Taking a Look at Cultural Diversity - 781 Words

Cultural Diversity There are many views on culture and diversities today in society. Many of us see culture as beliefs, traditions, ideas, and behaviors in different communities that are passed on from generation to generation. However, culture diversity basically involves the changes that are taken place comparing what was deeply rooted in culture in ancient times and how it has been changing over time. Changes in the recent decades have been experienced in many fields including education, work, personal relationships and health among others. According to Thomas Sowell’s article, Cultural Diversity: A World View (n.d.), he argues that a diversity of cultures has influenced the course of world history. In the article, Sowell states â€Å"the worldwide importance of cultural diversity over centuries of human history before returning to the narrower issues of our time† (p. 1). He quickly recognizes that there are many definitions when it comes to diversity, meaning that certain definitions have cultural associations and others do not. Sowell (n.d.) also emphasizes on the workforce and how it is being replaced by the assimilation of diversity. From my understanding, people cannot compete economically if they are enclaved among the subcultures that they are around because Sowell believes there are more benefits to be looked at as far as â€Å"knowledge, skills and analytical techniques† (p. 6) of the world. He also believes that â€Å"individuals have decided for themselves how much of theShow MoreRelated Beh 220 Applied Final Project1643 Words   |  7 Pages2012 Applied Final Project 2 Diversity Consciousness was offered to me as a science option for my Business Major. Based on the courses offered I believed that Diversity Consciousness would benefit not only my personal life but it would also benefit me in my career field as well. In my current field I am a leader in a large diverse organization and my expectations for the course was it would provide me with additional skills to become a more effective leader. Diversity Consciousness has expanded myRead MoreMedtrainer Understanding and Working with Diversity Training1010 Words   |  4 PagesWorking with Diversity training – Chapter One. In this Chapter, we will discuss how embracing diversity benefits individuals and the organization. The word diversity is often interpreted as be different or unusual. Diversity is often categorized by race, origin, religion, gender, and political preferences which are often distorted by prejudices. We will look at diversity as a strength, the collective talents of man y, and the strength of embracing individual differences. Let’s begin by taking a closeRead MoreA Diverse Work Environment The Management Of A Company Or Firm Is A Crucial Role1147 Words   |  5 Pages In a diverse work environment the management of a company or firm is a crucial role. With firms that are growing internationally and having employees of different cultures the management style has to suite those employees. Diversity in the workplace means bringing people together from different ethnic backgrounds, age, and religions. The advances in communication have a great role in management of large cooperation or business. A great management strategy with diverse workplaces is to have strongRead MoreCultural Diversity and Communication Barriers1482 Words   |  6 PagesOrganizations Topic: Cultural diversity and communication barriers Instructors name: Robert Lindquist Date submitted 29 September 2010. Cultural diversity is the power which motivates the development of the thing that makes us different. Cultural diversity is the economic growth, which means leading a more fulfilling emotional, moral and spiritual life. It captures the culture principles, which provide a sturdy basis for the promotion of cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is an asset that isRead MoreDiversity Within A Diverse Workplace1320 Words   |  6 PagesDiversity is seen as the difference among people. These factors include gender, race, ethnicity, age,sexual orientation,religion,capabilities/disabilities. A Diverse workplace,in the last 30 years, become an important issue to emerge, and it’s effects this can have on a organisation. More and more research has gone into a diverse workplace and effects it can have on an organisation competitive advantage. Although having diverse workplace, brings about opportunities and threats, diversity is complexRead MoreDiversity In Todays Organizations Essay ex ample1136 Words   |  5 Pagesvalue the ways cultural and workforce diversity contribute to long-term success, innovation and productivity embrace methods that enhance efficiency (Waller,2006 pg.50-52). Diversity has many different meanings. The description of diversity can be classified into categories: human, cultural and systems. Human diversity encompasses the physical difference of individuals, such as skin color, gender and appearance. Cultural diversity, on the other hand, looks at individual cultural issues such asRead MoreReflection On Diversity865 Words   |  4 Pagessuccess through furthering my education. Everything I bring to the table adds to the spectrum of diversity. Growing up I always felt different. The elementary school I attended , I always could recognize where I differed from everybody else. My hair, my skin tone, my gap (before the braces), and especially height. It wasn’t easy but the older I became, I learned to embrace every aspect of me. Diversity to me is what you bring to the table (age, gender, sexual orientation, race, skills, etc.) thatRead MoreMulticultural Education : Characteristics And Goals1434 Words   |  6 Pagesdiverse cultural groups of its community. Multicultural education is also the process teachers and administrators follow in order to achieve the ideal of equal education opportunities (1997). Introduction to Diversity for Educators is an essential course for teachers. The course contents encourage us, future educators, to look inward and examine our personal biases, which, if done honestly, will positively influence our teaching and our future students’ outcome. I found the textbook, Cultural Competence:Read MoreCultural Diversity and Communication Barriers1490 Words   |  6 PagesOrganizations Topic: Cultural diversity and communication barriers Instructors name: Robert Lindquist Date submitted 29 September 2010. Cultural diversity is the power which motivates the development of the thing that makes us different. Cultural diversity is the economic growth, which means leading a more fulfilling emotional, moral and spiritual life. It captures the culture principles, which provide a sturdy basis for the promotion of cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is an asset that isRead MoreQuestions on Diversity and Inclusions926 Words   |  4 PagesWhat are the dimensions of cultural diversity? There have been a variety of attempts to develop a concise definition or reliable classification of what is meant by cultural diversity for a number of decades. Although there is no universal system available for determining what cultural diversity is there are several reappearing characteristics that are used by many of the experts attempting to arrive at a recognized system (Fearon, 2003). The first generalized dimension used is the concept of

A Few Good Men By Zimbardo And Milgram - 969 Words

A Few Good Men portrays the importance of military orders, the reality of the ranking system and how much military leader’s authority can cloud their judgement. Former psychology professor at Yale, Stanley Milgram sought the reasoning behind the blindness of individuals when ordered to perform a task for someone who seems to be an authority figure. His infamous experiment was and is currently being dug through and examined thoroughly. Milgram’s research caught the attention of fellow psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo conducted an experiment with similar interests in mind. He collected 21 men from newspaper advertisements to live in a false prison and live in the prison for two weeks. The experiment lasted six days due to how quickly the experiment escalated and transformed the â€Å"prisoners† and â€Å"guards† (Zimbardo 116). Their conclusions from both experiments are that power and stress can transform even the strongest willed people. Zimbardo an d Milgram discuss the same sort of entitlement Colonel Jessup presumes to order an illegal code red due to his position on the base at Guantanamo Bay; also the entitlement Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee had over the case due to the position his father once had. In Milgram’s article, he observed a variety of subjects. One of the subjects fully took on his role of administering shocks to the learner (Milgram 84). The subject even stated in his feedback that the â€Å"EXTREMELY PAINFUL† was not enough of a shock for the learner (Milgram 84).Show MoreRelatedThe Perils Of Obedience By Milgram And The Stanford Prison Experiment1207 Words   |  5 Pagesobedience. Two prestigious psychologists, Stanley Milgram and Philip G. Zimbardo, conducted practical obedience experiments with astonishing results. Shocked by the amount of immoral obedience, both doctors wrote articles exploring the reasoning for the test subjects unorthodox manners. In The Perils of Obedience by Milgram and The Stanford Prison Experiment by Zimbardo, the professionals reflect their thoughts in a logical manner. Milgram s experiment consisted of a teacher, learner, andRead MoreSummary Of The Perils Of Obedience Essay979 Words   |  4 Pagesexample being in th e movie A Few Good Men, most question why Dawson and Downey carry out the Code Red order and why Colonel Jessup even orders the Code Red in the first place. In 1963 at Yale University, Stanley Milgram, a profound psychologist, conducted an experiment of obedience, which became immensely popular and revealed the power of obedience in today s world. Milgram presented his findings in his article, The Perils of Obedience. Like Milgram, Philip Zimbardo, professor of psychology atRead MoreObedience As the Means to a Peaceful Life Essay1542 Words   |  7 Pagesextinguish the lives of over 1,000 faithful men, women and children? Or to torture and degrade prisoners without provocation? Why would anyone follow directions to administer electric shocks of increasing strength as punishment for failing a simple memory test? While these scenarios may sound like the newest video games in which one assumes the character of another, people can and do commit violent acts like these in the name o f obedience. Zimbardo, Milgram and Orwell show that obedience is a responseRead MoreAsch s Conformity Experiment And Milgram s Obedience Experiment Essay1586 Words   |  7 PagesIntroduction This report will compare two experiments; Asch s conformity experiment and Milgram s obedience experiment. The two experiments will be compared for validity and their ethics. In addition, this report will take into consideration Zimbardo s Stanford Prison experiment and the Lucifer Effect. To analyse how obedience and conformity theories can be used as an example of why good people can turn bad. This report will also look at how obedience and conformity can be applied to the criminalRead MoreComparative Analysis a Few Good Men Essay1591 Words   |  7 PagesComparative Analysis: A Few Good Men â€Å"You dont need a patch on your arm to have honor.† Lt. Daniel Kaffee, portrayed by Tom Cruise, says at the end of the movie to Lance Cpl. Dawson after the final ruling is read, stating PFC. Downy and Lance Cpl. Dawson are innocent but are dishonorably discharged from the military. A Few Good Men portrays the negative impact on military personally from strict obedience. Lt. Daniel Kaffee, along with Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway and Lt. Sam Weinberg; played byRead MoreThe Milgram Experiment Violates Three Of The Five Principles Of Ethics1541 Words   |  7 PagesThe Milgram Experiment violates three of the five principles outlined in the Five General Principles of Ethics. Milgram wanted to see if there was a connection between â€Å"the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience† (McLeod, 2007). Milgram’s hypothesis that he based his experiment on was â€Å"How the German people could permit the extermination of the Jews?† (Dan Chalen or, 2012). The first one that Milgram’s experiment violated was â€Å"Principle A: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence† whichRead MoreRachel Zeunik. Mr. Fisher. W131. 4/20/17. Killer Obedience.1161 Words   |  5 Pagesplace the lives of their fellow men and country above all else. It is the most intense example of selflessness and self-sacrifice. This extended commitment to God and country is made possible through codes, vows, and unquestioned obedience. If a lieutenant is given an order, he will follow through with it because the lives of countless depend on his obedience. A soldier’s actions always contribute to the overall action of the military and work towards the greater good. If an order is questioned andRead MoreThe Psychological Impact Of Imprisonment For Two Weeks1487 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Do the people overwhelm the evil or does the evil of the situation overwhelm the good people?† Psyc hologist Philip Zimbardo proves throughout his research that when people are put into certain roles they feel a need to conform to that role. Everyone can harbour an evil side of their personality but it takes a certain environment or circumstance to bring it out. In a prison, will a guard abuse their power? Or will a prisoner have a mental breakdownRead MoreOverview and Significance of Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment1825 Words   |  8 Pagesthat seem alien to their natures? Why do good people sometimes act evil? Who do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things? Zimbardo is one of the most significant social psychologist and all his work aims to find the answers to these questions. The purpose of this paper is to go into depth on the previous prison experiment, how it came about, and how the findings play a role in society today. The Life and Times of Zimbardo Philip George Zimbardo was born in New York City on March 23, 1933Read MoreBystander Effect And Crises : Bystander Effects1625 Words   |  7 Pagesbelieved others would take action, which is diffusion of responsibility (DOR). DOR refers to little or no feelings of responsibility due to thinking that others might or should intervene (Darley Latane, 1968). Only hours later did two men intervene to help. The two men were hesitant at first, and Stanton states that seconds absolutely matter. This paper explores BE and personal experiences/observations. Bystander Effect Influenced by the Genovese murder, Latane Darley (1970) focused on the social

Accounting Concepts and Principles

Questions: 1. Parties responsible for hiring the top management of hospital.2. Major and regular source of financial information.3. Types of information contained in the financial statements prepared under GAAP.4. Individuals interested in using the information in the financial statements.5. Decisions that can individuals can make based on the financial statements under GAAP.6. Difference between the external reporting of GAAP based financial reports for a non-profit and for-profit hospital.7. Government regulators that can demand financial information.8. Explanation of the statement - No margin, no mission.9. Justification for the reimbursement for the blood draws the fair market value. Answers: 1. Parties responsible for hiring the top management of hospital As per the regulations stipulated under US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, the Board of directors appoints the chief executive officer (CEO) of corporations. The board of directors represents a body of elected or else appointed members that are responsible for overseeing the overall activities of the organization (Maher et al., 2012). The hospital administrator also needs to know the parties responsible for hiring the top management of the hospital. The hospital administrator is also a stakeholder of the firm and have own interest in knowing the objectives, policies and the dealings of the management. 2. Major and regular source of financial information Company utilizes major source of financial information at the time of conducting financial analysis. These sources of information are of sufficient quality for rendering undistorted description of company financial situation of the hospital top management at the time of periodic meetings. External financial information and quantifiable financial information are necessary for the top hospital management for gaining feedback at the time of periodic meetings (Maher et al., 2012). Annual reports of the company come as best source of financial information in making the financial analysis in the most appropriate way. Annual reports are majorly prepared by the accounting units for getting financial statement figures checked by an auditor for detailed accounting statement. Unlike other financial statement, annual report does not focus on past data and contains data concerning facts presented by Senior Management at periodic meetings. The Ministry of Finance provision helps in enabling every interested person to assess the annual reports. Its major financial parts are mainly approved from outside from major accounting units in the final accounting statement in the most effective way (Maher et al., 2012). The Board of Directors of the Blue Sky can collect the important information from different accounting standards stipulated under the Accounting Standards Codifications (ASC) developed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Again, the ASC can be regarded as the only source of trustworthy GAAP in US. The public corporations can also prepare and present the financial information based on the records of the different financial actions, positions of a particular business. In addition to this, the board also gathers financial information of the balance sheet from various reports on assets, liabilities, equity of the owner of the Hospital. Furthermore, the Board of Directors also presents the income statements founded on reports on revenues and expenses enumerated as pe r the guidelines in the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The statements is a comprehensive version of all the information on the company regarding the liquidity position, different resources of the capital, different revenues, cost of revenues and expenses. 3. Types of information contained in the financial statements prepared under GAAP The types of information contained in the financial declarations prepared under GAAP include the scope of the declarations. The financial declarations of Blue Sky concerning the income statement illustrates the sales and revenues, cost of sales, operating expenses, non-operating income as well as expenses, other requirements of presentation, allocation of expenses to different subsidiaries for the private corporations (Reeve et al., 2012). The operating expenses mainly includes information on advertising expense, provision for different doubtful accounts, depreciation as well as amortization of long-lasting assets along with research and development expenses among many others. The income statement provides the information concerning different items of the non-operating income and expenses. In addition to this, information also includes the interest expense and amortization of debt discount, gains or losses on the sales in addition to the government grants (Horngren et al., 2012). The income statement also contains the information regarding the presentation requirements that comprises of the income or loss before different income tax expenditures, income tax expenditures, equity in earnings of unconsolidated business entities, records of income and losses from different continuing business operations. The profit or loss statement also explicates the information regarding different discontinued business functionalities, registered income or else loss from different extraordinary items and cumulative effects of alterations in different accounting principles (Needles et al., 2013). Again, the profit and loss statement also presents useful information regarding the allocation of expenses to different subsidiaries and considerations for diverse private corporations. The financial report also helps in gaining information regarding the equity of the shareholders. The report on shareholders equity thereby helps in acquiring information concerning the scope of the declar ations, disclosures for different classes of securities, common stock, preferred stock, retained earnings, treasury stock, additional paid-in-capital, dividends, and stock splits among many others. The statement of the cash flow provides information regarding the cash and cash equivalents, gross and net cash flows of a particular business concern, different classifications of cash, foreign currency cash flows and cash flows from operational, investing and financing activities. The balance sheet statement prepared as per the GAAP (ASC 205) helps in acquiring information regarding the operating cycle, current assets, non-current assets, current liabilities, non-current liabilities, commitments and contingent liabilities, shareholders equity, additional paid-in capital (Maher et al., 2012). 4. Individuals interested in using the information in the financial statements In the above case study on Blue Sky, there are various users of financial statements. The main aim of a financial statement is to provide information regarding the financial position as well as changes in wide-range of users in making final economic decisions as per the IASB Framework. Some of the users of financial statements are as follows: Managers and in other words the administrators of the hospital are the individuals who require financial statement in managing the business affairs of Blue sky. It aims at assessing the financial performance as well as taking most important business decision-making processes (Maher et al., 2012). Shareholders of the corporation Blue Sky are the individuals who use financial statements who assess risk as well as return on investment in Blue sky. They mainly take investment decisions based upon the analysis. General Public consists of those individuals who may be interested in effects of company on economy as well as environment and local community at the same time. The people in the community are also interested in the reports of the healthcare company Blue Sky as the company contributes towards overall well-being of the community. Competitors are those individuals who compare their performance with rival companies to learn and develop strategies for improved competitiveness .Government majorly requires financial statements in determining the correctness of tax as declared in the tax returns. They also keep track of all the economic progress with the help of the financial statement of business from various sectors of economy (Maher et al., 2012). Employees are the individuals who use financial statements in assessing Blue-sky profitability as well as its consequences on future remuneration and job security. 5. Decisions that can individuals can make based on the financial statements under GAAP Managers- Under GAAP, managers of Blue-sky hires experienced professionals those who are entrusted with the responsibility of operating business. They mainly act as agents of business owners of Blue-sky. General Public- Under GAAP, anyone outside the company such as students, analysts as well as researchers and others shows interest in financial statements in the present case study. Government- Under GAAP, Government bodies of the state involves the tax authorities in the final entity financial information especially for taxation and regularity purpose. Taxes are mainly computed for resulting operations and other related tax bases. In general, implications, state requires in knowing the rate of the taxpayer for determining in the tax due for particular time (Needles et al., 2013). Employees- Under GAAP, employees are mainly shows interest in Blue-sky profitability as well as stability. They are actually proves for viewing at the ability for paying salaries as well as employee benefits at the same time (Needles et al., 2013). They are even interested in understanding the financial position as well as performance in assessing company expansion possibilities for related career development opportunities. In addition to this, there are internal and external users referred as managers, who use the accounting information in the final decision-making activities in relation with the company operations. On the contrary, external users are those users who are not directly involved in operational activities of the company but possess financial interest (Needles et al., 2013). 6. Difference between the external reporting of GAAP based financial reports for a non-profit and for-profit hospital There are several differences between the external reporting of GAAP based financial declarations for profit and not for profit organizations. There are variances in the treatment of tax, preparation of the balance sheet and income statement (Harrison et al., 2015). - The for-profit organization needs to make payments for tax on the income earned. However, this is not the case for the non-profit firms in case if the non-profit business unit is exempt from tax. The non-profit organizations are subject to different taxes that are essentially secondary to the scope of the organization such as the sales tax and the estate tax. Again, the non-profit business concerns that submit the tax returns to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), the business units are primarily assessed for different secondary taxes. On the contrary, the IRS also investigates earnings of different for-profit organization along with the secondary taxes. - The for-profit business concern prepares and presents the balance sheet every quarter and lists the owners equity of the corporation. The owners equity comprises of assets that a company owns in addition to different liabilities that the corporation owes to others (Reeve et al., 2012). Again, the non-profit organization also cannot make use of the balance sheet, as it has no owner. - The financial declarations need to compile the statement of financial condition. The addition of the assets to the liabilities provides the net assets of the corporation. The professional accountants of a corporation can examine the net assets to evaluate the financial size of the particular non-profit. Again, along with the balance sheet of a for-profit business concern, the for-profit business units also need to prepare the income statements every quarter. - The income statement of the firms declares the revenues, profits, expenses as well as losses of a business concern (Needles et al., 2013). The primary aim of the income statement is to evaluate the financial performance of the corporation on a quarterly basis. The assessment of the financial performance exerts immense influence on the value of the corporation and price of the shares (Needles et al., 2013). The stockholders of the business concern have a lawful authority to the income statement. On the contrary, the non-profit business concerns do not amass the income statement but can prepare the declaration of activities each quarter. This particular document can simply chart the revenue of the organization after deduction of the expenses and addition of the assets. 7. Government regulators that can demand financial information The government regulators in US that demand financial information include the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) among many others. The OCC is a prudent regulator of the bank; SEC is the regulation of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Again, the FHFA is essentially the regulator of other actions and the FSOC is the coordinating forum. The primary objective of the financial regulator is to gain information regarding the confidence of the market, stability of the business, regulation regarding the foreign participation and decrease in the financial crime. 8. Explanation of the statement - No margin, no mission The for profit organizations and the not for profit business concerns have different goals and objectives and both of them need to design the financial models that can the organizations to thrive. The policy of no margin and no mission can help the nonprofit organizations to gain admittance to professional guidance so that the organizations can explore new ways to develop organizations with different revenue sources. This in turn can sustain and at the same time extend the capacity to perform good activities in the society (Horngren et al., 2012). With increase in the profit margin of an organization, the corporation can extend the entire mission and purpose of the organization. Therefore, the initiative is all about igniting interest in total income earned, exploring opportunity, distributing as well as connecting different experiences and planning. The initiative of no margin and no mission can help in the implementation of income earned policies in the non-profit business concerns throughout different areas. The statement no margin refers to the fact that the owners having no profit margin do not have any mission (Horngren et al., 2012). The objective of the margin in the wider context of the mission of Blue Sky is to manage different resources that the company is entrusted with for sustainable development. Again, the enhancement of the margin of Blue Sky can also be carried out by the process of establishment of predetermined goals founded on long-term solvency, plant and equipment impairment techniques, recruitment and benefits of the employees. The development of the margin can thereby help in the achievement of the mission of the corporation. 9. Justification for the reimbursement for the blood draws the fair market value The reimbursement for the blood draw the fair market value as it provides an estimate of the market value of a particular property based on what well-informed, willing purchasers can pay to knowledgeable, eager and unpressured sellers in a specific market. The fair market value is considered in this case as the probable price at which the enthusiastic purchasers can purchase from the willing sellers at the time when both are un associated, knows the pertinent facts and is neither under any kind of compulsion to purchase or sell (Weil et al., 2013). However, the fair market value is generally for the tax assessment as well as court awards. The HDL is S Corporation, a limited liability corporation that follows the US tax laws where the liability for the tax is borne by the shareholders of the corporation. The company used to make payments to doctors for the blood sample tests. However, the company stooped making the payments after the generation of the alert from the US Department of H ealth and Human Services that signaled a considerable risk of fraud. The HDL also put forward the argument that it fairly compensated the doctors for drawing the blood samples that is for the labor cost involved in the activity. The company has argued that it has paid the fair market value for the entire process involved in handling the blood sample that includes vial labeling, cooling and shipment coordination among many others. The payment or the reimbursement is in fair market value as the terms of agreement is established in advance. The aggregate compensation is steady with the fair market value in different arms length transactions and is not set in a manner that takes into consideration the volume or else the value of any kind of referrals generated between different parties. The reimbursement for drawing the blood sample is therefore, considered to be in fair value as the purchaser paid to well-informed, willing and unpressured seller in the specific market. The company HDL made payments to the doctors for the blood drawing as per the contracts to which they willingly agreed. Therefore, the fair market for the reimbursements for the blood draw is completely justified in this present case. The estimate of the fair market value is justified, as the notion is subjective owing to different state of affairs, places, time, and existence of different comparable precedents and analysis of principles of different individuals involved. Reference List Harrison, J. S., Van der Laan Smith, J. (2015). Responsible accounting for stakeholders.Journal of Management Studies,52(7), 935-960. Horngren, C., Harrison, W., Oliver, S., Best, P., Fraser, D., Tan, R., Willett, R. (2012).Accounting. Pearson Higher Education AU. Maher, M. W., Stickney, C. P., Weil, R. L. (2012).Managerial accounting: An introduction to concepts, methods and uses. Cengage Learning. Needles, B. E., Powers, M., Crosson, S. V. (2013).Principles of accounting. Cengage Learning. Reeve, J. M., Warren, C. S., Duchac, J. E., Du, X., Yu, Z. (2012).Principles of Accounting. South-Western Cengage Learning. Weil, R. L., Schipper, K., Francis, J. (2013).Financial accounting: an introduction to concepts, methods and uses. Cengage Learning.

XIX century, Renaissance Review Essay Example

XIX century, Renaissance Review Paper Essay on XIX century, Renaissance . We recently went crazy, but Im awfully glad to be with you .. .. Barfuss » I pour in a cup of thick coffee, I sit back in your favorite chair color huge night walks through the universe. The cases concern, late calls, television, carrying stuff, snatches of music from the windows, heavy footsteps upstairs neighbor all wait. Im flying away, am taking I just dissolve in Dmitry Komarov poetry. Section N, Page is unknown. We will write a custom essay sample on XIX century, Renaissance Review specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on XIX century, Renaissance Review specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on XIX century, Renaissance Review specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer letter law, the introduction of the season Recognition In in the rocking chairs it looked scary movie day. well, whats wrong? You should not pretend to be Your eyes highlights sadness My man, we only nineteen Ages but we know by heart I always perceive his poetry as a miracle. And all the wonderful and inexplicable reason we are always trying to push into the future or the past, saying what are you, from the last century? Or what are you, from another planet? Well, in fact! Tired, angry, spit rush jobs working in the late evening and slush of dirty quarters, we rush home and did not notice any-Th-th. Dmitri sees no scraps clichà © pages on the wall opposite, a mezhreklamnuyu Fall bulletin boards and then, shyly smiling, admits. I (secretly) of extinct cranks » On the trail of airplanes sweeps cry swans. For the concrete slab can wrap up in sleeping comfort, Two centuries later, dozing in the ninth minute The polymer paradise of artificial orchids. We met not so long ago. A few years ago. Probably because people come to the opening. And the wide-open, wondering eyes really? so simple? and so can not be Thats what I felt when I first read the poems Dmitry. A nagging feeling of delight from participation in some mystery. Like a learned a new world, a new universe full of openwork metaphors weightless images, shadows and shades, full of wonderful, crystal, ringing poetic lines. Quilted icicles raskhnykavshiysya day, bays in the mountainous diadem course serpentine loop, through straws sip leisurely drink chocolate sunset with croissants, with rain parapet under his silver bullet, in love words just roll  » and you want to take away everything on the line and repeat, repeat, repeat, lifting herself mood, and think that the world is not so bad, if it still has romance, who can give your soul. The solar disk gap Here it carte blanche to the moon segments, slices eat -! That to at polschastya juicy! You did not know? So I do not know And now, I envy everyone who first take the book in hand and first read the line returned to its universe of the poet I am glad to be numbered among the ranks of their foreign -. Occasionally in captivity found this type, whose representatives did not approve of Hush! Not for the ears ceramic Aphrodite The gnome with a huge basket of wild mushrooms, Several types of phone cards Im probably not much! destined retell. But Id be damn glad!

Laura Melveys Male Gaze

Laura Melveys Male Gaze The development of the film industry took an interesting turn after the 1950 especially regarding the development of the female character due to the changes in life style and the way women viewed themselves. The empowered feminine character started appearing in film noir, genre of crime thriller films heavily laden with seduction and erotic undertones (Muller 2006).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Laura Melvey’s Male Gaze specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More She played an active role in both the development of the genre and the development of the storylines and the plot. As such many movies producers started focusing on the female character and developed her to fit as one of, if not the key character in film noir. Thus, femme fatale (the fatal woman) was born and would dominate films and stage plays for decades. Femme fatale has been an interesting study by film and literature critics who have come up with interes ting views regarding this phenomenal character. Doane (1991) in her criticism of this character explains that even though femme fatale is seen as a literary image in films, she is an important figure of the representation of truth. She is a symbol of the real woman and their place in the society, whose real self is revealed through the sexual image, which portrays the differences between men and women. Doane further explains that she is the â€Å"representation of the antithesis of the maternal† (1991 p 2). This means that she symbolizes a woman who cannot reproduce either biologically or socially. Film site (2011) adds that this character was a manipulative figure capable of making vulnerable male character compromise greats of odds. She was a vengeful and sadistic anti heroine whose life always ended up in tragedy. One of the greatest criticism of femme fatalism Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Mulvey Laura has come under intense criticism from the film critics and t he author herself. Mulvey (1976) uses Freud’s psychoanalytical approach in describing the role of femme fatale charades in film noir. The society is such that it is structured in a patriarchal manner: the male is all powerful while the female is an image of male sexual fantasies. The fatal woman is thus an object that for both the satisfaction of the male character in he film as well as the male audience. The films â€Å"Out of the Past† and â€Å"Gilda† give the reader an opportunity to weight myulveys assumptions about femme fatale. Mulveys argument hold a lot of truth about the nature of the femme fatale and her roles in the development of the film industry, while the criticism by the author herself and other film critics has added useful insights into the subject. Slide share (2011) explains that Mulvey is the originator of the idea of the male gaze developed the idea of the male gaze in her work Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. The concept of the male gaze explains the idea of gazing in three ways: the way men look at women, the way women see themselves and the way the women sees and relates to other women. This concept of the male gaze is feministic and borrows heavily from Freud’s psychoanalytical approach.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Sexual fulfillment and desire is the object of motivation and controls the images of the characters in a play to fulfill the desires of the male character. The female character only sees herself as a castrated woman (without a penis) and thus can only be useful in fulfilling a mans sexual desires. As such, she is the symbol of phallocentrism, powerless in a society that is overtly male dominated (Mulvey 1975). Such phallus nature portrays the woman as an object of domination and oppression not only by the male in the film and audience but also a representation of the powerl ess woman in a patriarchal society. She is aware of her lack of a penis and can only â€Å"exist in relation to her castration and cannot transcend it† (1975, 343). Thus, a woman cannot find real meaning other than in the enjoyment of the fact that she is castrated. However, Mulvey (1975) explains that it is within the paradox of the phallic nature that a woman finds her true meaning : the lack of penis is the cause of the phallus status while the desire to make the best out of the situation is what makes a woman derive meaning of life. Such phallocentrism is the signification of a woman’s suffering. The femme fatale in the film Gilda is not without suffering. When Gilda’s husband Mundson â€Å"dies† Johnny, her ex lover and protector, marries her not out of love but for his faith in Mundson. Johnny subjects Gilda to psychological as wells as physical suffering (Dirks 2011; Spiderbaby 2010). Gilda thus portrays the suffering that women have to go through in an overtly and an unapologetically patriarchal society. Such patriarchal tendencies fulfills the desires of the man at the expense of the woman are also exhibit in the film â€Å"Out of the Past.† Kathie is not a woman in freedom. She is constantly running away from her past (a man). In her earlier life she had shot and seriously injured Whit her lover and stole quite a hefty amount of money. Whit wants her back plus the money, a portrayal of how subordinated women are to men (Ebert 2010). Spiderbabay (2010) also explains that Kathie suffers betrayal from a man, her lover Jeff, when he leads her to the police so as to buy his freedom, as such using a woman to achieve his personal wishes to freedom. The biggest crime in the film is â€Å"not murder or stealing the money but betrayal† (Morris 2011) As Mulvey (1975) notes, the phallocentric approach (where women are aware of the weaknesses they are exposed to as a result of their penile deficiency) only reduces the wom an to an object of desire for men. The fatal woman in a film or stage play is thus propped in such a way that the male can have a proper gaze at her and fulfill his sexual desire. She is crafted in way that only portrays her sexual prowess and her power to seduce men, both the film characters and the audience.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Laura Melvey’s Male Gaze specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This desire is usually fulfilled by gazing at women characters. The male gaze is enhanced by several camera techniques, which focus on certain parts of the woman body. The focus is intended to drive the attention of the male towards that particular part of the body. Not any part of the female body is subject to focus. The camera only focuses on the various body part and behavioral traits that arouse and fulfill sexual desire in the male characters and the male audience. As such, the objectification of the woman is further achieved through compartmentalization of her body into sexual and non sexual parts (Barnes n.d.). Such trait is seen through the main character Gilda in the movie going by the same title. Gilda is a flirt who plays mid games with both the male characters and the male audience in an erotic and seductive way. The male gaze is directed at her provocative flirtation and seduction techniques. Gilda intentionally flirts with other men to make Johnny jealous (Dirks 2011). At one time in the film, Gilda does a striptease in on stage, in full view of the patrons at the club. This is a sexually provocative action that the cameras focus on to enhance the male gaze and fulfill the sexual desire of the male. Such acts have an effect both to the male audience as well as to the male characters in the film such as Johnny who in rage slaps Gilda for performing indecent acts in public. Later and out of the effect of that act Johnny confesses his love to Gilda (Spiderbaby 2010). Thus the two f ilms have exemplifies Mulveys theory that a woman is an objects subject to a males gaze for his sexual fulfillment. In further defining the male gaze mulvey explains that the man is the one who bears the ‘look’ while the woman only bears the image. As such ‘the pleasure of looking is divided into two: the active male gaze, and the passive female gaze (1975, p. 346). The active male gaze is the dominant gaze while the female has to be figured and structured appropriately to enhance her to-be-looked-at-ness. To-be-looked-at-ness is a very strong visual sexual symbol and is displayed through a series of erotic acts such as striptease [as exemplified by Gilda (Spiderbaby 2010)]. This kind of erotism makes a woman an indispensable character and spectacle in film noir. As such, femme fatale becomes an alien intrusion into the plot and thus a deviation from the normal script and storyline. Morris (2011) explains that Kathie is part of the lethal triangle that also includ es Jeff and her former lover Whit.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The story line is initially focused on recovering Whit’s $ 40000 stolen by his ex lover Kathie. However, Whit hire Jeff, an ex sleuth and the two, jefff and Kathie, fall in love and start an affair. Kathie and her new lover have to live on the run, running away from Whit who still wants to recover his money. This love affair thus becomes a considerable deviation from the sleuth work that the film was initially built on. It this becomes a story of Whits fatal obsession with Kathie, which finally makes the film, looses the initial theme (Mills 2007). The film Gilda also exemplifies Mulveys assertion that femme fatales are an erotic diversion from the films main story line. The film has a Mafioso inclination and the main character Mundson, is the owner of a casino and has connection to the underground mafia world. Mudson introduces Gilda as his wife and because of his lack of trust for her, asks Johnny, her former romantic partner, the roles of keeping an eye on her. Thus is the beginning of a love triangle as Johnny and Gilda rekindle their romantic flame. This is the point that love, romance and seduction take over and the film looses connection with the mafia world. Even though Mundson fakes his death to dissociate himself with the mafia his faked death is literary more significant to the love triangle. Mulvey (1975) adds that such diversion by the femme fatale from the main course off the story line does not make her significantly important as a person, rather t is what she provokes in the male character and audience that matters (347). Therefore, it is the sexual objectification of the woman and the gratification of the male character and the male audience by gazing at the sex object signified in a woman on stage that matters. The fatal woman has no importance in herself either to the film or to the audience. It is what she represents that counts. The male character is not subject to sexual objectification and as such is the important figure that cont rols desires and erotic nature of the woman. The male characters in the film are able to identify with what the audience is feels about the and thus part of its search and realization of sexual fulfillment. As such the male ceases to be an object of sexual desire but the power that controls the desire. Femme fatales sexually explicit behavior is thus as a result of such power by the man to control the way she behaves. The audience thus sees this power to control sexual desire through the woman (Mulvey 1975). However, the film Gilda put this notion under the perils of validity test. Gilda the main character is a dangerous and seductive woman who performs seductive acts such as flirting with other men and strip teasing so as to make Johnny her secret lover jealous. This evokes a very strong sense of attraction in Johnny towards Gilda (Spiderbabay 2010). Therefore instead of Johnny controlling the sexual desired as Mulvey suggests, he becomes the victim of such desire in which its powe r lies with femme fatale, rather than him. Film noir focuses on sexualisation of the female character, the symbolization of femme fatale as the object of sexual fulfillment to the male character and audience, thus masculining the audience (Mulvey 1975). This means that the film is only useful to men and this article does not tale care of the spectator who has tendencies towards both male and female sexuality. However in â€Å"Afterthought to Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema† Mulvey (1983) argues that the original intention was to celebrate the masculine culture of the spectator but this kind of spectator includes both men and women. It is possible to have women who are not particularly keen on having a sexual identify on the screen. This change of stance in the masculinisation of the female character is as a result of the fact that things have moved on and the way a woman carries herself has drastically changed (Mulvey 1985). Skjerdal,(1997) agrees with this new line of t hought and further adds that the masculinisation of the audience and the objectification of the female character in film noir is leaves the woman without any identify as it only describes her in relations to a mans desire. This also means that the woman is just a â€Å"bearer of meaning but not its maker† (Despotopoulou, 2004). However, the film Gilda gives the viewer an opportunity to contend this view. Gilda the main character posses an overwhelming power of seduction over the male character in the film. So powerful is her power of seduction that she chooses and owns the men who seduces her. Thus Gilda is a woman â€Å"knows her power over men and that she is the real definition of intoxicating sassiness† (Stevens 2009). Such power over men thus proves that the fatal woman is not just an embodiment of the male’s sexual desire but has made deliberate effort to develop her sexual identity, a tool she uses to her own advantage. Thus this film put Mulvey’s idea of lack of identity of femme fatale at great peril. Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema† offers some insight into the mysterious and almost mystical character of femme fatale. It supposes that this mysterious character is the creation of men for their own benefit. She is an object of sexual fulfillment. The male gazes at her and thus gains much sexual gratification. Such approach ha borrowed heavily from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical approach. It denies the woman the power to make her own identity. A political tool portrays the manner in which the way the society is structured to be dominated by men. However it does not answer to all questions as it does not take care of the part of the audience that has homosexual orientation (Rucas 2003). The idea does not also address the place of the female character and audience who is not a forced object of sexual symbolism but who likes and enjoys to be looked at. As such, weaknesses are ignored and need attention. Reference List Barnes, E., n.d. Laura Mulveys male gaze: Looking at film through the eyes of a man [Online] Available at freewebs.com/elizabethbarnes/index.htm   Despotopoulou, A., 2004. Fanny’s gaze and the construction of feminine space in  mansfield park† Modern Language Review ed. 99: 569-583. Dirks, T., 2011. Gilda (1946) [Online] Available at. filmsite.org/gild.html Doane, M., 1991. Femmes fatales: feminism, film theory psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge Ebert, R., 2004. Out of the Past (1947) [Online] Available at http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040718/REVIEWS08/407180301/1023 Mills, M., 2007. Out of the past. Online] Available at moderntimes.com/past/. Morris, G., 2011. High Gallows Jacques Tourneurs Out of the Past. [Online] Available at brightlightsfilm.com/29/outofthepast.html Mulvey, L., 1985. Changes, Discourse. pp 11 30. Muller, E., 2006. Film Noir. Green Cine podcast. [Online] Available at greencine.c om/static/primers/noir.jsp Mulvey, L., 1985. Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,’† Feminist Film Theory. Sue Thoruham (ed.), NY: New York University Press, pp.31-40 [Online] Available at scribd.com/doc/17220483/Afterthoughts-on- Visual-Pleasure-and-Narrative-Cinema Mulvey, L., 1975. Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Durham and Kellner Media and cultural studies ed., Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Rucas, P., 2003. The male gaze, homosexualization, and James Bond Films [Online] Available at angelfire.com/film/articles/bond.htm. Skjerdal, T., 1997. Laura Mulvey against the grain: a critical assessment of the  psychoanalytic feminist approach to film. Centre for Cultural and Media Studies, University of Natal ed. [Online] Available at. oocities.org/capitolhill/2152/mulvey.htm Slide share, 2011. The male gaze Laura Mulvey Presentation Transcript [Online] Available at slideshare.net/fleckneymike/the-male-gaze-laura-mulvey   Spiderbaby, L., 2010. Evil as admirable: the femme fatale in the eyes of the  contemporary female spectator. [Online] Available at   http://sbhonesty.blogspot.com/2010/11/evil-as-admirable-femme-fatale-in-eyes.html Stevens , S., 2009. Embrace your inner Goddess [Online] Available at http://goddesspower978.wordpress.com/tag/seductress/

Looking for Alibrandi Essay Example

Looking for Alibrandi Essay Example Looking for Alibrandi Essay Looking for Alibrandi Essay She feels caught in a claustrophobic trap between family lives obsessed with tradition, a trice disciplined Catholic school and trying to find herself and her position as a teenage girl. Throughout the novel Josses is constantly changing her views on people, and experiences her share of emotional upheaval as she comes to realize that a perfect world consists of more than Just gorgeous hairstyles, rich boyfriends and social privileges. It is a common representation throughout the novel that Josses Librarian is a selfish and egotistical girl whose internal angst and whose conflict with others all stemmed from her expectations that others should conform to meet her deeds. This can be seen In her Interactions with her close family members Christina. Nana and Michael. She also selfish towards her friends John and Jacob. Josses and her mothers relationship Is rocky, this Is shown when Josses attacks her mothers desires to go out on a date. Josses was constantly reminded of her mothers failures and sacrifices she made while raising Josses as a single mother. As Nonna lied to Josie and her relatives that Josie’s father died before Christina gave birth to Josie, thus Christina and Josie are misunderstanding to Nonna and also did not accept with what she did. It shows the differences in generation’s point of view towards Christina’s pregnancy. Furthermore, â€Å"Looking for Alibrandi† also displays relationships in a lot of depth, for instance, the relationships between Josie and Michael Andretti, Jacob Coote and John Barton. Josie meets Michael Andretti angrily because he left Josie’s mother when she got pregnant; therefore Josie became illegitimate child with no father. However, when Josie feels helpless and struggle after she hits Carly’s nose, she can only think about Michael to help her as a barrister and father. This event demonstrates that Josie really wants to and be proud of having father; they had more trust and build up the father- daughter relationships too. Josie’s final year of high school transforms her from the childhood world of dependence on her mother to dealing with adults like Michael Andretti and Jacob Coote. Jacob, the school captain of Cook High School, Josie calls him an ‘individualist’, because he has a strong personality, sensitive and independent as a typical Australian. Jacob feels uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations as he finds it difficult to understand with Josie’s Italian cultural background, he does not respect and think the traditions should not be maintained. For example, once, Jacob gave a sexual advance to Josie, but she is unwillingness to make love and told Jacob clearly that Italian thinking is more traditional and different to Australian’s. Sexual activity is not by accepted to Italian, but Australian just sees this as a normal practise. By comparison between Jacob Coote and John Barton, they are both Australian, but living in very different attitudes and family. John has weak and low self-image who comes from a well-educated family. Josie admires him and they have a very good relationship, but Josie did not realise that John is very upset as he is under a lot of pressure by his father to become ‘the best prime minster’, therefore, John’s father and people around John have a high expectation of him. As a result, John gets a lot of pressure that he thinks no one would understand him. John’s pressure from unconfident about passing the HSC, forces him to commit suicide. This does upset Josie but it also makes her a lot more resilient too. â€Å"Looking for Alibrandi†, also illustrates many prejudices between rich and poor people, and the racial prejudice. St. Martha is Josie’s school which is â€Å"dominated by white Australian†, high-class and rich people. Children of wealthy migrants accepted because of their wealth, which cause a social discrimination as Josie finds hard to cope in this school with her strong Italian and middle working class family background. The novel shows that although Australia is a multicultural society, but it still has racist problems with people from different culture backgrounds. Melina Marchetta always uses the word â€Å"Wog†, which is an offensive word to coloured skin people especially Italian, which is throughout the whole novel to inspire readers in racist issues. For instant, Ivy comes from high-class Australian family, who is not accept Josie as an Australia, but a completely Italian immigrant with strong Italian culture background. This idea is clearly expressed in these words â€Å"You’re a new Australians wear black a lot don’t you Josephine? â€Å"Looking for Alibrandi† emphasises some important cultural, relationship and social and racial prejudices among people from different cultural background. It examines the strength and resilience of Josie to cope with the relationship with family, John Barton’s dead and Jacob Coot’s sexual advance, and the intolerance of Italian traditions by Nonna. This novel makes readers aware of to see the beauty in other culture, because the world has many different cultures, we need to be respect, although there may have something that you may not except.

Bioinformatics and molecular modelling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Bioinformatics and molecular modelling - Essay Example Plant lipases are often considered to be involved in regulating certain plant growths and developments (Bos and Laxminarayan, 2011; 42). They are mainly found in seeds where triglycerides are stored in the form of intracellular structures or the oil bodies. Lipases usually hydrolyze triglycerides to fatty acids and glycerol that produces energy needed for seed germination. The plant lapses are usually classified into three main groups with the first group consisting of the triacylglycerol hydrolases that are mainly found in seeds. Their study is vital since they are responsible for seed alteration especially during storage. The second group is the acylhydrolases that are found in various plant tissues. They often exhibit limited specificity for their substrates; therefore, they are unable to hydrolyze triglycerides. However, they are cable to catalyze some esterification processes or reactions (Appel and Feytmans, 2009; p. 68). The profound acylhydrolases include phospholipases A and B, sulfolipases, glycolipases, and monoglyceride lipases. The last group in this category is the phosphorlipases that involve plant metabolism, degradation, and rearrangement. Other than the above classification, the recent studies have led to different classification of lipases based on comparison of the sequences of their amino acid among other fundamental biological and physicochemical properties (Gupta, 2007; 34). This modern classification led to eleven subfamilies. Despite being a member of many protein families, the lipases often have similar architecture that is described by the ?-hydrolase fold. The activities of all lipases often rely on the catalytic triad that is usually fromed by the Asp, Ser, and His residues. In the sequence of the amino acid especially involving ?/? hydrolases, these three residues often follow the user-Asp-His order. Additionally, lipases often share the consensus sequence defined by the Gly-Xaa-Ser-Xaa-Gly where X may be a residue of an amino acid (Bos and Laxminarayan, 2011; p. 33). The three dimensional structure of any protein molecule often provides valuable insight into the molecular function, organization, docking stimulation, and the effective designing of drug experiments. The lack of an experimentally determined crystal structure, the homology modeling may be used to provide an opportunity in obtaining a reasonable 3D model. Currently, the 3D models often provide a perfect means of predicting the structure of biomolecules since it yields models that are suitable for a wide application spectrum that are structurally based thereby providing molecular design for mechanism investigation. The 3D approach is capable of providing a reasonable structure model that is often related to template that shares more than 25 percent sequence identity. An Arabidopsis thaliana lipase model is greatly proposed to investigate the model organism mainly in the plant biology since it is relatively small and and it is genetically tractable genome. Methods The Target and Template Proteins The model is perfect in determining adequate template for the homology modeling for the Arabidopsis thaliana. This sequence allows the alignment of amino acid sequence against the protein data bank (PDB) and this is performed by means of BLAST algorithm. According to the sequence algorithm, both the template (1HLG) and the target share 31 percent of the sequence identity.

Information Technology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words - 2

Information Technology - Essay Example In this part an analysis will be performed on the case study of a specific organization in order to determine the usefulness of an enterprise resource planning system in improving the supply chain. OZS (Odlewnia Ã… »eliwa Ã…Å¡rem) is the leading Iron foundry among three major foundries of Poland. More than 1,450 employees are working with this organization and approximately 50 thousand castings are being produced each year. It has faced many challenges during the last twenty years that resulted in an extreme level of re-structuring processes for achieving process efficiencies. For this purpose, it began to employ a new system in 2000 within the firm that was Enterprise Resource Planning or in short, â€Å"ERP†. The decision of employing ERP had some strategic reasons. It was supposed to bring about two major effects. One effect would be the considerable decline in inventory cost and enhancement of production volume by re-organizing the business procedures more proficiently. Another effect of improvement in the management ways and business procedures would be the result of decreasing ambiguousness in operations (e-Business Watch, 2008). OZS is involved in the export of its partial yield to different countries, such as the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, France and all around the Scandinavian Countries. It has occupied nine percent market segment in the steel market of Poland. Steel industry of Poland had faced many contests over the previous years and so faced by OZS too. The reasons for such challenges were the emergence of Globalization and being a member of the European Union. It created such a trade area for OZS that was free from the restrictions which enhanced the competition with foreign companies. In addition to this, privatization of OZS in 1999 created an extra burden for enhancing the production volume and downsizing the employees that was only possible by restructuring the company’s processes. So, this pressure

Prophet Mohammad Essay Example for Free

Prophet Mohammad Essay If I could travel back in time to meet a famous person from history, I would want to meet with Prophet Mohammad. He is well known across the world as the person who brought the Islamic religion to the Arab countries. His teachings can be found in the Holy Quran (Madelung, 87). It is said in Islam that Mohammed is the last of all the prophets God will send to all the people on the earth. Mohammed is very famous because he brought a religion to the world by the orders of God and in only a short time, it became well known everywhere. Even today, there are over 1 billion people in the world who are Muslims. Only a great person like Mohammed could have created a religion in his lifetime that would have captured the attention of all people. Islam started when God sent down angel Gabriel to Mohammed at the mountain Hara. He was first told, Okra which means read. The amazing part about this is Mohammed could never read nor write before meeting the angel. From this time at 40 years old until he was 63 years of age, he received many rules and wisdom from God. His instructions were to advise the people of Gods rules and how they should live, for they were living in haram or sin (Watt, 48). Mohammed was born and raised in Mecca. Read more:  How to write an essay about someone you admire His father died before he was born and he lost his mother too at the age of six and thereafter lived with his paternal grandfather Abd al-Muttalib as an orphan (Andrea, 78). Growing up as an orphan in Mecca was never easy even though he was well fed by his guardians. At a tender age of twelve, Mohammed had started engaging in trading journeys with his uncle. He therefore started to develop interest in commercial trade probably because that was the only option he had because he grew up as an orphan. Mohammed took up the career as a merchant in his later youth and was highly regarded as trustworthy and later nicknamed â€Å"al-Amin†. Mohammed’s youthful days are really admirable and inspiring at the same time (Madelung, 59). He not only had an upright character but was also a very hard working young man who tried and beat the odds despite his humble background. It was for his reputation that a forty year old widow called Khadijah who asked for his hand in marriage which he accepted and lived happily thereafter (Turner, 89). After the death of Khadijah, Mohammed married other women numbering about thirteen and he was survived by nine of them. One of them was called Aisha, who according to the Sunni Muslims was Mohammed’s favorite companion. She is known for her instrumental work in bringing together the many scattered Mohammed’s sayings that later formed the Sunni’s hadith literature. As a husband, Mohammed had a great reputation at a time when women were lowly regarded in the society. It is said that he participated in house chores like washing, cooking and even sewing clothes. Although women were never treated fairly during the prophet’s time, Mohammed was extremely exceptional with his women. He not only listened to his wives’ advice but also engaged them in dialogue and arguments. This is worth emulating in today’s Muslim societies where women continue to suffer in the hands of their men (Andrea, 75). Mohammed’s future prophetic life was said to have been prophesized by another Christian monk he met his way to his many caravans from Mecca to Syria (Watt, 56). At the onset of his prophetic life, Mohammed was fond of visiting a cave in Mount Hira every year where he would meditate for weeks. According to Islamic teachings, it was during one of the ritual meditations at Mount Hira when angel Gabriel descended and instructed him to say the following words: â€Å"Proclaim! or read! ) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created- Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful, He Who taught (the use of) the pen, Taught man that which he knew not† (Quran 96: 1-5). Mohammed was very much disturbed by these revelations and knew the task required of him. He went home and shared with his wife Kh adija and Khadijah’s Christian cousin who consoled and reassured him that nothing bad would happen (Ramadan, 45). He was afraid of the news and did not know how he could get others to listen to what he was to say. His wife was the first to tell him she believed him and that Mohammed must do what was told. The amazing thing about Mohammed is his faith and willingness to do what God commanded. He never gave up in his prayers even after a pause of almost three years after the initial revelation. He prayed continuously until God finally commanded him to start preaching the word to his people. He was living in Mekkah of Saudi Arabia when he began his teachings to the people. According to Islamic teachings, Mohammed’s wife was the first person who believed that he was a prophet. His younger cousin called Ali Abi Talib and best friend Abu Bakr as well as his adopted son Zaid were to follow in believing in his prophesies (Turner, 102). Many of people from Mecca did not like or accept this way of life and tried to kill Mohammed. He would be mocked or chased away by the Meccans who could not believe or understand his new way of life. The opposition to Prophet Mohammed in Mecca began when he started preaching against worshiping of the idols that was a common feature in Mecca city. He also became a threat to the wealthy religious leaders who depended on the Kaaba, a major defining traditional feature of the Meccan religion which Mohammed’s teachings would render obsolete. Due to these, most of his new converts were killed by the wealthy merchants and other opposing groups who never wanted their traditional religions interfered with. But Mohammed had to endure insults and ridicules only and could not be harmed or killed because he came from the Banu Hashim clan (Madelung, 56). He left and traveled to different places including Yemen before he went back to Saudi Arabia to live in the city called Medina. The people of Medina were accepting of him and listened to his advice. There were some people there who professed to Jewish or other religions, but they did not fight with Mohammed. He had a good reputation in Medina where he helped to solve a long standing inter-ethnic conflict. A delegation comprising of representatives from all the clans involved in the fight between Jewish and Arabs in the Yathrib was sent to get Mohammed to arbitrate in the conflict. This did not only help him to escape the hostile city of Mecca but also enable him spread his teaching to various communities and clans in the greater Middle East (Ramadan, 83). Mohammed’s teachings really formed the foundation of the Islamic religion. One of the Muslim’s sources of spiritual inspiration is the Sunnah. The sunnah according the Islamic religion are deeds and sayings of the prophet Mohammed as preserved in the hadith and includes a variety of activities as well as beliefs such religious rituals, burial rituals, personal hygiene and the love between man and God. It is supposed to guide every Muslim and so far has been a great influence to the Muslim culture allover the world. For example, Mohammed taught Muslims a greeting to offer one another – â€Å"may peace be upon you† is wide used by Muslims from all corners of the world (Rahman, 69). The Sunnah has played an important role in the establishment and development of the religion’s sciences. Much of the prophet’s deeds and sayings have particularly contributed to the establishment of the Islamic law in the early years of the Islamic religion (Madelung, 78). The Sufis who sought to understand the inner meaning of the holy book, Qur’an and the true nature of the prophet, considered Mohammed not only as a mere prophet but as a perfect saint. Their spiritual descent is traced back to Prophet Mohammed (Rahman, 45). Mohammed was not liked by many of the outside tribes living throughout the Middle East and they wanted to hurt him, they taught their children to throw stones at him during his travels (Andrea, 65). A great quality of Mohammed that I look to is his patience. He taught to others that a very important behavior in life is to have patience with all issues. People would come to Mohammed with many complaints or questions to try and trick him (Madelung, 56). Others would do many things to him so he would go away. In all of these events, he would wait quietly and think before he answered or acted. I admire his ability to restrain himself and not fight small issues. In this world today, I think that everyone could benefit from this lesson of patience. Too many people die and are left hurting from wars between people who have little patience. During the spread of Islam, Mohammed gave people a choice to convert to Islam or if they did not want to, they would need to pay money that is like a tax. The Muslims and other people who would pay could live in harmony, but the tribes who refused to pay and resisted the teaching of Islam would end up in a war. These people had killed family members of Mohammed and wanted to fight him. So Mohammed and a small army would go out to fight, for example the Battle of Badr City (Andrea, 67). The small Muslim army won the battles because God had given them the strength to fight an enemy who hated God and worshipped idols. When the battles were over, Mohammed never took prisoners and killed them on purpose. He showed mercy and compassion. Like the Prophet Jesus had taught the way to live is with mercy, compassion and love. It is the only way to live a correct life. If you look to any of the prophets, they are famous and different from all of the other people because they took chances and were disliked. They had to remain strong in their faith of God and be patient. It was no different for Mohammed. There are many times in my life that I become angry because people are mean or I lose patience with them but I try to look to the example Mohammed made for the Muslims to follow. I sit and read the Quran and hope to find a peace. Conclusion When the word was revealed to Mohammed, the world was in a bad situation. People were worshipping idols and hurting the less fortunate and women. It was like these people were acting like animals. Mohammed was very scared of how he would be accepted by the people and if they would reject the word of God. I admire the strength of Mohammed when he was faced with danger. I sometimes wish to have that strength, so I must remain strong in my faith to God and look to Him for guidance. This was an important teaching of the prophet Mohammed. When I came to America, I was afraid because I was new and did not know many people. Also, the news shows things that can make people afraid of Muslims and I know some people will not like me because of it. I try hard to live by the example Mohammed set for the Muslim people so I may have a good life. It has been good for me in America. By having patience, I have learned many things about this country and also made good friends. I hope that people can look past the bad news media makes for people and discover the good things about Mohammed because there are many lessons a person can learn from his life.

The Death Penalty :: Cause and Effect Capital Punishment

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Valuable insight can be gained by understanding how the death penalty evolved and by understanding why many countries have abandoned capital punishment, while others still retain it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Historically the death penalty has been around a long time. Many countries including the United States have some kind of death sentencing. From around the sixteen hundreds is when the death penalty started to take place. The first man to be killed by the penalty was Daniel Frank, put to death in 1622 for some crime of theft. Since then the death penalty has almost always been a feature of the criminal justice system. Many states after a while outlawed the death penalty. To this day only a few remain outlawed but most have some kind of death sentencing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One cause of having the death penalty would be regarding legal issues. Many people know that if you break a law by means of stealing or killing you will be punished. In most countries that have capital punishment, it is used to punish only murder or war-related crimes. In some countries, like the People's Republic of China, some non-violent crimes, like drug and business related crimes, are punishable by death. In the eighteenth century, England would punish by death for pick pocketing and petty theft. And in other countries you even got your hand cut off. People steal from others everyday and the only way to reduce the number of people who steal is to set a law stating its consequences. If we did not have laws set forth for shop lifting, robbing banks, or killing someone then if no one got a consequence then it many crimes would take place each day. Many people do not steal because the fear of going to jail or having to pay large fines. Also if we didn’t h ave a law keeping people from killing others then many people would kill when ever and what ever they want. The Death Penalty :: Cause and Effect Capital Punishment   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Valuable insight can be gained by understanding how the death penalty evolved and by understanding why many countries have abandoned capital punishment, while others still retain it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Historically the death penalty has been around a long time. Many countries including the United States have some kind of death sentencing. From around the sixteen hundreds is when the death penalty started to take place. The first man to be killed by the penalty was Daniel Frank, put to death in 1622 for some crime of theft. Since then the death penalty has almost always been a feature of the criminal justice system. Many states after a while outlawed the death penalty. To this day only a few remain outlawed but most have some kind of death sentencing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One cause of having the death penalty would be regarding legal issues. Many people know that if you break a law by means of stealing or killing you will be punished. In most countries that have capital punishment, it is used to punish only murder or war-related crimes. In some countries, like the People's Republic of China, some non-violent crimes, like drug and business related crimes, are punishable by death. In the eighteenth century, England would punish by death for pick pocketing and petty theft. And in other countries you even got your hand cut off. People steal from others everyday and the only way to reduce the number of people who steal is to set a law stating its consequences. If we did not have laws set forth for shop lifting, robbing banks, or killing someone then if no one got a consequence then it many crimes would take place each day. Many people do not steal because the fear of going to jail or having to pay large fines. Also if we didn’t h ave a law keeping people from killing others then many people would kill when ever and what ever they want.

Ancient Chinese Innovations

Ancient Chinese Innovations Jennifer E Strayer University Humanities 111 Ancient Chinese Innovations The ancient Chinese culture has probably contributed more to the advancement of humans than any other. In China’s long history they have shown us many extremely important inventions. In the modern world we take a lot of these innovations for granted even though we use many of them on a daily basis. I have often wondered who invented many items I use and it surprised me to find out that most things I use and quite possibly cannot live without were invented in ancient China.What would we do if paper had not been invented we may still be etching on stone and bones? Cai Lun successfully invented the very first batch of paper using fish nets and tree bark around 105 BCE. The invention of toilet paper would not have been possible without making paper first. Navigation was made easier with the invention of the compass. Would marinara sauce taste as good if it were not covering pasta o r ravioli? Pasta was invented around 300 BCE, nearly 2000 years before the Italian or the Arabs. Would the wars of the world ended the way they did without gunpowder?Around 850 CE, Chinese alchemist discovered gunpowder while searching for immortality. Many historical records and books might not have been made if it were not for the ease of moveable-type printing, which allowed for mass production of written material. Earthquake detection is another invention that many might not have lived without it. The early seismograph created during the Han dynasty around 132 CE used a pendulum to alert for a coming earthquake. While it is not known who first invented the sundial, the first mechanical clock was an important innovation by the ancient Chinese. Clark, 2009; Laudan, 2000; University C. , n. d; Unknown, Top 10 greatest inventions of ancient China, 2007) I think the four most innovative inventions given to us by China are the compass, toilet paper, moveable-type printing and the sund ial. The magnetic compass was first made somewhere between 221-206 BCE during the Qin dynasty. The original use was in fortune telling until it was discovered that it was better used at pointing out real directions. Originally used as padding or packing material n the second century BCE, the early Chinese writers mention using toilet paper as we do today as early as 589 BCE. The Chinese invented Woodblock printing over 2,000 years ago. Bi Sheng invented moveable clay type printing from which all later printing methods were developed from. The world’s first clock was invented by Yi Xing, a Buddhist monk and mathematician, his clock operated by having water drip onto a wheel that made a revolution every 24 hours. Hundreds of years later Su Song, an astronomer and mechanist, created what we know as the ancestor of the modern clock. Bellis, n. d; University C. , n. d; Unknown, Top 10 greatest inventions of ancient China, 2007) Our modern world was created on the foundation of the se innovations, they have been improved upon and upgraded over the centuries but the basic ideas remain the same. If there were one of these inventions that I simply would not want to live without it would have to be toilet paper. While water was the common way to cleanse after each trip to the bathroom, the convenience and ease of using toilet paper had travelers to China commenting about people’s cleanliness as early as 851 CE.In any natural disaster one key thing is sanitation; toilet paper is much more sanitary than using your hand and some water. A few months ago I saw a documentary called No Impact Man, where Colin Beaven, his wife and daughter, took part in a yearlong experiment to see if they could go that long and not impact the environment. One of the experiments was if they could go a year without using toilet paper. They did it, using cloth instead, just like cloth diapers, wash and reuse. While I know now that I could survive without toilet paper, I simply would not want to. Rowles, 2010) Works Cited Barsoum, D. M. (2006, December 18). Solving the Mysteries of the Pyramids. Retrieved January 23, 2012, from Department of Materials Science & Engineering: http://www. materials. drexel. edu/News/Item/? i=948 Bellis, M. (n. d). The Compass and other Magnetic Innovations. Retrieved February 25, 2012, from inventors. About. com: http://inventors. about. com/od/cstartinventions/a/Compass. htm Clark, J. (2009, March 9). Top 10 Ancient Chinese Inventions. Retrieved February 17, 2012, from HowStuffWorks. com:

Digital Business Environment

Introduction The scientists who developed the Internet probably did not realise their invention completely changed our world today. From how people communicating, connecting with social network, to how and where people work, Internet is now affecting our daily life in every dimension. Internet still and will continue change our life and behavior, according to data, nearly a third of world population are Internet user, and this number is still growing at an unprecedented speed (IWC, 2012).Internet affects almost every aspect of people daily activities, thanks to the Internet, people can virtually shopping without going out and get their items delivered to the doorstep in a matter of days. Information is now much more accessible over the Internet, people can share their life using blogging, and not to mention that business world has expanded to a whole new dimension. Company or individual can now target a much more wide consumers around the world. As much as the Internet has changed ou r personal lives, the business world has revolutionsied almost beyond recognition since the Internet era.Jeremy (2011) states the rise of Internet and other technologies is the start of Third Industrial Revolution. Although there is still ongoing debates about this theory, that the Internet has changed the face and pace of our modern business world. Hosted on the server, accessed using the Internet, the website or simply known as the site or web page, is one of the fundamental elements that forms the Internet we use today. It is also the most common way that a company or individual promote and conduct their business.This paper will thoroughly analyse and discuses a chosen website, the purpose is to take an insight to the digital business environment. Terms such as E-commerce, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) will be mention and discuss. The technical details of how to build and maintain a website will not be discussed in this article. Overview The website chosen in this pa per is Oki-ni, before further analyse the company and the website, it is essential to understand some of the basic about website.Organised by function, a website may fall into one of these catalogue (Yuan, 2005) * A personal website, e. g. blogging * A commercial website, e. g. company website, such as Microsoft, Apple * A government website, e. g. NASA website, City Council website * A nonprofit organisation website, Greenpeace, or RedCross website According to this catalogue, Oki-ni is a commercial website. Another terms that need to understand is Electronic commerce, or commonly known as E-commerce. There are many different definition of E-commerce from different perspectives in different discipline.Mamta (2005) summarised that E-commerce is the process of buying and selling or exchanging of products, services and information via telecommunication and computer networks including Internet. Mamta (2005) further generalised that based on the types of parties (business, consumer, etc ) involved, E-commerce may be of the following types: * Business-to-Business (B2B) * Bsuiness-to-Consumer (B2C) * Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) * Consumer-to-Business (C2B) * Intrabusiness Based on that definition, Oki-ni is a B2C type of E-commerce, different from other B2C website, the Britain based company focused on high-end menswear.The name originated from a Japanese dialect, means ‘Hello’, Oki-ni was created to work with established brands and progressive designers, to offer innovative products to knowledgeable fashion consumers. In another words, Oki-ni sells more than clothing, but a life-style. The company also collaborated with other fashion brands such as Paul Smith, Adidas, to produce unique pieces. This paper will focus itself on evaluating the use and implementation of digital information system on the chosen website, applications on the website will be paid extra attention and thoroughly analyse, such as inventory system, newsletter, multimedia applications .Furthermore, the OVP (Online Value Proposition), Online revenue models and other factors will be critically reviewed. Using researcher’s extensive knowledge, the concept and application of CRM on the website will be analyse. Lastly, researcher will proposed some recommendations to improve the website followed by the digital business strategy. Analyse of The Website For E-commerce site, the primary purpose is to sell. However, most online retailers fell to the wrong direction when even building their website.They spent heavily on how to attract more visitors to the site and simply forgot what is the point if the consumer visited the site but not buying anything. There may be many factors that contribute and affecting consumers’ buying behavior, but the inappropriate implementation of information system is more often seen in business operation. Customer cannot locate the item they want, or found themselves cannot checkout with the system, modern information technology b rings a great convenient, however, sometimes it can be chaos without properly used.For an enterprise, it is critically important to aware its organisational goals and objectives as well as the implementation of information system. (Mehdi, 2006) For the company of Oki-ni, the website serve the purpose of sales and providing customer service. Thus, the inventory information and customer information are vital to the company’s lifeline. Furthermore, to provide an enhanced online shopping experience, the supply chain management, online information security, and multimedia interactive applications are equally important. Inventory ManagementWhen running an E-commerce, it is very easy to get caught up in other aspects and neglect the importance of inventory management. Ritendra (2008) emphasis that its crucial to run inventory management effectively for the business to be profitably. For Oki-ni, there are thousands of items and new items in stock everyday, how to manage it efficientl y become vital to the company, what’s more, it has two layers of meaning. Firstly, for the staff, effective inventory system should allow them to locate specific item easily, and overview the whole inventory to see which items are running low on stock, and which are the best selling.Secondly, for customer, the inventory system should provide an easy accessible. Oki-ni website provide a simply and minimalism searching interface for the customer, customer can search the items they looking for by their preferable method, such as, using keywords, sort it by color, price range, sizing, or different part of garment, or using alphabet-order brand list. On the top page of Oki-ni site, customer can easily find new arrivals or discount information. Customer Information Comparing with tradition in-store shopping, online retailer has the advantage on tracking, storing and anaylsing customer data.Oki-ni gathering customer information by encouraging customer registered with their e-mail ad dress. By using these e-mail addresses with the concerns of customer, Oki-ni sends out newsletters to customer. Newsletters are an effective way to build goodwill and keep in touch with potential customer (Janice, 2004). Customer received promotion, new arrivals and other information from the website. When comes to place order, for security and privacy concern, the company only takes the minimum information that required for delivering, such as address, telephone number.Internet is an ever-changing, competitive-intensive environment, the recently raise of new social network drew a lot attention. As a company aiming itself not only sales, but to promote a lifestyle, Oki-ni has extended its content to other different social-network, such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, customer can find sales information, new product on these social network. Also, Oki-ni can gather customer information on other platforms, it’s a win-win situations. Multimedia InteractiveOne of the major adva ntages of E-commerce comparing traditional retailing is convenience; customer can search for product and compare it, finally checkout in a short amount of time by just clicking the mouse, however, E-commerce has deprived its users of the reality (Vincent & Franck, 2004). Material color, texture, tactile impression, those physical details cannot be display or feel by the two-dimensional images and texts on a computer screen. Most people have on-line shopping experiences have those situations that sometimes the products they received are different from their expectations.In order to provide better shopping experiences, Oki-ni provide an enhanced multimedia interface. In every product description page, the website provides high-resolution photos of the products, customer can click zoom-in to see the details of the texture, and a short video to demonstrate the product. For music product, such as CD, preview services are provided. Critical Review In this part, the website’s OVP (O nline Value Proposition), ORM (Online Revenue Model) and target audience will be critically reviewed. Online Value Proposition What’s the Online Value Proposition?It is a statement of the benefits of e-commerce services that ideally should not be available in competitor offerings of offline offerings (David, 2006). Michael & Susan (2012) further states that in an E-commerce context the differential advantage and positioning can be clarified and communicated by developing an online value proposition. Simply speaking, OVP is the USP of the brand or the website, a strong OVP is a crucial way to attract new visitors into the site and decided to stay or leave, the decisions often made in minutes or even in seconds.Developing an OVP, involves: * Developing messages that reinforce core brand proposition and credibility * Communicate what a visitor can get from an online brand that other competitors can not offer or they cannot get offline (Micheal & Susan, 2012) Translate these theo ries into simply language, a good OVP should answer the questions ‘Why am I here? ’ ‘Does this site offer me what I need? ’ In the digital business environment, the competition is much fierce and intensive then ever before. How to stand out from the crowd in a matters of seconds when visitor first open the site become vital to success.There a great numbers of online clothing retailer, from high-street brand, such as Topshop, ASOS, to luxury brand, e. g. Net-a-porter, Browns. Being good is not enough to win the competition, a good OVP is essential for Oki-ni to survive in the competition. More than ten years passed the establishment of Oki-ni, the website is still focusing on menswear, more specifically, they aiming to discover and break the most inspiring brands and products available, while hosting them in an rich, inspiring and innovative environment. The home page of Oki-ni featuring a simplicity style filled with inspiration contents.Existing customer c an easily find what they want in a few clicks; in the meanwhile the video and music can attract the attention of new customer. The website keep updating its FEATURES section with vibrant and forward-thinking videos and music. There is no differentiated of so call ‘high-street’ or ‘luxury’ on Oki-ni’s product, customer can find shorts cost 20 pounds to a coat valued a few hundreds. But there is one thing in common, all product were carefully selected. Featuring more than cloth, customer can also buy books, CDs on the website.In order to keep a fresh look, Oki-ni redesign the website every six month, from layout to the content. To sum up, Oki-ni’s strong OVP is that they not only sell cloth, but the promote an innovation life-style. Online Revenue Model In the article, Business Models on the Web by professor Micheal Rappa (2006). He suggests that ‘business models are perhaps the most discussed and least understood aspect of the web. â€⠄¢ In this regards, he summarised the business model into the following * Brokerage * Advertising * Informediary * Merchant * Manufacturer * Affiliate Community * Subscription * Utility The revenue model may be different in these business model, some website get paid by doing advertising, some website generated income by subscription. In the case of Oki-ni, the revenue model is easy to identify, the company produce service and sell it to customer. When the revenues from sales exceed the operational cost, then the company gets profit. Comparing to store retailer, the website is relatively easier to operate. No rent, less labor cost, means the website can provide a much more competitive price than physical store.However, on the other hand, the maintaining of website post a great challenge to the company. Target Audience The company target a niche market of luxury product segment. Focusing on menswear only, the website sells a wide range of product from selective clothing line from Jap an, Italy, to limited edition CDs. There is no particular age range on the Oki-ni’s customers, the company targeting a small group who required a innovated and forward-thinking life-style, and willing to the pay a premium price for that.Customer Relationship Management The term of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is now much more frequently seen in the E-commerce article, what’s CRM? The followings are different CRM definitions by scholars CRM involves various different elements, which includes customer-prospecting, relationship with customers; interact between customer and business, understanding customer expectations, empowerment, partnerships, and personalisation, and son on. (Fjermestad & Romano, 2006).CRM is an enterprise approach to understanding and influencing behavior through meaningful communication in order to improve customer acquisition, customer retention, customer loyalty, and customer profitability. (Swift, 2006) So far, there is no universally ac cepted definition of CRM. It not a software or a service, it is an overall business strategy. Shanmugasundaram (n. d) identified that the three main components in CRM system, namely * Operational * Analytical * Collaborative Nowadays, not only global companies seeking helps from CRM, more and more SMEs (Small and Medium Size Enterprise) were implemented with CRMs.Oki-ni is no exceptional, the company used the first hand data not only to promote its product, but to provide a better service. From time to time, Newsletters were sent to customer, the content of those newsletters were not just about product information. Featuring styling tips, or invitations to special events, the company always try to encourage customer come to visitor site. Recommendation Running an E-commerce is far more complicated than just setting up a website, other than the business and the customer, it involves many their parties, such as vendor, supply chain, banking.Researcher found a rather interesting phenom enal when customer rated Oki-ni’s service, some customer give top rate on both delivery speed and money transaction. However, on the other hand, some customer extremely disappointed on their service quoted ‘the clothes arrived and were excellent although delivery is very slow’ (Ciao, 2007). The inconsistence performance may due to the delivery company and Oki-ni should try to avoid in the future. Moreover, there is more potential of the CRM waiting to be discovered. Oki-ni using CRM mainly on providing customer ervice and promoting products, CRM is much more than customer service, researcher suggest the company analyse the customer’s shopping behavior, such as what kind of brand they like the most, how frequently they shopped on the site, etc. to improve customer shopping experience. The company can also use the data to collaborative with other parties, such as bank, to improve online payment security, or delivery company, to improve performance. Lastly, t he competition of digital business environment is much more intensive than ever before.The OVP (Online Value Proposition) may be seems strong and unique at this moment, with successful of Oki-ni, more and more website will try to follow the same model. How to maintain the competitive edge is vital for the company’s future. Conclusion By discussing and critically reviewed the Oki-ni’s website, this paper take an insight into the digital business environment. In the Internet era, trading become much more easier, even individual can set up a website with the know-how and the equipment. However, the competition is much more intensive.E-commerce is a complex term that involved many aspects, the terms and concepts researcher discussed in this paper barely scratch the surface. with the fast advancing technology, new issues now raised, such as legal issue and Internet security. Concepts of CRM, Online business model may need further investigation in the future. Reference: Ciao . (2007). Review of Oki-ni. com. Available from: http://www. ciao. co. uk/Reviews/Oki_Ni_com__5315436 [Accessed 10 Nov, 2012]. Fjermestad, Jerry, and Nicholas C. Romano. (2006) Electronic Customer Relationship Management. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe,. Print. pp. 121-65 Internet World Stats, 2011. World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats. Available from: http://www. internetworldstats. com/stats. htm [Accessed 12 Nov. 2012]. Janice,Reynolds (2004). ’The Complete E-Commerce Book: Design, Build & Maintain a Successful Web-Based Business’. NewYork, Taylor & Francis. Print. pp. 268+. Jeremy, Rifkin. (2011). ‘The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World’. London, Palgrave Macmillan. Mamta, Bushry. (2005). ‘E-commerce. New Delhi, Firewall Media. Print. pp. 69 Mehdi, Khosrow-Pour. (2006) ‘Cases on Electronic Commerce Technologies and Applications. Hershey’, PA: Idea Grou p. Michael, Rappa (2006). ‘Business Models On the Web’. Available from: http://digitalenterprise. org/models/models. html [Accessed 9 Nov, 2012]. Ritendra, Goel. (2008) ‘Electronic Commerce Technology and Prosecpts. ’ E-commerce. New Delhi: New Age International Pvt. Swift, Ronald S. (2000) ‘Accelerating Customer Relationships: Using CRM and Relationship Technologies. ’ Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR. Print. pp. 25+Shanmugasundaram, S. (N. d) ‘Customer Relationship Management: Modern Trends And Perspectives’ New Delhi. PHI learning, Ltd. Vincent, Roca & Franck Rousseau. (2004). ‘Interactive Multimedia and Next Generation Networks: Second International Workshop on Multimedia Interactive Protocols and Systems’. Springer. Available from: http://www. springer. com/computer/information+systems+and+applications/book/978-3-540-23928-4? cm_mmc=Google-_-Book%20Search-_-Springer-_-0 [Accessed 8 Nov 2012]. Yuan, Gao (2 005). ‘Web Systems Design And Online Consumer Behavior’. London, Idea Group Inc. Digital Business Environment Introduction The scientists who developed the Internet probably did not realise their invention completely changed our world today. From how people communicating, connecting with social network, to how and where people work, Internet is now affecting our daily life in every dimension. Internet still and will continue change our life and behavior, according to data, nearly a third of world population are Internet user, and this number is still growing at an unprecedented speed (IWC, 2012).Internet affects almost every aspect of people daily activities, thanks to the Internet, people can virtually shopping without going out and get their items delivered to the doorstep in a matter of days. Information is now much more accessible over the Internet, people can share their life using blogging, and not to mention that business world has expanded to a whole new dimension. Company or individual can now target a much more wide consumers around the world. As much as the Internet has changed ou r personal lives, the business world has revolutionsied almost beyond recognition since the Internet era.Jeremy (2011) states the rise of Internet and other technologies is the start of Third Industrial Revolution. Although there is still ongoing debates about this theory, that the Internet has changed the face and pace of our modern business world. Hosted on the server, accessed using the Internet, the website or simply known as the site or web page, is one of the fundamental elements that forms the Internet we use today. It is also the most common way that a company or individual promote and conduct their business.This paper will thoroughly analyse and discuses a chosen website, the purpose is to take an insight to the digital business environment. Terms such as E-commerce, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) will be mention and discuss. The technical details of how to build and maintain a website will not be discussed in this article. Overview The website chosen in this pa per is Oki-ni, before further analyse the company and the website, it is essential to understand some of the basic about website.Organised by function, a website may fall into one of these catalogue (Yuan, 2005) * A personal website, e. g. blogging * A commercial website, e. g. company website, such as Microsoft, Apple * A government website, e. g. NASA website, City Council website * A nonprofit organisation website, Greenpeace, or RedCross website According to this catalogue, Oki-ni is a commercial website. Another terms that need to understand is Electronic commerce, or commonly known as E-commerce. There are many different definition of E-commerce from different perspectives in different discipline.Mamta (2005) summarised that E-commerce is the process of buying and selling or exchanging of products, services and information via telecommunication and computer networks including Internet. Mamta (2005) further generalised that based on the types of parties (business, consumer, etc ) involved, E-commerce may be of the following types: * Business-to-Business (B2B) * Bsuiness-to-Consumer (B2C) * Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) * Consumer-to-Business (C2B) * Intrabusiness Based on that definition, Oki-ni is a B2C type of E-commerce, different from other B2C website, the Britain based company focused on high-end menswear.The name originated from a Japanese dialect, means ‘Hello’, Oki-ni was created to work with established brands and progressive designers, to offer innovative products to knowledgeable fashion consumers. In another words, Oki-ni sells more than clothing, but a life-style. The company also collaborated with other fashion brands such as Paul Smith, Adidas, to produce unique pieces. This paper will focus itself on evaluating the use and implementation of digital information system on the chosen website, applications on the website will be paid extra attention and thoroughly analyse, such as inventory system, newsletter, multimedia applications .Furthermore, the OVP (Online Value Proposition), Online revenue models and other factors will be critically reviewed. Using researcher’s extensive knowledge, the concept and application of CRM on the website will be analyse. Lastly, researcher will proposed some recommendations to improve the website followed by the digital business strategy. Analyse of The Website For E-commerce site, the primary purpose is to sell. However, most online retailers fell to the wrong direction when even building their website.They spent heavily on how to attract more visitors to the site and simply forgot what is the point if the consumer visited the site but not buying anything. There may be many factors that contribute and affecting consumers’ buying behavior, but the inappropriate implementation of information system is more often seen in business operation. Customer cannot locate the item they want, or found themselves cannot checkout with the system, modern information technology b rings a great convenient, however, sometimes it can be chaos without properly used.For an enterprise, it is critically important to aware its organisational goals and objectives as well as the implementation of information system. (Mehdi, 2006) For the company of Oki-ni, the website serve the purpose of sales and providing customer service. Thus, the inventory information and customer information are vital to the company’s lifeline. Furthermore, to provide an enhanced online shopping experience, the supply chain management, online information security, and multimedia interactive applications are equally important. Inventory ManagementWhen running an E-commerce, it is very easy to get caught up in other aspects and neglect the importance of inventory management. Ritendra (2008) emphasis that its crucial to run inventory management effectively for the business to be profitably. For Oki-ni, there are thousands of items and new items in stock everyday, how to manage it efficientl y become vital to the company, what’s more, it has two layers of meaning. Firstly, for the staff, effective inventory system should allow them to locate specific item easily, and overview the whole inventory to see which items are running low on stock, and which are the best selling.Secondly, for customer, the inventory system should provide an easy accessible. Oki-ni website provide a simply and minimalism searching interface for the customer, customer can search the items they looking for by their preferable method, such as, using keywords, sort it by color, price range, sizing, or different part of garment, or using alphabet-order brand list. On the top page of Oki-ni site, customer can easily find new arrivals or discount information. Customer Information Comparing with tradition in-store shopping, online retailer has the advantage on tracking, storing and anaylsing customer data.Oki-ni gathering customer information by encouraging customer registered with their e-mail ad dress. By using these e-mail addresses with the concerns of customer, Oki-ni sends out newsletters to customer. Newsletters are an effective way to build goodwill and keep in touch with potential customer (Janice, 2004). Customer received promotion, new arrivals and other information from the website. When comes to place order, for security and privacy concern, the company only takes the minimum information that required for delivering, such as address, telephone number.Internet is an ever-changing, competitive-intensive environment, the recently raise of new social network drew a lot attention. As a company aiming itself not only sales, but to promote a lifestyle, Oki-ni has extended its content to other different social-network, such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, customer can find sales information, new product on these social network. Also, Oki-ni can gather customer information on other platforms, it’s a win-win situations. Multimedia InteractiveOne of the major adva ntages of E-commerce comparing traditional retailing is convenience; customer can search for product and compare it, finally checkout in a short amount of time by just clicking the mouse, however, E-commerce has deprived its users of the reality (Vincent & Franck, 2004). Material color, texture, tactile impression, those physical details cannot be display or feel by the two-dimensional images and texts on a computer screen. Most people have on-line shopping experiences have those situations that sometimes the products they received are different from their expectations.In order to provide better shopping experiences, Oki-ni provide an enhanced multimedia interface. In every product description page, the website provides high-resolution photos of the products, customer can click zoom-in to see the details of the texture, and a short video to demonstrate the product. For music product, such as CD, preview services are provided. Critical Review In this part, the website’s OVP (O nline Value Proposition), ORM (Online Revenue Model) and target audience will be critically reviewed. Online Value Proposition What’s the Online Value Proposition?It is a statement of the benefits of e-commerce services that ideally should not be available in competitor offerings of offline offerings (David, 2006). Michael & Susan (2012) further states that in an E-commerce context the differential advantage and positioning can be clarified and communicated by developing an online value proposition. Simply speaking, OVP is the USP of the brand or the website, a strong OVP is a crucial way to attract new visitors into the site and decided to stay or leave, the decisions often made in minutes or even in seconds.Developing an OVP, involves: * Developing messages that reinforce core brand proposition and credibility * Communicate what a visitor can get from an online brand that other competitors can not offer or they cannot get offline (Micheal & Susan, 2012) Translate these theo ries into simply language, a good OVP should answer the questions ‘Why am I here? ’ ‘Does this site offer me what I need? ’ In the digital business environment, the competition is much fierce and intensive then ever before. How to stand out from the crowd in a matters of seconds when visitor first open the site become vital to success.There a great numbers of online clothing retailer, from high-street brand, such as Topshop, ASOS, to luxury brand, e. g. Net-a-porter, Browns. Being good is not enough to win the competition, a good OVP is essential for Oki-ni to survive in the competition. More than ten years passed the establishment of Oki-ni, the website is still focusing on menswear, more specifically, they aiming to discover and break the most inspiring brands and products available, while hosting them in an rich, inspiring and innovative environment. The home page of Oki-ni featuring a simplicity style filled with inspiration contents.Existing customer c an easily find what they want in a few clicks; in the meanwhile the video and music can attract the attention of new customer. The website keep updating its FEATURES section with vibrant and forward-thinking videos and music. There is no differentiated of so call ‘high-street’ or ‘luxury’ on Oki-ni’s product, customer can find shorts cost 20 pounds to a coat valued a few hundreds. But there is one thing in common, all product were carefully selected. Featuring more than cloth, customer can also buy books, CDs on the website.In order to keep a fresh look, Oki-ni redesign the website every six month, from layout to the content. To sum up, Oki-ni’s strong OVP is that they not only sell cloth, but the promote an innovation life-style. Online Revenue Model In the article, Business Models on the Web by professor Micheal Rappa (2006). He suggests that ‘business models are perhaps the most discussed and least understood aspect of the web. â€⠄¢ In this regards, he summarised the business model into the following * Brokerage * Advertising * Informediary * Merchant * Manufacturer * Affiliate Community * Subscription * Utility The revenue model may be different in these business model, some website get paid by doing advertising, some website generated income by subscription. In the case of Oki-ni, the revenue model is easy to identify, the company produce service and sell it to customer. When the revenues from sales exceed the operational cost, then the company gets profit. Comparing to store retailer, the website is relatively easier to operate. No rent, less labor cost, means the website can provide a much more competitive price than physical store.However, on the other hand, the maintaining of website post a great challenge to the company. Target Audience The company target a niche market of luxury product segment. Focusing on menswear only, the website sells a wide range of product from selective clothing line from Jap an, Italy, to limited edition CDs. There is no particular age range on the Oki-ni’s customers, the company targeting a small group who required a innovated and forward-thinking life-style, and willing to the pay a premium price for that.Customer Relationship Management The term of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is now much more frequently seen in the E-commerce article, what’s CRM? The followings are different CRM definitions by scholars CRM involves various different elements, which includes customer-prospecting, relationship with customers; interact between customer and business, understanding customer expectations, empowerment, partnerships, and personalisation, and son on. (Fjermestad & Romano, 2006).CRM is an enterprise approach to understanding and influencing behavior through meaningful communication in order to improve customer acquisition, customer retention, customer loyalty, and customer profitability. (Swift, 2006) So far, there is no universally ac cepted definition of CRM. It not a software or a service, it is an overall business strategy. Shanmugasundaram (n. d) identified that the three main components in CRM system, namely * Operational * Analytical * Collaborative Nowadays, not only global companies seeking helps from CRM, more and more SMEs (Small and Medium Size Enterprise) were implemented with CRMs.Oki-ni is no exceptional, the company used the first hand data not only to promote its product, but to provide a better service. From time to time, Newsletters were sent to customer, the content of those newsletters were not just about product information. Featuring styling tips, or invitations to special events, the company always try to encourage customer come to visitor site. Recommendation Running an E-commerce is far more complicated than just setting up a website, other than the business and the customer, it involves many their parties, such as vendor, supply chain, banking.Researcher found a rather interesting phenom enal when customer rated Oki-ni’s service, some customer give top rate on both delivery speed and money transaction. However, on the other hand, some customer extremely disappointed on their service quoted ‘the clothes arrived and were excellent although delivery is very slow’ (Ciao, 2007). The inconsistence performance may due to the delivery company and Oki-ni should try to avoid in the future. Moreover, there is more potential of the CRM waiting to be discovered. Oki-ni using CRM mainly on providing customer ervice and promoting products, CRM is much more than customer service, researcher suggest the company analyse the customer’s shopping behavior, such as what kind of brand they like the most, how frequently they shopped on the site, etc. to improve customer shopping experience. The company can also use the data to collaborative with other parties, such as bank, to improve online payment security, or delivery company, to improve performance. Lastly, t he competition of digital business environment is much more intensive than ever before.The OVP (Online Value Proposition) may be seems strong and unique at this moment, with successful of Oki-ni, more and more website will try to follow the same model. How to maintain the competitive edge is vital for the company’s future. Conclusion By discussing and critically reviewed the Oki-ni’s website, this paper take an insight into the digital business environment. In the Internet era, trading become much more easier, even individual can set up a website with the know-how and the equipment. However, the competition is much more intensive.E-commerce is a complex term that involved many aspects, the terms and concepts researcher discussed in this paper barely scratch the surface. with the fast advancing technology, new issues now raised, such as legal issue and Internet security. Concepts of CRM, Online business model may need further investigation in the future. Reference: Ciao . (2007). Review of Oki-ni. com. Available from: http://www. ciao. co. uk/Reviews/Oki_Ni_com__5315436 [Accessed 10 Nov, 2012]. Fjermestad, Jerry, and Nicholas C. Romano. (2006) Electronic Customer Relationship Management. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe,. Print. pp. 121-65 Internet World Stats, 2011. World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats. Available from: http://www. internetworldstats. com/stats. htm [Accessed 12 Nov. 2012]. 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