Tuesday, December 31, 2019

The Too Big to Fail Problem - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2152 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? Too big to fail was a very regular term we all heard during the Great Recession of 2008, but did we truly understand the term? To understand this overused term, we must first define what it means to be a firm that is Too Big to Fail. According to Stern and Fieldman, too big to fail'(TBTF), a term describes the receipt of discretionary government support by a banks uninsured creditors who are not automatically entitled to government support. (8). Citi Group is an example of this term that easily comes to mind; the government never considered that a firm as large as them would ever be on the verge of collapse. It was only after their announcement to the US government in August of 2008 stating their bankruptcy, the government took action guaranteed this mega-firm that they would pay off their bad investments. But why would our very own government consider such action? A reasonable answer would be that the government considered the perceived dangers of letting a bank of this size collapse and the repercussions that the economy would experience if they allowed this to happen. The main concern is, how did government regulations become so lax? Why do they allow a bank to become so large and overleveraged, that if they were to fail, it would resonate throughout the global economy. What can the government do to solve this problem at hand? To understand how we fell into the Great Recession, we have understand how these firms were able to get so oversized. In 1932 Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act; which banned commercial banks from underwriting securities. Banks were forced to choose between being commercial banks, that held deposits and made loans, and investment banks that conducted securities transactions(Crawford,128). However in November of 1999,a new regulation, supported by the banking industry, called the Gramn-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the Glass-Steagall Act.   What made Congress go back into regulations and repeal the act? In the boom of the 90s, the feeling of financial sector was that the Glass-Steagall Act hampered Americas financial companies from being competitive globally.   An ambitious CEO, Sandy Weill of Travelers Group(one of the largest insurance companies), had a dream in which his corporation would merge with Salomon Smith Barney(one of the largest investment banks at the time) and Citicorp(the largest commercial bank) to form a super conglomerate. However, at the time, this deal was illegal because the Glass-Steagal Act was still in effect. The size of Citicorp and Travelers were so big that they were able to go to Congress and demand action, and Congress folded. Weill was able to convince Alan Greenspan(Chairmen of the Federal Reserve), Paul Rubin(Secretary of Treasury), and   President Clinton to allow the merger with the expectation that Congress would repeal the Glass-Steagall Act. Citicorp and Travelers had their lobbyist push their merger so hard that the legislation, H R10, House Resolution 10, which became the Financial Services Modernization Act, was referred to as the Citi-Travelers Act on Capitol Hill(Bill Clinton). Not only was this act passed with a dominate 90-8 vote in the Senate, but also an overwhelming 362-57 vote in the House. This repeal would serve as the key corner stone that allowed bank to perform mergers of this nature, and allow them to get so oversized.   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   After the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act these new conglomerate became so large and interconnected that once the Great Recession started, the failure of one bank would mean the failure of the entire financial system. American International Group(AIG), an insurance company, is a example of this. With the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, AIG suddenly transformed into a company with General insurance, Life insurance retirement services, Fina ncial Services, and Asset Management (Sjostrom 946). AIG was able to use premiums paid for life insurance to leverage creation of credit default swaps; A CDS is a privately negotiated contract where one party( the protection seller),in exchange for a fee, agrees to compensate another party(The protection buyer) if a specified credit event(Such as bankruptcy or failure to pay) occurs with respect to a company( the reference entity) or debt obligation(the reference obligation). CDS are used for a variety of purposes including hedging, speculation , and arbitrage (Sjostrom 948). For example, if a company like Goldman Sachs wants to hedge on mortgage defaults; they would go to AIG, and enter into a credit default swap with them. They would then pay AIG a fee upfront, and if the mortgage was to default, AIG would agree to pay the defaulted value thus limiting the risk to Goldman Sachs. Problem is rather than AIG setting aside the value, they would need to pay Goldman Sachs if the mortgag e was to default. AIG would instead use the fee they received for the credit default swap to leverage the fee into creating more credit default swaps. Goldman Sachs, viewing that they had protection on their mortgages, would go out and buy more mortgages using future interest and principles payments on those mortgages. However, once the crisis occurred, foreclosures went through the roof. AIG faced a mountain of credit default swaps that they had to pay out to. Since they were so overleveraged they didnt have enough cash on hand to pay out all the credit default swaps. If AIG defaulted, Goldman Sachs would then not receive the money they were expecting from the credit default swaps, and would also not be receive the monthly payment on the mortgage thus creating a short-fall for them as well, since mortgage were usually re-packaged and resold. An AIG default would have not only affected companies in the U.S, it would have also caused a catastrophic ripple throughout the global bankin g sector. However, AIG was deemed too big to fail and the U.S government stepped in to pay all of AIGs credit default swaps thus preventing wide spread chaos. As the chaos subsided, various economists have presented solutions to the Too Big to Fail problem, including ending securitization, lowering leverage level, enforcing more transparency, create morally defensible incentives, and breaking up companies deemed too big to fail. By ending securitization, we would face higher interest rates for borrowers but, as Cohan states If financial engineers can find a way to bundle loans into securities that are guaranteed not to lose money for investors, then securitization should continue (Cohan). However this is a pipe dream and facing the possibilities of another global recession or higher interest rates the later, should be preferred. If we enforce lower leverage levels on all actors in the financial system including banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, businesses and households t o set clear targets for maximum leverage and to ensure that none of them is able to exceed those targets. (Cohan) This will bring balance not only to Wall Street, but also to America. For far too long Americans have lived beyond their means and the growth of credit card debt is a clear example of this. If all leverage were to be scaled back the environment for future growth rather than present day payoff would be much brighter. Transparency in the financial market is also very lacking as witnessed by the Bernie Madoff scandal; in which Madoff scammed his investors out of 65 billion dollars. Wall Street firms are still not held to a high enough level of transparency to provide consumers with a true picture of a firms strength. Another big problem is how bankers are compensated for their work. Their bonuses are tied to the size and amount of deals they perform in the year and it would serve no purpose to them to be cautious in making deals. A clear solution to this is one suggested by Cohan, rather than bankers receiving all bonuses that year they put all the money into an escrow account, and wait five years, if the investment were still valuable, the banker would receive the money out of escrow, otherwise, the escrow would pay the losses that the investor incurred from the bad deal. This kind of structure could reduce the moral hazard in the current incentive system. (Cohan) This would provide bankers the incentive to perform deals that are more likely to make money for investors rather than for their own selfish purpose. Finally, the one solution that might make the most sense to the average consumer, would be to just break up companies deemed too big to fail by the government. Cohan believes that there should be a limit on how big a bank could get, we shouldnt be rewarding managers for building big companies that cant earn profits that exceed their cost of capital. And we should not require taxpayers to pay for the cost of such failures. Although all five of these steps would be necessary to prevent systemic risk it will still, also require the diligence and regulation from the federal government to avert a financial crisis weve had. The United States Government has listened to the economists and the first of the financial reform regulations had finally been passed on June 29th , 2010 . The passing of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act incorporated many of the solution that have been mentioned above. To deal with the issues of lowering leverage levels and enforcing better transparency, the Dodd-Frank Act created a Financial Stability Oversight Council in which its made up of expert members of the financial community, headed by the Treasury Secretary and includes the Chairmen of the Federal Reserve and other government financial agencies. What this new council will do is make recommendations to the Federal Reserve for increasingly strict rules for capital, leverage, liquidity, risk management, and other requi rement as companies grow in size and complexity, with significant requirement on companies that pose risks to the financial system (US Senate). This council will make changes to regulations depending on the size and complexity of the bank and prevent too big to fail banks from getting over leveraged and investing in questionable investments. This council will also solve the issue of breaking up a bank if its deemed too large or complex, they are able to approve, with a 2/3 vote and vote of the chair, a Federal Reserve decision to require a large, complex company, to divest some of its holdings if it poses a grave threat to the financial stability of the United States- but only as a last resort. (US Senate) This gives the power to this council to essentially force a bank deemed too large, to sell some of its assets to be reduced to a more manageable size. The act also brings back some of the components of the Glass-Steagall Act in the form of the Volcker Rule, which requires regulato rs implement regulation for banks, their affiliates and holding companies, to prohibit proprietary trading, investments in and sponsorship of hedge funds and private equity funds, and to limit relationships with hedge funds, and private equity funds (US Senate). By separating savings and loan banks from proprietary trading and other risky investments, this will significantly lower the risk a bank will be willing to take. Bank used to be faced with the decision to either make very modest returns on mortgages and loans or high returns from hedge funds and proprietary trading and faced with that decision greed over takes all reasoning. On the last point of incentives, large banks have realized that the public now views incentive based bonuses very negatively, instead they are moving away from giving record bonuses every year, and instead started to double or triple salary in some cases. In the past, banks have preferred to keep salaries low and use bonuses as a way to drive performa nce. Now instead investment banks such as Credit Suisse, UBS and Morgan Stanley have also added so-called clawback provisions to bankers pay, allowing the banks to take back some pay from employees who fail to meet certain performance goals. (Werdigier) Rather than having set performance based incentives, these more flat salary increase might allow the bankers a bit of a wiggle room to make deals that are more financial sound. This Dodd-Franks act is a step in the right direction, but there is still much to do in order to prevent this from happening again. Vigilance and patience is what we need now, to rebuild and recuperate from this fiasco. There is no point in going back to the age of the Glass-Steagall Act since the complexity and size of global financial organization have grown. All the act would do now is hamper U.S firms. With these new government regulation and with good self-regulation, financial firms from this point forward should be able to maintain a leverage level where a failure of one firm, wouldnt cause a systemic collapse of the entire sector. However, greed is everlasting, and only through persistence can we prevent the financial firms from getting so close to the edge of collapse again. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Too Big to Fail Problem" essay for you Create order

Monday, December 23, 2019

Persuasive Essay On Abortion - 1575 Words

â€Å"In her own case, Ms. Brenneman said she was a 21-year-old junior at Harvard when her birth control failed and she had an abortion. ‘It allowed me to choose when to become a mother,’ she said. ‘As a mother now, I know I was correct at 21†¦ I didn’t have a college degree†¦ I didn’t have an income. I didn’t have a marriage. I didn’t have anything a child needs. And I didn’t want it† (Liptak, 2016). Brenneman, among the 24% of women who will undergo an abortion during their lifetime by the age of 45, chose the best decision for herself at that specific instance in her life, described in the personal testimony above (Jones, 2014, p. e1). The recent attacks on women’s reproductive rights by the Republican Party, although grounded in â€Å"protecting†¦show more content†¦Wade, which federally legalized abortion in the United States. Instead of fighting to overturn the supreme court case, pro-life r epublicans strategically utilized the tenth amendment, which discusses state’s rights, to simply limit women’s access to abortion. They believe the way to end abortion is to completely eradicate it, and concluded that increasing the difficulty of attaining the procedure will accomplish that. While limiting women’s access to abortion, congressional republicans also began stripping them of their birth control and contraceptives. In 2011, â€Å"House Republicans voted to eliminate funding for Title X family planning to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, a leading source of birth control; and†¦ eliminate the existing requirement that the program cover contraception for its low-income beneficiaries† (Brownstein, 2012, p.15). Republicans, in addition to abortion, want to decrease the availability of contraceptives and this anti birth control trend has continued under the current Trump administration, where more pronounced anti birth control rhetor ic and rollbacks are currently taking place. In October of 2017, the administration â€Å"rolled back an Obama-era rule requiring most employers to provide their employees with birth control coverage without co-payments. The mandate†¦ eliminat[ed] out-of-pockets costs for contraception† (Pear, 2017). The contraceptive coverage mandate being attacked gave approximatelyShow MoreRelatedPersuasive Essay About Abortion993 Words   |  4 Pagesin two peoples perspectives. The story consisted of a daughter (Deb) and mother’s perspective after the death of her father. The purpose of this layout is to show how they are both grieving in individual ways. Writing for the persuasive was presented as an essay on why abortion should be accessible in every country, and to also outline the shame women receive. Purpose Purpose for writing publication- Purpose for writing a real-estate article was to inform a potential buyer on the house showed. AlsoRead MoreAbortion Persuasive Essay1119 Words   |  5 Pages To begin with, there has always been an extensive issue with the topic of abortion, why? Well, it’s a tough subject and can get extremely emotional and very defensive. Honestly, people just need to open up their eye’s and understand that its murder and not just a choice. It is murder because two can create a blessing and the choice of aborting it, is more like a sacrifice for the reason a mother can’t carry a baby for nine months. Whether a person is a minor, young adult, or an adult and is inRead MoreAbortion Persuasive Essay755 Words   |  4 Pagesinstead these babies are torn limb by limb, burned, and many other tortuous methods to end the precious life. Abortion is murder and is not only very cruel to the unborn baby but it also harms the mother. Pro-choice is an escape from the harsh reality that a baby is being murdered, and in my eyes a life should only be terminated if God himself is ready to call them home. One reason why abortion is wrong is because they are many other safe solutions that would give the child a chance at life. AdoptionRead MorePersuasive Essay On Abortion917 Words   |  4 PagesAbortions in Texas consist of ending a pregnancy of an unborn child before it can live out of the mother womb. However if the pregnancy ends not on purpose before the twenty four week mark then technically it would be considered a miscarriage. Though inducing the abortion on purpose has caused a lot of controversy over the past century. Deliberately putting people on one of two sides of this issues, of either being for it, which would be considered Pro Choice. Or in the other category of the ProRead MorePersuasive Essay On Abortion1635 Words   |  7 Pagessolve this issue the option of abortion was brought to the forefront by scientists and advocates such as Dan Savage who mentioned that abortion should be mandatory for the next 30 years in or to control the population. (Ertlet) For countri es such as the U.S. with a growth rate being 1.6%, the proposal of widespread abortion is highly recommended as mentioned by obstetricians and gynecologists. (MumfordKessel) Who now leaves the question as to if the option of abortion should be used as a means ofRead MorePersuasive Essay On Abortion1228 Words   |  5 Pagesmillion pregnancies each year in the United States, 1.6 million end up in abortion† (Hern). Because of the numerous traumatic psychological, physical, and overall irresponsible behavior or actions constantly encouraged due to abortion, it should be banned, and forever illegal. Killing one’s own fetus has been linked to psychological distress which has been channeled into many different cases of substance abuse. â€Å"Induced abortion has been linked to increased rates of substance abuse, especially amongRead MoreAbortion Persuasive Essay804 Words   |  4 Pagesfamily with someone. Often times accidents happen in which people didn’t plan for, and can lead to many financial problems or neglect of one’s child because the parents weren’t prepared to be parents. This is why there should be the option of abortion. Abortion needs to be an option for everyone because it helps from long lasting mental states, infection, economical problems, and or having conceived from a non consensual circumstance. Pregnancy is a hard and unforgiving to the woman’s body. In factRead MorePersuasive Essay On Abortion954 Words   |  4 Pagesand nations who destroy life by abortion and euthanasia are the poorest. I do not say legal or illegal, but I think that no human hand should be raised to kill life, since life is God’s life in us, even in an unborn child.† Do you know what abortion really is? Abortion is the ending of pregnancy by removing a fetus or embryo before it can survive outside the uterus. Abortion seems to be more common in today’s society. Numerous amounts of individuals support abortion, and do not realize how it affectsRead MoreAbortion Persuasive Essay736 Words   |  3 Pagesfavor of abortion rights. The decision was 7-2, it stated that it showed a â€Å"right of privacy.†Abortions have been performed for thousands of years all around the world, even though many women died from it. Women nowadays have a choice of whether they want to get an abortion. Abortions do come with risk, one of them being death, but women should still have a right and say what they want to do with pregnancy and not be judged by others for doing so. Today the debate across the world is if abortion shouldRead MorePersuasive Essay On Abortion1321 Words   |  6 Pagessomeone who may be suicidal or who is suicidal himself/herself. As for taking away fetus’ lives, the damage that abortion makes on life can be proven with the statistics. According to Casey, â€Å"over the past 44 years, one-sixth (60,000,000) of the American population has been killed by elective abortion. Twenty-five percent of African-Americans are killed in the womb America,† (Should Abortion Be Legal n.p.). The figure 60,000,000 is a depressing number considering that these children could have been future

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Liberty vs responsibility Free Essays

Liberty v/s Responsibility Liberty is the most valued and sought after outcome of any political society. It is a mark of a productive and prosperous society where people enjoy a set of fundamental rights for e. g. We will write a custom essay sample on Liberty vs responsibility or any similar topic only for you Order Now :- right to free speech, fair trial, etc. On the other hand social responsibility towards others and oneself unites the community and increases social well-being. Various political philosophers have come up with different ways to prioritize one over the other and some have believed to strike a balance between the two. This leads to an interesting political debate that at what point we draw a line etween liberty and responsibility, where in we have maximum liberty and minimum responsibility. In this paper I assert the libertarian political thought which resolves this debate by striking a fine balance between liberty and responsibility. To support my argument, I apply the ideas of John Locke who was a 17th century classical liberal philosopher (for first reason) and much of libertarian political thought is inspired from his works. For second reason I apply the ideas of libertarian philosopher Friedrich Hayek. Towards the end I discuss the principles of libertarianism which clearly address this conflict. The first reason is the primary reason why people have desire to loot or plunder and that reason is scarcity. Scarcity is also the main reason why we have to follow a set of rules and act responsibly. If there were no scarcity, then there would be a surplus of goods and resources for everyone and any person’s wishes and desires would be fulfilled no matter how unlimited they were and his/her actions would have no consequence on anybody else. But we do live in a world where there is scarcity and that cannot be avoided. So, we have to interact and exchange goods with one another and that involves a set of rules for social conduct. In this context, John Locke believed in the rightful accumulation of property (scarce good) by mixing labor with natural resources (Nozick 175). He didn’t believe in accumulation of property via coercion, fraud or theft. As far as the extent of accumulation is concerned he believed that too much property should not be consumed that very little is left for others because that would hinder someone else’s right to accumulation of private property. Nozick had given this a term â€Å"Lockean Proviso† (Nozick 175). Applying the Lockean proviso to the conflict between liberty and responsibility, in the presence of carcity, there has to be a certain set of responsibilities that people need to fulfill (mentioned above, Locke called them â€Å"natural laws† (Korab)) mainly including the one where they don’t over-consume resources so that less is left for others and at the same time enjoy the liberties granted by the social contract. It’s important to note that the responsibilities are optimum that if there are more or less responsibilities there will be less to no liberty. The second reason is that responsibility is important for liberty to exist is that it encourages good decision making by making people accountable for their actions. Friedrich Hayek in his book â€Å"Constitution of Liberty’ said that a free society depends more than any other on people being held responsible for their actions (â€Å"American Spectator†) Applying his idea, in lite it one is awarded tor achieving a set ot goals by the proper use of resources he/she was provided with, then that person should also not be helped and made to suffer the consequences of making a bad decision. In the long term, this suffering will help him make better decisions. Additionally, if the person doesn’t suffer the consequences, he/she will develop a propensity for xcessive risk taking which wouldn’t be good for the society. Another implication of not taking responsibility is that someone else ends up taking responsibility for it and then that person has a right to curb the latter’s freedom. For e. g. :- if the government decides to bailout a firm which didn’t make right decisions, then the government will force the company to take some hard decisions which might go against the interests of the people in that company. So, learning to take responsibility from bad choices increases self-ownership and thereby upholds one’s liberty. It also improves one-self hich is always beneficial towards society. Libertarianism has two main principles: the non-aggression principle and the preservation of individual rights and private property (â€Å"Libertarianism†). According to Libertarianism these are the only two responsibilities the person owes to other people in the community. He/she ought not to show aggression and encroach upon any other person’s rights in the community. Any responsibility more than that comes at the cost of liberty. Based on the reasons that I gave, Libertarianism strikes a fine balance between liberty and responsibility by not placing laws that achieve a specific outcome unlike a eviathan government. At the sane times the laws that it places are minimal and only lead to a further expansion of liberty among all. One doesn’t want too many laws because that leads to a powerful government where there is no liberty and one also can’t manage not having any laws because scarcity and greed will lead to a state of war of â€Å"one against all†. Libertarianism gives a solution that is somewhere between those two extremes. To conclude, libertarianism believes in the importance of individual liberty which can be found in the fundamental rights that people enjoy and duties/responsibilities hich people are obligated to follow. It’s important for fundamental duties to exist because without which liberty won’t exist. However, responsibility wouldn’t have any meaning in the absence of liberty and that it derives its existence from the presence of the latter. How to cite Liberty vs responsibility, Papers

Friday, December 6, 2019

Cutting Force Analysis for Machining Indicator Performance

Question: Describe about the Cutting Force Analysis for Machining Indicator Performance. Answer: Introduction The cutting force measurement is the most effective indicator of the machining performance. There are two components of the cutting force, one is static and the other one is dynamic, which provide information about the state of the chip formation and of the cutting tools (Mfg.mtu.edu, 2016). The piezoelectric force measurement system measures the force with the help of piezoelectric effect which generates charges depending upon the applied mechanical force. This work presents the analysis and review of the data obtained regarding the cutting forces obtained during end milling of different metal and alloys from the piezoelectric dynamometer. Experiment Procedure The aim of the milling is to produce the various shapes that by the process of material removing. For the process, different tools are used for varied applications (Li et al. 2016). For the experiment one block each of aluminum, brass, and stainless steel is required and finally the piezoelectric dynamometer is required for measuring the cutting force. Metal cutting mechanics Metal shaping and cutting is done by moving the work piece and the cutting tool by using the relative motion to scrap off the metal off the surface. There are two types of metal cutting procedure involving single point cutting tool. If the cutting edge, that rubs the surface, is at 90o to the travel direction of the block then it is called vertical mill and if the angle between them is zero, i.e. the plane of the tool and metal is same then the tool is call the horizontal mill. For the investigation of the performance of the cutting tools, the cutting force measurement is essential (Mehta et al. 2016). Cutting forces Single point cutting tool cut the block at a single point, hence the force applied is on a single axis but for the ease of understanding it is divided into two components. The figure depicted below shows the components of milling tool and the force that is being applied in order to cut the metal into desired shape, the components of the force are shown as P1 and P2 (Sequeira et al. 2012). These components are-: Fx: The thrust force that acts in radial direction (Shown by P1). Fy: The cutting force acts to remove the metal (Shown by P2) Figure 1: Shows the milling process Image source: Dombovari and Stepan, 2015 Dynamometer The dynamometer used here is the piezoelectric dynamometer which uses piezoelectric components for measurement of forces. Dynamometers are the devices that are used to measure physical parameters like force and torque. Dynamometer measures the two cutting force components, which are perpendicular to each other. The measured numerical values that has been generated during milling is stored in computers with the help of DAS(Data Acquisition System) (Kistler.com, 2016). The piezoelectric outputs are initially amplified and are then sent to computer for storage and analysis as depicted in figure. Figure 2: Represent the force measurement by Piezoelectric Dynamometer (Image Source: As created by Author) Block Materials Aluminum Brass Copper Results Fx is the Thrust cutting (N) Fy is the Cutting force (N) T is the Time (s) Aluminum Figure 3: Shows the obtained data for Aluminum Figure Source: As created by author Brass Figure 4: Shows the obtained data for Brass Figure Source: As created by author Stainless steel Figure 5: Shows the obtained data for Stainless Steel Figure Source: As created by author Comparison and discussion The three graphs that have been obtained during the experimentation can be seen in the previous section. Aluminum is a high strength, malleable and low density metal contributing to its low weight. This can be seen in the figure; the low density allows lesser force required for cutting but the higher metal strength makes the thrust force required for the movement very high. In case of brass the alloy is extremely malleable but the hardness is lesser compared to steel. The high malleability makes the starting thrust force very high but as the transient phase passes, the force ease and decreases, and the cutting force is high as the metal is very tough. In case of stainless steel the metal is hard but brittle hence the cutting force is high but the thrust force is very less compared to other metals. Conclusion This report discusses the various data that has been obtained and realized during performing the experiment. The experiment was done in a CNC and the force data were obtained with the help of the piezoelectric sensor available in the dynamometer. Finally the obtained data was compared and summarized which helped in understanding the property of the material. References Sequeira, A.A., Prabhu, R., Sriram, N.S. and Bhat, T., 2012. Effect of Cutting Parameters on Cutting Force and Surface Roughness of Aluminium Components using Face Milling Process-a Taguchi Approach.IOSR Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering,3(4), pp.7-13. Mehta, M., Nandwana, B.P., Saloda, M.A., Khidiya, M.S., Jindal, S. and Barvaliya, S., 2016. Experimental Analysis of the Cutting Forces in Dry Turning of EN8 Steel.Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research,2(7). Rao, P.N., 2013.Manufacturing technology: metal cutting and machine tools. v. 2. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Kistler.com. (2016). [online] Available at: https://www.kistler.com/?type=669fid=65model=download [Accessed 12 Sep. 2016]. Li, C.P., Kim, M.Y., Islam, M.M. and Ko, T.J., 2016. Mechanism analysis of hybrid machining process comprising EDM and end milling.Journal of Materials Processing Technology,237, pp.309-319. Mfg.mtu.edu. (2016). case. [online] Available at: https://www.mfg.mtu.edu/cyberman/quality/metrology/case.html [Accessed 12 Sep. 2016].

Friday, November 29, 2019

Technology, Privacy, Accounting, Finance, and Governance Values Analysis

Introduction Nowadays, privacy in the workplace has become a prominent concern for many organizations. The issue of privacy has become a subject of concern as a result of an increased rate of employees monitoring in the workplace. The high rate of electronic monitoring of employees has caused a conflict between the rights of employers to safe guard their business, versus employees’ privacy.Advertising We will write a custom assessment sample on Technology, Privacy, Accounting, Finance, and Governance Values Analysis specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The legal rights of employees as well as rights of the employers’ varies from one state to another which affects the strategies that firms adopt in enforcing the monitoring rights. Nonetheless, most federal and state laws support employees monitoring which has made many firms to adopt employee monitoring systems. Employees monitoring is very controversy as it goes beyond l egal rights to encompass moral obligations of employers and employees which are difficult to differentiate (Hartman DesJardins, 2011). Employers versus Employees Rights Employees monitoring in United States of America was legalized as early as in 1986 with the enacting of Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The act allows employers and system administrators to monitor activities in their computer systems. The enacting of ECPA allowed employers to have legal rights to monitor employee’s activities in the workplace. Generally, an employer is mainly the owner of workstations, phones, servers, software and communication devices that employees use. The employer provides these devices in order to facilitate business operations. Therefore, an employer has an interest to monitor activities on these systems for liability and security reasons. An employer can opt to monitor employees’ telephone conversations, emails as well as non-personal telephone calls made on busi ness phones without giving prior notice to employees, unless in the State of California where employees’ monitoring is highly regulated by the government. Whereas the enacting of ECPA protects employers from insecurity and liability associated with illegal use of employers electronic systems such as pirating, fraud or sale of company trade secretes. The act also provides protection for employees’ privacy. The act does not allow monitoring of employees’ personal communications that are made over the company systems.Advertising Looking for assessment on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More In addition, the act does not allow employers to monitor conversations of their employees that are made though the employees’ cell phones. Thus, the act is very effective as it tries to safe guide employers’ rights as well as the rights of employees in ensuring that employees’ personal affairs are not interfered with (Hartman DesJardins, 2011) How Does Technology used at Daimler Affect Employees Privacy Daimler corporate has a very efficient and effective technology that ensures privacy of its employees who use its systems. The company has installed its servers, as well as users’ workstations with appropriate password and other security measures to safeguard information that is received or transmitted over its systems from unauthorized external access. To enhance the protection of employees’ privacy, its systems encrypt personal data that is transmitted over public networks. Private and application-related access protection has been installed in order to safe guard personal data in Daimler corporate database. These protection measures have been adopted by the organization as its strategy to ensure safe data management, which controls responsibilities and authorization to safe guard the privacy of employees. How Daimler Protect Employees Personal Inf ormation At Daimler Corporation, it is only its authorized personnel that are allowed to collect process or use personal data. Authorized personnel monitor emails, voice mails and telephone conversations that are transmitted over the company’s systems, for those employees it suspects to wrongly use the company’s systems. However, the company does not allow its system administrators to use employees’ personal data for private purposes, transmission of such data to unauthorized people, or making available of such data to unauthorized persons. Accounting Principles Financial performance of an organization is considered as a significant part of an entity as it is responsible for determining how other departments and processes within the organization are run. In U.S., Organizations are required to abide by the General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) that were enforced in 2002 through the enacting of Sarbanes- Oxley Act (SOX).Advertising We will write a cus tom assessment sample on Technology, Privacy, Accounting, Finance, and Governance Values Analysis specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The act requires companies to report specific data in their financial annual reports. In being compliant in honoring SOX act, Daimler Company has been consistent in disclosing its internal controls, audit committee structures as well as codes of ethics and conduct. In order for Daimler to be SOX compliant, its CEOs and CFOs sign an attestation that make them liable for any financial data reported. Signing of this document verifies that its officers have reviewed all financial data reported and verified that it is correct. Signing of this document makes the officers to be responsible for any internal controls that have occurred. This requirement is contained in section 302 of the act (Taylor, 2012). On the othe4 hand, section 204 of the act requires organizations to monitor how overall financial processes a re run. This entails how organizations’ information systems are run and secured. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is the body that helps external auditors decipher if an organization they are auditing is SOX compliant. Those companies that have reported false data are penalized and declared as incompliant. Thus, that is why it is imperative for employers to electronically monitor employees’ activities to avoid any liability or insecurities as a result of their employees’ misconduct. Conflict of Interests Many organizations are concerned about conflicts of interests for their corporate board members and executives. Board members should concentrate on the concerns of their companies and not on outside interests. Therefore, board members should not let their personal interests surpass the decisions they make as directors (Murray, 2012). Executive Compensations The Federal law requires clear disclosure about compensations of CEOs, CFOs as well as th ree other high ranking officers. The company should disclose amount and type of compensation given to CEO, CFO as well as three other most highly paid officers. In addition, the company should disclose the criteria it uses to come up with executive compensations as well as the degree of relationship that exist between executive compensation practices versus corporate performance (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2012).Advertising Looking for assessment on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Legal and Ethical Responsibilities of Board Members Board members in Daimler Company are required to abide in honoring the duty of care that requires them to discharge their duties in good faith and in a manner that they believe to be of maximum benefit to the company. They are also required in honoring the duty of royalty. Board members should avoid using their positions or the assets of the company in a manner that will result to their monetary benefits or monetary gains of their family members. Lastly, the board members should honor duty of obedience. Board members ought to make sure that they follow the company’s governing documents while exercising their powers and duties. They should ensure that the company’s assets are used lawfully. They should also make sure that they comply with the states laws that dictate how business should be run (Levy, 2012). Areas of Compliance and Improvements Daimler Company is compliant in accounting practices according to SOX, execu tive compensations, Legal and Ethical responsibilities of board members, but the company will require enforcing its management of conflict of interests by adopting a conflict of interest policy and make every director to sign and abide by it. Conclusion Employers should ensure that they monitor electronic activities of employees in order to protect themselves from any liability and security problems associated with illegal use of electronic systems. The employers should ensure that they have a policy that regulates employees monitoring process that all employers are aware of before, even before being hired. The employers should avoid intruding in private matters of their employees, but limit their monitoring to work related issues. Daimler has a very effective internal and external control that effectively manages the various stakeholders who are involved in its business transactions. However, the company requires adopting a conflict of interest policy. Reference List Hartman, L. D esJardins, J. (2011). Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal  Integrity and Social Responsibility (2nd ed.). New York :McGraw-Hill. Levy, J. (2012). Ethical and Legal Responsibilities of Board Members. Web. Murray, J. (2012). What Should a Conflict of Interest Policy for My Corporate Include? Web. Taylor, C. (2012). SOX Compliance- Regulatiting Accounting Standards. Web. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (2012). Executive Compensations. Web. This assessment on Technology, Privacy, Accounting, Finance, and Governance Values Analysis was written and submitted by user Shatterstar to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Monday, November 25, 2019

Free speech in music essays

Free speech in music essays I think that every American citizen will agree with me when I say that freedom of speech is an essential part of democracy. This right encompasses many different areas of American life including but not limited to actual speech, clothing, what we read, what we see on television, and also what we hear in out music. But where do we draw the line on what we can and cannot say in music? I say that anything goes. It is after all only music. When I say its only music, I dont want to make it seem like I think music is not an important thing. Far from it. My life would be completely different and far less enjoyable without it. What I mean is that it really isnt something that people need to get all worked up about. If one group or one parent has something against one kind of music or what kind of message that it is supposedly conveying, then I think it is their responsibility to ignore it or boycott it as they see fit, but it is ridiculous that everyone should have to suffer because one person is easily offended. And how does one group decide that music is profane or offensive without knowing anything about it? It is impossible for someone who does not listen to heavy metal or any other similar tasteless style of music to understand what is trying to be said. I believe that half of the time these fogies are letting the loud sound impair their judgment. If these people would turn their hearing aids down and open their eyes they might see the truth rather than what they want to hear all the time. Another thing that I find amusing is that while many times people are trying to stop this music from getting out into the public, a lot of times all the fuss only serves to help record sales of these so called offensive musicians. If people would just calm down and let everyone make their own decisions on what is right and wrong musically, the country would be a lot better off. First off, why ...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Common stock evaluation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Common stock evaluation - Essay Example Stock valuation also enables potential investors gauge the performance and value of stock in the securities market. Establishing the worth of shares helps one make informed investment decision. The managers use this valuation in the analysis of the worth of their business. This information is also useful to creditors in gauging the credit worthiness of a company before advancing credit (Hoover, 2005). This method values the share price by use of forecasted dividends and discounting them. When the figure obtained from the DDM is higher to value of shares presently trading then the stock is considered undervalued (Hoover, 2005). The anticipated earnings price (E/P) ratio is the measure of the firm’s cost of equity. A stock calculated on the zero-growth model can vary in value when the capitalization rate varies as it viewed risk changes (Hoover, 2005). The constant-growth method is essential in valuing stock of stable companies with dividends rising steadily over time. This model estimates an intrinsic stock value stock using the average dividend growth and forecasting it to dividend rises. The denominator remains the same when the rate of capitalization and dividend growth remains unchanged yearly. The stock’s basic value rises per annum by the proportion of the rise in dividend. Both the share price and the dividend amount will rise by the steady -growth factor, g. The model considers only the quantitative and not the qualitative values. Future changes are ignored in calculations.  This model is unfavorable for firms and market with quick changing dividend

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Movie Carrie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Carrie - Movie Review Example On one hand, he understands that Carrie White's night of revenge is motivated by the brutality of her classmates. On the other hand, his exoneration of Carrie is equalled in his contempt for the boy-men, girl-women who torment her. King's truest sympathies are always with the high school rejects; they are not only victimized by the cruelty of the majority, but because of their status as pariahs they often possess a level of intelligence and sensitivity sadly missing in their more popular peers. Carrie becomes doubly pitiful, because ... she can only wait to be saved or damned by the actions of others. Her only power is her telekinetic ability, and movie eventually arrives at the same point: King seems most unfavorably inclined toward the superficially well-adjusted, popular student with an overly active libido and a underdeveloped value system. His class presidents, football quarterbacks, and prom queens bear an unmistakable resemblance to the street punks who attend the same school system as a stopover on their way to jail: both groups of adolescents have completely severed their bonds with childhood innocence. In their vicious lust to exploit sex, alcohol, and violence (for they inhabit an exclusively physical plane of existence), their behavior is modeled on an extreme conception of adulthood. They want all the pleasure of worldly experience, with none of the responsibilities. Thus, they are simply young versions of the corruption which animates King's adult society. Horror films like Carrie is, primarily, produced and consumed by men. Why should this be It would seem that the experience derived from horror fiction (as opposed to the experience of horror in "real life") is peculiarly fascinating to men, or rather to the masculine subject, i.e. the subject constituted as masculine through the particular nature of his/her experience, particularly in early childhood. For the masculine child, the movement away from the mother, expressed as it is through abjection and the passage through the Oedipus complex, seems to be more traumatic than for the feminine child. For the feminine child there remains at least a possibility of reunion with the mother through identification; also, the feminine subject is actively encouraged to retain links with the maternal semiotic through the cultivation of such qualities as "intuition." The masculine subject by contrast depends for his very identity on the effectiveness of his repression of the maternal semiotic and o f desire for the mother. Carrie is dominated by those images of waste, putrefaction and decay which can be associated with abjection: these are, so to speak, the staple of horror. When we think of "the horrid" we picture blood, corpses, the violation of bodily limits. Via these images horror fiction returns us to the scene of primary horror in the abjection of the mother, a scene which, however, particularly for the masculine subject, possesses fascination, the power of the taboo. Images of abjection lead the masculine subject back not only to the movement away from the mother but also to the original repressed desire for the mother, which returns with all the force of the repressed, of that which can be allowed no place in adult life. Carrie seems to be designed

Monday, November 18, 2019

Build and Sustain an Innovative Work Environment Assignment - 2

Build and Sustain an Innovative Work Environment - Assignment Example The principle aligns those of Virgin Atlantic Red’s business needs since it depends on customers to buy the services. Another underlying principle is that innovation should drive the core business process (Davila, Epstein, & Shelton, 2012). Virgin Atlantic Little Red is always in a constant need for new ways of providing goods and services to their customers thus the principle aligns with its business needs. In addition, the innovation plan relies on the principle of becoming ten times better with the new ideas (Boons, & LÃ ¼deke-Freund, 2013). The new idea should prove better than the previous and even far much better than those of the competitors. There are many domestic flights in the UK and Virgin Atlantic Little aims at becoming a leader in the industry thus the principle serves its business interests. A major area, that requires the pilot program, is the service provisions especially the flight services. Onboard services like inflight entertainment and connectivity will suit the pilot program since it proposes the provision of unique experiences to the passengers on board. The program might as well suit booking services with a strong emphasis on quick and reliable booking system to the customers. The plan begins notifying the management to know how best the staff can implement the proposal. In the implementation stage, it is also imperative to develop time frame for all activities specifying duration for their completion. On the other hand, the plan will have performance indicators to notify the implementing team on the success of the plan in meeting set goals and objectives. Moreover, the implementation plan should have a monitoring mechanism and assign duties to specific individuals. The communication plan in this proposal entails developing a comprehensive plan that states where chains of command come from and those who take the orders. Commands should come from the executive management who also has to state clearly the objectives and

Saturday, November 16, 2019

The Maesrsk Line Company

The Maesrsk Line Company The Maesrsk Line Company is the global containerized division of the A.P. Moller. The company delivers its services across the world through ocean transportation services. They built their vision and their mission from a strong constant care, heritage of uprightness, and innovation, and this vision has made a path for their business operations since Maersk lines first vessel sailed in 1904. The focus and commitment to this vision made them able to expand the business and become largest ocean carrier of the world. And they are constantly recognized as the most reliable container shipping company. A.P. Moller Maersk Group headquarters at the waterfront in Copenhagen, Denmark The fleet of the maersk line is consist of more than 600 vessels and the total number of containers is more than 3,800,000 TEU*. This shows a comprehensive and reliable coverage worldwide. Maesks Lines Philosophy: We share the same values and principles of business with the maesks line group to be a known, highly respected and world-class group. The founder Mr. A.P. Moller wrote Loss should not hit us, and constant care is needed for it. These words are highly followed and having deep meaning at the company. Word constant care is highly focused on the safety and good health of the employees and others in the industry and environment around them. Our Values: The core values of the Maersk line group are the demonstration n of constant care, regard for our employees, humbleness and uprightness and the protection of the name of the company. The success lies in the fulfillment of these values while carrying out the business. Our business principles: The maersk fundamental business principles is comprises of how do we conduct our business, these principles are applicable on national as well as international legislation. Environment: Our constant care also revolves around the protection of environment. We maximize the use of the resources and handle the waste. The policy regarding environmental protection is we focus on the protection of the environment and environmental consideration is our first priority in conducting our business. Our mission: We provide opportunities in global commerce. Company facts and information: Maersk Line is the leading container shipping company all over the world. It has more than 600 vessels and more than 3, 800, 0000 (a container is 20 feet long). It shows the comprehensive and reliable coverage all over the world. http://www.maerskline.com/globalimage/?path=/media_room/company001 What is container shipping? Containerization, it is large and worldwide system of intermodal cargo transport by using standardized containers. This can be sealed and reloaded onto container ships, trucks and planes, railroad cars. Before the containers were introduced, it was time consuming and expensive to handle the cargo for sea transportation. The containers have brought change in that and it made transport easier and affordable than ever before. All the types of commodities and the type of goods can be carried and loaded in the box; as a result the modernized container shipping has changed the ways of transportation around the world and played a vital role in globalization. Sustainability: Since it is a biggest shipping line in the world, Maersk Line plays a vital role in facilitating efficient and reliable supply chains for many companies. It is recognized that the position of maersk line as an enabler of global trade have brought great opportunities. Global trade of manufactured goods has increased over 100 times, from 95 billion USD to 12 trillion in the last 5 decades. Today 90% of global trade is done through ocean transport and containerization have played very important role in this development. Awards and Recognition: Maersk Line wins Shipping Company of the Year award in the Middle East 14 December 2012 Maersk Line takes home two Global Freight Awards 26 November 2012 Maersk Line wins Lloyds List Environment Award for the Middle East and Indian Subcontinent 19 October 2012 Maersk Line wins Clean Excellence Award 25 September 2012 Maersk Line wins Social Media Campaign of the Year Award 17 September 2012 Maersk Line wins 2012 Best Global Shipping Line Award 7 June 2012 Maersk Lines à gnes Hernà ¡d wins Best Young Manager of the Year 20 February 2012 Maersk Line Wins Shipping Line of the Year Award 1 December 2011 Maersk Line wins two awards at AFSCA 2011 Maersk wins European Business Award 2010 Maersk Line Best Global Shipping Line, Best Shipping Line for Asia-Europe, and Best Green Service Provider Shipping Line 2009. Maersk Line awarded Container Shipping Line of the Year 2007 Maersk Line wins Best Global Shipping Line 2006 Maersk Sealand named Best global shipping line 2005 Best Global Shipping Line award 2004 HR Processes: Recruitment and selection at Maersk Line: Maersk Line strictly follows the Equal employment opportunity Law while hiring candidates for a particular department. They make sure no discrimination take place throughout the procedure of hiring an employee. The advantage of strictly following such law is that Maersk Line never face any problem pertaining to legal complexities and law suits regarding the hiring of candidates. The recruitment process starts with the submission of online application by a candidate and a confirmation pop-up appears on the screen. A reply will be sent within few days so that the applications can be reviewed carefully. Applications are reviewed on the basis of some standard tools so that company can make it sure that a candidate is eligible for giving interviews. The mediums of recruitment which they prefer are: Employment Agencies: These agencies make links between the employers and employees. Internet: The advertisements on different job websites, which capture the a huge pool of candidates who can apply in the company to get the job they are capable for. Employee Referrals Its an internal recruiting method which identifies their potential candidates from the existing workforces social networks. This scheme encourages existing employees to choose the suitable candidate for a particular job from their social networks. A referral bonus is given to referring employee as a reward. It is the most efficient and cost effective method for recruitment. Announcement on the official website They Announce the new jobs on their official website i.e. www.maerskline.com. Website has the particular portion of vacancies and the whole process of how to apply is mentioned. Evaluation of internal labor supply They prefer Internal Labor Supply over External: Those positions which are at higher levels and become vacant due to transfers, deaths, demotions and promotions, are filled by the internal employees who are already familiar with the required managerial roles and responsibilities of those positions. These positions are then posted on the notice boards throughout the PSO offices and are also posted on a software device that is displayed on almost every computer desktop at PSO offices. The interested employees are screened, interviewed and positioned. The criteria of selecting the internal employee depend on requirements of the qualification, age and experience recommended by the line manager Selecting and interviewing Process: Selection process: Advertise Test 1st Interview 2nd Interview HIRE There is a predetermined criterion for hiring of candidates, which includes Logical and personality Test It is the standardized instruments of testing individuals character of psychological makeup. It also reveals the aspects of how logical the candidate is. These tests play an important role in making the selection process easier. Behavioral Interviews These interviews discover the behavior of an interviewee. It reveals that how an interviewee acted in particular situation faced in the past. And it will predict that how he or she will act in the future. In traditional interviews there is a series of question asked, that has the straight forward answers Like what challenges did you face? How did u handle them? Or what are your strengths and weaknesses?But in the behavioral interviews questions are more pointed and more specific than questions in the traditional interview. Like describe any example of a goal reached by you and how did you achieved it? or how did you work effectively when you were under pressure? In order to get selected, candidates must fulfill the criteria they are tested upon. English Grammar: English comprehension Basic Mathematics: Identification of Resources required in particular Department: Need Analysis Departmental Goals Organizational Goals Interviewing Process: Two structured interviews are generally conducted of a candidate at Maersk Line. The first interview is conducted by Human Resources which are focused on the candidates personal skills and capabilities. They use online or hard copy assessment tools to try to form an objective picture of candidates personal characteristics and logical capabilities and a feedback is provided as a part of the process. The second interview is normally conducted by the hiring manager who makes the final hiring decisions and focuses on the specific qualities and skills which are required for the particular job. The whole recruitment process usually takes 4 to 6 weeks; it could be vary depending on the locations. Orientation and Trainings: Training and development is a continuous process, and is designed to bring about a change in attitude of employees with respect to the job they are doing, the people around them, the new procedures, the new techniques and skills that they can use. It is also to make them more conscious of their responsibilities and how to perform them effectively. Therefore, all training is planned and coordinated in a systematic manner by the company, in term so identifying following needs and the skills required in the company. The training and skill development efforts are not confined to a formal class room course but extended in all directions, hence, helping to improve the productivity of employees by imparting useful knowledge and training in the areas, which are neglected, and to add up to the most of their strengths. The growth of the employees is not only a short term vision of enhancing inputs through skills based on training but also an effort for the long term development of employees by education and planned management development inputs. Types of Training at Maersk Line: Orientation Program: Newly inducted employees are given a short orientation course to familiarize them with the company, organizational functions, activities, policies, procedures and programs. This type of training program may be arranged on individual basis or group class room training, depending on number of participants available. The duration and contents of the course is determined to meet the needs of individual concerned in consultation with respective departmental heads. Depending on the type of job, newly hired employees, as well as the promotes assigned to new field of activities, are given on the job training for a period ranging from one week to four weeks, as may be deemed necessary. They make sure that people are empowered to do their job well Indoor simulators: Job knowledge is an essential part of everyones responsibility in any position. Since technology, methodology, processes are changing at a fast pace, it is imperative that employees should learn new skills and techniques through specialized and technical courses organized within the company. Seminars and constructive discussion groups: seminars are conducted to spread the awareness regarding different programs plus it provides a platform for the employer and the employees to socialize. Group case studies play an important role in a constructive discussion between the employees. Practical exposure and experiences: As a trainee in their company an employee will be given a responsibility from day 1 and will be provided with a proper toolkit enabling him to experience a real job. The Maersk group runs a trainee program which provides opportunities to get solid and a broad shipping knowledge. The applicants will be the part of business represented in many countries they are looking for energetic, passionate about shipping and eager to learn individuals who can apply as a Chartering or Operation Trainee in this program. Chartering Trainee: as a chartering trainee, he or she will be responsible for fixing the vessels and cargos. You are to ensure that the vessels sail with the right cargo. Operation Trainee: as an operation trainee employee will be responsible to make sure that the operations of vessels are efficient and safe. And will have to perform following tasks. Issuing voyage instructions Appointing agents Planning bunkering Market voyage analysis Handling insurance and legal matters The trainee will have a broad network of stakeholders including agents, ship managers, port captains and charters. Performance Management: To maintain a sustainable Performance of an employee, Maersk Human resource management measures some of the main factors which has a high impact on employees performances. Work output Personal Competency Goals achieved Performance appraisal Methods at Maersk Line: HR managers should be very careful while selecting methodology used to measure performance of an individual. Maersk Line uses the following methods. MBO Each employee is assign with the specific tasks and goals, and then the progress of those goals is reviewed periodically. Goal setting is done by mainly focusing on the Organizational goals. Secondly the departmental goals are assigned to different departments working in the company, then these goals are discussed with the employees and employees get to know what is expected from them, which defines their individual goals. Finally the progress of these goals is reviewed and employees receive feedbacks. Paired ranking method ranking employees by making a chart of all possible pairs of the employees for each trait and indicating which one is the better employee of the pair. Forced distribution method similar to grading on curve; predetermined percentages of rates are placed in various performance categories. Example: 15% high performers 20% high-average performers 30% average performers 20% low-average performers 15% low performers Goals achieved The process starts when HR throws performance appraisal forms to different departments. This appraisal form has two sides: Employee Development Report-1 (EDR1) Employee Development Report-2 (EDR2) EDR-1 In EDR1 employee he identifies the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the employees themselves set the objectives and targets for the following year. EDR-2 In EDR2 it is the line manager who rates the employee performance by quoting significant performance achievements and deficiencies for the past year. He indicates what development and training will employee need in the future according to the highlighted areas in the current year. When both of them end up the negotiation then the appraisal form is sent to HR department for further follow up of the respective training or development arrangements. This way the Performance appraisal system reaches to end. These performance appraisal methods are very useful in order to maintain competition and for employees to focus on Key performance indicators (KPIs). And the results extracted from these methods become the basis of promotion, rewards, incentives, bonuses, or layoff and punishment for an employee. Compensation Benefits: Since the Maersk line is very careful in maintaining the equality among their employees, they never face any equity issue. The wages and salaries are set on the basis of employees Education Experience Market conditions Human capabilities The pay raise is given to an employee on the yearly basis. Maersk line negotiate the salary with a candidate on his own terms and conditions only when the job is highly skilled, when company wants to retain its loyal employee and when an employee is an exceptional performer. Career Development at Maersk Line: Maersk line is highly involved in investment in training and education. Over the years A.P. Moller maersk group has its own training system which is implemented over the years and constantly updated. And it is directed towards meeting the global and international organizations particular requirement. Their experience shows that the employee cannot be evaluated solely on the basis of written applications and the examination results. It is essential that the personal impression of the individual behind the papers should be evaluated. Everybody who is formally eligible and has the qualification required for the certain position, can expect to be invited for the interview with Human Resource Department at Maersk line. Maersk Line believes that career development is one of the most important steps in maintaining organizational performance. Maersk Line always helps its employees to build their career and achieve their personal goals by giving their best. And contribution which is made by the company is: Job enlargement Job Rotation Career Path Defined It is important to recognize when the employee is ready for promotion, because if an employee will not be promoted at the right time he might get demotivated. Maersk line recognize such employees when there is availability of position and employees exhibition of competencies for performance in the new role. In case, when the employee leaves the organization when his/her promotion plan is ready, the HR gives someone else dual responsibilities for the time being. PROBLEMS: There are number of potential drawbacks in different stages. One of the greatest concerns regarding relying too much on employee referrals could become the reason of limited diversity at workplace. Hiring from the same existing networks may bound a company to capture diverse pool of candidate, it is good for reducing cost expenditure but on the other hand it could become the big hurdle for the company if the company is relying on such method too heavily. This simple method could have many risks, e.g. when there is a need to fill particular Job the simple question is asked from the existing employees i.e. Is there anyone in your mind who can fill this Job? In response to this question employees may think of the potential benefits for their close ones in their network, rather than thinking constructively for the organization. It is not necessary that every time a new employee comes in through reference is beneficial for the company, it carries risks with it, it could take time to measure his/her effectiveness, and if the new employee is not prod uctive, eventually it will increase the cost of the company and employee will become the liability on the company. Solution: There is certain planning and strategies which can save the company from these problems Communicate the benefits to employees for the successful referrals; give them rewards, incentives and bonuses for the successful referral. This strategy can change the way employees think when they are asked to bring the best candidate for the particular job, now they will think of the best candidate in their mind, who will serve the company most efficiently and effectively. The reward amount should be sufficient enough to motivate the employees who make referrals but not too much that may lead them to make referrals of unqualified candidates. The bonuses should be given in installments because the effectiveness of the new employee cannot be measured in few days, it may take time. In order to be safe from a big loss company should make payments of bonuses in installments. The company may limit the number of bonus qualifying referrals that is made by each employee per year. This will reduce the number of employee referrals per year. The mandatory qualification and specifications should be clearly mentioned and delivered to the employees who make referrals. It will reduce the risk of getting unqualified employees. All the requests for employee referrals should be added to the pool of the candidates. Problem: 3 The advertisement for the Job which is offered by the company is very much important in order to gather a better pool of candidates. Maersk Line is highly dependent on the internet as medium of advertisement for the jobs. They dont prefer NEWSPAPER for the advertisement of their Jobs; as a result they are missing a large number of candidates who prefer Newspapers to find jobs. Solution: In order to get better employees a company must have a large pool of candidate so that it can be used for hiring employees when there is a need to fill the job in emergency. Newspaper plays an important role in spreading awareness among public. Since its an oldest and most popular medium of advertisements civilized and educated people read newspaper as a matter of habit in all over the world. Therefore it has a wide and general appeal. The message can reach a large number of audiences quickly. Choosing the best newspaper is also important, so the Maersk line can improve its pool of candidates by spreading word through Newspaper. Problem: 4 When we asked them; Has it ever happened that an employee might have left the Organization due to some reason; while the HR had plans for his promotion ready? Yes No They chose YES, And then we asked the next question; With Reference to the above scenario, what did the HR do? (If the above Question is answered as a NO, then suppose a scenario with the above details answer this question, what would the HR do?) Promote an immediate subordinate Bring in a Contingent Employee Give someone dual responsibilities for the time being Hire an individual from a pool of already collected CVs. They chose the third option which is Give someone dual responsibilities for the time being It may create a problem we identified, because in case of fulfillment of the job which has been left empty by the previous employee due to any reason, Maersk Line shifts the tasks to other employees. This creates a burden on them. Assigning dual responsibilities to an employee may become the reason of his/her demotivation. The workload given to someone more than his/her capacity may push them towards demotivation. As a result that employee may leave the Job which actually creates a problem for the company. Solution: It is normal that when employees get better options and more secured jobs they switch their jobs. If we see the answer of first question we asked, it shows that maersk line has issues with their employees regarding their promotions. The timing of the promoting employees is not accurate, that is why it leads employees to leave the job right before the promotion. The main problem is to put dual responsibilities on existing employee rather than promoting him/her to that post. The Maersk line lacks the succession planning; they prefer distributing the responsibilities instead of immediate fulfillment of the empty position. Because it is the best time to get benefit, by promoting the employees to fill the job and if the company doesnt find any potential candidate among the existing employees who can fill the post, then they should focus on the pool of the candidates. It ensures that the collected CVs are not useless PROBLEM: 5 Maersk Line doesnt have any well defined strategy to retain their employees who are really important for the companys growth. It usually happens in Maersk Line that employees leave the organization due to some reason; while the HR had plans for their promotion ready. Recruitment is an expensive process, and when employees leave the jobs it is actually a loss in the cost incurred in the recruitment process. SOLUTION: Hiring employees is an important stage but to keep them in your organization is also very important to be safe from the high employee turnover costs. In order to retain the employees, maersk line should create some tactics to retain their employees. These tactics may include: Offering competitive benefits: Providing your employees life insurance, health insurance and a retirement savings Give rewards and incentives Provide some small perks: Conduct stay interviews in addition to exit interviews Promote whenever possible Create open communication Get managers involved:

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

The Fountain Head: Individualism :: essays research papers

The Fountain Head: Individualism   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Individualism, the only element which makes a person's character unique. In the Fountain Head, a character binds true to this belief and goes by the name of Howard Roark. This young architect who had his own viewpoint of the world and how he envisioned it, was condemned by the media and the public by doing so. Roark's lifestyle completely perpendiculates the mundane lifestyle that the average citizen lives. Roark conforms to only what he considers valid in his own conscience. The novel opens the door to lead the way against the oppression of conformity. The environment which Howard was placed into didn't help in his situation to freely express his thoughts on certain subjects. This was mainly made possible by the people who he had come in contact through out the years. Many examples of this type of movement are shown by the actions taken by Roark during his career as an architect.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  All of the actions taken by Roark had a deep profound effect on one key player in the novel, Toohey. Toohey with all the power he had with the public and through the newspaper, was not able to manipulate Howard into his way of thinking. The general public who read the Banner had been convinced that Toohey new what he was talking about on all subjects. His plan to manipulate the public and gather them as a whole was directly countered with every move that Howard made. One of these major moves was the building of the Stoddard Temple. With the temple, Roark had the freedom to build whatsoever he choose. This gave him a medium to express his viewpoint without having any restrictions. After the delayed unveiling of the temple, it was condemned by the public. At the head of this group was no other than Toohey. He wrote articles in the newspaper on how the temple in no way represented the human spirit. The temple allowed Howard to display his individualism, his uniqueness, and his self being. This temple was looked down upon because it did not conform to the ancient styles of architecture. Due to the amount of uniqueness found in the temple, it opposed the conventional view that life required conformity.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Howard's special relationship between himself and Gail came about because of their unique individualism. They both believe in the same ways of thinking and therefore they are very much on the same plane of conscienceless. The reason why Gail conformed to society was to play against their trust in the future. When the Banner first got started, it ran two stories to test which

Monday, November 11, 2019

Commerce Education and Employability

COMMERCE EDUCATION AND EMPLOYABILITY It is commonly agreed that education should aim at ‘holistic development’ of the individual. Further, such development should be in harmony with the society and the nature. To quote the great Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo, education should aim at â€Å"all round development of the personality, which includes education of the sense, body, mind, moral and spiritual education. † The concepts of ‘all round development of personality’, or ‘holistic development’ include all the aspects of development-intellectual, spiritual, moral, economic, etc.However, some philosophers have defined the economic aims of education. Christopher Winch1; a British scholar says ‘education is broadly, although not exclusively concerned with preparation for life or for particular phase of life’. He gave three aspects to this concept of education, which are ‘fulfillment’, ‘civic participationâ₠¬â„¢ and ‘vocation’ and specifies that the individual conception of education, as they can be found in particular societies at particular time, consists of distinct combination of these different aspects.In order to define the objectives of commerce education, it may be important to go a little into its history. The origin of commerce education can be traced to the 19th century. It started with the teaching of skill based courses of ‘typing’ and ‘book keeping’, to meet the emerging manpower requirements in these areas. With an increase in commercial activities and expansion of banking, insurance, transportation and other related services, the nature and scope of commerce education changed. From a vocational bias in the initial years, the focus changed to providing liberal business education.Some experts even gave different objectives for different stages or levels of education. For example, Prof. Dasgupta (1959) used three different expressions to indicate ‘business education’, at three different levels. At the junior level (higher secondary stage), it was referred to as ‘commercial education,’ covering specific skills programmes; at the first degree stage, the term used was ‘commerce education’, to cover general stream courses for preparing semi professionals and at ‘post graduation’ level, it was termed as ‘Professional Business Education’, with the aim of preparing experts in specific areas.In other words, commerce education, at less than degree level was referred to as ‘commercial education’ or ‘vocational business education’. However, the commonly accepted view at present is that commerce education at higher secondary stage is not merely to satisfy the skill or vocational needs of pupils but provides basic understanding of the various principles, procedures and practices related to business. It also fosters an understanding of the economy, of the community in which activities related to business and industry takes place. It prepares the learners to take up business career.The secondary schools should therefore, provide the students with knowledge of the background of commerce and of the way it affects the life of the community, apart from the commercial knowledge and skills. This integrating approach to the liberal and vocational education has the support of many modern thinkers on education. It is argued that education should turn the people to something he knows well and can do well. Thus, commerce should be taken as both a knowledge subject and a skill subject. The specific objectives of academic stream of commerce education i) To provide knowledge of principles, practices, procedures, etc. bout business, trade and industry and its relationship with the society; ii) To provide basic knowledge of technological tools including computers and its application in business; iii) To develop an understanding of the environment in which we live and undertake various activities relating to business; iv) To develop basic skills needed to undertake different commerce related activities; v) to educate learners in different functional areas and develop their basic understanding about the same; vi) To develop right aptitude and qualities for undertaking business and commerce related activities; and vii) to encourage the spirit of entrepreneurship and prepare learners to enter into a business career. Linkage with the Industry The present curriculum has been found to be only moderately useful to the industry. In order to make it more useful it is suggested that the students should be exposed to practical knowledge, a) by engaging them on project work, or attachment with industry, and b) establishing interaction with industry through field visits, involving professionals in teaching, and organising lectures by industry experts/successful entrepreneurs.It was generally perceived that the present cur riculum offered low degree of opportunities of skill development to the students of commerce As a result, the pass-outs of higher secondary course only have theoretical or conceptual background of various aspects of business and trade. When it comes to the practical knowledge when they are asked to perform an activity, the results are rather poor because the required skills have not been developed in them. This is a common situation, which affects the acceptability of the students by the industry as well as the users of services. The industry looks for skilled people who have a practical exposure to various commerce related activities and possess generic skills like communication skills, problem-solving skills etc. As the present curriculum offers low opportunities of skill development, need for rectifying the position has been strongly felt.Various suggestions received to improve the situation in this regard include organization of field visits, on the job training of the students, improving the infrastructural facilities and provision for establishment of commerce laboratories in the schools. Strengthening linkages Any serious effort to make the commerce curriculum relevant to the industry and increasing its acceptability would require strengthening of linkages between the school and the industry. Various suggestions have been received in this regard, from the responding stakeholders. These are discussed as follows. Firstly, it is strongly felt that organising field visits to business ecommercial establishments etc. would be of great help in exposing the students to the real work of business.For example, the student may be taken to a factory and shown how goods are being manufactured or packaged. This will give them a real feel of the various processes and an opportunity or relating these to what is being taught in the class. This is very important for sustaining their interest in the subject and making them useful to the employers as well as to the society in general. Second, it is suggested that industrial internship, to three to four week’s duration, during the summer vacation (or some other vacations), would be quite helpful in providing the students an opportunity of actually working in an office or in the field environment.Third, the students may be assigned some project work relating to the subject of study. Let us say while teaching the chapter on marketing, the students may be asked to go to their local market and find out which brands of a particular product, say toothpaste or toilet soap are available in a retail outlet; which of these are preferred by a particular class of buyers (say people belonging to lower income group) and why? Further, the schools may regularly organize seminars, workshops and discussions where experts from industry are invited to participate and interact with the students. For example, sharing of experiences by successful entrepreneurs may be of great interest and utility to the student.Fifth, the schools may be encouraged to set up commerce laboratory where the students can practice through charts, models, computer games, exploration on internet, etc. some of the practical aspects of what is taught in the class. Other important suggestions received for strengthening the linkages include making a provision for extensive training of the teachers and inducing industry for adoption of schools so that the course can run efficiently. If the teachers are not trained regularly, they would not be able to impart knowledge and skills about the latest developments in their field. Moreover, the role of teachers is changing fast. They have to work like facilitators, in the present day world of information and fast changing technological and economic environment.Thus, periodic training of teachers is very important for effectively running a course. As regards the strategy for development of linkages, it is agreed enterprises, it is agreed that the industry should be persuaded to coope rate with the schools. Entrepreneurial Values The present curriculum was perceived to be offering low degree of opportunities for development of entrepreneurial values, attitudes and skills. As a result most of the pass-outs were included to look for some wage employment opportunities, after completing their studies. This creates a lot of stress on the already soaring list of unemployed youth in the country and need improvements. The students may be induced towards entrepreneurship.The entrepreneurial values, attitudes and skills should be groomed from schools days so that the pass-outs can be prepared to set up their own ventures instead of looking for wage employment to improve the situation, various suggestions. Include organization of field visits, adoption of case study approach, teaching of biographies of successful entrepreneurs, use of small Business Games and Mock stock exchange proceedings for teaching these aspects and bringing change in the orientation of curriculum and textbooks, to incorporate entrepreneurial value and attitudes. Commerce Education needs the infusion of fresh ideas so as to provide a stimulating, supporting and sustaining environment. The Social Context of Education The education system does not function in isolation from the society of which it is a part.Hierarchies of caste, economic status and gender relations, cultural diversity as well as the uneven economic development that characterize Indian society also deeply influence access to education and participation of children in school. But at the same time, globalisation and the spread of market relations to every sphere of society have important implications for education. Business Studies Syllabi and Textbooks The syllabi and textbooks in commerce have been prepared according to the principles of the National Curriculum Framework. 1. The chapter on Social Responsibility of Business discusses how a business unit has to take care of the society of which it is a part.Every busi ness needs to act in a socially desirable manner and respect its employees, the community and the environment in which it operates. Our objective is to sensitise the student to social issues and concerns and the fact that business can do a lot for society, while fulfilling its social obligation. Environmental Protection also forms part of the chapter where conservation and industrial pollution are discussed. Business Ethics is also included to make students aware of ethical and responsible behaviour of a business. This also instills in a student value of personal ethics and standards and a code of conduct which can be applied in personal life also.Interrelationships however between business ethics and individual ethics need to be drawn by the teachers. 2. The global and local perspective and rural development needs to be taken care of. Small Business has been included in the syllabus and covers tiny and cottage industries and assistance to business provided by the government to smal l business reasons of including this in the syllabus. Rural Development and growth is a priority area and has been given a special emphasis in the latest year plans and all documents pertaining to economic development. In fact, marketers are depending on the rural demand and markets. Examples from rural business have been given throughout the book to sensitise children to the rural aspect of the country.Local perspective needs emphasis as a student is always able to relate to his local surroundings, therefore, local examples are better understood by them. 3. Connecting knowledge to life outside school. The environment in which a business operates forms an important aspect of management. A business unit has to constantly interact with the economic, political, legal and social environment. The business environment is dynamic in nature and examples can be taken from all around us, newspapers, business magazines, business TV programmes and the internet. Management has to respond to all these changes and this chapter has been specially included so that students are aware of what is going on in the economic, political, legal and social environment.A business has to analyse the environment before taking decisions. 4. Projects, activities and case problems have also been included to ensure that learning is shifted from rote methods. Creativity is a value that needs to be fostered. At the end of each chapter projects, activities and case problems have been given. 5. Boxes includes enrichment material taken from newspapers, business magazines and the internet. We hope these will enable students to connect textual knowledge to the business world Students should draw interrelationships between the text and the news in the print and electronic media. The Objective is to give students an idea of what is happening inside a business. 6.We live in an age of unprecedented violence, local regional, national and global. Values of love, cooperation, non violence, peace are univers al and need to be emphasized again and again. Social equality and justice is an integral part of peace education. Our chapter on social responsibilities emphasizes social equality and justice but teachers need to revisit the concept and connect it to place in society. The topic on cooperative societies and international business are based on the spirit of cooperation. Cooperation as a value needs to be re emphasized by teachers and then lead the student to imbibe the value of cooperation. International agreements, WTO and GATT are all based in international cooperation.Since management involves doing work systematically and resolving conflict situations, while we are teaching management we can revisit the idea of maintaining peace and harmony within an organization. Coordination of activities ensures harmonious relationships which is what manage motivation which again is related to peace and harmony. The teacher in the class needs to draw interconnections between the text and values of peace and non-violence. This has become almost an essential and moral duty of every teacher. 7. India is a multicultural society and all groups have equal rights to coexist and flourish. In our texts we have tried to give business examples from all regions.When the social environment of business is taught then certain examples can be taken up so that students have a fair idea of the pluralistic society in which we live. 8. Any economic development affects the Financial Market and ultimately every business unit in some way or the other. The role of major financial institutions and banks are becoming prominent in the financial markets. The fluctuations in the capital market are due to a variety of reasons. How the political, economic and social changes affect the markets can be studied, it will be going beyond the textbook. However, students will find it very interesting. These topics are important, current issues and students need to be aware of such topics as they shape the coun try’s future and economic development.In fact, the whole world is looking at India and China since they are relatively strong economies because of the regulatory mechanisms in the financial markets. Reference 1. www. ncert. nic. in/programmes/teacher_edu/pdfs/Commerce. pdf In Service Teacher Education Manual for Teachers and Teacher Educators in Commerce. 2. Emerging Trends in Commerce and Management, Santosh Gupta, Published in University News41 (05) 2003 3. Recent Trends in Commerce and Management Education, Dr. V. V. Khanzode, Strling Publishers Private Limited. 1990 4. National Policy on Education1986 an Appraisal, DoabaHouse, New Delhi. 1989 5. Commerce and Management Education in India,Ed. K. V. Sivayya,Ashish Publishing House, New Delhi. 1990 Commerce Education and Employability COMMERCE EDUCATION AND EMPLOYABILITY It is commonly agreed that education should aim at ‘holistic development’ of the individual. Further, such development should be in harmony with the society and the nature. To quote the great Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo, education should aim at â€Å"all round development of the personality, which includes education of the sense, body, mind, moral and spiritual education. † The concepts of ‘all round development of personality’, or ‘holistic development’ include all the aspects of development-intellectual, spiritual, moral, economic, etc.However, some philosophers have defined the economic aims of education. Christopher Winch1; a British scholar says ‘education is broadly, although not exclusively concerned with preparation for life or for particular phase of life’. He gave three aspects to this concept of education, which are ‘fulfillment’, ‘civic participationâ₠¬â„¢ and ‘vocation’ and specifies that the individual conception of education, as they can be found in particular societies at particular time, consists of distinct combination of these different aspects.In order to define the objectives of commerce education, it may be important to go a little into its history. The origin of commerce education can be traced to the 19th century. It started with the teaching of skill based courses of ‘typing’ and ‘book keeping’, to meet the emerging manpower requirements in these areas. With an increase in commercial activities and expansion of banking, insurance, transportation and other related services, the nature and scope of commerce education changed. From a vocational bias in the initial years, the focus changed to providing liberal business education.Some experts even gave different objectives for different stages or levels of education. For example, Prof. Dasgupta (1959) used three different expressions to indicate ‘business education’, at three different levels. At the junior level (higher secondary stage), it was referred to as ‘commercial education,’ covering specific skills programmes; at the first degree stage, the term used was ‘commerce education’, to cover general stream courses for preparing semi professionals and at ‘post graduation’ level, it was termed as ‘Professional Business Education’, with the aim of preparing experts in specific areas.In other words, commerce education, at less than degree level was referred to as ‘commercial education’ or ‘vocational business education’. However, the commonly accepted view at present is that commerce education at higher secondary stage is not merely to satisfy the skill or vocational needs of pupils but provides basic understanding of the various principles, procedures and practices related to business. It also fosters an understanding of the economy, of the community in which activities related to business and industry takes place. It prepares the learners to take up business career.The secondary schools should therefore, provide the students with knowledge of the background of commerce and of the way it affects the life of the community, apart from the commercial knowledge and skills. This integrating approach to the liberal and vocational education has the support of many modern thinkers on education. It is argued that education should turn the people to something he knows well and can do well. Thus, commerce should be taken as both a knowledge subject and a skill subject. The specific objectives of academic stream of commerce education i) To provide knowledge of principles, practices, procedures, etc. bout business, trade and industry and its relationship with the society; ii) To provide basic knowledge of technological tools including computers and its application in business; iii) To develop an understanding of the environment in which we live and undertake various activities relating to business; iv) To develop basic skills needed to undertake different commerce related activities; v) to educate learners in different functional areas and develop their basic understanding about the same; vi) To develop right aptitude and qualities for undertaking business and commerce related activities; and vii) to encourage the spirit of entrepreneurship and prepare learners to enter into a business career. Linkage with the Industry The present curriculum has been found to be only moderately useful to the industry. In order to make it more useful it is suggested that the students should be exposed to practical knowledge, a) by engaging them on project work, or attachment with industry, and b) establishing interaction with industry through field visits, involving professionals in teaching, and organising lectures by industry experts/successful entrepreneurs.It was generally perceived that the present cur riculum offered low degree of opportunities of skill development to the students of commerce As a result, the pass-outs of higher secondary course only have theoretical or conceptual background of various aspects of business and trade. When it comes to the practical knowledge when they are asked to perform an activity, the results are rather poor because the required skills have not been developed in them. This is a common situation, which affects the acceptability of the students by the industry as well as the users of services. The industry looks for skilled people who have a practical exposure to various commerce related activities and possess generic skills like communication skills, problem-solving skills etc. As the present curriculum offers low opportunities of skill development, need for rectifying the position has been strongly felt.Various suggestions received to improve the situation in this regard include organization of field visits, on the job training of the students, improving the infrastructural facilities and provision for establishment of commerce laboratories in the schools. Strengthening linkages Any serious effort to make the commerce curriculum relevant to the industry and increasing its acceptability would require strengthening of linkages between the school and the industry. Various suggestions have been received in this regard, from the responding stakeholders. These are discussed as follows. Firstly, it is strongly felt that organising field visits to business ecommercial establishments etc. would be of great help in exposing the students to the real work of business.For example, the student may be taken to a factory and shown how goods are being manufactured or packaged. This will give them a real feel of the various processes and an opportunity or relating these to what is being taught in the class. This is very important for sustaining their interest in the subject and making them useful to the employers as well as to the society in general. Second, it is suggested that industrial internship, to three to four week’s duration, during the summer vacation (or some other vacations), would be quite helpful in providing the students an opportunity of actually working in an office or in the field environment.Third, the students may be assigned some project work relating to the subject of study. Let us say while teaching the chapter on marketing, the students may be asked to go to their local market and find out which brands of a particular product, say toothpaste or toilet soap are available in a retail outlet; which of these are preferred by a particular class of buyers (say people belonging to lower income group) and why? Further, the schools may regularly organize seminars, workshops and discussions where experts from industry are invited to participate and interact with the students. For example, sharing of experiences by successful entrepreneurs may be of great interest and utility to the student.Fifth, the schools may be encouraged to set up commerce laboratory where the students can practice through charts, models, computer games, exploration on internet, etc. some of the practical aspects of what is taught in the class. Other important suggestions received for strengthening the linkages include making a provision for extensive training of the teachers and inducing industry for adoption of schools so that the course can run efficiently. If the teachers are not trained regularly, they would not be able to impart knowledge and skills about the latest developments in their field. Moreover, the role of teachers is changing fast. They have to work like facilitators, in the present day world of information and fast changing technological and economic environment.Thus, periodic training of teachers is very important for effectively running a course. As regards the strategy for development of linkages, it is agreed enterprises, it is agreed that the industry should be persuaded to coope rate with the schools. Entrepreneurial Values The present curriculum was perceived to be offering low degree of opportunities for development of entrepreneurial values, attitudes and skills. As a result most of the pass-outs were included to look for some wage employment opportunities, after completing their studies. This creates a lot of stress on the already soaring list of unemployed youth in the country and need improvements. The students may be induced towards entrepreneurship.The entrepreneurial values, attitudes and skills should be groomed from schools days so that the pass-outs can be prepared to set up their own ventures instead of looking for wage employment to improve the situation, various suggestions. Include organization of field visits, adoption of case study approach, teaching of biographies of successful entrepreneurs, use of small Business Games and Mock stock exchange proceedings for teaching these aspects and bringing change in the orientation of curriculum and textbooks, to incorporate entrepreneurial value and attitudes. Commerce Education needs the infusion of fresh ideas so as to provide a stimulating, supporting and sustaining environment. The Social Context of Education The education system does not function in isolation from the society of which it is a part.Hierarchies of caste, economic status and gender relations, cultural diversity as well as the uneven economic development that characterize Indian society also deeply influence access to education and participation of children in school. But at the same time, globalisation and the spread of market relations to every sphere of society have important implications for education. Business Studies Syllabi and Textbooks The syllabi and textbooks in commerce have been prepared according to the principles of the National Curriculum Framework. 1. The chapter on Social Responsibility of Business discusses how a business unit has to take care of the society of which it is a part.Every busi ness needs to act in a socially desirable manner and respect its employees, the community and the environment in which it operates. Our objective is to sensitise the student to social issues and concerns and the fact that business can do a lot for society, while fulfilling its social obligation. Environmental Protection also forms part of the chapter where conservation and industrial pollution are discussed. Business Ethics is also included to make students aware of ethical and responsible behaviour of a business. This also instills in a student value of personal ethics and standards and a code of conduct which can be applied in personal life also.Interrelationships however between business ethics and individual ethics need to be drawn by the teachers. 2. The global and local perspective and rural development needs to be taken care of. Small Business has been included in the syllabus and covers tiny and cottage industries and assistance to business provided by the government to smal l business reasons of including this in the syllabus. Rural Development and growth is a priority area and has been given a special emphasis in the latest year plans and all documents pertaining to economic development. In fact, marketers are depending on the rural demand and markets. Examples from rural business have been given throughout the book to sensitise children to the rural aspect of the country.Local perspective needs emphasis as a student is always able to relate to his local surroundings, therefore, local examples are better understood by them. 3. Connecting knowledge to life outside school. The environment in which a business operates forms an important aspect of management. A business unit has to constantly interact with the economic, political, legal and social environment. The business environment is dynamic in nature and examples can be taken from all around us, newspapers, business magazines, business TV programmes and the internet. Management has to respond to all these changes and this chapter has been specially included so that students are aware of what is going on in the economic, political, legal and social environment.A business has to analyse the environment before taking decisions. 4. Projects, activities and case problems have also been included to ensure that learning is shifted from rote methods. Creativity is a value that needs to be fostered. At the end of each chapter projects, activities and case problems have been given. 5. Boxes includes enrichment material taken from newspapers, business magazines and the internet. We hope these will enable students to connect textual knowledge to the business world Students should draw interrelationships between the text and the news in the print and electronic media. The Objective is to give students an idea of what is happening inside a business. 6.We live in an age of unprecedented violence, local regional, national and global. Values of love, cooperation, non violence, peace are univers al and need to be emphasized again and again. Social equality and justice is an integral part of peace education. Our chapter on social responsibilities emphasizes social equality and justice but teachers need to revisit the concept and connect it to place in society. The topic on cooperative societies and international business are based on the spirit of cooperation. Cooperation as a value needs to be re emphasized by teachers and then lead the student to imbibe the value of cooperation. International agreements, WTO and GATT are all based in international cooperation.Since management involves doing work systematically and resolving conflict situations, while we are teaching management we can revisit the idea of maintaining peace and harmony within an organization. Coordination of activities ensures harmonious relationships which is what manage motivation which again is related to peace and harmony. The teacher in the class needs to draw interconnections between the text and values of peace and non-violence. This has become almost an essential and moral duty of every teacher. 7. India is a multicultural society and all groups have equal rights to coexist and flourish. In our texts we have tried to give business examples from all regions.When the social environment of business is taught then certain examples can be taken up so that students have a fair idea of the pluralistic society in which we live. 8. Any economic development affects the Financial Market and ultimately every business unit in some way or the other. The role of major financial institutions and banks are becoming prominent in the financial markets. The fluctuations in the capital market are due to a variety of reasons. How the political, economic and social changes affect the markets can be studied, it will be going beyond the textbook. However, students will find it very interesting. These topics are important, current issues and students need to be aware of such topics as they shape the coun try’s future and economic development.In fact, the whole world is looking at India and China since they are relatively strong economies because of the regulatory mechanisms in the financial markets. Reference 1. www. ncert. nic. in/programmes/teacher_edu/pdfs/Commerce. pdf In Service Teacher Education Manual for Teachers and Teacher Educators in Commerce. 2. Emerging Trends in Commerce and Management, Santosh Gupta, Published in University News41 (05) 2003 3. Recent Trends in Commerce and Management Education, Dr. V. V. Khanzode, Strling Publishers Private Limited. 1990 4. National Policy on Education1986 an Appraisal, DoabaHouse, New Delhi. 1989 5. Commerce and Management Education in India,Ed. K. V. Sivayya,Ashish Publishing House, New Delhi. 1990