Magnetic Reversal of the Earths Poles

In the 1950s, ocean-going research vessels recorded puzzling data based on the magnetism of the ocean floor. It was determined that the rock of the ocean floor had bands of embedded iron oxides that alternately pointed toward geographic north and geographic south. This  was not the first time such confusing evidence had been found. In the early 20th century, geologists had found some volcanic rock was magnetized in a manner opposite to what was expected. But it was the extensive 1950s data that prompted a widespread  investigation, and by 1963 a theory of the reversal of the earths magnetic field was proposed.  It has been a fundamental of earth science ever since. How the Earths Magnetic Field Is Created The earths magnetism is thought to be created by slow movements in the liquid outer core of the planet, which consists largely of iron, caused by the rotation of the earth. Much the way  the rotation of a generator coil creates a magnetic field, the rotation of the liquid outer core of the earth generates a weak electromagnetic field. This magnetic field extends out into space and serves to deflect solar wind from the sun. The generation of the earths magnetic field is a continuous but variable process. There is a frequent change in the intensity of the magnetic field, and the precise location of the magnetic poles can drift. True magnetic north does not always correspond to the geographic North Pole. It also can cause the complete reversal of the earths entire magnetic field polarity. How We Can Measure Magnetic Field Changes Liquid lava, which hardens into rock, contains grains of iron oxides that react to the earths magnetic field by pointing toward the magnetic pole as the rock solidifies. Thus, these grains are permanent records of the location of the earths magnetic field at the time the rock forms. As new crust is created on the ocean floor, the new crust solidifies with its iron oxide particles acting like miniature compass needles, pointing to wherever magnetic north is at the time. Scientists studying the lava samples from the bottom of the ocean could see that the iron oxide particles were pointing in unexpected directions, but to understand what this meant, they needed to know when the rocks formed, and where they were located at the time they solidified out of liquid lava.   The method of dating rock through radiometric analysis has been available since the early 20th century, so it was an easy enough matter to find the age of the rock samples found on the ocean floor.   However, it was also known that the ocean floor moves and spreads over time, and it was not until 1963 that rock aging information was combined with information about how the ocean floor spreads to produce a definitive understanding of where those iron oxide particles were pointing at the time the lava solidified into rock.   Extensive analysis now shows that the earths magnetic field has reversed about 170 times over the last 100 million years. Scientists continue to evaluate data, and there is much disagreement over how long these periods of magnetic polarity last and whether the reversals happen at predictable intervals or are irregular and unexpected. What are the Causes and Effects? Scientists do not really know what causes the reversals of the magnetic field, although they have duplicated the phenomenon in laboratory experiments with molten metals, which also will spontaneously change the direction of their magnetic fields. Some theorists believe that magnetic field reversals may be caused by tangible events, such as tectonic plate collisions or impacts from large meteors or asteroids, but this theory is discounted by others. It is known that leading up to a magnetic reversal, the strength of the field declines, and since the strength of our current magnetic field is now in steady decline, some scientists believe we will see another magnetic reversal in about 2,000 years.   If, as some scientists suggest, there is a period during which there is no magnetic field at all before the reversal occurs, the effect on the planet is not well understood. Some theorists suggest that having no magnetic field will open the earths surface to dangerous solar radiation that potentially might lead to global extinction of life. However, there is currently no statistical correlation that can be pointed to in the fossil record to verify this. The last reversal occurred about 780,000 years ago, and there is no evidence to show that there were mass species extinctions at that time. Other scientists argue that the magnetic field does not vanish during reversals, but merely grows weaker for a time. Although we have at least  2,000 years to wonder about it, if a reversal were to occur today, one obvious effect would be mass disruption to communications systems. Much the way solar storms can affect satellite and radio signals, a magnetic field reversal would have the same effect, though to a much more pronounced degree.

Classicalism vs. Positivism - 1546 Words

Classicalism vs. Positivism What is crime? What makes people commit crimes and how can we stop it? These, and many other questions similar to these, are asked by criminologists everyday. Criminology is an ever growing field, mainly because there is more and more research occurring and new theories linking people and crime coming out everyday. Below the main field of criminology there are many subfields that have different theories and philosophies on what they believe link criminal behavior. Two of the main criminology perspectives are Classical Criminology and Positivist Criminology. Although these two are both studied in the criminology field, their views are distinctly contradictory from each other. These two theories and many†¦show more content†¦Yet another criticism is their belief in deterrence. Research has shown that there is little correlation between punishment and crime, meaning that there is not a significant amount of information showing that deterrence actually works leading it into a controversial issue. People commit crimes for many different reasons that classicalists fail to acknowledge. Classical criminology was the first big step into what makes up the field of criminology today, dominating around the eighteenth century. A change in the way information was assembled with the emergence of the scientific method challenged the classical perspective and introduced the theory of Positivism. Positivist criminology emerged in the nineteenth century after people stopped relying on pure thought and reason and started to observe and analyze to understand the way things worked. â€Å"Positive philosophy was an explicit repudiation or reaction to the critical and ‘negative’ philosophy of the Enlightenment [Classicalist] thinkers† (Bohm 21). Positivism has two main elements: One â€Å"is the belief that human behavior is a function of forces beyond a person’s control [and] the second aspect of positivism is embracing the scientific method to solve problems† (Siegel 7-8). . Positivism is known for the use of science and the scientific method in their research. Positivists such as Lombroso, whom is considered the father of criminology, set the stage for examination of external forces

Marketing Plan of the Real Estate Industry - Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss abou the Marketing Plan of the Real Estate Industry. Answer: Outline Description of two different Market Segments: Territory Demographic Territory Real estate industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in New Zealand market. The continuous development in the technology is contributing commendably in the real estate market. The scenario of the real estate business in Taradale, Hawkes Bay is much competitive due to extensive capabilities of the real estate business companies. The major competitors in New Zealand real estate market are offering the properties and lands for the residential purposes at a very reasonable rate. The real estate company requires adopting the most fruitful strategy to take the active participation in the competitive business world. Demographic On the other hand, in describing the demographic scenario, it is noticed that the population in Taradale has increased drastically from 2001 to 2013 (Idnz.co.nz 2016). The populations include the Maori group and the overseas born. Most of the lands are residential and rural place. Real estate companies offer the residential lands to the citizens. Therefore, the marketing plan is extensively focusing on the residential land sales and lease businesses. The business companies can deal with the local residents for selling the lands that can be utilized for building residential house. The growing population in this location is quite opportune for developing the real estate business. Target Clients selected for each market segment Target clients for Real Estate services in Territory The real estate companies usually look for the clients who would purchase the lands for the residential use. They can build their own house by purchasing lands for the personal use. The company is mainly looking for the clients who can purchase the lads for the residential uses or building house for some personal use. This territory is the appropriate place to identify such clients since the rural areas are mostly visible here (Cerutti, Dagher and Dell'Ariccia 2017). Target clients in demographic segment The demographic segment especially concentrates on the males and females who will be involved with the building their own house. Taradale, Hawkes Bay is generally surrounded by population from rural areas (Idnz.co.nz 2016). The lands are mostly used for residential purposes. The company thus can target the males and females between the age group of 30 years to 50 years. Hence, they can be employed to develop the residential houses in the lands available in the convenient areas. The residential places will be utilized for building properties for present and future use. Personal Positioning Strategies The marketing plan for the real estate business requires developing the appropriate personal positioning strategies that can develop the brand identity among the targeted clients. Establishing the communication through emails, developing newspaper advertisements, and receiving the updated feedback from clients would be much beneficial in such regards. Clients deal with the real estate agents when they require buying any land for residential use. Before purchasing the lands, the clients seek adequate information about the location, transport convenience, and the legal aspects. The real estate salespersons need to establish the communicational transparency to provide the accurate information to these clients (Kelsey 2015). The sales people performing in the same market are applying their unique techniques to participate in the competitive scenario. In order to strengthening the position, it is essential to take a step forward and develop the unique positioning strategies. Communication through emails and presenting the advertisements including details of the necessary aspects would be beneficial to attract more clients. Moreover, developing newspaper advertisement is also one of the most significant ways of conveying the message of land availability. Benefits of the Targeted Clients from the personal positioning strategies People in Taradale, Hawkes Bay are mostly looking for purchasing the lands for their residential use. It is noticeable that majority of the lands in the rural areas are developed considering the basic facilities and transport convenience. The real estate company needs to thus understand such basic requirements of the target clients. Communicating through emails would establish the transparency that would help the clients to gather the idea about the current facilities (Perkins, Mackay and Espiner 2015). It is important to understand their requirements and basic demands before selling the real estate lands or properties. Therefore, the communication through emails clarifies the requirements as well as offering. On the other hand, presenting the advertisements on the newspaper creates the awareness among the clients. They receive the information about the available of lands or properties in the convenient places with the help of the newspaper advertisements. The real estate company can put the details on the newspaper section to inform about the available lands and properties as well the other facilities. The interested clients would contact the company with the help of the contact details mentioned in the advertisement content. Marketing Plan Report To The Branch Manager Harcourts International (Real Estate Organisation) The marketing plan is developed for targeting clients from Taradale, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Harcourts International has been providing the best real estate services to the potential clients (Harcourts.co.nz 2018). This marketing plan would include the appropriate personal positioning strategies and structured budget presentation for first three months. The alignments with the necessary legal considerations would also be discussed in this section. Identification of the Target Clients and Market Segments The direct marketing plan deals with the sales of real estate lands and properties to the targeted clients in Taradale, Hawkes Bay. The location is based in the rural areas where the lands are mostly used for residential purposes. The marketing plan is based on two specific market segments, such as territory and demographic. Therefore, the targeted clients are the males and females between the age groups of 30 years to 50 years. Outline of Three Strategies It is essential to develop the fruitful personal positioning to strengthen the position in a competitive scenario. In order to strengthen such positioning, the company requires developing three major personal positioning, such as communication through email, newspaper advertisements, and feedback receiving. The transparency maintained in conveying and receiving message makes the information clearer (Stuff.co.nz 2017). Therefore, the clients would obtain the complete information about the offering and deliverable. The newspaper advertisement, on the other hand, provides the detailed information about the available land and properties along with the facilities required near the residential places. The contact details would also be provided by the company for the interested clients. Receiving feedbacks through emails and digital mediums would be helpful in understanding the basic needs and demands of the clients. This feedback process would even help in creating the positive word of mou th for attracting new clients for selling the real estate properties. Strategies for maintaining current clients The personal positioning strategies are developed by depending on maintaining the current clients and attracting new clients. The two of these strategies are specifically concentrating on retaining the current clients. The frequent communication through the emails keeps the clients engaged and generates the sense of trust. The clients would like to know more about the facilities that the real estate business can offer to the people who are willing to by residential lands. Moreover, the clients can present their requirements through such email communication process. It would make the clarification of the real estate land or services. On the other hand, when the clients seek information about the available vacant lands or properties, they can easily get information from the newspaper advertisements. Moreover, these processes are much helpful to specify the clients about the legal requirements associated with the real estate business. The individual, company, and industrial preferences are also addressed through the development of these personal positioning strategies. Budget for 3 months Budget (Including GST) Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Communication through e-mail $2,000 $2,500 $2,800 Newspaper advertisements $750 $550 $850 Feedback Receiving $1,800 $2,000 $2,100 Using digital communication mediums $1,600 $1,900 $1,700 Real estate land and property services $800 $600 $500 Legal requirements for real estate business $900 $1,000 $1,100 Personnel positioning strategies $1,100 $1,200 $1,300 Promotional brochures $1,200 $1,300 $1,400 Subscriptions $1,000 $2,500 $2,800 Consumer testimonial $600 $700 $800 Total $11,750 $14,250 $15,350 Legal Considerations Fair Trading Act 1986 The company would be maintaining the Fair Trading Act 1986 to establish the real estate business with the clients (Legislation.govt.nz 2014). The main purpose of this act is to contribute appropriate trading environment by considering the interests of the consumers and strengthened positioning of the b business. The act prohibits the unfair practices and promotes fair conducts. Privacy Act 1993 The act is promoting and protecting the privacy of the business clients in accordance with the concerned guidelines that are governing the code of conduct. The real estate business generally deals with the property based information of the clients. Application of this act helps in protecting such confidentiality. Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 The company is planning to develop the email communication process to establish communicational transparency. As per the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 protects the spam emails that can mislead the clients. Real Estate Agents Act 2008 and Real Estate Agents Act (Professional Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2012 According to this act, the real estate agents would maintain the appropriate code of conducts to provide the accurate services to the business clients as per their requirements. The breaching of the information would be strictly prohibited (Legislation.govt.nz 2014). Maintaining this code of conducts would be monitored by the senior managers. Real estate industry best practices The associated workforce should focus on following aspects to develop the best practices. Quick respond to the clients Sharing the updated information with the clients Acknowledging the mails Continuous improvement These best practices would be necessary to accomplish the business goals and developing the brand image. Effectiveness of this campaign on salesperson The obtained knowledge and experience from this campaign would be much helpful for the betterment of sales skills of the associated salesperson. Moreover, the members would extend their knowledge in real estate industry to ensure growth in future. Development of Promotional Material Selection of the Promotional Materials The marketing plan has been scheduled by concentrating on the development of three personal positioning strategies. There are two promotional materials chosen from the list, such as email (to a prospective client) and newspaper advertisement. These materials are explained below: The email communication is used for developing the communicational transparency between the company and the business clients. The emails should be containing the accurate information that is to be conveyed to the potential clients. As per the 9 of the Fair Trading Act 1986, no associated worker would engage in prohibited actions, such as misleading the public or clients. On the other hand, as per the Real Estate Agents Act 2008, the fair treatment of the clients is needed to be taken into consideration. It is essential to treat the clients with respect and share the updated information (Legislation.govt.nz 2014). Newspaper advertisements should contain the accurate information about the land availability and legal documents. As per the 9 of the Fair Trading Act 1986, the prospective client should not be misguided by any fake news or fake information. The act prohibits the unfair practices and promotes fair conducts (Legislation.govt.nz 2014). When the clients seek information about the available vacant lands or properties, they can easily get information from the newspaper advertisements. Mrs. K. Valdaze 91, Matthews Place Taradale, Napier Pin Code: 4112 Dear Maam, We have received your concern regarding the land purchase near to Hawke's Bay Expressway. We are offering the best deal for the land purchase with an affordable price. We are even offering the best prices in the best locations along with the most commendable customer service. You can avail the residential facilities and transport convenience as per your requirements. Therefore, we would like to hear from you about your interests. For further details, queries, and feedback, you can contact us. Our contact details will be provided below. Thank You Regards Stephan Jason Sr. Marketing Executive Contact: 217-8882 Stephan Jason: Harcourts International Are you looking for best location for your new residence? I am going to deliver you the best offer for a new address in an affordable price. Here we are presenting you the best location for your dream home with full support of transportation convenience. If youre interested for such convenient location- I shall help you to find out the best offer! Contact me Stephan Jason Harcourts International, Licensed under the Real Estate Agents Act 2006 Telephone: 217-8882, Monday to Saturday, 9:00 am to 7:00 Pm. Review of the Task Identification of Errors Three errors have been identified that was made by Devon in consideration to his flyer. One of the errors is that he did not account for the cost of the associated paper, or utilization of office photocopier. Along with such error, the person presented that as flyer within plain white photocopy paper to an overall 1000 households within the region. Another error included that the person believed it was just a minimum amount (Allen et al. 2015). The third error was that the way Devon distributed his text in the flyer, many respondents complained that he placed flyers within their mailbox, in case there exists clear signage about the junk mail. The presentation of the text was not well enough and he should not have placed the flyers within the mailbox of its target households despite observing that their mailbox indicated junk mail option. Money Spent on Campaign Along with the allowance for Devons time, the parson is observed to spend around $ 25 each hour on his campaign. In such spending, the person is allocating the GST content within this (Haynes, Nunnington and Eccles 2017). Moreover, the person also wants to maintain track of the value related to his time. It is considered that for preparing the draft material 1 hour was needed, delivering flyers needed 16 hours and telephone calls needed 45 hours. Moreover, Appraisals that includes preparation with approximately three hours each needed 30 hours. Buyer appointments are observed to take 8 hours and miscellaneous activities such as photocopying, meeting with managers and additional aspects needed 1 hour. In account to such information, the overall spending of Devon on his campaign is observed to be: 60.5 hours * $ 25 = $ 1512.5 Quantification of Devons Performance Performance of Devon is quantified in consideration to the following: Number of leads: The person is observed to have a good number of the potential clients and consumers in his database. This indicates that the performance of Devon in attaining potential consumers is superior and most of them are convinced in buying properties in the near future (Keenan 2016). Devons performance in attaining potential consumers is deemed to be highly efficient. One of the potential consumers he considered too cold-call has successfully purchased a property by means of Devon. Number of appraisals: After the campaign the person has accomplished ten appraisals. This includes six from the flyers and four from the phone calls. Four of the companys owners whose properties the company appraised have been listed with two other agencies. Two among these agencies considered marketing the opportunities separately. One among these agencies are still finalizing the companys decision and one among them has decides to find out a property in order to purchase before marketing their recent time (Palm 2016). Number of listing: It is gathered that the berceuse of his appraisals, an individual is list with Devon within agreement of two sole agencies. The person has attained payable commission of $7,300 from first agency and $7,500 for the second sole agency. Number of actual sales to date: Firm analyzing the time aspect, it is gathered that Demons time is worth $ 25 each hour. Employers pay the employees with sales commission in order to provide incentives to the employees in order to gather increase sales. In account to such information, the overall spending of Devon on his campaign is observed to be: 60.5 hours * $ 25 = $ 1512.5 Earning from Campaign Employers pay the employees with sales commission in order to provide incentives to the employees in order to gather increase sales. This is in order to reward along with identifying people that performs in a productive manner. This campaign is deemed to generate around a desired in its personal earnings. The personal earnings from both the sole agency listings is observed to be $7,300 + $7,500 = $ 14700. Such personal earnings are based on the fact that the property under the first agency agreement has market $379,000. The commission of the person is relied on the sales price of $370,000. Devon anticipates receiving commission from its sale price of its property that is $380,000. Tough the property had an asking price of $399,000; the commission attained from the property will be a bit more. Ratio Leads to sales ratio serves as an important measure of the efficiency of salesperson. This indicates the sales percentage leads that the salesperson transforms into real sales. This ratio is calculated through analyzing Devons number of sales leads over the timeframe for which the sales results in close ratio (Sirgy 2014). Relied on current achievements of Devon, the ratio of leads to sales is deemed to be calculated as: (number of successful sales/ number of leads) * 100 = (5/ 10) * 100 = 50 Cost Encompassing all the advertising along with value of his time, the cost of all the listing Devon has attained till date includes two major sole agency agreements with sale prices of $399,000 and $380,000 respectively. Devon also presented his advertisement in three Saturday editions of the Polyvale Herald that has cost of around $ 270 for each. Devons manager has advised that at the end of the initial months work and he will be attaining a commission of around $2,750. References Allen, M.T., Cadena, A., Rutherford, J. and Rutherford, R.C., 2015. Effects of real estate Brokers' Marketing strategies: Public open houses, broker open houses, MLS virtual tours, and MLS photographs.Journal of Real Estate Research,37(3), pp.343-369. Cerutti, E., Dagher, J. and Dell'Ariccia, G., 2017. Housing finance and real-estate booms: a cross-country perspective.Journal of Housing Economics,38, pp.1-13. Harcourts.co.nz. 2018.About Harcourts New Zealand. [online] Content.harcourts.co.nz. Available at: https://content.harcourts.co.nz/content/aboutus [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018]. Haynes, B., Nunnington, N. and Eccles, T., 2017.Corporate real estate asset management: Strategy and Implementation. Taylor Francis. Idnz.co.nz, 2016.About the profile areas | Taradale South | profile.id. [online] Profile.idnz.co.nz. Available at: https://profile.idnz.co.nz/napier/about?WebID=260 [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018]. Keenan, J.M., 2016. From sustainability to adaptation: Goldman Sachs corporate real estate strategy.Building Research Information,44(4), pp.407-422. Kelsey, J., 2015.The New Zealand experiment: A world model for structural adjustment?. Bridget Williams Books. Langford, L. and Haynes, B., 2015. An investigation into how corporate real estate in the financial services industry can add value through alignment and methods of performance measurement.Journal of Corporate Real Estate,17(1), pp.46-62. Legislation.govt.nz. 2014.Fair Trading Act 1986 No 121 (as at 16 December 2017), Public Act New Zealand Legislation. [online] Available at: https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0121/64.0/whole.html#DLM96903 [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018]. Palm, P., 2016. Measuring customer satisfaction: a study of the Swedish real estate industry.Property Management,34(4), pp.316-331. Perkins, H.C., Mackay, M. and Espiner, S., 2015. Putting pinot alongside merino in Cromwell District, Central Otago, New Zealand: Rural amenity and the making of the global countryside.Journal of Rural Studies,39, pp.85-98. Sirgy, M.J., 2014.Real Estate Marketing: Strategy, Personal Selling, Negotiation, Management, and Ethics. Routledge. Stuff.co.nz. 2017.What if the email you send is really a spam?. [online] Available at: https://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/business/8581641/What-if-the-email-you-send-is-really-a-spam [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018]. Waller, C., Kindig, L., Reynolds, J. and Patterson, M., 2015. Strategic Internet Marketing for Real Estate Brokers.

The Eve of St. Agnes Is built up of a series of deliberate contrasts Essay Example

The Eve of St. Agnes Is built up of a series of deliberate contrasts Paper This is a passage from earlier in the poem, and refers to the Beadsman, an ancient holy man who prayed for the souls of sinners all his life. It uses contrasts of colour, sound, and also life and death. In the first line, the music is described as soft, however the trumpets are later described as snarling. On one hand, this gives the trumpets themselves life, but it also makes them seem somehow unwelcoming, harsh and angry. The silver trumpets also contrast with an earlier description of Musics golden tongue. Is the prelude soft, warm and golden or cold and silver? Normally Keats refers to music as a beautiful thing, however it seems the Beadsman is annoyed and angered by it. His stony, cold silence is invaded by the chaotic music when the doors are opened, again a reference to the contrasting outside world breaking in, and contrast between the icy cold stone walls of the chapel and the rich, glowing warm chambers outside. Keats then goes on to describe the carved stone angels in the chapel, not still, lifeless and frozen, but somehow alive and ever eager-eyed, waiting for guests with almost flowing hair blown back. However, beneath all these images of liveliness and music, there is an underlying sense of absence and emptiness. People hurry to and fro preparing, the glowing chambers are ready to welcome people, the angels are ever eager, watching for someone or something, but nothing happens. The whole castle seems frozen in time, perpetually waiting to come alive, and it is only in the next paragraph that life and chaos bursts inside. Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set A table, and, half anguishd, threw thereon A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet: We will write a custom essay sample on The Eve of St. Agnes Is built up of a series of deliberate contrasts specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Eve of St. Agnes Is built up of a series of deliberate contrasts specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Eve of St. Agnes Is built up of a series of deliberate contrasts specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer O for some drowsy Morphean amulet! The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet, Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:- The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone. There are two main contrasts here; that of colour and light again, but more importantly the contrast between the outsiders loud, merry revelry and Porphyros silent and perverse desire to keep Madeline asleep. Notice how the moon is no longer bright and glaring, but faded and dim. There is no glamour or brilliance in this passage, and Porphyros intentions are clearly not at all wholesome. The imagery here is very real; you can almost sense the pure silver blue light shrouding the sleeping maiden, and the dim purity of her room being invaded by the passionate and deep crimson, gold, and jet. Whereas the first half of this stanza is full of still, silent and pale images, the second half describes the loud, chaotic music from the feast penetrating the silent sanctum of her room. The wicked Porphyro begs for a Morphean amulet, Morpheus being the God of sleep, and when the hall door is opened, he becomes afraid that Madeline will awaken and ruin his twisted, voyeuristic fun. In this passage, we really see the other side of Porphyro; that which has no chivalric morals, and acts like a thief in the dark, coming to rob her nest. In other passages, he has been honourable at least on the outside, speaking of courtly love and marriage, and swearing upon the saints, but here we see the true, scheming Porphyro. However, there is an underlying foreboding and sense of death in this passage. Even before Madeline awakes, the sky is already fading into darkness, the twilight is no longer bright and the one element of life, the music, is described as in dying tone as the hall door shuts it out. This is probably the first unsettling hint that no matter how young, innocent and beautiful you are, nothing is really sacred, and the cold death of outside is a constant reminder to this. Behind what seems on the outside a classic romantic tale of love having no bounds, wooing in secret and beautiful colours, music, and courtly love, lies the story of a man lacking morality, and looking to corrupt the innocence of a helpless beautiful maiden.

A Summary of Durkheims Division of Labor in Society

A Summary of Durkheim's 'Division of Labor in Society' French philosopher Emile Durkheims book The Division of Labor in Society (or De la Division du Travail Social) debuted in 1893. It was Durkheim’s first major published work, and it is the one in which he introduced the concept of anomie or the breakdown of the influence of social norms on individuals within a society. At the time, The Division of Labor in Society was influential in advancing sociological theories and thought. The Division of Labors Major Themes In the book, Durkheim discusses how the division of labor- the establishment of specified jobs for specific people- benefits society because it increases the reproductive capacity of a process and the skill set of the workmen. It also creates a feeling of solidarity among people who share those jobs. But, Durkheim says, the division of labor goes beyond economic interests: In the process, it also establishes social and moral order within a society. The division of labor can be effectuated only among members of an already constituted society, he argues. To Durkheim, the division of labor is in direct proportion to the moral density of a society. Density can happen in three ways: through an increase of the spatial concentration of people, through the growth of towns, or through an increase in the number and efficacy of the means of communication. When one or more of these things happen, says Durkheim, labor begins to become divided, and jobs become more specialized. At the same time, because tasks grow more complex, the struggle for meaningful existence becomes more strenuous. A major theme of the book is the difference between developing and advanced civilizations and how they perceive social solidarity. Another focus is how each type of society defines the role of law in resolving breaches in that social solidarity. Social Solidarity Durkheim argues that two kinds of social solidarity exist: mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Mechanical solidarity connects the individual to society without any intermediary. That is, society is organized collectively and all members of the group share the same set of tasks and core beliefs. What binds the individual to society is what Durkheim calls the collective consciousness, sometimes translated as conscience collective, meaning a shared belief system. With organic solidarity, on the other hand, society is more complex, a system of different functions united by definite relationships. Each individual must have a distinct job or task and a personality that is his own. Here, Durkheim was speaking specifically about men. Of women, the philosopher said: Today, among cultivated people, the woman leads a completely different existence from that of man. One might say that the two great functions of the psychic life are thus dissociated, that one of the sexes takes care of the effective functions and the other of intellectual functions. Framing individuals as men, Durkheim argued that individuality grows as parts of society grow more complex. Thus, society becomes more efficient at moving in sync, yet at the same time, each of its parts has more movements that are distinctly individual. According to Durkheim, the more primitive a society is, the more it is characterized by mechanical solidarity. The members of an agrarian society, for example, are more likely to resemble each other and share the same beliefs and morals. As societies become more advanced and civilized, the individual members of those societies become more distinguishable from one another. People are managers or laborers, philosophers or farmers. Solidarity becomes more organic as those societies develop their divisions of labor. The Role of Law Durkheim also discusses law extensively in this book. For him, the laws of a society are the most visible symbol of social solidarity and the organization of social life in its most precise and stable form. Law plays a part in a society that is analogous to the nervous system in organisms, according to Durkheim. The nervous system regulates various bodily functions so they work together in harmony. Likewise, the legal system regulates all the parts of society so that they work together in agreement. Two types of law are present in human societies and each corresponds to the type of social solidarity those societies use. Repressive law corresponds to the center of common consciousness and everyone participates in judging and punishing the perpetrator. The severity of a crime is not measured necessarily as the damage incurred to an individual victim, but rather gauged as the damage it caused the society or the social order as a whole. Punishments for crimes against the collective are typically harsh. Repressive law, says Durkheim, is practiced in mechanical forms of society. Restitutive Law as Restoration The second type of law is restitutive law, which instead focuses on the victim since there are no commonly shared beliefs about what damages society. Restitutive law corresponds to the organic state of society and works through the more specialized bodies of society, such as the courts and lawyers. This also means that repressive law and restitutory law vary directly with the degree of a society’s development. Durkheim believed that repressive law is common in primitive, or mechanical, societies where sanctions for crimes are typically made and agreed upon by the whole community. In these lower societies, crimes against the individual do occur, but in terms of seriousness, those are placed on the lower end of the penal ladder. Crimes against the community take priority in such societies, according to Durkheim, because the evolution of the collective conscious is widespread and strong while the division of labor has not yet happened. The more a society becomes civilized and the division of labor is introduced, the more restitutory law takes place. Historical Context Durkheim wrote his book at the height of the industrial age. Then, how people fit into Frances new social order surfaced as a principal source of trouble for the rapidly industrial society. The pre-industrial social groups comprised family and neighbors, but as the Industrial Revolution continued, people found new cohorts at their jobs, creating new social groups with coworkers. Dividing society into small labor-defined groups, says Durkheim, required an increasingly centralized authority to regulate relations between the different groups. As a visible extension of that state, law codes needed to evolve as well, to maintain the orderly operation of social relations by conciliation and civil law rather than by penal sanctions. Durkheim based his discussion of organic solidarity on a dispute he had with Herbert Spencer, who claimed that industrial solidarity is spontaneous and that there is no need for a coercive body to create or maintain it. Spencer believed that social harmony is simply established by itself, an idea with which Durkheim disagreed. Much of this book, then, involves Durkheim arguing with Spencer’s stance and pleading his own views on the topic. Criticism Durkheims primary objective was to evaluate the social changes related to industrialization and to better understand its ills. But British legal philosopher Michael Clarke argues that Durkheim fell short by lumping a variety of societies into two groups: industrialized and non-industrialized. Durkheim didnt see or acknowledge the wide range of non-industrialized societies, instead imagining industrialization as the historical watershed that separated goats from sheep. American scholar Eliot Freidson pointed out that theories about industrialization tend to define labor in terms of the material world of technology and production. Freidson says that such divisions are created by an administrative authority without consideration of the social interaction of its participants. American sociologist Robert Merton noted that as a positivist, Durkheim adopted the methods and criteria of the physical sciences to examine the social laws that arose during industrialization. But physical sciences, rooted in nature, simply cant explain the laws that have arisen from mechanization. The Division of Labor also has a gender problem, according to American sociologist Jennifer Lehman. She argued that Durkheims book contains sexist contradictions. Durkheim conceptualizes individuals as men but women as separate and non-social beings. By using this framework, the philosopher entirely missed out on the role of women have played in both industrial and pre-industrial societies. Sources Clarke, Michael. Durkheims Sociology of Law. British Journal of Law and Society 3.2 (1976): 246–55. Print.Durkheim, Emile. On the Division of Labor in Society. Trans. Simpson, George. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1933. Print.Freidson, Eliot. The Division of Labor as Social Interaction. Social Problems 23.3 (1976): 304–13. Print.Gehlke, C. E. Rev. . Columbia Law Review 35.4 (1935): 643–44. Print.of On the Division of Labor in Society, Emile Durkheim, George SimpsonJones, Robert Alun. Ambivalent Cartesians: Durkheim, Montesquieu, and Method. American Journal of Sociology 100.1 (1994): 1–39. Print.Kemper, Theodore D. The Division of Labor: A Post–Durkheimian Analytical View. American Sociological Review 37.6 (1972): 739–53. Print.Lehmann, Jennifer M. Durkheims Theories of Deviance and Suicide: A Feminist Reconsideration. American Journal of Sociology 100.4 (1995): 904–30. Print.Merton, Robert K. Durkheims Division of Labor in Society. American Journal of Sociology 40.3 (1934): 319–28. Print.

The Difference Between will and shall

The Difference Between will and shall The Difference Between will and shall The Difference Between will and shall By Maeve Maddox Reader Eric wonders about the uses of will and shall. When do you use will and shall? I know that [they] mean the same thing, but I would like to know when to use them in the correct grammatical sense. In modern English will and shall are helping verbs. They are used with other verbs, but lack conjugations of their own. Both are signs of the future tense. The old Walsh English Handbook that I used in high school gives this rule for forming the future: Use shall in the first person and will in the second and third persons for the simple future tense: I shall sing this afternoon. You will succeed. He will stay at home. My observations suggest that shall is rarely used by American speakers. The two words existed as separate verbs in Old English, the form of English spoken from 450-1150 C.E. The verb willan meant wish, be willing, be about to. The verb sculan (pronounced [shu-lan], had the meanings be obliged to, have to, must, be destined to, be supposed to. In modern usage traces of the old meanings persist for speakers who use both forms. Will can imply volition or intention, while shall can imply necessity: I will scale Mount Everest. (and no one can stop me!) You shall take the garbage out before you do anything else. (You have no choice, Junior!) A second element enters into the use of shall and will. As a matter of courtesy, a difference exists according to whether the verb is used with a first or second person subject. Which to use depends upon the relationship between speakers. Parents, teachers, employers, and staff sergeants are within their rights to tell someone You shall complete this assignment by 9 p.m. Such a construction offers no alternative. It is the same as saying You must complete this assignment. In speaking to an equal, however, the choice is left up to the other person: I shall drive to Tulsa today. You will follow on Tuesday. (Its still up to you.) Heres a frequently quoted joke that illustrates the consequences of using shall and will incorrectly: A foreign tourist was swimming in an English lake. Taken by cramps, he began to sink. He called out for help: Attention! Attention! I will drown and no one shall save me! Many people were within earshot, but, being well-brought up Englishmen and women, they honored his wishes and permitted him to drown. All of which is the short answer to Erics question. For the long answer, take a look at Fowler (Modern English Usage) and the OED. By the way, the verb will in the sense of bequeath derives from the noun will in the sense of wish. A will expresses the wishes of the person who writes it. The verb will (bequeath) does possess a complete conjugation. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:20 Types and Forms of Humor"Wracking" or "Racking" Your Brain?Careful with Words Used as Noun and Verb

Jean Watson Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Jean Watson - Assignment Example A nurse who adopts this model acts in a caring manner to enhance his/her relationship with the patient. The nurse while caring for the patient should base on the value system of an individual. The nurse should place the patient/client in the family, the community as well as the culture context (Sitzman & Eichelberger, 2011). Nursing practice should be personalized while at the same time less technical and generic in nature. The client should be the focus of care and not the available technology for treatments One hard aspect in this model is that it may overlook to express the nurses’ responsibility of providing the patients with physical needs, which is a basic role of the nurse in the health care team. Patients’ biophysical needs are given less weight, and the major focus is on patients’ psychosocial needs (Basford & Slevin, 2003). Ms. M who is 25 years old diagnosed with HIV/AIDS stage III is my patient. Using this model, I would handle her better by allowing her express her fears in regards to the diagnosis. I would obtain information about her, her life experiences, bodily sensations, spiritual and cultural beliefs as well as her goals and expectations so as to provide holistic

Discuss the learning environment on reggio emilia, steiner and Essay

Discuss the learning environment on reggio emilia, steiner and montessori early years settings - Essay Example It is only unique to Reggio Emilia as there are no international colleges to train someone to become a Reggio Emilia teacher whatsoever. The organization of the learning environment for Reggio Emilia is very critical to the early childhood program. It is often known as the childs third teacher. The major aims that are involved in the design of the new spaces or learning environment and the remodeling of the ones which are old usually includes a combination of each classroom with the rest of the school, and the surrounding community that is adjacent to the school. The importance of this learning environment lies with the feeling that all children can come up with the best meaning and make sense of the world through learning environments which support involving, varicolored, sustained, and the changing relationships among people, the experience in the world, ideas and the numerous ways of showing ideas. The preschools are specifically filled with elements such as indoor plants and vines with the natural light evident. The classrooms are open to a center piazza while the kitchens are open to the general view. Additionally, the access to the surrounding communities is all but assured through windows that are almost wall-size. The entries are the ones that mainly capture the attention of the children and the grownups through the mirrors that are on the walls and ceilings. Other important features of this learning environment include the abundant space that is available for the supplies. They are often rearranged in order to draw the attention that is related to their beautiful features. There are studio spaces in each classroom which are in the form of an ample anterior that is centrally located. In the school, there are significant efforts of creating opportunities for children interaction. Waldorf schools are based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, who is a philosopher based in Austria. Rudolfs feelings on

An Epic Tragedy of History Essay Example for Free

An Epic Tragedy of History Essay Both Native American literature and film have been inspired by the oral tradition of passing down stories and cultural folkways, through the spoken word. The personal journey of chronicling these stories in literature and film is very allegorical in that the personal journeys that these writers also parallel their struggle with a literal journey. As such, these stories become full of symbolism for the types of cultural artifacts that cannot be assimilated into mainstream culture; not in the English language, not in the Christian religion, and not in the reservations that hindered spirituality. There is a theme in all of the texts and in the film that depicts the struggle of trying to determine where the individual and the culture fit into the wider world that knows little of their existence. Other texts provide specific insight into how conversion of Native Americans into Christianity was essential for those of European descent to explain this mysterious group. It becomes apparent that the oral tradition sustained these groups for centuries until the loss of land led to the loss of more freedoms, especially that of having the right to shape ideas about the world without the influence of others. The film and the Native American writers reviewed all seek to exert their power and use words and motion pictures to explain all the literary and historical meaning of the stories told to them, predating all these modes of communication. Scott Momady in his book, The Way to Rainy Mountain describes the story of the creation of the Kwuda, which was passed down in the oral tradition. What is interesting is that he notes that the names of the tribe did change and there was a sense of this tribe being divided. â€Å"Later still they took the name Gaigwu, a name which can be taken to indicate something of which two halves differ from each other in appearance† (17). It is not only the way that this group of people came into existence but also the diversity and difference within this particular tribe that is extremely important. When Native Americans were forced onto reservations, it was of the utmost importance for the rest of the world not to see all Native Americans as the same, as they were varied with the many tribes and also within tribes. These oral stories become even more important to dictate into print or film to show how Native Americans viewed the world, themselves, and most importantly to realistically illustrate their heritage with the hopes of changing how many whites viewed them. The allegorical and symbolic divide that came to move all of these authors to write stories that bridged the gap in their own respective lives, also helped to create a film as well. The movie Dreamkeeper, directed by Steve Barron, shows how a family divided will struggle to keep tradition alive despite the death or disappearance of an important figure. In this film the pressing issues between the grandfather, grandson, and absent father serves as a metaphor for the intrusion on the culture of the family’s tribe versus the tradition of passing down lineage and heritage. The metaphor is that the grandfather is rooted in the past, the grandson is heading into an uncertain future, and the father is the only link to the present. These cultural threats are more than just the loss of land or the loss of a father, it is the changing of times into a future that is being mapped out by another group entirely, that being white Americans. These maps, so to speak, or the oral tradition that has mapped out the history of entire tribes and families has been written about by other prominent Native Americans in their journey and tragedy of trying to fill this divide between past and present all the while wondering what the future will hold. These types of worries were normally settled by spiritual means, but loss of land meant loss of the ability for Native Americans to go on their spiritual quests. Charles Alexander Eastman in his passage from â€Å"The Soul of an Indian† writes about the mystical quest undertaken by Native Americans in his native Sioux tribe that required several nights away from camp in meditation. He also writes of the divide of the Native American, a common theme in all the reviewed works. â€Å"The red man is divided into two parts,-the spiritual mind and the physical mind. The first is pure spirit, concerned only with the essence of things, and it was this he sought to strengthen by spiritual prayer† (767). Because of this loss of land, essentially the loss of spirit or at least the ways in which spiritual rituals were conducted came to an end. Also, the fear of the future was replaced by Christian ideals to help Americans of European descent understand how these natives fir into their Bible. In this way the Native Americans, already concerned with loss of identity were split even further in a divide that led them to an uncertain and uncharacteristic future. It was only through the oral tradition of preserving identity that Native Americans could attempt to achieve a personal wholeness while the many tribes and family members within tribes became scattered and disillusioned. It is through the personal journeys of the writers that it becomes apparent how the loss of land impacted not only an entire civilization, but individuals, who lost identity and did whatever was necessary to try to discover, rediscover, and preserve all that was left. Gertrude Bonnin, in passages from â€Å"Impressions of an Indian Childhood† talks about living what could be considered a double life. Gertrude sometimes refers to herself as her Sioux name, Zitkala-Sa, which means Red Bird. She was born on a reservation to a Sioux mother and her white father was absent in her life. She struggled between the old ways that her mother tried to teach her in the oral tradition and the ways that people conducted themselves outside of the reservation. She became torn and decided that the reservation life was not for her and the American way of treating Native Americans was not appealing either. So she began compiling all the information she could gather from what was relayed to her by her mother in the oral tradition and then wrote these stories in English. She abhorred the fact that the language of her ancestors had disappeared and she was just as concerned as Eastman was about the loss of spirituality for all Native Americans under the conversion to Christianity. Bonnin writes, â€Å"I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers† (939-940). It becomes clear that for the spirituality of Native Americans to thrive, then land uninterrupted by industrialization was needed in order for this group to be who they had always been before they were removed to reservations. So taking their land was not a simple geographic issue, this also took these peoples’ essence and spirituality from them. It is therefore important for these texts and films to exist as reminder of what was lost, not just space, but a place in history for people who had to rely on a few to pass on as many of the stories given to them in the oral tradition and put it in print or in film. All three written pieces reviewed and the film help to show the importance of the land that was taken from the Native Americans, as well as the influence of the oral tradition of passing down stories and spiritual pathways to each ensuing generation. The film and the written works display both a metaphorical divide in the ways of the respective authors and tribes and the bigger community, showing that differences need to be acknowledged as well as the common goal of this group to gather their cultural artifacts that would have disappeared into an assimilated America. Also, the allegorical journey that all these contributors took to discover their part in history is akin to an epic and a tragedy. Scholars, as well, have looked at the impact of the spiritual strivings of Native Americans and the ultimate need for tribes to achieve a new identity in a foreign land to them, a land that was once their own. It was the need for Christian legitimacy on the part of European settlers that led to a need for Native Americans to be stripped of their spiritual roots and forced to resign to religious conversion. The mission of these Christians â€Å"absorbed Native Americans into a Christian world view that made them comprehensible to Euro-Americans, who were otherwise faced with a population whose mysterious origins threatened to call into question the explanatory value of the Bible† (Wyss, 162). So as Euro-Americans sought to explain the discrepancies with Native Americans and their absence from the Bible, Native Americans had to wrestle with their own identities that were being challenged by these settlers for purposes other than just the acquisition of land. What then became an issue was the questioning of creation on the part of settlers and the â€Å"lost tribe theory† (162) that proposed that Native Americans were part of a tribe that was not thoroughly explained in the Bible. All the while many Native Americans asserted their own creation myths while other Natives tried to assert superiority over whites with the reasoning that if Natives were a part of Israel’s lost tribes then, therefore, they were closer descendants of Jacob. This hierarchy of Biblical place did play an important role on the identity of Natives during their assimilation into Euro-American culture, though the oral tradition certainly did support a different idea for the origins of each tribe. Even those Native Americans that did subscribe to a Christian ideal were â€Å"defined by a constant deferral of home, or the constant movement, both geographical and cultural, of a fragmented people† (165). It seems then that the roots of all Native Americans, who were fragmented and spread across the nation, was entrenched in the oral tradition of creation stories and spirituality. However, the many Native American stories that were told and passed down led to they idea the Euro-Americans had as Natives being savage and mythical, making their stories, even true encounters appear to be false. This led to the Natives â€Å"invisibility in the annals of encounter: constructed as tellers of myth and as peoples of myth, they are denied a place in the national story and a voice in recounting it† (Bellin, 99). This created the powerlessness found in Natives attempting to assert their place in the new America that was founded on laws, both the divine and those conceived by Europeans. The fact that Natives had stories, spirituality, and kinship was not enough to place them in a position of asserting their power in any way that seemed rational to Euro-Americans. As well the illiteracy of Native Americans certainly did not assist this group in gaining any type of recognition for having much to offer the Europeans in their stories. â€Å"the oral nature of much Indian narrative has been taken to explain both the Indians’ irrelevance to history-for what could illiterates offer? -and their inability to remember and record it† (102). As well, Native Americans stories were not just told, they were animated through acting, making the stories more meaningful to the Native audience but meaningless to a person outside of a tribe. It is fair to say that the identity of Native Americans was not only in their oral tradition, but in the ways in which stories were acted out. This is something that is lost even if a story is recounted by a Native to as close to the original message as possible. Much is also lost in translation further undermining any attempts that Natives could make when forced on reservations, where their land and language was taken along with the ties of spirituality that sustained them. It also makes the spiritual identity of Native Americans more complicated when they are not only placed in an Anthropological category of uncivilized, the literary category of completely mythical, and finally over romanticized by scholars, who do not understand the deep meaning behind Native American spirituality and ritual. These rites and rituals are meant to cement a community of people together and individual identity can be created within these rituals. Instead, many times, these acts and stories are perceived as more universal and therefore there is the mistaken implication that Native American spirituality can be lumped into a religion that can be used by all. This has placed and continues to place the sense of community outside of the purposes intended and sadly many people use information gleaned from Native spirituality for profit or for writing scholarly articles that do not take into account the private lives of a single Native, but instead combine individuals into a whole. With a fragmented sense of history and culture, it is right to note that there has been and continues to be fragmentation in the Native American communities, but for an individual, a sense of self requires both community identity and a complex set of cultural artifacts to make that individual whole and not a watered down, assimilated version of the Euro-Americans. To be more clear, the text versions of Native Americans stories involving spirituality and rituals many times do not take into account the personal nature of these events. It is not only a matter of entire communities of Native American feeling the need to forge and reclaim their converted or dismissed identities as a whole, but the essence of the individual in a tribe, separate from others that must do the same. â€Å"Nicknames, shadows, and shamanic [sic] visions are tribal stories that are heard and remembered as survivance [sic]. These personal identities and stories are not the same as those translated in the literature† (Grim, 44). This lack of voice to individual Native Americans and stereotyping of all communities and persons being inherently the same in their spirituality and other social activities makes more important the voices, such as the Native authors and filmmakers reviewed all the more important. These artists have shown how gender, tribe, place, and, politics, to name just a few social forces can affect an individual struggling for acceptance within him or herself and in the larger world. All these factors must be considered when looking at film and literature, separating the individual from the group while at the same time seeing the struggle for those individuals as being the best representation available for a group without a strong voice. In conclusion, the film and the literary works of Native Americans highlight the voice of a specific individual, attempting to speak for their community. Taken with scholarly research, it can be seen the effect of colonialism and religious conversion on the vulnerable Native American population. Their history has many gaps in that the myths and traditions were many times dismissed and the absence from the Christian Bible made their existence confusing and unsettling to the settlers. The voices that have been stifled serve to help save the history of the mainstream at their expense, and this powerlessness and absence from history can only be reconstructed in the best way possible. Though even stories passed down in the oral tradition are lacking in the gestures and actions of the storytellers, which is the essence of oral storytelling. Works Cited Joshua David Bellin, The Demon of the Continent: Indians and the Shaping of American Literature, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Gertrude Bonnin, â€Å"Impressions of an Indian Childhood† in The Heath Anthology of American Literature Vol. 2. Ed. Paul Lauter, Lexington: D. C. Heath and Company, 1994. Dreamkeeper, Dir by Steve Barron, Hallmark Entertainment Productions, 2003. Charles Alexander Eastman, â€Å"The Soul of an Indian† in The Heath Anthology of American Literature Vol. 2. Ed. Paul Lauter, Lexington: D. C. Heath and Company, 1994. John A. Grim, â€Å"Cultural Identity, Authenticity, and Community Survival: The Politics of Recognition in Native American Religions† in Lee Irwin Native American Spirituality: A Critical Reader, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. Scott N. Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1969. Hilary E. Wyss, Writing Indians: Literacy, Christianity, and Native Community in Early America, Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.

The North Face Inc Accounting Essay

The North Face Inc Accounting Essay Financial accountants and independent auditors commonly face challenging technical and ethical dilemmas while carrying out their professional responsibilities. This case profiles an accounting and financial reporting fraud orchestrated by the chief financial officer (CFO) of a major public company and his subordinates. The CFO, who was a CPA, took extreme measures to conceal the fraud from his companys audit committee and independent auditors. Despite those measures, the independent auditors identified suspicious entries in the companys accounting records that were a result of the CFOs fraudulent scheme but did not properly investigate those items. Shortly before the fraud was publicly revealed, a partner of the companys audit firm instructed his subordinates to alter prior year audit workpapers for the client to conceal improper decisions made by himself and his firm. History Hap Klopp founded North Face in the mid-1960s to provide a ready source of hiking and camping gear. In 1970, North Face began designing and manufacturing its own line of products after opening a small factory in nearby Berkeley. In 1980, North Face began sponsoring mountain-climbing expeditions across the globe. And North Face became the only supplier in the United States to offer a comprehensive collection of high-performance outerwear, skiwear, sleeping bags, packs and tents. Challenges Sales Growth vs. Quality Control By the mid-1980s, North Faces overburdened manufacturing facilities could not satisfy the steadily growing demand for the companys merchandise or maintain the high quality production standards established by management. New Era In July 1996, a new management team took North Face public, listing the companys common stock on the NASDAQ exchange. The management team established a goal of reaching annual sales of $1 billion by 2003. Later when the actual revenues and profits of North Face failed to meet managements expectations, the companys chief financial officer (CFO) and vice president of sales booked a series of fraudulent sales transactions. Barter for Success at North Face In December 1997, North Faces CFO Christopher Crawford negotiated a $7.8 million sale of excess inventory to a barter company in exchange for trade credits. Crawford knew that the authoritative accounting literature generally precluded the recognition of revenue on such transactions. Crawford, however, structured the transaction to recognize a profit on the trade credits. An Oral Side Agreement Crawford required the barter company to pay a portion of the trade credits in cash. To further obscure the true nature of the large barter transaction, Crawford split it into two parts. 1. On December 29,1997, a $5.15 million sale recorded($3.51 million in cash $1.64 million trade credit) 2. On January 8, 1998, the remaining $2.65 million portion of the barter transaction was booked. Consignments In the third and fourth quarters of fiscal 1998, Todd Katz, North Faces vice president of sales, arranged two large sales to inflate the companys revenues, transactions that were actually consignments rather than consummated sales. The first of these transactions involved $9.3 million of merchandise sold to a small, apparel wholesaler in Texas. Katz negotiated a similar $2.6 million transaction with a small California wholesaler a few months later. Erasing the Past Richard Fiedelman served for several years as the advisory partner for the North Face audit engagement and during early 1998 served for a brief time as the audit engagement partner. During the 1997 audit, the Deloitte audit engagement partner proposed an adjustment to reverse the portion of the $7.8 million barter transaction recorded in December 1997 because he realized that the profit could not be recognized on a barter transaction when the seller is paid exclusively in trade credits. The Deloitte audit partner passed on the proposed adjustment since it did not have a material effect on North Faces 1997 financial statements. While supervising the review of North Faces financial statements for the first quarter of 1998, Fiedelman allowed the company to improperly recognize profit on a portion of the $7.8 million barter transaction booked in January 1998 for which North Face was paid exclusively in trade credits. During the planning phase of the 1998 audit, Fiedelman convinced the new audit engagement partner that the prior year workpapers were wrong and that the previous audit partner had not concluded that it was not permissible for North Face to recognize profit on the 1997 portion of the barter transaction that involved strictly trade credits. As a result of Fiedelmans guidance, the new audit partner did not propose an adjustment to reverse the January 1998 portion of the barter transaction that had been approved by Fiedelman. Fiedelmans subordinates altered the 1997 workpapers to change the conclusion expressed by the 1997 audit engagement partner that North Face was not entitled to record profit on a sales transaction in which it was paid entirely in trade credits. Consequences The SEC sanctioned North Faces CFO, the companys vice-president of sales, and Richard Fiedelman for their roles in the North Face fraud. Questions 1. Should auditors insist that their clients accept all proposed audit adjustments, even those that have an immaterial effect on the given set of financial statements? Defend your answer. No. Clients are not prone to adopting auditors proposed audit adjustments, which forces auditors to somehow determine on an aggregate basis the impact that proposed and/or passed audit adjustments have on a clients financial statements. The most common reason for a client not to make a proposed audit adjustment is that the client disagrees with the need for the given adjustment. We dont want to see that audit engagements ultimately become a tug-of-war between client management and auditors over proposed audit adjustments. 2. Should auditors take explicit measures to prevent their clients from discovering or becoming aware of the materiality thresholds used on individual audit engagements? Would it be feasible for auditors to conceal this information from their audit clients? Yes. To the greatest extent possible, auditors should not provide clients with access to the critical parameters or facets of audit engagements, including materiality limits. According to this case, the CFO used the materiality to subvert the integrity of the entire audit engagement. It is often not feasible to conceal information such as materiality limits from client personnel. For example, auditors always have client personnel pull documents, prepare various schedules to which audit procedures will be applied, and perform other important audit-related tasks. In completing these tasks, client personnel can often determine the auditors intent and/or the scope or materiality limit of a given audit test. Likewise, clients have access to the professional auditing literature and professional publications that discuss the general guidelines that auditors use in making important strategic decisions during the course of an audit, including the selection of materiality limits for individual accounts or financial statement items. 3. Identify the general principles or guidelines that dictate when companies are entitled to record revenue. How were these principles or guidelines violated by the $7.8 million barter transaction and the two consignment sales discussed in this case? According to FASB 605 Revenue Recognition Revenues and gains are realized when products (goods or services), merchandise, or other assets are exchanged for cash or claims to cash. Revenues are considered to have been earned when the entity has substantially accomplished what it must do to be entitled to the benefits represented by the revenues. Generally, barter transactions in which a company receives trade credits in exchange for merchandise should be recorded at the fair value of the merchandises given up since the ultimate realizability or economic value of the trade credits is typically not determinable at the time of the exchange. So, even though the exchange element of the revenue recognition principle is satisfied by such a transaction, the realized element is not necessarily satisfied, meaning that any profit on the transaction should be deferred. In the case at hand, there was clearly some question as to the fair value of the excess merchandise that was being sold to the barter company. A conservative treatment of the transaction might have dictated that a loss or writedown of the merchandise was actually the most appropriate accounting treatment for the transaction. FASB 605-15-25 Sales of Product when Right of Return Exists prohibits a seller from recognizing revenue (or profit, of course) when the given customer can return the product and the ultimate payment to be received by the seller hinges on the customer reselling the product. Both features of the revenue recognition rule were violated by the decision of North Face to record the large consignment sales: there was not a true exchange since the two customers did not pay for the merchandise and the given transactions were not finalized until the customers resold the merchandise, meaning that the realized requirement of the revenue recognition rule had not been satisfied. 4. Identify and briefly explain each of the principal objectives that auditors hope to accomplish by preparing audit workpapers. How were these objectives undermined by Deloittes decision to alter North Faces 1997 workpapers? According to AICPA AU Section 339. 03, audit documentation serves mainly to: a. Provide the principal support for the auditors report, including the representation regarding observance of the standards of fieldwork, which is implicit in the reference to generally accepted auditing standards. b. Aid the auditor in the conduct and supervision of the audit. Both of these objectives were undercut by the decision of the Deloitte auditors to alter North Faces 1997 audit workpapers. First, by modifying the 1997 workpapers and not documenting the given revisions in those workpapers, the Deloitte auditors destroyed audit evidence, evidence that demonstrated that the 1997 audit team had properly investigated the authoritative literature relevant to barter transactions and proposed an audit adjustment consistent with the requirements of that literature. Second, the alteration of the 1997 workpapers affected the decisions made on the 1998 audit. That is, the auditors during the 1998 audit relied on the apparent decisions made during the 1997 audit and thus reached an improper decision on the accounting treatment that would be appropriate for the barter transaction recorded by North Face in January 1998. 5. North Faces management teams were criticized for strategic blunders that they made over the course of the companys history. Do auditors have a responsibility to assess the quality of the key decisions made by client executives? Defend your answer. Yes. Major strategic blunders by client management can create an environment in which client executives and their key subordinates have a strong incentive to distort their entitys accounting records and financial statements. More generally, the overall quality of top managements decisions affects the inherent risk present during a given audit. Event though assessing the quality of key decisions made by client executives is not often seen as an explicit audit procedure within an audit program, auditors need to be aware that the competence of top management and the wide-ranging implications of that competence to all facets of an audit.

Blackberry Case Study Essay

Once the leader of mobile devices for business associates across the United States, in recent years BlackBerry has loss significant market share to its competitors such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android. Struggling to keep afloat, although BlackBerry only holds five percent of the total mobile device industry, it still succeeds in its consulting business solutions that BlackBerry offers its clients. BlackBerry Business Solutions offers hardware, software, and applications to improve businesses’ performance in several industries such as healthcare, wholesale and retailing, pharmaceuticals, and financial services. The need for efficiency and access to data in the healthcare industry has recently become a standard protocol of how physicians and healthcare providers treat patients. Especially since the handheld electronic devices and e-commerce applications markets have been expanding rapidly, this trend has in turn provided an outlet of immediate access and diversity of physician-oriented applications available in the marketplace. Research conducted by Manhattan Research states, â€Å"more than 80 percent of U.S. physicians [have] smartphones [in] 2012–up from 64 percent in 2009–and half of that group will use their phones for patient care, administrative functions†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Versel). BlackBerry has recognized these needs from the healthcare industry providing unique and customizable solutions to various clients’ problems by providing them with solutions and applications offered by their 70+ Healthcare ISV (independent software vendor) partners (Partner Solutions). BlackBerry has distinguished their business model by, â€Å"still dominat[ing] among physicians and healthcare application developers, through the iPhone and Google Android are closing the gap quickly†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Versel). BlackBerry can see their successes throughout the entire healthcare continuum by offering e-commerce solutions that improve business and clinical performance across several categories within the healthcare industry which differentiate the services the can offer various businesses than Apple and Android. For instance, Mercy Health Partners, a conglomerate of 30+ hospitals across four states, needed to be able to provide immediate mobile access to patient records and clinical information at the bedside so physicians can more efficiently manage patient care (BlackBerry). BlackBerry Business Solutions were able to uniquely assess Mercy Health Partner’s needs and expand their health information systems by offering an e-commerce application called Clinical Xpert Navigator provided by on of their partners, Thompson Healthcare (BlackBerry). The Clinical Xpert Navigator gave Mercy a way to access and securely deliver patient information such as patient medications lists, transcribed report, lab results, and electronic health records at their various locations and right at their patients bedside tables. As a customer, Mercy Health Partners received an exclusive BlackBerry Enterprise Solution as apart of their business solutions model, which ran on BlackBerry smartphones and tablets making it a cost-effective use of their technology. This cost efficiency has in turn resulted in benefits seen in both Mercy Health Partners’ business performances but also their clinical patient care performance. The necessity for time in today’s society is critical for any industry. BlackBerry’s Business Solutions offer clients within the healthcare industry more time through e-commerce applications that directly improves the quality of care, access to care, and continuous care they can ultimately offer their patients in need and help save more lives. http://www.itproportal.com/2012/03/30/iphones-share-us-smartphone-market-very-close-android/ http://sg.blackberry.com/newsroom/success/Mercy_BCS.pdf

E-Hr in P&G

Introduction to Procter & Gamble Procter & Gamble (P&G) is a multinational corporation that provides consumer products in the areas of pharmaceuticals, cleaning supplies, personal care, and pet supplies. The global consumer goods company was started by William Procter, an English candle maker & James Gamble, an Irish soap maker in 1837, and has been well established since then, ranking fifth place of the â€Å"World's Most Admired Companies† by Fortune Magazine . P constantly strives to provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improves the lives of the world’s consumers , where P brands serve 4. billion people in more than 180 countries. A High Performing Organization Being a multinational corporation, P values its people as the company’s most important as-set and source of competitive advantage, and understands that its success greatly depends on the strength of the talent pipeline. The Human Resources department inevitably plays an im-portant role to the company, responsible in attracting the top talents, managing P talent globally to enable career development and growth across businesses and geographies and de-veloping leaders at P around the world in every business, in every region and at every level. In view of the fast technological advances, P continues to stay at the global frontline by in-corporating e-HR into its everyday processes such as selection, recruitment and training. The use of the Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) was also able to increase administra-tive efficiency and produce reports that have the potential to improve decision making for managers. E-HR not only provided human resources departments with the opportunity to make information available and accessible to managers and employees, but was also able to improve the company’s overall efficiency and effectiveness. With all its efforts over the years, P has been widely recognized as the industry’s global in-novation leader and brand-building leader of the industry, being consistently ranked by leading retailers in industry surveys as a preferred supplier and generating $82. 6 billion dollar of sales in 2011 alone. The HR department was also awarded the â€Å"2010 Asian Human Capital Award from Singapore's Minister for Manpower†, a highly recognized award in the industry. Technology in HR Functions Training & Development Early 2000s Being a global company that has hundred years of history, P&G owes its success partly to its large pool of capable and well-trained workforce. P&G trained its workforce on a regular basis. Since early 2000s, P&G sees the need to share product information and knowledge to its em-ployees quickly, while keeping its employees skilled and knowledgeable. P&G thus appointed Saba Learning Enterprise to develop an Internet-based learning system to be used by over 100,000 of its employees in over 70 countries . Through the collaboration with Saba Learning Enterprise, P&G were able to have a scalable system which featured various functions through its web compatibility. Powering the RapidLEARN initiative , Saba had helped P&G to consolidate multiple Learning Management Systems (LMSs) into one that improved the company’s global learning pace, thus reducing its costs greatly . New strategies and direction could be passed on to its employees with great consistency. Through the development of such integrated system, P&G was thus able to meet the needs of various business requirements. As a result of this, number of employees that utilized e-learning had increased from less than 5% to over 25% . It was estimated that such initiative had resulted in cost savings of around $14million after 5 years. In 2003, P&G moved on to engage BrightWave, UK e-learning developer, to transform its in-house presentation materials into an online training program, a 2-hour stand alone modular course, for its employees . Late 2000s With the success of Saba since early 2000s, the system had undergone multiple upgrades and customization. By 2009, the Saba system provided online training to over 90,000 of its em-ployees. There was an average of 16,000 individuals among P&G’s employees that made used of its online training each month. Such success leads P&G to expect an online training growth in the near future. To support such anticipation, P&G planned to improve its learning management system in terms of its availabili-ty, tracking, learning process governance and application support . As a result, P&G decided to assign Accenture in developing its learning management system for 6 years. Prior to the transformation, P&G had over 200 training administrators that provided decentra-lized Tier 1 support, with multiple vendors providing support on more serious application issues on Tier 2 and Tier 3 . Over a period of 3 months, all support services from Tier 1 to Tier 3 had been successfully migrated to Accenture to meet several objectives such as creating a consis-tent development on its application system, having a reliable learning system with high availa-bility, as well as improving the control of its learning process . To meet the increasing demand that P&G was expecting, it moved its Saba-based RapidLEARN to a clustered environment. Today, P&G had a reliable LMS which was scalable to meet the increasing need of web-based training across the globe. More than 90,000 of P&G’s employees now have access to the system. Today †¢Online system To enable all its employees be updated with the most up-to-date trainings, all of P&G’s em-ployees have access to a website (P&G’s online system) listing all the available courses, with details such as timing, course descriptions, and illegibility. P&G’s employees are to sign up for all the trainings online through a common online system. With online registration, em-ployees are able to understand the details of the course as well as select the suitable sche-dule for the courses quickly through a simple click. New courses can be search and signed-up courses can be dropped through the same online system. Aside from the course listings, the webpage also has other information (guidelines) that guides its employees through their own learning path. The system contains detailed infor-mation on the career stage at which certain trainings should be taken. Trainings are categorized into â€Å"General Trainings† which covers soft skills such as leadership and business communications and â€Å"Functional Trainings† which covers expertise knowledge such as finance and marketing. All these trainings are also categorized according to different career stage. As a result, the availability of the guidelines aims to help its employees sign up for the suitable courses during different career stage. E-learning For online trainings or the so-called â€Å"e-learning courses†, employees are able to complete the course at the leisure of their own pace. The system will track the attendance and progress of each employee in the trainings. In fact, employee’s attendance record for all courses attended is readily available online. Some of the common e-learning courses include training on procedures, standard business models , and business ethics. Upon completion of such courses, there will be compulsory tests which the employees have to pass. According to one of the employee’s experience, while such e-learning courses provide them with the necessary information, the knowledge absorbed is very much short-term. Some-times, employees will end up skip the on-line courses and move on directly to the tests by guessing the correct answers so as to pass the tests. Such ‘short-cut’ approach defeats the company’s purpose of having online trainings and wastes the resources of the company. †¢Trainings across the globe Being a global company, the company carries out its e-learning globally. The same trainings are made available to all of its employees at different countries. For other trainings that are not carried out online, the company provides the same content to be used globally. The ac-tual trainings will, however, be carried out by P&G at different regions and offices separate-ly. The trainers for such courses often come from P&G’s employees. These are keen employees who sent to external trainers to receive trainings. As a result of that, the training content of non-online trainings (despite having the same content across the globe) may vary slightly depending on the trainers’ style and expertise. In any case, not all trainings can be attended by all employees. Some training has specific requirements of having to meet certain career stage. Hence an approval status is needed before the employee can attend it. There are also certain trainings which can only be at-tended by certain employees upon recommendation from the managers. Therefore, em-ployees have to take note of such details as well as the location of trainings as an employee in Singapore could not simply attend trainings that are held in United States. The overall benefit of having such a complete online system in its training system is to allow P&G’s employees to realize their own learning progress and to direct them into knowing what kind of skills they need to develop further in the future. It also serves to save employees time by providing the employees the flexibility of completing the trainings at the own time. E-Recruiting With nearly 300 brands worldwide, P&G places high importance in the people and values the talent of every individual. The company spare no effort in attracting suitable talents into its company and promises to offer exciting new challenges, tremendous growth and support, and a chance to touch and improve lives daily for every of its staff. In the modern era, there have been an increasing number of people who are dependent on technology and the internet. In the past, people used to flip through job ads in newspapers. However in this age of internet technology, more people are increasingly turning to online job portals such as monster. com, recruit. et and efinancialcareers. com. USA Today reports that 95% of the college graduation class of 1997 used the Internet as the medium of choice for their job searches while a recent study by JWT Specialized Communications found that 70% of active job seekers are more likely to use the Web than traditional job hunting methods . The increasing popularity of these new and rising recruitment channels provide fresh and innovative ways that P&G can tap onto for thei r recruitment efforts, instead of relying only on personal network or head hunters. One example of such a channel is the increasingly popular use of online job por-tals (e-recruiting) in a candidate’s job search. P&G’s human resource team was able to identify the fast and moving trends of technology and in turn capitalize on the accessibility and availability of the internet to incorporate into its hiring process, making e-recruiting a part of their overall recruiting strategy. The key to successful e-recruiting is by providing a good job site which would make it easy for candidates to understand and apply and for the company to accomplish its goals of attracting the right talent. McKinsey & Company, the global consulting firm, identified recruiting as a critical issue in its 1998 report, The War for Talent, where McKinsey points to various demographic and industrial changes that are making it harder to recruit and retain good employees . A Fast Company article on the report also reiterated the importance of talent, stating that â€Å"The most important corporate resource over the next 20 years will be talent: smart, sophisticated businesspeople who are technologically literate, globally astute, and operationally agile. And even as the demand for talent goes up, the supply of it will be going down. By providing a good e-recruiting website, P&G is able to benefit as the website has acted as an effective filter, making it easy for the correct candidate to apply and deter the wrong applicants from applying. Other benefits of e-recruiting include huge cost savings. Research has shown that e-recruiting is not only faster than traditional channels but the efficienc ies of e-recruiting can also cut the amount of time needed to identify, interview and hire for a vacant position, in turn helping a company to save as much as $8,000 per hire over traditional hiring channels . Considering the scale of P&G with more than 129,000 employees worldwide, the amount of cost savings is substantial by just making 10% of it hires through e-recruiting. A unique website domain was devoted to P&G’s career centre: http://jobs-pg. com/, with a link to a similar interface easily accessible, appearing on the home page just beside the â€Å"Investor Relations† tab, signifying that P&G values e-recruiting as much as it cares about its investors. This career website has been designed in a very user friendly manner, where one is able to search jobs by category, location or groups, enabling candidates to be able to identify the area of interest or job they would like to apply quickly. P&G’s hiring process is then spilt into 5 gen-eral stages, namely application, assessment, initial interview, final interview and the offer, with specific instructions on what is required for every individual step. †¢Application This simple application process instituted a â€Å"paperless† online application system allowing electronic applications to be submitted 24 hours a day and helping the company to find ap-plicants in a timely manner. The information required in the application stage includes con-tact information, education, resume, questionnaire, confirmation and a summary. Appli-cants are also able to save the application as a draft first before completing it at a later time, allowing greater flexibility. †¢Assessments P&G uses online assessments to measure skills and accomplishments that generally do not emerge from interviews. These assessments are beneficial and well received by the appli-cants as it not only allow the company to assess the abilities of the applicant, but also help determine if it is equally beneficial for the applicant to continue through the hiring process, in turn acting as a screening stage for both parties. Examples of the online assessments are: oSuccess Drivers Assessment: â€Å"Assess your background, experiences, interests and work related attitudes and measures your compatibility against P&G compe-tencies for defining successful job performance† oReasoning Screen: â€Å"Measures your cognitive ability. This is important because the nature of our work is complex and continually changing† †¢Initial Interview Behavioural based interviews used to know more about the applicant’s previous accoplish-ment and the applicant relate to, compare with and connect with the company’s Success Drivers. †¢Final Interview One-to-one or panel interviews to find out in greater detail about the applicant’s skills and capabilities. This is also an opportunity for the applicant to get a more in depth understand-ing of P&G’s unique culture, values and endless opportunities. †¢Offer An offer of employment will be first notified through a phone call before a confirmation with details is given through the electronic mail. The comprehensive and descriptive steps of e-recruiting has allowed P&G to achieve a competi-tive advantage in attracting global talents to its company by making job postings available and conducting a firsthand filter of the job applicants through the several stages of recruitment in place. The advantages of e-recruiting for P&G include the ability to reach a wider range of audience, being cost effective and achieving a faster recruitment cycle. With cost effectiveness and a faster recruitment cycle being discussed previously, the ability to reach a wider range of audience is especially important for a global company with job openings suitable for people from all over the world. Opportunities/ Recommendations P&G faces many opportunities that it can tap onto for growth. With the constant increase in the use of internet revolutionizing the way people communicate and interact, majority of the companies today have incorporated e-recruiting into their recruitment strategy. Therefore there is a need for P&G to tap into new opportunities to further enhance and improve its current e-recruiting strategy. In conducting the field research of e-recruitment in P&G, it could be seen that technology was greatly used in the application, assessment and offer process, but not applied in the initial and final interview process. Hence P&G could actively test alternative methods of recruitment such as using audio and video conferencing or a real-time virtual Business Game Challenge in the interview stages to continue develop its recruitment strategy. For training wise, our group believes that P&G could have regular pop-up quizzes which test its employees on the general contents of the past trainings that the employees have attended. This serve to add on the recall on the employees and reminding them about knowledge taught such that it will prevent the employees from forgetting the training content after attending them. This is to ensure that all the resources that P&G develop are put into good use. Such pop-up quizzes, though simple, could serve as a constant reminder about the need of being aware of such knowledge even though they may not use them directly on a day-to-day basis. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, we see that talent is the key resource that drives P&G forward and helps the company to remain on top in today’s competitive market. Realizing this, P&G never let loose its effort in finding the right talent and providing them with proper trainin. The company want to ensure that all of its employees share the same values and are equipped with the most up-to-date product knowledge in a consistent manner. In order to do this efficiently, the use of technology in its e-HR system has proven to be an ef-fective and efficient method that keeps the company ahead globally. With change being the only constant in today’s world, the continuous upgrades in its HR system as well as review on recruitment process are some of the key efforts which require great efforts and are of high importance to the success of the company. Considering the size and global positioning that P&G has, keeping its e-HR competent is therefore the key to success. ? References Fast Company (1998). â€Å"The War For Talent†. Retrieved 22 December 2011 from http://www. fastcompany. com/online/16/mckinsey. html Mark. H & Jakob. N (1999). E-Recruiting. Creative Good Inc. McKinsey & Company (2001). â€Å"The War For Talent†. Retrieved 22 December 2011 from http://autoassembly. mckinsey. com/html/downloads/articles/War_For_Talent. pdf CNN Money (2011). â€Å"World’s Most Admired Companies†. Retrieved 20 December 2011, from http://money. cnn. com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/2011/snapshots/334. html Procter & Gamble (2011). Purpose & People†. Retrieved 20 December 2011, from http://www. pg. com/en_US/company/purpose_people/index. shtml National Center for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (January 2002) â€Å"Asia-Pacific e-learning Alliance: A Report on e-Learning and Best Practices† Retrieved 19 December 2011, from http://unpan1. un. org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN011272. pdf SABA Customer Overview (Se ptember 2001) â€Å"Procter & Gamble†. Retrieved 21 December 2011, from http://www. betacom. com. pl/files/other/PnG_v4. pdf National Center for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (January 2002) â€Å"Asia-Pacific e-learning Alliance: A Report on e-Learning and Best Practices† Retrieved 19 December 2011, from http://unpan1. un. org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN011272. pdf Training Press Releases (11 April 2003). â€Å"Procter & Gamble use BrightWave†. Retrieved 20 December 2011, from http://www. trainingpressreleases. com/news/brightwave/2003/procter-gamble-use-brightwave Accenture (2009). â€Å"Helping Procter & Gamble strengthen a culture of high performance through its learning program†. Retrieved 21 December 2011, from