the pharmaceutical industry? International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, 1 (1), 58-78.

electoral college3 essays

electoral college3 essays It seems to be that amars major complaint Is that the college was made for and favors white southerners and that the EC diminishes the value of one-man one vote. Yet all his problems seem to be just statements with nothing to back it up. He fails to mention that there were other reasons that the Electoral College was made. Such as our fathers did not want a president dependent on the legislature, so they rejected a parliamentary model in which legislators would pick the prez. Second citizens back then could not be trusted to choose wisely. Laslty becuz the north overpowered the south in population becuz slaves were not aloud to vote. He then makes the generalization that it was created solely for the southerners. So I read his proposal that he made before the supreme court to abolish the ec and he said none of these arguments are valid today I agree. Yet I disagree his with statement that the ec favors southerners. He brings the proof that the first 36 years of the ec most of the p rezs were from the south. Yet fails to tell us that the only reason they did so well was becuz they were given a lot of electoral votes for each state becuz they had a lot of slaves, yet the slaves werent aloud to vote. U might ask what about after slavery yet there were still poll taxes and literacy tests. Today since we dont have either blacks although a minorities nationaly they still can play big roles in election becuz of the ec Minorities tend to live in very populated states like new york and california. Critics such as Mr. amar of the Electoral College believe that the principle of democratic legitimacy or one man one vote is based on numbers alone. They believe that under the Electoral College the power of your vote is diminished - even to the point where your vote might be wasted if the candidate you voted for doesn't win the state. In this year's election approximately 100,000,000 people voted and so it would seem that any one vo...

Explain and critically assess Weber’s conception of power The WritePass Journal

Explain and critically assess Weber’s conception of power Introduction Explain and critically assess Weber’s conception of power , p.33). Moreover, this was a time of great social and political transformation in the West, whereupon the overall character of European polities had been drastically altered by waves of democratic fervour and revolutionary violence. The Revolutions of 1848, for instance, represented the single most concentrated outcrop of political upheaval in the history of European politics. â€Å"The 1848 revolutions†, says Micheline R. Ishay, â€Å"were a watershed. In the most industrialized countries, they broke the liberal-radical republican alliance against legitimist regimes and catalysed the formation of the most radical human rights perspectives of the century† (2008, p.121). In a very significant sense, said revolutions were a movement against the established power structures of the era. This was a time of great liberal reform and technological change; the social and political apparatuses by which international relations were hitherto understood were being fundamentally tra nsformed – as were theoretical conceptions of power. Although the 1848 Revolutions were mostly checked and curbed within a year of their outbreak, the underlying sentiment and intellectual kindling had not been extinguished. Instead, it fomented in various forms: one of which would lead eventually to the rise of Communism in the early twentieth century. With such conspicuous changes in the makeup of political relations during the nineteenth century, there came concurrent shifts in critical perspectives on how and why such changes occurred. Marx had upheld a perspective that prioritised historical materialism and the fundamental primacy of class struggle as defining political relations. Power, for Marx, concerned the power of those capitalist elites who owned the means of production to exploit the workers whose labour literally made production happen. Marx’s political philosophy was extremely widespread, known even to those who abjured it. For Marx, power also has much to do with class divisions: particularly between those who ow n the means of production, the bourgeoisie, and the workers, or proletariat, who exchange their labour value for wages. Power is thus manifested in the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie – for whom the social and political structures are geared to preserve the status quo, keeping the workers in a state of social, economic, and political subordination. Marx’s understanding of power, then, is concerned with large scale social and historical forces, particularly as they relate to material and industrial relations in determining power and overall socio-political mechanics. Weber, on the other hand, developed an approach that varied from the Marxian mould, stepping away from the perceived predominance of grand overarching forces in determining social and political relations. As a result, Weber also moved away from Marx’s theory of the strict bourgeoisie/proletariat duality as being the dominant paradigm in political economy. The latter class division was, for Marx, the principle animus for change in capitalist societies. As a consequence, Marx’s conception of power cannot be separated from his overall understanding of the relationship between capitalists and workers. For Weber, socio-economic divisions, and their relations to power, are far more complex than those posited by Marx. Weber understood class distinctions as deriving from more than just an inequality in property relations; instead, Weber posited that it was the unequal distribution of power that resulted in social dividing lines. Power for Weber was, again, more intricate and mu ltifaceted than the kind Marx had proposed. Weber states that power is â€Å"the chance of a man or of a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action† (1968, p.926). Already we can see that Weber’s rendition of power is more abstract and open to interpretation that that of Marx. Further, Weber’s conception of power is similar to modern critical formulations of same; where â€Å"power†, at its most fundamental, â€Å"entails the capacity of one actor to make another actor do something which they would not otherwise do† (Haugaard, 2004, p.304). Most importantly, Weber’s definition is very broad; it allows for application in a number of contexts: social, economic, political, cultural, familial, sexual, interpersonal, and many others. Violence and Coercion: the Centrality of Force in Power Relations Weber’s conception of power is â€Å"inextricably connected to violence and coercion† (Kreisberg, 1992, p.39). Such violence is articulated though various social structures, from the microcosm of the family to the macrocosm of the state. Weber consequently sees â€Å"subjects as being on the receiving end of structures of power† (Whimster and Lash, 2006, p.22). The interactions between these discrete structures of power allow for varying degrees of control over the exercise of violence: where certain individuals or groups have access to or are denied the means to exert their will. For Weber, such means obtain to ideas of legitimacy. Hence, for Weber, the question of power relate to issues about: â€Å"who controls the means of violence; who enjoys a monopoly over economic resources; who controls the legitimate means of political power; and finally who has control over symbolic force† (Turner, 2002, p.215). Social action is thus enabled by control of distin ct fields of power. The more such fields of power can be channelled and consolidated, the more power that obtains. This can be seen very clearly, for example, in the state’s exclusive mandate on legal violence (via armed forces, police, prisons, and so forth). Hence Weber defines the state as â€Å"that agency within society which possesses the monopoly of legitimate violence† (cited in Wanek, 2013, p.12). Accordingly, in Weber’s view, the implicit threat of violence perpetually underwrites the state’s authority. Thus Weber’s position anticipates Mao Zedong’s famous declaration that â€Å"political power grows out of the barrel of a gun† (cited in Wardlaw, 1989, p.43). For Weber, then, coercive force is fundamental to power. Put simply, coercion equates to influence; and influence is power. National political power is therefore structured on implied coercive mechanisms. Hence Weber avers that â€Å"if no social institutions existed that knew the use of violence, then the ‘state’ would be eliminated† (cited in Wagner, 2002, p.120). So conceived, the state is in itself a form of coercive apparatus. Because the state monopolises legal violence, the state is the primary source of power as such. This means access to power is achieved via access to and control over the mechanisms of state. Power is thus manifested in the specific structures on which the social order is based. However, Weber does not believe that power is constituted in coercive force exclusively. Instead, a dynamic of obedience obtains between the ruling class and those ruled: in which the latter group willingly obey their political leaders. Here, Weber’s conce ption of power becomes more complex, delineating ideas of legitimate domination. As Weber perceives it, social conformity, or, as he puts it, â€Å"performance of the command†, may â€Å"have been motivated by the ruled’s own conviction of its propriety, or by his sense of duty, or by fear, or by ‘dull’ custom, or by a desire to obtain some benefit for himself† (1968, p.947). The dominated thus inadvertently cooperate in their domination. Hence we can see that Weber’s conceptualisation of power echoes a Hobbesian perspective, which stresses a central causality between a â€Å"sovereign† power and popular subjugation (Sreedhar, 2010, p.33). Furthermore, state power and interest are related to a conflictual paradigm where self-interest and the will to domination are taken as a given. Weber thus articulates a realist perspective. In addition, Weber’s notion of legitimate domination somewhat chimes with Gramscian hegemony, in that power is constituted and reconstituted in various complex sites, working overall to legitimise the status quo. As a result of this, Weber is distinct from Marx in two very important ways: firstly, he sees power as more abstract, subtle, and complex than Marx does; secondly, he sees power as deriving from many different types of social phenomena – not just class struggle. Following this logic, Weber also applies the same extended complexity to the concept of the origin s of power. Thus, for Weber, power comes from â€Å"three different sources†: â€Å"class (economic power), status (social power), and parties (political power)† (Levine, 2006, p.6). As we can see, then, Weber’s conception of power is based on coercion, force, domination, social structures, and a quasi-hegemonic socio-political structure that promotes and induces willing subjugation in the populace. Weber’s ideas are clearly more reflective of realist political theory than of Marxian idealism, which posits utopic notions of eventual global socialist harmony. This is not to say that Weber wholesale rejects the Marxian position, he does not; rather, he accommodates Marx’s economic arguments in his overall politico-economic model. Further, he expands upon and problematises them. As one would therefore expect, much like his conception of power, Weber’s conception of class is far more nuanced and open to interpretation than that of Marx. For Weber, class pertains to the numerous potential relations that may obtain in a given economic market. In particular, this relates to relationships that arise between an individual, or a group, as concerns a given market. This means that different kinds of economic distinctions will give rise to specific forms of class relation – not just a worker/capitalist polarity. Weber sees class as a social concept that encompasse s numerous iterations within an overall economic purview. Such iterations include professionals, landowners, bankers, financiers, and many others (Hamilton, 1991, p.182). In sum, then, Weber recognises numerous different kinds of class distinctions, each with their own complex sets of power relations. This heterogeneity, in turn, adds complexity to the overall function of power in its specific fields and sites of operation. For Weber, then, power relates to a multiform phenomenon. In treating of the economic dimensions of power, Weber observes that the â€Å"typical chance for a supply of goods, external living conditions, and personal life experiences† are fundamentally determined by â€Å"the amount and kind of power, or lack of such, to dispose of goods or skills† for the sake of â€Å"income in a given economic order† (1968, p.927). Hence Weber observes a clear causal continuum between economic and other kinds of power, where one can come to necessitate (or, at least, facilitate) the other. Where Weber significantly diverges from Marx is in his posited importance of the modes of power that function semi-independently of economic considerations. Specifically, Weber places much emphasis on social status. â€Å"For Weber, status groups are collectives of people with similar lifestyles, and they often overlap with economic class position† (Levine, 2006, p.6). In other words, the socially powerful tend to be located in economically powerful cohorts; at the same time, those without social power tend to be associated with non-economically powerful cohorts. This last assertion can seem very similar to the Marxian view, of the powerful bourgeoisie and non-powerful proletariat. However, the important distinction in Weber’s position is that affinities are drawn more primarily from social, not economic, similarities. Put simply, for Weber, two individuals or groups with similar social lives but different economic statuses could cohere nonetheless; their social alignment supersedes their economic misalignment. The economic distinction is not, for Weber, as integrally conflictual as it is for Marx. This is not to say the Weber does not see class as an important social factor; rather, it to say that, unlike Marx, Weber does not see class struggle as the defining characteristic of history and society. He does not therefore adopt Marx and Engel’s famous assertion that â€Å"all history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle† (2012, p.33). Hence, while Weber sees class as a significant variable in overall quality of life, in dictating one’s opportunities for advancement, for the acquisition of power, he does not identify a corollary primacy in class as catalysing social action and historical change. Friction between social forces – as embodied by class – is not the central source of social tension. This has to do with Weber’s complex and diverse view of class. Weber sees class as heterogeneous and thus not easily reducible to two opposing factions. Compared to Weber, Marx’s views of power and class are over ly reductive. Of the worker, Weber observes, his â€Å"interests† may â€Å"vary widely, according to whether he is constitutionally qualified for the task at hand to a high, to an average, or to a low degree†, meaning, in consequence, that â€Å"societal or even of communal action† from â€Å"a common class situation† is â€Å"by no means a universal phenomenon† (Weber, 1968, p. 929). In other words, the working class cannot simply be lumped together in a bloc group understood as sharing uniform priorities and ambitions. In many senses, that is, power moves beyond material and economic divisions; cannot be attributed to isolated causes and motivations. Conclusion In conclusion, Weber’s conception of power is much in keeping with that proffered by classical realists, where coercive force constitutes the primary hinge around which political power moves. By extension, other manifestations of power both derive legitimacy from, while at the same time reciprocally legitimating, the state: by functioning within its purview. Weber diverges from Marxian reductivism, rejecting the polarity of capitalist/worker class struggle and the primacy of historical materialism. Weber accordingly refutes Marx’s position that common class identity is sufficient to galvanise a homogenous intellectual action; he thus identifies many more lines of division between various social groups. For Weber, power is deeply related to social structures; indeed, power is seen to body forth though social structures, thereby keeping the popular masses in place. Interestingly, the power invested in said structures works, also, to instil a sense of obedience in the publ ic. The public therefore helps to perpetuate the status quo by conforming with, thus legitimating, the state’s exercise of coercive force. References Hamilton, P., 1991. Max Weber, Critical Assessments 2: Volume 2. London: Routledge. Haugaard, P., 2004. Power: A Reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ishay, M. R., 2008. The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era. Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Levine, R. H., 2006. Social Class and Stratification: Classic Statements and Theoretical Debates. Oxford: Rowman Littlefield. Marx, K. Engels, F., 2012. The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition. London: Verso. Sreedhar, S., 2010. Hobbes on Resistance: Defying the Leviathan. New York: Cambridge University Press. Turner, B. S., 2002. Max Weber: From History to Modernity. New York: Routledge. Wagner, H., 2002. War and the State: The Theory of International Politics. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Wanek, A., 2013. The State and Its Enemies in Papua New Guinea. Richmond: Curzon Press. Wardlaw, G., 1989. Political Terrorism: Theory, Tactics and Counter-Measures. New York: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. Weber, M., 1968. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, New York: Bedminster Press. Whimster, S. Lash, S., 2006. Max Weber, Rationality and Modernity. Oxon: Routledge.

Social Effects of Media Anonymity Research Paper

Social Effects of Media Anonymity - Research Paper Example Anonymity is one of the Internet’s attractions that allow users to surf endlessly without being known. You can make comments, you can divulge or keep some secrets, you can criticize people or even the powers that be without being known, or you can express and find love even if you are shy. But like any other medium, it is also being abused by people – criminals, dissidents, opportunists, etc., people who want to do their thing with deceit, or say something against people and just vanish into cyberspace. Internet anonymity is said to be a double-edged sword. This is because while this is being safeguarded by the U.S. Constitution, as upheld by the Supreme Court, it is also used to suppress other people’s rights and not be held responsible or accountable for their actions. There are many good things that the Internet can offer. You can ask for help for an immediate reply, you can promote good governance or preserve the environment using its many features, and the p reacher can even preach worldwide using the Web; we can even protect ourselves by being anonymous. But the criminal too can do his/her thing without being known. How is it possible to be anonymous on the Internet? Let’s start with this revolutionary technology – how it all started? The Internet’s identity is reproduced by a mix of fandom community, commerce and business, linked by technologies that are both private and publicly owned and variously regulated. The Internet came into existence as the result of numerous factors, accidents, passions, collisions, and tensions; these tensions are between economic and regulatory factors and communicative practices (Lister et al 163). It is possible to regulate anonymity on the Internet. Internet experts say that in theory, it is not really that impossible to remain anonymous because an Internet user can almost always be identified by the IP number and can be traced back through the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to det ermine his/or her identity (Lambert 8).

Lisbon Treaty for the Working of the European Union (EU) Essay

Lisbon Treaty for the Working of the European Union (EU) - Essay Example This growth in the number of members is primarily attributed to reasons that vary from being conducive in nature, to security issues, while some scholars have even suggested standardised or digressive reasons for the rise in the number of member states of EU (McAllister, 2010). To enhance understanding, trust, and collaboration amongst the members, various treaties have been devised from time to time related to regional policies on economy and trade, immigration policies, social policies, defence polices, and home and justice affairs. Some such treaties were Treaty of Rome (1957), Treaty of Maastricht (1992), Treaties of Nice (2001), the treaty that tried establishing a European Constitution and failed in 2004, and lastly the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 (made effective in 2009). The 2004 and 2007 treaties created a great deal of controversies, and many experts claimed that the last two treaties were aimed primarily at creating a collaborative European superpower. However, the supporters for these treaties contended that these were aiming at making way for a larger EU in the 21st  century (Church and Phinnemore, 2010). ... The critics point out the body’s lack of power within the arena of global or regional politics, and for this reason the body has been often labelled as ‘soft power’ (Fioramonti, and Lucarelli, 2008, 193-210). In the context of security issues, EU as a body is often perceived as being irresolute, ineffective, and inconsistent (ibid). Even though there is no doubt that a war between the any of the members of EU is unthinkable, the body’s response during an on-going war in the neighbourhood, in terms of ‘crisis management,’ has not been very effective, and the Union is still perceived as weak, in terms ‘unity’ amongst its members (Gilbert 2008, 641-658). In this context, to understand whether the Lisbon Treaty (LT) would really work towards creating a stronger union amongst the member states, it is necessary to examine the treaty from close quarters. The representatives from the 27 EU member states signed the Treaty of Lisbon on 18th December 2007, which modified the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC) and the Treaty on European Union (TEU). There are seven Articles under the Treaty of Lisbon, where the modifications to TEC and TEU are listed under Articles 1 and 2 (Amendments to the Treaty on European Union and to the Treaty Establishing the European Community, 2007). Under Articles 3-7, we find that there are provisions for treaty duration, the process of ratification, and article renumbering (ibid). This is unlike the 2004 Treaty, which attempted to establish a European Constitution, and remained ineffective owing to negative referendum votes cast by Netherlands and France. The Lisbon Treaty however retrains itself from trying to replace any of the treaties