High School Exit Examinations Essay

In order to evaluate the educational ability of students Standardized Tests or examinations, have been designed, which do so in an unbiased manner, irrespective of social background and educational experience. One such test is the multiple-choice examination, wherein the students have to make a selection from a number of answers for a particular question and indicate their choice on a test form. Such tests are frequently given to students who study in elementary and secondary schools (Standardized Tests, 2006). These examinations benefitted students to a large extent, because they had to take just one set of examinations, in order to apply for admission to different schools. The College Board initiated the Scholastic Aptitude Test or the SAT in 1926. The SAT is a multiple choice test that was based on the psychological tests given to US Army recruits. The SAT, by the year 1940, was being widely employed by educational institutions in the US (Standardized Tests, 2006). Standardized tests are taken by elementary school and high school, and undergraduates and graduates. The majority of these tests are controlled by the Educational Testing Service or ETS and the American College Testing or ACT Program. The results of these tests help educational institutions to assess scholastic performance and to ascertain the suitability of a student for a particular undergraduate or graduate degree program (Standardized Tests, 2006). The Center on Education Policy or the CEP had made it mandatory for fifty two percent of the students studying in the public schools to take the high school exit examinations. However, the implementation of this policy became difficult as the CEP had realized that opposition from the public towards this compulsory high school exit examination had been on the increase. It was also decided that students who failed to obtain a pass mark in this examination would not be awarded the high school diploma. This decision to withhold high school diplomas to students who failed in the exit examination was greeted with a great deal of resistance (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). The implementation of the exit examinations also caused a gradual reduction in the number of graduate students. This was evident in the Afro – American and Latino students, English language learners and students with disabilities. This reform would result in reduced incentives for students who had been striving to remain in school, a reduction in the curriculum and a disregard for higher order performance skills, because of the utilization of limited measures and irrelevant judgments regarding student learning (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). The use of exit examinations varies from state to state. Some states have already implemented them, whereas other states have not implemented them. A majority of states have put forward several options and alternatives. So far only eight states have implemented the mandatory exit examination as a compulsory requirement, in which the student has to obtain a pass mark, in order to obtain a high school diploma. Further, this system does not take cognizance of the excellence of performance of the students and their academic record and is solely guided by whether the students have obtained a pass mark in the exit examination or not (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). Most of the states have implemented multiple measures of performance in order to evaluate the student’s capability of learning. The student requires a pass mark in the state examination, which is used as an indicator for the student’s ability to obtain a state diploma. Moreover, the student is also required to obtain a pass mark in other alternatives that test the student by using a wide range of methods so as to establish their academic learning. In these states, there is not just a single test to disqualify students from graduation but there exist an array of indicators to determine the knowledge of the students (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). In an important report relating to the implementation of the high school exit test in the state of Mississippi, sixty five recommendations had been proposed. Some of these are, it would be totally inappropriate to require students to obtain a pass mark in an examination that contained material that had not been taught to the students. Further, the exit examination should be based on a multiple choice system, which would test thinking skills. Moreover, the exit examination would be undesirable for the students of the state of Mississippi. In addition, the national – level exit examination would require a total restructuring of the curriculum of the district schools, which would create serious difficulties. Furthermore, measures that evaluate the student’s skills and performance should be segmented. Moreover, great care would have to be taken while implementing tests that evaluate the performance and skills of students (ED384990 – Issues To Consider in Moving beyond a Minimal Competency High School Graduation Test, 1995). The states of Arizona, California and Utah introduced high school exit examinations, in which high school students from the year 2006 have to obtain a pass mark, in order to be awarded a high school diploma. In most of the states of the Union that enforce such high school exit examinations, students are required to take it in the sophomore year. The level of these tests is of the tenth grade and students who are unable to obtain a pass mark are provided with a number of opportunities to again take this test. Sixteen of the twenty three states that have made these tests compulsory have directed the schools to provide remediation to students who fail to obtain a pass mark. Furthermore, in states that are introducing these examinations, financial help for such remediation has in most of the cases been provided by it (David, 21st June, 2006). In the state of New York students have taken these high school exit tests with a very high degree of success and have obtained a large number of diplomas. However, this has not proved to be applicable to students belonging to the minority communities. The Education Commissioner disclosed that eighty one percent of white students obtained their diplomas in due course, whereas the students of minority communities found the obtention of pass marks in English, mathematics, global history, geography, US history and science to be a daunting task. Consequently, only forty two percent of the Hispanic students, forty five percent of African American and sixty eight percent of Asian students obtained their diplomas within the stipulated time (Hoff, 23rd of March, 2005). A survey conducted by the National Center on Educational Outcomes has revealed the fact that fifty percent of the states of the Union have made it mandatory to obtain a pass mark in the exit test, in order to be eligible to obtain a high school diploma. However, very few states have implemented an alternative procedure for evaluating disabled students, which is of an equivalent standard in comparison to the test applied to regular students. This report goes on to state that the absence of tests for the disabled and regular students that are of equivalent rigor, gives rise to the impression that disabled students are not competent to undertake grade level work (Samuels, 4th of May, 2005). In the state of California, the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger passed a law that exempts disabled students from taking and obtaining a pass mark in the high school exit test. This new law states that if a student had been permitted to follow an individual education plan and if such a student had satisfied all other criteria for being awarded with a high school diploma and further if that student had received remediation for the exit test, then that student would be allowed to graduate, irrespective of having obtained a pass mark in the exit test. The objective of this law was to enable the state of California to provide better instructions for disabled students (Jacobson, 8th of Februray, 2006). In the state of Utah, even if students who do not obtain a pass mark in every portion of the high school exit test, they are awarded the high school diploma. However, such diplomas contain a statement that the student had not obtained a pass mark in the high school exit test. Several states of the Union are having second thoughts about continuing with such high school exit tests and at the same time a several students have proved to be unsuccessful in obtaining a pass mark in their graduation examinations. The law in the state of Utah has made it mandatory for high school students to obtain a pass mark in mathematics, reading and that part of the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test that comprises of tests on writing skills, in order to be awarded with a high school diploma (Olson, 25th January, 2006). In another study it was established that states of the Union, in which high school exit tests are in vogue, have a graduation rate and college entrance examination marks that are significantly lower than states that do not have such tests. In particular, students from states of the Union, that had made it mandatory to obtain a pass mark in the high school exit examination, fared worse than students from states of the Union that did not insist on such a condition, in the internationally acknowledged Scholastic Aptitude Test. Moreover, such students had a significantly lower rate of graduation (Viadero, 2nd of February, 2005). It has been opined by many people that high school exit examinations result in an increase in the number of students who discontinue their studies, before obtaining a high school diploma. The detractors of such exit examinations have very pertinently pointed out the fact that the already low graduation rates are being forced down to a much lower level. Many critics have stated that it would be patently unfair to deny a student who had completed thirteen years of schooling a high school diploma, merely because that student could not obtain a pass mark in the high school examination. Moreover, many persons consider such a denial of a high school diploma to be ruthlessly unjust, because such a diploma is essential for ensuring a bright future.

Can Macbeth Be Described As a Shakespearean Tragic Hero? Essay

A Shakespearean tragic hero is described as a man who has many good qualities, shows regret for his crimes and is of high birth and position. At the start of the play Macbeth has all the qualities of a tragic hero as he fights for King Duncan and kills their enemy Macdonwald. In Act 1 Scene 2 Duncan says, â€Å"Nobel Macbeth hath won† recognizing Macbeth’s heroism he is titled Thane of Cawdor. At the end of the play Macbeth is described as a devil, he is overcome by ambition and determined to succeed. This has a disastrous effect on him and this one flaw in his character brings his downfall. All the people that surround can see that he has changed. He is no longer a hero but an evil villain and this is the way that people think of him. In Act 1 Scene 3 Malcolm describes Macbeth as â€Å"black Macbeth† and in Act 5 Scene 8 Macduff calls him â€Å"a hell-hound†. Both these quotes show that people who once thought of Macbeth as a hero now think of him as corrupt and malicious. Macbeth’s ambition is to be a leader and respected man but when the witches prophesize that he become king he sees power greater than he had ever imagined possible and nothing will stand in his way, even if it means killing his best friend. Macbeth’s ambition is his downfall. Before the murder of Duncan he shows reluctance to kill the king, â€Å"We will proceed no further in this business†. However, Lady Macbeth convinces him that he should proceed with the murder of Duncan. Macbeth is then full of remorse for what he has done and feels shame and guilt for his actions. This show of regret keeps the audience’s sympathy for Macbeth. It is also a feature of a tragic hero. By the end of the play Macbeth has forgotten guilt and fear. He is thinking only of himself. At points in the play Macbeth shows weakness and Lady Macbeth drives him on. When Macbeth shows his reluctance to proceed with the murder of King Duncan Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 7 tells him he would â€Å"live a coward in thine own esteem† and tells him that if she had made a promise as he had she would have carried it through. Another point of weakness for Macbeth is the killing of Banquo and his son Fleance. He cannot bring himself to do the deed himself and so employs men to carry out the act for him. In this play Macbeth commits horrific acts of evil, in cold blood he murders Duncan, a murder that Macduff describes is Act 2 Scene 3 as, â€Å"most sacrilegious murder†. He then orders the murder of Banquo and his son Fleance. The murderer then comes back in Act 3 Scene 4 to tell Macbeth that Banquo is â€Å"safe in a ditch he bides, with twenty trenched gashes on his head†. Then Macbeth murders Macduffs innocent family, his children, wife and everyone else at his home. In Act 4 Scene 2 Macduff’s son is killed as he attempts to save his mother, as he is dying he says, â€Å"he has killed me, mother, run away, I pray you†. At the end of the play Macbeth looses all his friends. They realize that he was responsible for the horrific murders and that he has changed. Along with the support of his allies Macbeth also looses the sympathy of the audience because of his lack of remorse for the actions he has taken. However, in Act 5 Scene 3 he fights bravely to the end, â€Å"I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked†. Act 5 Scene 5 â€Å"at least we’ll die with hardness on our back†. When Macbeth is killed by Macduff he dies bravely and still with his pride. Then Malcolm is proclaimed King of Scotland. In this play there are other heroes besides Macbeth. Banquo is also a brave and honourable man. Duncan refers to him in Act 1 Scene 4 as, â€Å"noble Banquo† and an example of his bravery is when he tries to save his son’s life. In Act 3 Scene 3 Banquo dies saying, â€Å"fly good Fleance, fly, fly, fly†. Macbeth, Thane of Glanis is portrayed as a noble hero at the beginning of the play. He fights well for his King and country bringing about success in battle. He is loved and respected by the people for the qualities he demonstrates loyalty, bravery and honour and is rewarded for this with the title Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth therefore shows he has the making of a tragic hero. However, as the play unravels a dark and sinister side of Macbeth becomes apparent. He has a flaw, that of blind ambition. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants, the title of King. He would not have ever dreamed that this could ever have come about if not for the prediction of the witches. This was Macbeth’s downfall, that he now thought it possible that he could aspire to become King. He would allow nothing or no one to stand in his way, he believed it his destiny. The encouragement of Lady Macbeth made it so much easier for him to carry out the dreadful deeds needed to attain his ambition. This change of character resulted in his demise. The audience can not forgive him this selfish and immoral defect in his character. Anyone who could kill a friend and the entire family of another deserves a bloody end. Justice prevails at the end. So while Macbeth was in some respects a tragic hero he does not retain the sympathy and respect of the audience throughout the play.

347 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

347 - Essay Example A component of the program is to train staff in the implementation of the Program. This requires an understanding of various risks and techniques for identification of warning signs. Training is the most effective method for acquisition of skills, knowledge, and competencies. A training program (see Attachments) has been envisaged to fill the void created by the federal requirement. We appreciate the Arizona Department of Commerce taking an interest in helping businesses combat identity-theft through our new training program. Please feel free to call me at 12345 for any further information or have any questions about this proposal. Businesses and organizations are required by the Red Flags Rule to implement a written Identity Theft Prevention Program for detecting â€Å"red flags† or warning signs of identity theft for their day-to-day operations. The Rule applies to â€Å"financial institutions† and â€Å"creditors.† Financial institutions and creditors with covered accounts need to develop and implement a Program, which should be designed to detect and respond to red flags of identity theft based on the nature of businesses and the associated risks. The program should include four basic elements that create a framework to address threats from identity theft. Red flags are patterns of practices or specific activities that are suspicious and indicate the possibilities of identity theft. The Program should include reasonable policies and procedures for identification of red flags. The Program should be designed for detection of red flags that are identified. Appropriate action should be laid out when red flags are detected. The Program should address how the Program would be re-evaluated periodically to reflect ever-changing risks from this crime. The first written program should be approved by the board of directors or the

Terror Risk Assessment and Counter-Terrorism Strategy Essay

Terror Risk Assessment and Counter-Terrorism Strategy - Essay Example A quick strategy that many governments adopt when confronting terror is one of deterrence. However, one academic’s discussion points out that deterrence is hardly an effective strategy, although it still is a crucial part of any comprehensive plan. Deterrence, in the case of Israel for example, requires extreme, â€Å"Draconian† measures for success and thus defies justice. Overall, the most effective form of deterrence may be an all-out assault on the leadership structure of a traditional terrorist organization, but little else can be done. (Radlauer) That said, the best counter-terror strategy is a readiness for a response after the movement of the attack begins, but before it can be effectively carried out. In a sense, this can be compared to structuring a vehicle to be durable and ensure the safety of its passengers in the case of an unavoidable accident.One of the most devastating possible terrorist attacks is the use of a biological weapon, as chemicals and diseas es are a threat to human life that can arrive undetected and cause massive loss of life from a small source. For potential terrorists, biological weapons present a method of destruction that requires a lower level of infiltration and effort with a high-yield result. A research fellow from the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies describes how the Israeli government’s counter-terror efforts in the realm of biological and chemical attacks present a model for the US government to follow when making policy.... Deterrence, in the case of Israel for example, requires extreme, â€Å"Draconian† measures for success and thus defies justice. Overall, the most effective form of deterrence may be an all-out assault on the leadership structure of a traditional terrorist organization, but little else can be done. (Radlauer) That said, the best counter-terror strategy is a readiness for response after the movement of the attack begins, but before it can be effectively carried out. In a sense, this can be compared to structuring a vehicle to be durable and ensure the safety of its passengers in the case of an unavoidable accident. One of the most devastating possible terrorist attacks is use of a biological weapon, as chemicals and diseases are a threat to human life that can arrive undetected and cause massive loss of life from a small source. For potential terrorists, biological weapons present a method of destruction that requires a lower level of infiltration and effort with a high-yield re sult. A research fellow from the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies describes how the Israeli government’s counter-terror efforts in the realm of biological and chemical attacks present a model for the US government to follow when making policy. He describes how the Israeli government provides a kit to all citizens, free of charge, consisting of a gas-mask and sterilization tools. This is part of an overall strategy that recommends keeping a â€Å"sealed body in a sealed room† during the event of a biological attack, and also recommends that citizens set the radio to a station playing only static while sleeping—this station is used by the government to broadcast warnings. However, these strategies may not be practical in the US, where society is not so

New Product Deployment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

New Product Deployment - Research Paper Example This makes the company strong in thinking globally and act locally. Further to gain grip over the local markets it spends significant amounts on social responsibilities (http://www.unilever.com). The consumption of quantity of tea is followed by the consumption of drinking water. On an average about 3 million metric tons of tea is produced in the globe. The largest producer-countries are the largest consumers as well, and the rest is traded either directly to value-added resellers in other countries or bought through auction on the open market (http://shop.jaxteacompany.com). 'The UK is the largest per-capita consumer of tea averaging about 3.5 to 4.0 cups per day. India and China are the largest consumers of tea on the basis of total leaf used, and this consumption is largely from internal production.' (http://shop.jaxteacompany.com). Tea brands are more and more number of people drink tea in the globe. 'It is revealed that tea is the most preferable drink after water' (http://www.unilever.com). Many flavours (as per local and global preferences), different sizes (such as 1000 Gms, 500gms, 250 Gms, 100 Gms, 50 Gms dip tea bags) are brought by research and by the firms including Unilever. There are different blends of tea namely; premium blend which is costly and tasty where as regular blend is cheap and not so strong and tasty. Similarly leaf teas, yellow tea, green tea, iced tea, ice tea are also in the market. Earlier days tea used to be served in hot and now tea also is served in cool. Further 'all teas - black, green, oolong or white provide with an antioxidant boost and just one 200ml cup of Lipton Yellow Label will provide you with around 135mg of antioxidants' (http://www.unilever.com). a) Core product description and potential for differentiation Tea is mostly available in powder format packed in vaccum evaporated packing system. Most of the parts of the globe tea is served hot. Household customers buy and pour in their bottles or containers at the time of using. With this the customers can not take the benefit of packing. Size reduction (form of sachets), to some extrent, solves the problem but increases the cost of the product and is inconvenient to stock the prooduct (unhygenic) after using partially as each sachet can be used for 4 cups of tea to be served hot.. b) Expected product

LEXMARK International problems Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

LEXMARK International problems - Case Study Example The company was able to send more accurate information for a very short span of time. This new system enables those connected to the business which include the buyers, financial analysts, marketing analyst, merchandisers, regional managers, and field sales representatives, to access or work on available data more instantly and easily. The bottom line of every business is to be profitable. And to do so, customer satisfaction should be guaranteed. Lexmark International has been successful in meeting the needs of its customers when it adopted the new system. Through it, the managers understood well the trends in their business, stock-outs were avoided and the demands of the consumers which vary from country to country were continuously met. Thereby, they arrive on better decisions on pricing and promotions which greatly benefit both business and consumers. SQL-Retail BI System is an engineering company specializing in the development of software solutions specially designed for retailers. It ensures to provide a retail organization with accurate and timely data information. It utilizes the latest .NET technology by Microsoft that contains embedded analysis and reporting tools from Microstrategy. The system's database is architected in order to store data in a way that easy and flexible access by users will be possible. These data could be neat and accessible to all users by using either desktop or web browser, and including handy mobile devices such as notebooks, pocket PC's and cellular phones. The performance of all the aspects of a retail business such as Corporate Performance versus Plans, Store Performance, Buyer Performance, Warehouse Performance, Merchandise Performance, and Associate Performance could be evaluated using the system. 6. Go to sas.com, and find the Retail Intelligence Product; take the interactive tour. Compare it to MicroStrategy's product. Also compare it to Oracle Retail (see pracle.com/applications/retail.html SAS Solutions for Retail has four integrated group of solutions namely, Customer intelligence, Merchandise intelligence, Operations intelligence, Performance Management Solutions. Its core components are based on industry-leading data integration, analytics and reporting technologies. Rapid results are ensured by prebuilt data and analytical models. Oracle retail on the other hand is designed to help business achieve efficient operational infrastructures, enabling it to utilize resources which will make the company distinguishable from the competition. Oracle resolutions also offer assistance in improving information integrity, making the enterprise insight-driven, and empowering workforce to adopt excellence, and influence customers patronage of the business. References: 1. http://www.microstrategy.com/Solutions/ 2. http://www.sas.com/industry/retail/ 3.

Women Issues and Prostitution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Women Issues and Prostitution - Essay Example The misconceptions, which follow, are many towards the rights of women. Women indulge in prostitution are sometimes considered to be "exclusive" of this society irrespective of the fact that they are the mirrors of those dilemmas which we ignore or which we feel shame to admit to ourselves. Society should consider and face this dilemma in the form of "prostitution". We will discuss some of the most common problems faced by the women of Canada today. Because of the pervasive and deeply rooted attitudes toward the legitimacy of sexual coercion in our society, our conceptions of normal male and female derive from taking coerced sexuality as the natural standard. And given that this is true, it is scarcely surprising that it should be considered to be normal for men not to like women at least to some extent, since they must perceive women as being misers and hoarders of a commodity they are led to believe they desperately desire and need. Nor is it surprising that they should identify themselves as 'true men' in accordance with the degree to which they are aggressive and dominant. Aggressive and dominant men get what they want; it is merely the forms of aggressiveness and dominance which vary, and is only when the forms resorted to involve the use or threat of violence that we are prepared to call it 'rape' and to punish those who commit it. (Schlesinger, 1977) Let us consider some of the cases of women in this aspect. One woman in this study who complained of rape, a young woman classified as 'idle,' and who was 'known as' a frequenter of the old Yorkville area of Toronto, disagreed about the standard. She felt that the man 'had gone too far,' whereas his reply was 'that he had used no more force than is usual for males during the preliminaries.' In another case, again involving a young woman, the woman rather sagely remarked that 'usually guys stop when you tell them to. This one didn't.' It is significant too that in both of these cases the men were middle-class, one a businessman and the other a semi-professional, and the women involved failed to conform to the stereotyped image of the 'real victim.' If the cases had come to trial, they are not the sort of men likely to have been judged to have resorted to unacceptable tactics, or who would be sent to jail for what they did because the women involved were not 'real victims.' These men, in common with most accused rapists, did not see anything wrong in what they had done. What the victim experienced as rape, they believed to be seduction. However, it is unbelievable that virtually none of these offenders believed that they were doing anything wrong; they did not see themselves as acting any differently from other men in society, and did not see, and resisted seeing, themselves as men who had broken the law. Almost all of them either saw, or went to quite incredible lengths to see, their behavior as 'normal' and acceptable. The extreme case simply believes everything he does in relation to women is acceptable, and after that there are subtler shadings in

Environmental Analysis of Joes Electric Cigar Essay - 1

Environmental Analysis of Joes Electric Cigar - Essay Example In as much as government laws and regulations could hamper flow of business to considerable extents and even reduce number of potential customers as it prohibits sale of products to minors below the age of 19, and issues health warning to non-smokers, people allergic to nicotine and any other of the ingredients, pregnant or breastfeeding women and diseased people, our e-cigars will be able to maneuver these obstacles due to their relative safeness. According to Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (2012), as opposed to smoking tobacco that contains several chemicals such as benzene, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, tar and arsenic, e-cigars reduce the risk of developing cancer from smoking since they lack these dangerous carcinogens. They are relatively safe to consume and this fact alone will endear many consumers to our products. Our e-cigars will be useful in helping addicts reduce and quit smoking and will prove better than traditional smoking cessation tools such a s nicotine patches or gums. Our product will offer users the option of determining amount of nicotine they consume and this could be slowly reduced over time as recommended by rehabilitation officers till one gains desired freedom from the deadly stick. Research has indicated reduced smoking levels among addicts who reverted to electric cigarettes with a large number reportedly quitting altogether and Joe’s electric will be at the forefront, leading in helping addicts enjoy a smoke without ‘killing’ themselves. These factors together with the fact that Joe’s electric cigarettes will be relatively cheaper than other tobacco brands and products offered by other electric cigarette companies, the ever increasing costs of living and the poor state of the economy will inevitably place Joe’s e-cigars as the product of choice in the markets. Apart from the consumer health benefits and concerns, customer base and trends will play to positively impact busines s. Joe’s electric cigar intends to operate on flexibility and hence greatly focus towards catering to market trends and meeting the ever increasing consumer demands. Smoking electric cigarettes has become the in thing with prominent persons including celebrities reportedly switching to e-cigs. This has influenced many in joining the trend and this will favor business. E-cigs do not stain teeth and the smoking experiences are relatively pleasant to the smoker with no lingering smell on clothes, furniture, etc, unlike regular cigarettes that leave stains that are often difficult or impossible to remove. Our e-cigars will come in flavored varieties thus offering a much greater experience as compared to sheer tobacco smoking. Like other e-cigs, smoking our e-cigs, unlike smoking tobacco, will not interfere with the environment and a non-smoker as e-cigars produce only water vapor which is odorless. There will be no need, therefore, for restrictions when it comes to smoking e-cigs as it can be smoked indoors, including public places. Our users will not be forced to look for a smoking zone and at the same time will not interfere with the non-smokers in the proximity. It will also be convenient to the end user as there is no need for lighters and ashtrays for e-cigs.

Social Cultural and Economic Context of Zimbabwe Essay Example for Free

Social Cultural and Economic Context of Zimbabwe Essay The fall of the Ian Smith led Rhodesian government led to Zimbabwe gaining its independence in 1980. The ZANU PF government led by then Prime Minister Mugabe of the ZANU PF party embraced a policy of national reconciliation between races in order to encourage amity, nation-building and economic growth between the country’s white minority and black majority racial groups. This lead to a period of growth throughout the 1980s, the economy performed extremely well, which led the Central government expenditure to triple and increase its share from 32. % of GDP in 1979 to 44. 6% in 1989(Hazzlewood, 1967:284). Having inherited a socially skewed system of allocation of resources from its predecessor, the ZANU PF government began to rectify this distribution of resources from the mainly white domiciled areas in the urban areas and commercial farms to rural parts of Zimbabwe focusing on provision of clean water (Transitional National Development Plan, pp. 61-62), and providing educational resources in areas where prior to independence there had been none (International Education Journal, 2005, 6(1), 65-74 Gibbs Y.  Kanyongo). However towards the end of the 80’s the growth experienced shortly after independence waned and by the early 90’s Zimbabwe fell into an economic crisis forcing it to implement IMF and World Bank proposed Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) which was designed to lure investors into the country and remove any limitations on growth on the country. This policy forced the government to create a free market place in which the government’s reach would be miniscule and market forces would rule the day (Dansereau, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’, p. 3). This policy eroded what little socio-economic gains that had been made in the first decade of the newly independent state (L. Sachikonye, ‘Whither Zimbabwe? Crisis and Democratisation) by introducing government spending on the socialist policies such as free education and projects with the intention of improving the infrastructure of the country to those habitant in the rural areas of the country who had been neglected by the former colonial government. This was followed by the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) included among other things, removal of price and wage controls, reduction of government expenditure, a 40 per cent devaluation of Zimbabwean Dollar, removal of subsidies on basic consumer goods, a radical restructuring of various parastatals and other public enterprises (Sichone, 2003:1). SAPs also coincided with the years of drought (1992, 1993, 1995) which put a heavy burden on an economy that was mainly reliant on commercial agriculture through its export of teas, cotton and tobacco. This already fragile economy was later shattered by the war veterans unbudgeted pay outs in 1997 which culminated in what is widely referred to as â€Å"Black Friday†14th of November 2007(L. Mambondiani :newzimbabwe. com). Already reeling the economy took another hit via the chaotic fast-track land reform that took place in 2000 which led to the United States freezing lines of credit by means of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001. This land reform led to vastly inexperienced persons receiving large tracts of farmland with virtually no experience which resulted in a substantial decrease in agricultural yields (Dancaescu, Nick.  Note. Land reform in Zimbabwe. 15 Fla. J. Intl L. 615 (2003). This led to an enormous decline in agricultural production which in turn led to chronic food shortages which were borne by the people of Zimbabwe. This further compounded by underperforming state owned enterprises whose debt obligations were undertaken by the government. This led to rampant inflation which by 2008 had reached +11 000 000 per cent July leading to the rebasing of the currency by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe by removing 3 zeros and issuing new bearer checks which did nothing to alleviate the situation as the zeros quickly reappeared . On top of all this Zimbabwe also had a spiralling external debt amounting to US$3 968 million. With the harmonized elections of 2008 which resulted in the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) there was the complete abandonment of the Zimbabwean dollar and the adoption of the multi-currency (South African Rand, Tswana Pula and the US Dollar). This led to some growth which although was very small was a positive change as compared to what Zimbabwe had experienced in the last eight years. Upon becoming the Prime Minister Of Zimbabwe in the Independent era from 1980 Mugabe preached a policy of reconciliation involving members of competing political parties in his early cabinet such as Joshua Nkomo leader of PF ZAPU and other whites who had previously worked under the colonial regime. However these policies were not to last long as from 1983 to 1984 there was a major suppression of Nkomo and his supporters based on what could be defined as ethnic basis. With government setting curfews in Matabeleland here Nkomo’s support base resided which was mainly the Ndebele tribe as opposed to the Shona tribe which Mugabe hailed from. The sending in of the army, in particular the North Korean trained 5th brigade which attempted to supress the â€Å"dissidents† through a campaign of mass violence campaign, known as the Gukuruhundi, or (strong wind) which resulted in as many as 20,000 civilian deaths. This eventually led to Nkomo’s part agreeing to be swallowed by ZANU PF via the signing of the Unity Accord in 1987 thereby making Zimbabwe for all intents and purposes a one party state. This status-quo remained for much of the 90’s with ZANU PF stifling any opposition to its power by amending the constitution following the lapsing of the 1980 Lancaster agreement, restoring corporal and capital punishment and denying recourse to the courts in cases of compulsory purchase of land by the government. Attempts by students trade unionists and workers to protest via demonstrations being curtailed via banning of anti-government protests by the police. This growing swell of antagonism by these various groups culminated in the creation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999. In 2000 besides the clear voter intimidation of opposition supporters the MDC managed to win 57 of the 120 seats in the parliamentary elections. These effect of these results then coloured the months leading up to the 2002 presidential election where intimidation and violence was rife towards opposition. The outcome of these elections were Mugabe wining by a large margin although international observers did call them to be rigged in the sense that the pre-election environment was neither free nor fair, and the election itself was marred by significant fraud and rigging regional opinion was however mixed. The resulting legal challenge against these results by the MDC by 2004 still did not have a ruling which resulted in the the United States, the EU, and other European countries imposed travel restrictions against senior Zimbabwean officials and embargoed the sale of arms to Zimbabwe. The US and the EU also froze the financial assets of selected ruling party officials. In 2005 the MDC party then spilt into two separate parties with one retaining the MDC name under Welshman Ncube and the other being called MDC-T which was under its founding party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The acrimonious split occurred over differing views over the party’s participation in the 2005 Senate elections. Tsvangirai’s camp didn’t want to contest these elections on the premise that the MDC had released a statement in 2004 stating that they would not participate in any elections till conditions prevailed for free and fair elections whilst the Ncube led faction was of the opposite opinion. In 2008 the harmonised elections first round the Tsvangirai led MDC was adjudged to have won won 47. % and Mugabe won 43. 2%, thereby necessitating a run-off. These figures however seen by many international observers to have been massaged as the results for the first round of elections took nearly five weeks to be released. The period leading up to the runoff between Mugabe and Tsvangirai saw an unprecedented wave of violence aimed towards supporters of MDC-T, resulting in the death of up to a 100 of Tsvangirai’s supporters leading him to pull out of the election s citing this violence. This resulted in the Government of National Unity (GNU) which was mediated by the Southern African Community Development (SADC) where a power sharing coalition was negotiated between Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Ncube. The GNU was given a life span of five years in which the negotiated terms of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) which govern it where meant to be put into legislature with the hope of putting in systems such as a new constitution that will reform Zimbabwe to the point of having free and fair elections. Implementation of the GPA has however been fraught with disagreement with the pure lack of sincerity on ZANU PF’s part on stalling the reforms such as the repealing of repressive legislature like the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) which have been used to bar the MDC’s and civil society from holding rallies to simple internal meetings.

The Sperm and the Egg Essay Example for Free

The Sperm and the Egg Essay Rhettman Mullis The Sperm and the Egg Hello, my name is Eve and today is going to be the most exciting day of my life. It has been a really long journey but I have finally made it to the infundibulum, this is the outer part of a women’s fallopian tube. My medical name is known as â€Å"Ova†, but to my friends I am known as Eve or Egg. I have recently been in contact with a germ cell named Adam. His medical name is known as â€Å"Sperm† and he lives inside of a human body of a male. Adam and I have been dreaming and planning this adventure for quite some time now. I am just praying that when we finally do meet that everything goes according to plan. You see, this day is so important because when Adam and I meet we will be joining as one to create a life. When we unite we will create either a male or female embryo which will grow into a baby. This process all starts with the life of a female human being. When a female child is born they are born with all the ova they will ever have throughout their life, which is about 2 million. After about 15-17 years that child is more developed and goes through a stage in their life called puberty. Only about 400, 00 of the 2 million Ova make it through this stage in a women’s life. I was lucky enough to be one of those 400, 00 who made it through. After this stage myself and the remaining ova resided in a thin capsule inside the women’s ovaries called the follicle. When the woman has reached her reproductive years and the ova have reached their full ripened potential they will be released in hopes of fertilization. There are only about 400 ripened ova that typically make it to possible fertilization. This is roughly 1ova per month (Rathus, S. A. , Nevid, J. S. , amp; Fichner-Rathus, L 2011) and today is my day, the day I have been planning my whole life. Today is the day Adam and I will embark on a journey to create a life. I have just been released and am now making my way to the fallopian tube. Once I reach the fallopian tube I will wait for Adam patiently and we will set off on our journey together. Traveling down the fallopian tube is about a 4 inches long, and will not be a quick trip, however it is vital. The fallopian tube works like a passageway to help nourish and conduct myself and other ova passing through on our way to the uterus. Cilia are hair like projections that line the fallopian tube that help me along my journey. The cilia move me through the tube about 1 inch day. Fertilization usually occurs in the infundibulum, within a couple of inches of the ovaries because ova must be fertilized within a day or two after they are released from the ovaries. Rathus, S. A. , Nevid, J. S. , amp; Fichner-Rathus, L. 2011). During which my host will begin the ovulation process, and within two weeks we will have either created a life or my host will menstruate. Adams journey will begin in the seminiferous tubules, which is located inside of male’s testes. While in this location Adam will develop which will take about 2 months for him to reach his full ripened potential. Onc e Adam is developed and ready to go he will travel to the epididymis where he will be carried to the urethra from the force of ejaculation. Once in the urethra Adam will meet a mixture of secretions that were created by his host’s prostate gland. This mixture that was created will help Adam find his way to Eve to begin their journey together. When Adam’s host is sexual aroused and is about the ejaculate his pelvic muscles will begin to contract. Adam will now leave the males body through the releasing of the mixture through the penis and inserted in the vagina. Once Adam and I meet we will begin the fertilization process. This is where we will begin to create the human life we have always dreamed about. Adam’s 23 chromosomes from the father’s sperm cell combine with the 23 chromosomes from the mother’s ovum, furnishing the standard ensemble of 46 in the offspring. Among the 23 chromosomes borne by sperm cells is one sex chromosome—an X sex chromosome or a Y sex chromosome. Ova contain X Sex chromosomes only. The union of an X sex chromosome and a Y sex chromosome Leads to the development of male offspring. Two X sex chromosomes combine to yield female offspring (Rathus, S. A. , Nevid, J. S. , amp; Fichner-Rathus, L. 2011). Adam and I have great news to present, the trip when according to plan and together we have created a baby girl. It was a long journey and at time we were not quite sure if everything was going to work in our favor. Despite it all everything worked out and we have successfully completed this mission and our goals in life. REFERENCES Rathus, S. A. , Nevid, J. S. , amp; Fichner-Rathus, L. (2011). Human sexuality in a world of diversity (8th ed. ) Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Sales and planning activities

Sales and planning activities Introduction Sales and planning activities are type of sales and operation planning processes. These activities are type of integrated management process of business according to which it is a responsibility of leaders and the managers to continuously see various objectives to focus on. There is a proper alignment of the processes or the activities included under such plans. It is very much important formally align all the process of these activities in a routine because it keeps synchronization among all the people of the organization. Sales and planning activities are about forecasting the capabilities of various department of an organization. Planning is required for every department whether it is technical department, software building or software selling department. These kinds of activities provide an exact view of information flowing in the company. Sales plan is entirely a different thing. Sales activities are related to selling any thing from the company. There are planning phases for sa les activities as well. Sales activities require a proper research about the market that what type of market, people and up to which extent the sale will be profitable. There should be an appropriate analysis about each and every aspect for performing sales activities. There are several challenges that organizations face in case of performing sales activities. These business challenges are as follows: (Sales Planning Forecasting) Ø There has to have limited view of the sales and various programs related to marketing of the product or the company itself Ø There are situation in which it becomes difficult for the company to manage sales cycles in order to neglect surprises or various drawbacks that come because of the sales cycle Ø There is no idea to the company that what is the reason behind breakdown of sale in the industry Ø It is difficult for the company to prepare an excess inventory because there is no accurate forecast with the company which basically is an effect of manufacturing various products for the people which in actual they do not want Ø It is very important for any organization to take care of the sales plan because manufacturing, scheduling and planning activities Ø Effectiveness of various activities required for this purpose Body The Aggregate Operations Plan Aggregate operation planning basically works for converting a business plan which is made for annual quarterly basis into a form of border labor plan or output plan of around six months to eighteen months. Main objective of this aggregate plan is to meet various demands required to that respective period of time. It is very much required to convert a long term plan into an operational plan because it gives a view that how come operations of the company goes around. This is done in order to ensure that all the supplies made are done in the lowest cost possible. Hence it is necessary to make an aggregate operational plan. There are different types of plans used for this aggregate operational planning, like one year plans; they are called long range plans. With long range plans there are short range plan as well which talk about short period of time. There are some middle range plans as well which are of a period of six month to eighteen months depending about the requirement of the pla n. Purpose (how it seeks optimal combination of production elements) This part will discuss various purpose of aggregate operational plan. Purpose of the plan means that how can we make different combinations of different elements of production. This is an important issue because at the starting it is very much necessary that we require an exact knowledge about what is required in the plan and what do we have to do. The main purpose of the aggregate operational plan is to convert various long range plans into middle range plans and middle range plans into shorter range plans. Aggregate operational plans are important in solving various purposes because it talks about all the operations going on in the company or the organization. The main purpose of aggregate operational plan is that it links various strategic activities like strategic plan of the company and also activity and the capacity plan with bigger categories that come into planning activities like workforce in the organization, labor force, size of the organization and also the level of produ ction in the company. As the purpose of aggregate operational plan is important, as decision rule for making plans of various activities are selected then it is an important role of the aggregate demand plan for managing the things and this how inventory of all the activities in the company are maintained. (Aggregated Sales and Operations Planning) There are other purposes of aggregate operational plan as well. Aggregate operational plan will talk about how the management in the company is organized. It gives a proper scheduling of all the activities to be done in the company. There are various projects that are run in the companies for which there are different techniques to follow; there would be different number of work force required for the particular operation. Hence it becomes obligatory for the company to make operation plan in order to get the exact view of what are the requirements of each plan. Production Planning Environment Product planning environment talks about planning to done for the company in any kind of environment. We can talk about two different kinds of environments in this. They are product planning under dynamic environment and product planning under fixed environment. In both the cases, we are doing product planning but the environment under planning to be done is absolutely different. Situation under which plans are to be made for the company are of different types. First we will talk about production planning to be done in dynamic environment. There are various productions planning that we can see in the day to day life. An example of production planning in dynamic environment is done. We can take an example of any electronic product. When we talk about product planning activities, there are two steps that take most important place like fabrication and equipment assembly. These are the two important process of production planning. It is very important to have different environmental scanning of production planning environment because demands of the customers are really uncertain. None of the companies can expect what they can want. Only they know about that. High level of services has to be provided to the customers in order to get success in the market and for this purpose it is important to have production planning activities. Production planning environment is a significant thing of operation plan. A production planning environment gives suggestion to the planning of any activity about what needs to be done in order to get success. Planning is very important because without planning any thing would not be that easy because the numbers of activities to be running in a company at a time are infinite and it would be really difficult to carry on all the activities simultaneously without making operational plans or aggregate operational plans. (Stephen C. Graves, 1985) For production planning, there are various techniques that are used in any company. It is important to use techniques for planning activities because these techniques make work very easy for the company and it can spend more time in thing about these plans are orally making the plans so that plans are made with an efficiency. Production planning environment help in making this plan more efficient because these are reason behind changing plans for the same activities for different situations. There might be possible that for example company has to product a product in a city with a particular population. Let us suppose that population of the company does not increase in six months. After six months, there may be possible that the company is manufacturing lesser number of quantities of the product for same population. Reason could be Season Change. Hence we can not predict the environment so easily hence production planning is required according to the environment of the company. Relevant Costs Relevant costs of the aggregate planning vary according to the range of the plan or we can say bigger the plan higher would be the cost. Aggregate Planning Techniques There are various types of aggregate planning techniques that a company can adopt. They are as follows: Intuitive Aggregate Planning technique: In case of Intuitive aggregate planning technique we always use intuitive management, experience of various official of the company and thumb rules in order to get successful planning in the company. In case of intuitive planning technique, there are graphical methods and spreadsheets analysis is used for the planning activity. There are various advantages as well as disadvantages of this technique. The biggest advantage that we can see of intuitive aggregate planning is that it is very much easy to explain and there would not any difficulty to the higher management in order to explain planning phases of any activity. With easy in explanation, it is easier in use as well. Any one can use this technique and make the required plans. If we talk of the disadvantages of intuitive aggregate planning technique as well, main disadvantage we see is that there are various solutions which mean more than one solutions possible for the strategy or strategic planning not just one. Hence it become very much difficult to search for the optimal solution required for making the best plan. LEVEL PRODUCTION STRATEGY: Another strategy that we can talk of that is other technique is level production strategy. In this level product strategy, it is necessary to find various requirements about time that plan would take it always will keep a track on the schedule of the plan. With this it will give average time that will be required to make any plan. According to level product technique of aggregate operational planning Avg. requirements = total requirements opening inv. + closing inv. Number of periods Steps which is used in the level production aggregate planning technique are as follows: Entry of production data is done Determination of the production level at an instant. For this, firing or hiring needs to be done Inventory level is updated then If inventory level is out of the expected then recalculate the average level production which will be needed and again go to step no. 1. This acts as a recursive process For each of the categories on which we are working, calculate total for each requirement, inventory, hiring and firing and finally we get entire total In the last step we calculate the final cost Intuitive Mixed Technique: Under this technique, hit and try method is used for getting the solution for the planning activity. In this technique Excel is used in order to model the problem and in order to investigate which solution is most effective. An appropriate structure is used in order to find optimal solution. Excel Solver technique is used. Chase Technique: Chase technique is said to be one of the best techniques of aggregate planning. In this technique capacity of the company is adjusted according to the demand of the customers. Planning horizon is set so that work force and production schedule is adjusted according to the plans that are made. There are various advantages as well as disadvantages of this technique. Advantage of chase technique of aggregate planning is that in this kind of planning anticipation inventory is not necessary for the company while planning and investment in the inventory has a lower range. With this advantage there is another advantage that full utilization of resources and labor takes place in this technique If we talk about the disadvantages of chase technique of aggregate planning, money spent on adjusting various capacities like work force and others is very high which is not affordable by all the companies. Hence they try to avoid this technique. Another disadvantage is that it goes for a proper disaffection of the workforce. These are the two main disadvantages of chase technique of aggregate planning Level Approach: Level approach of aggregate planning is again the second best approach of aggregate planning. Under this technique, capacities like workforce, schedule of production and rate of outputs are constant for the entire period of the planning horizon. There are various advantages and disadvantages of this technique Advantage of level approach of aggregate planning is that there is an absolute stability in the rates of output and level of workforce Disadvantages are that investment for the inventory management is more than other techniques. Overtime for any job or idle time for nay work is more than normal techniques. There is variability in the resource utilization which means that there are times when resources are maximum utilized by the company but there are several situations when resources are not utilized by the company up to a mark able extent (AGGREGATE PLANNING) The necessity to balance between the Aggregate Demand the aggregate production capacity) This is necessary that there has to be a proper balance to be maintained between aggregate demand and aggregate production capacity. We will explain these terms of two different scenarios as examples. First we can give an example, let us suppose that aggregate demand in the market is more than what is produced by the company. In this scenario, it is true that company will not be able to satisfy the needs of the customers. Hence there will be fight for the products or services. Problems that occur because of this situation would be black marketing. Company will take an advantage of this scenario and will sell the product or services are a higher cost. Company will take more money for the same product which it used to take earlier. And problem would be that customer will have to pay the amount if it would not have the alternatives for the same. In the other scenario, we take an example where aggregate production is more than what ever is expected by the customers or what is needed by the customers. In this situation, company will produce more and market or the customers will require less because of which company has to stop the production or there may be possibility that product that has already been used by the customers and rest of the product will get wasted. This will give loss to the company. Hence it is necessary that aggregate demand and aggregate production should be same for best possible result of the aggregate planning The difference in aggregates sales and operation planning in different industries An aggregate sale is the term that is associated with the factor of aggregate planning in different possible modes. This can either be defined in long-range planning, intermediate-range planning, or short-range planning. This process is entirely dependent on the type of organization that is being taken into consideration. This is due to the fact that its predecessor, i.e. operations planning will be highly influenced by the type of organization and the industry it is operating. Also the fact that aggregate sales is the final outcome that is dependent on a number of variables and can be maximized by improving the efficiency of all the operating units in a well coordinated manner. Operations planning and sales are the two aspects that are related with each other to a core extent. Thus various facets of operations like MPS (Master Production Schedule), MRP (Material Requirements Planning), Rough cut Capacity Planning, Capacity Requirements Planning, and Ordering Scheduling can be held responsible for enhancing the aggregate sales of an organization, thus making it possible to gain an upper edge over its competitors. This can be explained with the help of IT industry and Telecommunication sector. An organization operating in Information Technology sector mainly considers human resource as its most important asset. Thus most of the aspects of operation are related to this particular factor only without taking any other feature into consideration. This makes Human Resource Manager as one of the highly influential authority in operations management and planning procedure that in turn is liable to raise aggregate sales of the company while in case telecommunication sector there are certain changes. In this case employees working in the organization plays an important role, but not as crucial as in previous case. In this particular industry, technological perspective that is a part of inventory is one major part required in this sector from operations point of view. This can also be understood from the fact that aggregate sale is the outcome that is generated by offering a specific or diversified service or product to its customers by an organization. Thus it has to be understood that it is just acting as a front end and should possess high end coordination with its source that is operational units and it entirely responsible for taking care of the production associated with the service or product of the company. (Frequently Asked Questions About Sales and Operations Planning) This can further be clarified by taking into account textile industry. Textile industry is one of its kind as for this particular industry it is highly inevitable to maintain quality standards at different sections of production. Various sources of raw material act as an elementary part for the operations management to be taken appropriate care. Its aggregate sales are quite difficult to retain as compared to many other industries as it is highly prone to external problems which may result in loosing fate in the competitive scenario. Due to this extremely high inter-dependency, aggregate sales and operations planning seems to be same but they are highly different from each other that have to be taken proper care in best possible manner for overall development of the organization. In this particular case factors like production rate, workforce level, inventory on hand, and production planning will be the factors that will be acting as prime contributors in making operational part to b e a successful implementation for the organization operating in this domain. It will further be taking supply of raw material sources like polyester, etc for making it possible that operations are carried out in best possible manner without creating any ambiguity in the vicinity. While aggregate sales will take relevant costs associated with all the above mentioned parameters into account so as to maximize this particular feature and define proficiency of the company among its rivals. This can be explained further with the help of a characteristic adopted by certain companies following JIT (Just in Time) approach. This approach laid its prime focus over inventory management in order to make sure that operational aspects of the company are handled in best possible manner and minimum possible time. This saves a number of expenses of the company which otherwise it has to carry like warehousing, etc. This approach can be applied in any organization working in any domain but it will be s uccessful only when different departments working together are present in highly close vicinity. This has to be made sure that this meticulous prerequisite is satisfied in every possible manner otherwise this approach will fail deliberately. This approach is generally followed Japanese companies because of readily available material in the market and will probably fail in case it is applied in UAE because of completely different scenario. This define difference in the operation planning and aggregate sales in an explicit manner as aim to maximize aggregate sales remains same for all the companies while operations planning depends on a number of factors. As for example, region in which that particular organization is operating makes an intense affect on the type of market and clientele it is serving. There is also a possibility that different industries are entirely reliant over its operational part while rest of them makes very minute dependency over its operational aspects, which d emonstrate main difference between these characteristics in a well defined manner and cannot be ignored. Echelon of difference may vary from low to high extent and should be taken care appositely as it is one of the most important features for an organization regardless of its industry. The importance of choosing the right strategy to plan operations The function of operations plan or strategy is to provide a map for the operations task so that it can build the most excellent use of its assets and resources. Operations strategy states the plans and policies for utilizing the firms resources to hold its long-standing competitive strategy. The figure provided below shows this association. It is to keep in brain that the operations task is accountable for managing the resources required to create the companys services and goods. Operations strategy is the map that specifies the plan and use of assets to bear the business strategy. This comprises the location, dimension, and type of facilities obtainable; employee skills and talents necessary; utilization of technology, special equipment, special processes needed; and quality control techniques. It is necessary that the operations strategy of the firm must be associated with the firms business strategy and facilitate the firm to attain its long-term goals. Now as different companies has different values to parameters like size, location, skill requirement of workers, types of facility for production and goals to be achieved, it is clear that both the appropriate selection of operation strategy and industry specific selection of operation strategy is necessary for the firm. For instance, the business strategy of a company called FedEx, the globes largest provider of accelerated delivery services, is to fight on time and reliability of deliveries. Talking about the operations strategy of the company, the operation strategy of FedEx formed a plan for resources to hold its business plan or strategy. To provide pace of delivery, the company acquired its personal convoy of airplanes. To provide reliability of deliveries, the company invested in complicated bar code machinery to footpath all packages. The significance of choosing right Operations Strategies: Operations plan did not come to the vanguard until the early 1970s. Till that time, companies in United States highlighted mass manufacturing of standard product intends. Till that time, there were absence of any grave international rivals, and companies in United States were pretty much free to sell anything they created. Yet, that altered in the year 1970s and 1980s. Japanese firms entered the market and began presenting products of better quality at lesser cost, and U.S. firms lost market capture to their Asian counterparts. In an effort to stay alive, many U.S. firms copied Japanese techniques. Unluckily, just copying these techniques often proved ineffective; it took time to actually understand Japanese techniques. It became obvious that Japanese companies were extra aggressive since of their operations strategy; which is, all their assets and resources were exclusively designed to openly support the firms general strategic plan. In a review, Michael Porter, a professor at Harva rd Business School says that firms often do not recognize the dissimilarity between strategy and operational efficiency. Operational efficiency is doing operations tasks fine, even superior than opponents. On the other hand, Strategy is a map for staying in the marketplace. A likeness might be that of organizing a race capably, but it might be the incorrect race. Strategy is crucial in kind of race you will triumph. Strategy and Operational efficiency must be united; otherwise one may be very competently performing the incorrect task. The function of operations plan or say strategy is to make certain that all the odd jobs performed by the process function are the correct tasks. Think about a software business that freshly invested thousands of dollars in budding software with features or services not provided by opponents, only to determine that these were services customers did not predominantly desire. Now that we recognize the sense of operations strategy and business strategy and their significance, it is clear that the software firm introduced here has performed the operation of developing new features very professionally but is not the correct task as people are not very interest ed in the new features developed. Inputs required to the production planning process: The production planning process is an aggregate process which depends on a number of factors internal and external to the organization. If we define these factors, they are basically the manpower, technical planning like engineering and maintenance planning, information of marketing, quality control, investment planning and distribution planning, These factors can be categorized into two parts: internal and external to the organization. Talking about the internal inputs to the production planning process, it may include manpower availability, machinery, and technology. Talking about the external requirements of the planning process, this includes factors like financial availability, demand/marketing estimation, distributors, customer expectation of quality and distributors. The correlation between these variables and production planning process can be shown by the following diagram. It is clear form the diagram that both internal and external factors and say internal and external inputs defined above are essential parameters of production planning process. Strategies to meet demand Cut and Try Method: Cut and try method can be seen as one of the popular and easy to handle methods for the aggregate planning. This strategy helps the company to analyze the status of the project planning under different consideration. The basic structure of the plans assists the analysts to come to a conclusion to what plan could be successful under which circumstances. The various aspects of the project planning are highlighted and it becomes more effective for the management to take decision regarding the planning. The working of the cut and try method can be studied as four different strategies deployed in the aggregate plan work sheet. These are as follows: Production Plan 1 or The Chase strategy: This particular section of the method employs two very significant parameters namely, workforce and production. It analyses the situation under the condition when the exact production is given but the workforce is varying. It checks the ratio between rate of production and the order rate. In other ways, it could be said that it studies the effect which could be caused on this ratio by hiring employees and by laying them off as per requirement varies. Production Plan 2 or the Stable Workforce strategy: This method of the cut and try involves the constant workforce. In this the case the factor which varies includes inventories and stock-outs. The variation in output is caused because of variation in the working hours the employees due to the non-rigidity in the time schedules allowing overtimes and an altering number of hours of work. Production Plan 3 or the Level strategy: This technique employs low workforce which is constant in nature. This is realized with the help of Subcontracting. In this strategy, output rate or the production rate is constant and the workforce is also invariant. All the shortages or excess or in other words surpluses are absorbed by the fluctuations caused in the various levels of the inventory, backlog in the order and the sales which were lost. Production Plan 4 or the mixed strategy: Overall objective of this method is to optimize cost which it does by employing multiple strategies mentioned previously, two or more, together. It schedules overtime and also the workforce is kept constant. Now let us consider the example of The CA J Company. Generally a company which has a pronounced seasonal variation plans its production for whole one year. This is so that the extreme demands of the busiest and slowest months can be captured altogether. In this, companys plan for six months has been illustrated. Similarly data[i] for remaining parameters is taken as: Materials: Rs. 100.00/unit Inventory holding cost: Rs. 1.50/unit/month Marginal cost of stock-out: Rs. 5.00/unit/month And so on. Software like, Microsoft excel make the calculation more convenient. However, it should always be taken care that cut and try method might not always give optimum solution Software available nowadays can give more optimized results as they are more sophisticated. Aggregate Planning Applied to Services: Tucson Parks and Recreation Department Aggregate planning can be applied to various services so as to get the optimum and the most beneficiary solution. These can be implemented using charted techniques or methods involving the graphical representations of the plans. Such techniques are employed by the Tucson parks and recreation department. The main objective of this firm is to demonstrate the citys department of parks and recreation can be involve alternatives of the employees working full-time as well as the part time employees and also utilizing benefits of the subcontracting techniques in order to fulfill its commitment to provide a useful service to the city. This institution is required to maintain and produce open spaces, gardens, tennis courts, pools, all recreational centers and so on. The data used in the example is as follows: The total budget is allocated of Rs. 9,760,000. The number of the full time employees is 336. Among these 336, 216 employees are such that they are full time permanent personnel who involved with working of maintenance all the year round and are responsible for the administration. The remaining 120 full time employees are divided into two sections. They are staffed with part timers. About three-quarters of these are deployed in summers and the remaining one-quarter work in spring, fall, and winters seasons. The three fourth or 90 full time employees turn up about 800 part time jobs of summers like those of lifeguards, instructors in some children schools or training programs and baseball umpires, etc. Part time jobs last for a month or two while full time employers last for whole one year. Hence considering many other factors and the data, we can conclude that the department is open to the following three options regarding the development: The present method is continued. According to which, they have to maintain full time employees at a medium level and hence schedule work in the off seasons ( such reconstructing baseball fields in the months of winters) and then use them as a part time assistance during peak seasons. Second option is to maintain a low level of the staff around the year. Whenever there is a requirement of more staff, technique of subcontracting could be used. All additional works currently done by full time employees with the assistance of part time employees. Third option is to hire only administrative staff and subcontract all the remaining work with the help of the part time staff people. This technique will consequently result in contracts to various landscaping firms and companies responsible for maintaining pools and will also give

The Value of Information :: Technology Information Essays Papers

The Value of Information In the world today, information is an important aspect in almost every part of our life. From what time the movie we want to see begins to whether we should buy stock in Dell or IBM, we depend on accurate information. Is this kind of information a commodity? The dictionary defines a commodity as something valuable or useful (Webster 1993). Presently, information is a commodity because people are willing to pay high prices for information in order to make better decisions. In this paper, I will give many examples of how information acts as a commodity. I will also show how information acts as a commodity in other areas than just technology and business. The kind of information I will explore is the knowledge of a specific news or event derived from study, experience or instruction(Webster 1993). This type of information is not something everyone can have access to. This information can separate the successful companies from the one ¹s struggling to survive. This information is valuable, and can be bought, sold traded and even stolen. It can be the most important asset a company owns. One aspect where information acts as something valuable is in the area of sports. The National Football League is a billion dollar business. The careers of coaches, players and general managers can rest on one play or one game. To minimize mistakes or to find any advantage, teams spend millions of dollars to pay scouts to provide useful information. One part of putting together a winning team is doing well on draft day. Teams do a tremendous amount of research on every player who is eligible to be drafted. The NFL has its own private investigation firm. It is called NFL Security, and it is rarely seen or discussed. Its job is to compile information about every possible draftee. If players smoke marijuana at Saturday-night parties, it's probably in their files. If players stay in bars past 2 A.M., it's probably in their files (Sports Illustrated p.34). The purpose of NFL Security is to prevent a team from investing millions of dollars in a player who might have drug or other problems that could prevent a player from performing up to a certain standard. "For the amount of money involved here, the employers would like to know good hard facts about their potential players. Employers deserve that. And we're going to give it to them," says Mike Ahlerich, an employee at NFL Securities (Sports Illustrated p.

The spread and localization of Buddhism and Islam into Southeast Asia E

The spread of religion first began through contact with neighbouring countries which gradually expand throughout the years. Buddhism and Islam are one of the most widespread religions across Southeast Asian countries like Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Trade merchants and imperial support of the religion played as major factors which facilitated and localised the spread of Buddhism and Islam within various countries. However, there were limitations present which hindered the development of each religion in Southeast Asia as introduction of newer religions and changes within imperial power which would have affected their progression to become fully localised pre-1800s. After the death of Buddha around the 5th century, divisions within the religion began to grow due to differences in the interpretation of Buddha’s teaching thus resulted in Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism (Bowker 2007, 140-141). Till this day, Theravada Buddhism persists predominant in Southeast Asia. Theravada Buddhism focuses their beliefs on the personal liberation whilst Mahayana Buddhism regards itself on the teaching of compassion for every living being (Berzin 2010). The spread of Buddhism, mainly Theravada, first began around early 3rd century BCE when Buddhist emissaries were sent to Indonesia and Burma by Indian emperor Asoka (Gosling 2002, 84-85). During and after his reign, his constant advocacy had sustained the faith’s position throughout Southeast Asia, influencing his children to introduce Buddhism into Sri Lanka during the first and second century CE (Gosling 2002, 82) which spread across to Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam (Swearer 1997, 90). This was further developed due to the mass influx of Indian merc... ...ry CE when Muslim merchants, accompanied by missionary Sufis, from India and Arabia arrived through the Indian Ocean trade route for business (Johnston 2002, 291). However, it wasn’t until the 13th century when Islam began to spread across Southeast Asia from Sumatra through to Java until reaching Borneo and Philippines in the 16th century (Houben 2003, 153). Trade was not the only purpose indicated from Muslim merchants as Sufis brought about the localization of Islamic organisations for Islamic teachings which would appeal to locals and their rulers for valuable networks (Johnston 2002, 291). This presence of Islam was recorded by Moroccan traveller Marco Polo in the late 13th century which indicated the advancement of Islam localisation where citizens of Perlak, Sumatra and the Pasai king, Sultan Al-Malikus Saleh were already converted as Muslims (Mutalib 2008).

McDonalds Cross-Cultural Analysis Essay

Introduction The Internet has made the world a smaller place, especially when it comes to online business – it’s now just as easy for a company to attract customers in Nairobi as it is in Nevada. This technological globalization doesn’t translate to cultural homogeneity, though–while you might be able to find a McDonalds in nearly every city on earth now, that doesn’t mean that every city eats and thinks and shops in the same way. Every national and cultural group in the world retains its own language, its own metaphors, its own identity, and thus, its own way of shopping. At about the same pace as the popularity of the Internet increased, visions flourished of the World Wide Web as a tool for bringing the world together. The marketing world in particular quickly embraced the Internet as an ideal medium for reaching beyond domestic markets in order to disseminate products to foreign markets. By understanding how communication styles may be reflected on websites, we come a step further towards identifying, and subsequently realizing the potentials of, the interactive nature of the Internet. This would be rewarding not only from the marketing perspective, but also for those organizations that are working on bringing the world closer together through dialogue. Intercultural communication competence, as Chen and Starosta [1] note, is imperative for human progress, and it is by studying communication  styles and understanding how to use them that we may be able to communicate more clearly, and promote dialogue between â€Å"us† and â€Å"them.† The interactive and global nature of the Internet has fostered many visions of mutual understanding among cultures, although the means for achieving this are still at a very early, exploratory stage. A number of studies on the relationship between website design and cultural dimensions have been conducted. Studies like Marcus and Gould [2] and Sheridan [3] analyzed both commercial and non-commercial websites in an effort to identify relationships between Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and visual presentation on the. In this work also were used Hofsted’s researches[4, 5], mainly his typology of cultures that is the most widely accepted and frequently cited theories. Also Hall’s description of some cultural dimensions was used [1, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Kluckhohn’s and Strodtbeck’s ‘Variations in value orientations’[11], Gudykunst’s [12] and Lewis’s [13] researches devoted to cultural specifics of different countries are mentioned in this study. In this work we will try to analyze the effectiveness of communication between company and customers on current websites of McDonald’s in the next five countries: Ukraine, Russia, Germany, America and Canada; and make some recommendations how to improve them according to their cultural specifics. 1 Theoretical Issues and Ideas 1.1 Website as Method of Communication between Company and Its Customers The Internet becomes more and more popular all over the world. People use it for communication, business or just to look for the information they need. The Internet is a truly global thing. Growing importance of Internet is making communication through websites between companies and customers more and more significant. The Internet environment is not only a simple tool to promote a business, but it also offers opportunities to supply information; it is an efficient platform to communicate with the clients. It’s great opportunity for companies to get feedback from their customers; attract them and improve the vision of the company. Significant result of effective communication is improved branding. If the message or purpose of the company is communicated effectively to visitors, it will leave an impression on them  that will help form their image of the company. Branding is important online and off, and the messages being sent are a major factor. Website is cost effective, pa per free communication. Using website, company can reach the wider audience and it’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so it can distribute information internally within the organization, as well as to share information with business partners, clients and suppliers. New customers will be able to locate company and company’s information and will always know where to contact the company. [14]] Company can inform customers about changes, sales, bonus campaigns, etc.; gain valuable market research, to build trust and finally reduce printing and mailing costs. A professional-looking site can help company to be taken seriously and build credibility and trust. Many consumers search for information online before purchasing at a physical store; company’s site can make a good first impression on a potential customer. At the same time customers can express their attitude towards company, their wishes and judgments about different campaigns or products proposed by the company. Developing a web-site makes it possible a very good communication with the clients and this leads, finally, to a constant adaptation of the company’s offer to the continuously changing customers’ requests. The most efficient web-site is the one that is integrated into company’s informatics system. By creating its own website, a company gets the possibility to influence in a positive way, the evolution of its activity. This way, the company becomes more efficient, with a more flexible internal functionality, more careful with the customers’ needs and expectations.[15] 1.2 McDonald’s Corporation McDonald’s Corporation is the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries, and there is the same number of websites nowadays. Currently 1.7 million people work for Brand McDonald’s. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948 they reorganized their business as a hamburger stand using production line principles. Businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent in 1955. He subsequently purchased the chain  from the McDonald brothers and oversaw its worldwide growth. A McDonald’s restaurant is operated by either a franchisee, an affiliate, or the corporation itself. The corporation’s revenues come from the rent, royalties and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. McDonald’s primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburger s, chicken, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, shakes and desserts. In response to changing consumer tastes, the company has expanded its menu to include salads, wraps, smoothies and fruit. McDonald’s has a charity organization Ronald McDonald House Charities which functions in 52 countries. Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) is an independent organization whose mission is to create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and well being of children across the world. Programs are grass-roots driven to enable the Charity to offer help where children need it most—right in their own communities. RMHC has three core programs: the Ronald McDonald House, Ronald McDonald Family Room and Ronald McDonald Care Mobile. McDonald’s started its global diversity journey by creating the Global Women’s Initiative in 2009. This initiative is active in all of McDonald’s operating areas of the world and is sponsored globally by Don Thompson, McDonald’s COO. In each part of the world, this initiative supports the recruitment, development, and advancement of women at all levels of the company while creating a culture where wome n have the opportunity to succeed and grow. In 2011, the Catalyst organization recognized the Global Women’s Initiative as an innovative and systemic means through which women can thrive in the McDonald’s system and awarded the company the prestigious Catalyst Award. As a result of the global concentration, women’s business networks have been formed and have quickly grown. McDonald’s has for decades maintained an extensive advertising campaign. In addition to the usual media (television, radio, and newspaper), the company makes significant use of billboards and signage, sponsors sporting events ranging from Little League to the Olympic Games, and makes coolers of orange drink with its logo available for local events of all kinds. Nonetheless, television has always played a central role in the company’s advertising strategy. ‘I’m lovin’ it’ is an international branding campaign by McDonald’s Corporation. It was created by Heye & Partner, a longtime McDonald’s agency based in Unterhaching, Germany. It was the company’s first global advertising campaign and was launched in  Munich, Germany on September 2, 2003, under the German title ‘ich liebe es’. The English part of the campaign was launched in Australia on September 21, 2003, the UK on September 17, 2003, and in the USA on September 29, 2003 with the music of Tom Batoy and Franco Tortora and vocals by Ju stin Timberlake, in which the slogan appears. In 2007, after a public casting call which received 15,000 submissions, McDonald’s selected 24 people to appear as part of the campaign. Images of those chosen, who had submitted a story and digital photograph which â€Å"captured †¦ themes of inspiration, passion and fun,† appeared on McDonald’s paper bags and cups worldwide [16]. 1.3 Analysis’s Criteria In this study is used the collectivism versus individualism dimension, which was proposed by Geert Hofstede. Individualism is the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. Values in collectivistic cultures include training, physical condition and the use of skills whereas in individualistic cultures values are personal time, freedom and challenge. Another of Hofstede’s dimensions is power distance. This dimension expresses the degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. The fundamental issue here is how a society handles inequalities among people. People in societies exhibiting a large degree of power distance accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification. In societies with low power distance, people strive to equalize the distribution of power and demand justification for inequalities of power [17]. In F. Trompenaar’s interpretation there are the next cultural factors: equality and hierarchy. Equality corresponds with low power distance and hierarchy with high power distance. Equality is about all people having equal status. It assumes we all have equal rights,  irrespective of birth or other gift. Hierarchy is about people being superior to others. It assumes that order happens when few are in charges and others obey through the scalar chain of command [18]. One more dimension is uncertainty avoidance. According to G. Hofstede uncertainty avoidance deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man’s search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, and different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by stric t laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; ‘there can only be one Truth and we have it’ . The next criterion used in analysis is high and low context of culture, which was found by E. Hall. Hall observed that â€Å"meaning and context are inextricably bound up with each other† [19], and suggested that to understand communication one should look at meaning and context together with the code (i.e., the words themselves). By context, we refer to the situation, background, or environment connected to an event, a situation, or an individual. When communication is high-context, it is not only the non-verbal and para-verbal communication that comes into play. High-context communication draws on physical aspects as well as the time and situation in which the communication takes place, not to mention the relationship between the interlocutors. The closer the relationship, the more high-context the communication tends to be, drawing on the shared knowledge of the communicating parties. Gudykunst identified high-context communication to be indirect, ambiguous, maintaining of harmony, reserved and understated. In contrast, low-context communication was identified as direct, precise, dramatic, open, and based on feelings or true intentions. The next Hall’s cultural factor used is time. There are two types of time: monochronic time and polychronic time. Monochronic, as he called it M-Time, means doing one thing at a time. It assumes careful planning and scheduling and is a familiar Western approach that appears in disciplines such as ‘time management’. Monochronic people tend also to be low context. In Polychronic cultures, human interaction is valued over time and material things, leading to a lesser concern for ‘getting things done’ – they do get done, but more  in their own time. Aboriginal and Native Americans have typical polychronic cultures, where ‘talking stick’ meetings can go on for as long as somebody has something to say. Polychronic people tend also to be high context. According to Richard Lewis we can divide all cultures in three groups: monoactive, polactive and reactive. Monoactive cultures – it is cultures, where activity complies with clear planning and organized in definite orded, they do not approve distractions to other tasks and percept the time linearly. Polyactive cultures are people-oriented, talkative and communicative, can make several actions at ones. In reactive cultures activity depends on changing situation and appears to be a reaction on these changes. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck did some germinal work in drawing up a conceptual map which tried to include the complete range of values which it is possible for human beings to hold in relation to five key issues about which all human beings hold opinions. Orientation Postulated range of variations Human nature evil neutral mix of good and evil good changeable unchangeable changeable unchangeable changeable unchangeable Man-nature subjugation to nature harmony with nature mastery over nature Time past present future Activity being being in becoming doing Relational lineality collaterality individualism 2 Communicative Effectiveness of the Company Website in Various Countries 2.1 McDonald’s Site for Ukrainian Customers Ukrainian culture is more likely to be high-context than low context. By Hall high-context communication involves â€Å"more of the information in the physical context or internalized in the person†, that is why this cultures usually use more imagery and less text, people are expected to read between the lines and greater confidence is placed in the non-verbal aspects of communication. These features are notably represented on the ‘Ukrainian’ website: one can view the process of preparing food in stage by stage pictures with minimum accompanying text. One more example is a list of suppliers shown as a table of logotypes of these companies. Also the main page contains illustrations of dishes moving through the screen; links to other pages are given as small pictures connected with their content, for example if you want to go to the page where you can find more about quality of milk you should click the picture of a cow. So this site communicates by means of links a nd information stated in a limited amount of text with illustrations. This gives not very transparent overview of the content in the website and often requires that the user finds out the information placing the cursor over the link to reveal more content before finally clicking this link. The term transparency is borrowed from the usability field. Basing on the â€Å"Variations in Value Orientations† Ukrainians perceive an individual as a mixture of bad and good features. According to Terri  Morrison the level of trust is rather low: the Ukrainians are suspicious of other people and along with it they are likely to rely on objective factual information , based on their own experience [20]. There are a large amount of information devoted to the quality of milk and each component of food such as its composition and great diversity of food quality certificates. One more interesting feature is presence of variety of graphs which reflect the results of polls after Doors Open Day (DOD). But people in our country do not believe this information, they think it can be falsified and that the company deceives them just to gain profit. This part of content doesn’t work effectively. By Marcus & Gould strong focus on expertise, authority, certifications, official st amps or logos can be explained by high power distance. In addition the site contains a special section which describes you how to apply for participation in DOD and provides you with a video of the previous excursions. These features may appeal to relatively high level of uncertainty avoidance in Ukraine. 2.2 McDonald’s Site for Russian Customers Russia is collectivistic culture – it’s one of dimensions found be Geert Hofstede, which is characterized by tight social frameworks in which people distinguish between groups. The site promotes collectivistic values; it is reflected in the imagery of the website, such as images of the groups of people who involved in various activities like dancing, singing, coffee drinking and doing some sports. Values in collectivistic cultures include training and physical condition. ‘Russian’ website includes special section called ‘be active’, which offers different physical exercises for boys and girls and contains sets of photographs of competitions navigated in various cities. Russian culture is relatively high-context which according to E. Hall means that the most of the information is already in the person, while very little is in the explicit, transmitted part of the message. Using this feature towards website a lot of animations and pictures are ex pected, and we can find a lot of them on the ‘Russian’ site. Animation effects are represented almost on each page and a lot of photos and bright, eye catching images are also placed. The power distance dimension offered by G. Hofstede is apparent in hierarchical structure of the website. According to Marcus  and Gould high power distance is reflected in tall hierarchical website structures, either through the implementation of many pages with unstructured layout, or the opening of new browser windows for new pages, instead of the same browser window. This description completely depicts the structure of ‘Russian ’site: there are many sidebars and menus, new browser window opens for each new page. The homepage features a large collection of links, and describes clearly what lays behind them though the use of headings, subheadings and illustrations. This makes it possible for the visitor to find what he or she interested in immediately, navigation schemes intended to prevent users from becoming lost. These features may appeal to two different parameters: high uncertainty avoidance proposed by G. Hofstede to explain a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; and by Lewis R.D. polyactivity – impatience and willingness to act quickly. 2.3 McDonald’s Site for German Customers German culture is more likely to be individualistic culture than collectivistic one, according to Geert Hofstede it means that individuals expected to be independent of others and look after themselves. We can see that pictures on the site promote individualistic values like personal time and freedom: individuals shown alone, enjoying themselves and usually products are placed with them. Individualistic culture is inclined to make a direct connection between the individual and the product. We can explain this effect by referring to Marcus and Gould, who suggested that the individualism and collectivism may influence the importance given to individuals versus products shown by themselves or in groups and that in individualism images demonstrated through materialism and consumerism. German is very low-context culture and as it explained by E. Hall more explanation is needed and very little is taken for granted in this cultures. As we can see the ‘German’ website is full of text information and large amount of wordage is used on each page, whilst only two pages have animated effects and on some pages the imagery is very poor. ‘German’ website can be described as a very transparent site, which may also appeal to the low context of this culture; so it provides a detailed overview of the rest of the site on the homepage and each subheading has a small picture  corresponding with the content of relevant page. It can also be explained by high uncertainty avoidance – there are attempts to reveal or forecast the results of implications of actions before users act. Navigation through the site is linear and new pages constantly open in the same browser window – this appeals to monoactivity of German culture, which by R. Lewis means that it can make only one action during definite time. In German time is monochronic and special attention devoted to the speed of actions; websit e with the structure mentioned above is not goal-oriented and users are expected to be willing to explore the site and seek for information. Social roles are not used to organize the information it means that all sections are obvious to all users and not sealed off from them; prominence given to customers and employees – these features may appeal to the relatively low power distance. 2.4 McDonald’s Site for American Customers In contrast to Ukrainian American is low-context culture. M. Hall described low-context cultures as those in which â€Å"the mass of information is vested in the explicit code† that is why these cultures are identified, direct, precise, dramatic, open, and basing on feelings or true intentions, people don’t communicate with gestures, the meaning depends on content and the spoken word, what means a verbal communication. These features are represented on the ‘American’ website: one can read a lot of information about different kinds of hamburgers, which is presented with text and with fewer occurrences of animations. Website is kept as practical as possible and has direct sources of information, for example additional information about components contained in food is placed below the page as boxes in which you can see the process of growth of this components and an information about it, and when you click this box a new page opens and the information appear a s text without illustrations. One more example is that only the main page consists of heavy images, pop-up effects, moving elements which accompanied by scaring music; this is one more proof of the low-context of American culture. On the ‘American’ website there is a promotion tab, when you click on it a new page opens as a game, this is a fast message for people. By Halls fast message are adept at creating quick  contacts, but may also be perceived as superficial. Based on the work of Kaplan [21] and Chen and Starosta, Choe [22] low-context culture tend to emphasize logic and rationality, based on the belief that there is always an objective truth that can be reached through linear processes of discovery. Choe said â€Å"thought patterns refer to forms of reasoning and approaches to problem solution and can differ from culture to culture†. ‘American’ website implies linear navigation throughout the site, with a consistent layout throughout the pages of the site. The website per forms the explorative function. 2.5 McDonald’s Site for Canadian Customers Canada is low-context culture. According to M. Hall cultural dimensions, in low-context cultures very little are taken for granted. Whilst this means that more explanation is needed, it also means there is less chance of misunderstanding particularly when visitors are present. Many overt and explicit messages that is simple and clear, outer locus of control and blame of others for failure; visible, external, outward reaction; flexible and open grouping patterns, changing as needed; fragile bonds between people with little sense of loyalty; low commitment to relationship (task more important than relationships); time is highly organized; product is more important than process. These features are represented on the ‘Canadian’ website: all pages are rich of text, especially a category Food Quality. Based on the work of Geert Hofstede low-context culture is more likely to be individualistic one, where emphasis is put on the goals and accomplishments of the individual rather than the group. Individuals are expected to be independent of others and look after themselves. When accomplishing goals, consideration of others is limited to include only oneself and one’s immediate family. Personal values include personal time, freedom, and challenge. For example on the ‘Canadian’ website there are some information that is family oriented. There is a section called Community in which one can find a subsection called Ronald McDonald House Charities which provide families of sick children a home-away-from-home or a place of peace and calm within a hospital. By Hall, perception of time is one more peculiarity of culture. Canada belongs to monochromic culture, where time is viewed as an  important, almost tangible phenomenon. People of such cultures are oriented towards planning and scheduling, so as to perform efficiency. As an example on the ‘Canadian’ website there is a category Restaurant Location, where you can put your address and site will show you the nearest restaurant. 3 Recommendations for Improvement of McDonald’s Websites 3.1 Cultural awareness in Web Design Nowadays a website is not just a collection of text; it is a conglomerate of images, multimedia, interactive features, animated graphics, and sounds. Cross-cultural web design nowadays requires dealing with design issues that include culture-specific color connotations, preferences in layout, animation, sounds, and other effects that are characteristic of today’s generation of websites. Formatting and navigation of the website also help attracting users’ attention and interest them in using the website. In order to do this successfully, the target group of the website must be studied. Research into how your target market’s culture affects their consumer behavior should be done. Conducting an ethnographic investigation — visiting the country, viewing how they shop and what they like, studying products which have been successful in the market and seeing how these strategies can be adopted is an important step for creating a multicultural website. Market rese arch can be done by surveying potential customers from the target market and interviewing cultural experts. While user participation is ideal in the designing process, a study of the design elements prevalent in the culture may also provide the web designer with some useful guidelines. Values and behavior indoctrinated through cultural influences may be reflected in design practices. Every national and cultural group in the world retains its own language, its own metaphors, its own identity, and thus, its own way of shopping Keeping abreast of cultural and current affairs in each of the target markets is one of the key factors, as a change in circumstances may necessitate changes to the site. Research has shown that certain colors have distinct connotations in different cultures. The implications should therefore be considered when choosing the palette for the website. Similarly to the impact of color, the appropriateness of the images across various cultures should be considered. Other symbols and  images just may not be culturally relevant in other areas of the world. Studies carried out into the impact of new technologies show that users show resistance to products with Western metaphors in favour of products localized according to their cultural customs and idioms. Choosing appropriate images for the site accordingly or being prepared to use different images in separate versions of the website can be useful while creating an effective one.[23] 3.2 Potential Improvements for the McDonald’s Websites of Particular Countries Before giving recommendations we would like to mention that we can assume that a successful and globe-spanning company such as McDonald’s has done extensive focus group testing of their website and consequently customized almost each website to appeal to its user group in each target culture, to ensure that product communication is as effective as possible. As a result it won’t be easy to recommend significant changes, but still there are some cultural issues that can be improved. Ukrainian website contains a lot of imagery, but taking into account the high context of this culture, it would be better to add more animation, because the site seems to be too constant. Taking into account that Ukrainian culture is collectivistic one not only logos of McDonald’s suppliers might be on the site; some images which corresponds with its values like family, physical condition and training could be used. Importance must be given to the products shown by themselves or with groups, not to the individuals. Also stress on the Ukrainian history and traditions should feature the site to attract users’ attention. In Ukrainian culture we can see high power distance, so the strong focus on expertise and certification might have been effective, but it’s not. This culture is suspicious about people so it is better to avoid too high concentration on this information; otherwise the site is unattractive and can arouse the suspicions. On the whole it can cause negative perception of the company; people may think that McDonald’s just trying to pool the wool over their customers’ eyes. One more important thing to be considered is opening of new page. On Ukrainian website new pages open in the same window but according to Marcus & Gould study for cultures with high power distance it is more convenient to use pages, which open in the new window of browser.  To match high uncertainty avoidance the site should be structured better: more sidebars and menus can be added to simplify the navigation across the site and to prevent the user from becoming lost. It is also important because of polyactivity of Ukrainian culture; people are unwilling to seek for information and to explore the site, they need to get the clear information quickly. On the Russian website more animation can be added, for example animation of moving people is really suitable for high-context culture and also some musical support on the main page is appropriate. Information should be organized according to social roles, for example there can be special section for managers or potential investors. Thi s can be effective because of high power distance inherent to Russian culture. Also according to these feature significant emphasis should be made on the social and moral order and its symbols like national colors or traditions. To correspond with high level of uncertainty avoidance in Russia the next improvements may be efficient: addition of tiny windows which will reveal more content information when placing a cursor over a link before clicking it, in other words forecast of the results or implications of acting before users act. Russian culture is relatively feminine it means that attention to the content of the site can be attracted by usage of poetry, common idioms, visual aesthetics and appeals to unifying values. German website contains a vast animation on the main page. It’s not the best choice for low-context culture like this one; it can bewilder people and decrease the attractiveness of the site. Low power distance also dictates some important characteristics: we can find a huge section devoted to the quality of food but for German culture it ’s advised to weaken the focus on the expertise, logos and certificates. Taking into account that German is individualistic culture we can say that more prominence should be given to youth and action, the section devoted to the employment can be expanded. Individualistic cultures are expected to be willing to provide personal information, so different employees can share their experience with those who want to start a job in McDonald’s. Emphasis might be done on what is new, unique and available only in this particular company. American website contains huge amount of animation on the main page, but for the low-context country it would be better if the site contains fewer amount of digital data, less-highly structured information, minor and infrequent emphasis on the  social and moral order (e.g., nationalism or religion) and its symbols, weak focus on expertise, authority, experts, certifications, official stamps, or logos. As an individualistic country the site should contain more information or pictures to maximize motivation of people, some i mages of success: demonstrated through materialism and consumerism. Also it’s good to use rhetorical style: controversial or argumentative speech and tolerance or encouragement of extreme claim. An important thing is to give prominence to youth and action. In American culture we can see low uncertainty avoidance, so to match this fact website should simplify the complexity with maximal content and choices (do more descriptions for quicker decisions). People from country with low uncertainty avoidance accept wandering and risk, so it would be good to do some quizzes online. Canadian website, as it is also low context culture, should give more prominence to citizens, customers, or employees. There should be no restrictions or barriers to access on the site; it should be transparent, integrated, implicit freedom to roam must be present. Taking into account that Canadian culture is individualistic one they should give importance for individuals, make an emphasis on truth and what is new and unique (on the Canadian site it is hard to understand which information is fresh, all articles are mixed and undated, so it is difficult to find something new. On the Canadian website here are no graphics, sound, and animation, but for masculine country it would be good for utilitarian purposes. Also it could contain game and competitions, because an attention gained through these features. The navigation should be oriented to exploration and control. Canada is a long-term oriented country, so in fact information on the site should be focused on truth and certainty of beliefs. It could contain some rules as a source of information and credibility, because the Canadian website is made a little freely, for example, when you what to return to the previous page the site let you on the other page, which you didn’t open and sometimes it hard to find what you saw before. Conclusion In the terms of globalized ways of satisfying people’ needs, there is a trend of gradual replacement of the companies’ market-orientation with the customer-orientation. Companies’ customer-orientation implies a continuous  and detailed process of analysis regarding the potential clients’ expectations, in this way, a strong connection between customers’ needs and the quality of offered products and services being assured. Learning the cultural differences in particular countries it’s easy to understand how to attract the customers and make their researching more productivity, funny and simple. When you understand the personal, national or organizational culture, then you can seek to align with them and hence gain greater influence. Hofstede notes that some cultural relativism is necessary: it is difficult to establish absolute criteria for what is noble and what is disgusting. There is no escaping bias; all people develop cultural values bas ed on their environment and early training as children. Not everyone in a society fits the cultural pattern precisely, but there is enough statistical regularity to identify trends and tendencies. These trends and tendencies should not be treated as defective or used to create negative stereotypes but recognized as different patterns of values and thought. In a multi-cultural world, it is necessary to cooperate to achieve practical goals without requiring everyone to think, act, and believe identically. By creating its own website, a company gets the possibility to influence in a positive way, the evolution of its activity. This way, the company becomes more efficient, with a more flexible internal functionality, more careful with the customers’ needs and expectations. But still, when creating a website, all features of particular countries must be considered to make clear appeal and improve the communication between company and customers. List of References 1 Chen, G., & Starosta, W. (1998). Foundations of Intercultural Communication. Boston: Allyn and Bacon 2 Marcus, A., & Gould, E. W. (2000). Cultural dimensions and global web user-interface design: What? So What? Now What? Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Human Factors and the Web. Austin, Texas.2 3 Sheridan, E. F. (2001). 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