Terrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 14

Terrorism - Essay Example sequent to these, the following discussion aims at highlighting a case related to terrorism as shown in the movie â€Å"A Mighty Heart,† as well as my own personal opinions about terrorism. The movie a mighty heart features the world of Daniel Pearl, a reporter of the Wall Street Journal. He embarked on researching a story on a shoe bomber known as Richard Reid (Pearl, 11). The story led him to a place called Karachi where an informant was to give him details of an elusive source. As Daniel left for the meeting, he told his wife he could get late for dinner. However, Daniel never returned from this meeting. Supporters of Omar Sheikh kidnapped and beheaded him. This movie depicts one of the many incidences that have led to the death of innocent people. Daniel was in the course of doing his work, thus giving service to the society when he met his death. He was to expose facts associated with terror attacks in the U.S., thus assist in the fight against terrorism. However, the terrorists could not spare him for his bravery, leading to his demise. In response to this, I think people who opt to trend on such important missions should take such precautions as requesting for g overnment protection. In my opinion, terrorism bears adverse effects on the lives of people. It denies them the freedom to conduct their activities in a free manner as it evokes fear among them. It also hinders them from accomplishing their dreams in life as shown in the case of Daniel in the mighty heart movie. More to these, terrorism hinders the exploitation of people’s potential, thus hampering the process of development in any nation. When terror attacks are directed, for example, towards individuals, the family members of the targeted person experience a lot of suffering. The person may go missing for a considerable period leaving the family members in a confused state. The members go through a lot of emotional turmoil as they hope for a reunion with their beloved one. Eventual death of such

Oil prices and its effect on the global market Term Paper

Oil prices and its effect on the global market - Term Paper Example The developing countries are heavily dependent on oil exporting countries for their import of petroleum products. So if there is a rise in oil prices only the oil exporting countries benefit while bringing a destructive effect on the developing nations. What really affects the oil prices is the demand and supply of oil which we are going to look into detail later. The global market saw a recent surge in oil prices since the last two years with the most recent rate of today being $124 per barrel (forex.com). It was predicted that the production of crude oil must be increased by the oil producing countries to bring the prices down. The Arab oil exporters held a meeting in early 2011 in Cairo to discuss this issue but refused to increase oil production as they believe that the supply is sufficient in the market. The oil prices rose to $ 94.74 per barrel this year since October 2008 when oil prices were record breaking high. The forecasted trend is an increase in oil prices in the coming weeks touching up to $ 100 a barrel. After the financial crisis of 2008, OPEC or Oil Producing and Exporting Countries decreased their level of output in order to deliberately create a shortage so that prices go up. In 2010, the demand for oil increased and is expected to increase more in 2011. OPEC must release some of their stock and raise the supply of oil or else the prices can rise to unprecedented level of $ 150 per barrel. These unfavorable conditions can lead the world into another crisis. Body: The trading of oil is one of the most significant trading done in the world. Crude oil is a primary ingredient in many energy manufacturing and services industries. I certainly believe that oil should not be treated on the commodity exchange because it can have significant impact on the world economy. So if there is a fluctuation in oil prices it affects oil producers and exporters both. The market price for any product is determined by the demand and supply of it in the market. The desire to want something is defined as demand or when you realize that you want a product, can afford it, and have made a definite plan to buy it. The law of demand means that other things remaining the same, the higher the price of the good, the smaller is the quantity demanded The higher price of any product will reduce the quantity demanded for two reasons. A notable economist, Kotler has found that one of the reason is the substitution effect, that is, when the price of a product rises, other things remaining the same, its opportunity cost rises. Although each good is unique but has its substitutes, for example the substitute of oil in an energy producing plant could be water or solar energy to produce electricity. As the opportunity cost of a product rises, people have a tendency to buy less of that and more of its substitute. Another reason for change in quantity demanded is the income effect. When a price changes and all other influences on buying plans remaining the same, t he price rises relative to people’s incomes. So faces with a higher price and an unchanged income, people cannot afford all the things they previously bought. Subsequently, the demanded quantity reduces. Price has an inverse relationship with demand (Kotler, 2006). A supply is more than just having the resources and the technology to produce something but the

Challenges of Culture in Multinational Companies

Challenges of Culture in Multinational Companies As business becomes more global and the workforce ever diverse , the issue of culture becomes increasingly important for leaders and managers and their organisations.(Fons Trompenaars and peter [emailprotected] pg 3).In the present context of global business multinational companies are increasingly grappling with many challenges that arise mainly due to phenomenon of cultural complexity specially in situations where merger and acquisition, franchising ,takeovers and various other business reformation takes place. This phenomena specially call for establishment of sound system of human resource management which along with organisation culture is considered to be important requirement for modern management in such companies. The proposed study makes an attempt to investigate how the organisation culture of a multinational company gets transferred to a country other than its own with different national identity by the form of local human resource management. 2.1 Culture and nation: There are numerous definitions of culture that have been produced over the years. In search for an appropriate definition ,it would appear that there are many facets, with emphasis shifting according to the individual author.(Goffee and jones,1998).Moreover culture is impalpable, making definitions hard to relate .(Schein,1985;Goffee and jones,1998).However, reviewing a number of definitions does lead to the identification of common thread in thinking. Formal writing focused on the organisation culture concept began with Pettigrew(1979),He was the one who initiated the concept of culture which is primarily appertaine to anthrpology and bought it to the related concept such as symbolism, rituals, and myth can be put into use in the context of organisational analysis. It has been demonstrated by Dandridge(1980) how the study of myths as well as symbols help in exhibiting the profound structure that an organisation has. More researchers conducted recently including Denison and mishra(19 95),schein(1985),sieh and martin(1988,1990) and Wallach(1983) have given numerous definitions to the concept of culture. such a host of research difinitions can be assigned to varied research framework which different authors have adopted. According to Hofstede culture is viewed as software of the mind-collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group of people from another.(Hofstede book pg 5).Schein (1985) defines culture as the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organisation ,that operates unconsciously, and that define a basic taken for granted fashion in an organisations view of itself and its environment. [chris Brewster,pg14]. According to Tayeb (2003,p.10) culture involves historically evolved values, attitudes and meanings that are learned and shared by the members of a community and which influence their material and non-material way of life. Trompenaars and hampden-turner (1997) also gave prominence to shared meanings within a society, arguing that culture comprised not only agreed ways of living but also the ways in which a cultural group attributes meaning to their world that is how they make sense of it.[ray French page 16].According to dennis r.Briscoe and randall s.schuler, culture is the characteristic way of behaving and believing that a group of people in a country or region(or firm) have evolved over time and share.[ dennis r.Briscoe and randall s.schuler,pg116] A more long standing definition by hall(1959) suggests that culture is the pattern of taken for granted assumptions about how a given collection of people should think ,act, and feel as they go about their daily affairs(Hall,1959).While there are many other definitions of culture ,most commonly ,it is colloquially described as the ways things are done around here(Schein,1985;deal and kennedy:1988;Goffee and jones:1988).Although different in content,the parallel between these definitions is that culture is a collective way of perceiving things and behaving due to the sharing of an social environment. (Malcolm higgs and sally morton).Since 1990s there has been an increasing recognition of the difference that people can make to an organisations effectiveness and performance.(Ullrich,1997;IPD 2000). Organisational culture has become a important topic ,as it is seen to be underpinning, intangible infrastructure which influences how people behave at work.(Schien,1985;Goffee and jones,1998).There may be more and more companies globalise ,they may be configuring structures and systems for greater integration.(Collins and porras1997;Trompenaars and woollians,1999).Achieving commitment to a global strategy through an effective organisational culture is attractive, particularly for those operating in a highly competitive marketplace.(Goffee and jones,1998).The complexities of culture make it difficult for managers to understand and manage.(Schein,1985:Goffee and jones,1998).This is further compounded by the often confusing cross-cultural interactions required of those working in a multi-cultural setting, and invariably leads to misunderstandings.(Hofstede,1991;Garrison,1998).But if the culture is an powerful as we are supposed to believe ,then the benefits may be enormous.(Garrison,199 8;Hall,1990;Sparrow,1994).Therefore sometimes it is vital that businesses understand what influences organisational culture to help determine how best it should be configured and nurtured to support the business.( Schein,1985;Hall,1990;Sparrow,1994). Hofstede (1991) had used four terms to describe the way cultural differences manifest themselves they are symbols, rituals, heroes and values. He illustrates this is the form of onion with symbols representing the most superficial layer and values being the deepest manifestations of culture. [Hilary harris.p16-17] http://home.mnet-online.de/wendland/publications/img/oniondiagram.png Hofstede 1991 Trompenaars (1995) model of culture is almost identical to scheins model of 1985.Both model refer to culture as being multi-layered using the terms like artefacts and products for the more visible outer layer, norms and values and basic assumptions at the centre. Hofstede(1991) identified three levels of uniqueness in human mental programming such as human nature, culture and personality. Hofstede asserts that culture is something that is learned ,not inherited and that it derives from ones social environment ,not from ones genes unlike human nature which is universal and inherited ,and personality which is specific to individuals and is a mix of both inherited and learned. Schien(1985) also takes the same view that culture is learned through a group experience. Culture is multi-dimensional and therefore manifests itself in many ways. Schneider and barsoux(1997) refer to industry ;profession; national ;religion; functional and company as the interacting cultural spheres of influences. For the purpose of this literature, the main emphasis is on company culture, also referred as corporate or organisational culture. However, as an international company is being considered the impact of national culture cannot be ignored, particularly in the dyna mic and global market -place of todays business environment.(Hofstede,1991;Barnham and oates,1991;joynt,1999). The various definition of culture are also influenced by an authors particular field of study within the social sciences(Hall,1976).As culture is about perceptions and behaviours in groups, the study of culture is mainly had its roots in sociology, psychology and anthropology. The influence of economics, politics and religion are also considered to be key influencing factors that Garrison(1998) describes as the culture bedrock. The commonality between differing perspectives on culture is that there are value systems involved within groups in all of these types of social sciences-members of such groups each live by a set of common values and beliefs and system of meaning. (Malcolm higgs and sally morton).The culture of a country has been recognised for long as a major characteristic appertained to environment underlying behavioural differences in a systematic was norm as wel l as beliefs related to culture serve as powerful forces determining the perceptions ,behaviours and depositions of people.(Markus and kitayama,1991).culture gets reflection in common tendencies regarding enduring preference for specific state of affair over others,enduring preferences for certain social processes over others, an rules for selective attention ,interpretation of environment cues, as well as responses.(steenkamp,2001) There are several focus on national culture. some of them may be merely for the society, others for many ,if not all the societies at the same time. The present study aims to focus on those cultural dimensions that are several societies .Earlier, research on cross-cultural aspects was occasionally considered to be not painstaking since healthy, theory based frameworks of national culture had no existence. Valid fundamental frameworks depicting aspects of variation in national culture are of crucial significant in evolving a nomological structure able to integrate various attitudinal as well as behavioural phenomena offering a strong national advancing hypotheses which expatiate on systematic variation between various cultures in attitudinal and behavioural times.(Smith,1996.steenkamp,2001) References for 2.1 TROMPENAARS,F .AND WOLLIAMS,P.2003.BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES.ENGLAND:CAPSTONE PUBLISHING LTD. GOFFEE,R.AND JONES,G.1998.THE CHARACTER OF A CORPORATION.LONDON HARPER COLLINS. SCHEIN,E.1985.ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND LEADRERSHIP.BOSTON:JOSSEY-BASS BREWSTER,C.SPARROW,P.VERNON.G.2008.INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT.2ND EDITION.LONDON:CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT SPARROW,P.BREWSTER,C.HARRIS,H.2004.GLOBALIZING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT.LONDON:ROUTLEDGE. BRISCOE,D.SCHULER,R.1995.INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. 2ND EDITION.NEW YORK:PRENTICE HALL. HALL,E.1959.THE SILENT LANGUAGE.NEW YORK:ANCHOR PRESS. DEAL,T.AND KENNEDY,A.1998.CORPORATE CULTURES.THE RITES AND RITUALS OF CORPORATE LIFE.MIDDLESEX:PENGUIN BOOKS. ULLRICH,D.1997HR OF THE FUTURE:CONCLUSIONS AND OBSERVATIONS:HR MANAGEMENT,36(1),PP 175-179 IPD.2000HR AND THE BOTTOM LINE.LONDON:IPD COLLINS,J.AND PORRAS,J.1999.BUILT TO LAST.LONDON:RANDOM HOUSE TROMPENAARS,F.AND WOOLLIAMS,P.1999.TRANS-CULTURAL COMPETENCE.PEOPLE MANAGEMENT,VOL.5,NO.8,PP.30-37 HOFSTEDE,G.1991.CULTURES AND ORGANSATIONS:SOFTWARE OF THE MIND.LONDON:MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY. GARRISON,T.1998.INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CULTURE.LONDON:ELM PUBLICATIONS. HALL,E.1990.UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES.NEW YORK:INTERCULTURAL PRESS. SPARROW,P.SCHULER,R AND JACKSON,S.1994.CONVERGENCE OR DIVERGENCE:HUMAN RESOURCES PRACTICES AND POLICIES FOR COMPETATIVE ADVANTAGE WORLDWIDE,THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT5:2,MAY 1994 SCHNEIDER,S AND BARSOUX,J.1997.MANAGING ACROSS CULTURES.LONDON:PRENTICE HALL BARHAM,K.AND OATES,D.1991.THE INTERNATIONAL MANAGER.LONDON:ECONOMIST BOOKS. JOYNT.1999.THE GLOBAL HR MANAGER.LONDON:IPD HALL,E.1976.BEYOND CULTURE.NEW YORK:ANCHOR PRESS. STEENKAMP AND JAN-DBENEDICT.E,M.2001.THE ROLE OF NATIONAL CULTURE IN INTERNATIONAL MARKETING RESEARCH.INTERNATIONAL MARKETING REVIEW,VOLUME 18,NUMBER1,PP30-44 MARKUS,H.R AND KITAYAMA,S.1991. CULTURE AND THE SELF:IMPLICATIONA FOR COGNITION,EMOTION AND MOTIVATION,PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW,98,2,PP224-53. DENSION,D AND MISHRA,A.1995. TOWARD A THEORY OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND EFFECTIVENESS,ORGANSIATION SCIENCE.6.2,PP204-23. PETTIGREW,A.M.1979. ON STUDYING ORGANISATIONAL CULTURES.ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE.QUARTERLY,24.PP570-81 SIEHL,C AND MARTIN,J.1988. MEASURING ORGANSIATION CULTURE:MIXING QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE METHODS,IN JONES, M.O,MOORE,M.D,SYNDER,R.C(EDS),INSIDE ORGANSIATIONS:UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN DIMENSIONS.NEWBURY PARK,CA:SAGE PUBLICATIONS.pp79-103 SIEHL,C AND MARTIN,J.1990. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE:A KEY TO FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE,IN SCHNEIDER,B (EDS),ORGANSIATIONAL CLIMATE AND CULTURE,JOSSEY,SAN FRANCISCO, CA, pp 241-81. WALLACH,E.1983. INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANSIATIONS:THE CULTURAL MATCH.TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL,pp29-36 DANDRIDGE,T.MITROFF,I AND JOYCE,W.1980. ORGANSIATIONAL SYMBOLISM:A TOPIC TO EXPAND ORGANSIATIONAL ANALYSIS.ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT.REVIEW 5.pp 248-56 (Malcolm higgs and sally morton). .(Smith,1996. [Hilary harris.p16-17] Trompenaars (1995) .(Collins and porras1997; ;Goffee and jones:1988) Tayeb (2003,p.10) Trompenaars and hampden-turner (1997) .[ray French page 16]. .(Hofstede book pg 5)

Losing My Edge :: Personal Narrative, Autobiographical Essay

Losing My Edge I was friends with everyone on the North team, our rivals, but during the season, we seemed liked enemies. We always talked crap to each other. "Who's going to state this year?" We would say. Back to us they would respond, "Who went to State last year?" The whole season, we anticipated playing North. It all started since the first practice. Our coach would scream, "North is practicing harder than you, they are getting in shape, they are preparing." This made us very angry and his tactics to do better did push us. The day seemed so far away, but the calendar days grew closer and closer to this well-prepared day. I made sure to eat my carbohydrates and to get enough sleep the night before. Finally I had reached the day, and school dragged on forever. The bus ride took forever as we traveled the thawed out highways, anticipation was in the air. When entering the gym, after debarking the bus, I took a deep breath as my stomach filled with butterflies, thinking about everything I carried on my shoulders and all that was expected of me, especially when imagining everyone who would be there. My parents, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, peers, coaches and teammates all expected the best. "How nerve racking." I muttered under my breath. When we were in the lockeroom, I felt cadged like an animal. "This its it! It's your turn." Our coach yelled. Finally we escaped from the lockeroom into the crowded gym. This would determine who would go to the State Tournament. Excitement raced through our bones, as our names were announced for the line-up. "Jenna Osheim, 6'0'', senior forward!" My body got the shivers as I ran to the middle of the floor. The referee threw the ball into the air and the race was on. Half time, and the game w as neck in neck. Time ticked away and we were both battling back and forth. "Come on Jenna, it's up to us!" a teammate of mine said to pump me up. I wasn't having a very good game and was getting down on myself. We couldn't lose to this team, as we did the year before. We battled back and forth, we would score, and then they would answer our call. The last minute lasted forever, the referee made a bad call and buzzer finally sounded, leaving us to fall short of one point to have a total score of 54-53.

Working Conditions for Children During Industrial Revolution

Working Conditions of Children During the Industrial Revolution During the beginning of the industrial revolution there was a high demand for labour. Families travelled from rural farm areas to newly industrialized and larger cities in hope of finding new work. To survive even in the lowest class of poverty families would have had to have every single able family member working, this includes children. Children as young as six were put to work in factories. They worked for up too 19 hours a day with only one hours break in total.Work was hard and the children were often paid barely anything. These fragile human beings were; frequently overworked, underpaid and ill treated for a long time. They didn’t have small jobs either; their jobs were physically intense and required a lot of effort and strength. With little medical knowledge in comparison to today these children were prevented from growing healthily and naturally. Deformedness was common amongst many of the children due t o the high amount of physical exertion performed by them.Their growth was slowed down and they suffered in multiple other ways. The treatment of children in factories was horrendous to say the least. They were verbally abused and little care was payed to their safety and wellbeing. Sever punishments were also in place for the slightest disobedience. It was incredibly unsafe to work in the factory environment due to the large machineries used, which very often proved a hazard to the children. With the enormous machines fingers and body parts of theses skinny children could often result in deaths due to serious injuries or accidents.Sometimes children fell asleep from working excessive hours and occasionally the sheer force of the machines would just crush them. In factories that were unsanitary there was harsh exposure to dangerous chemicals and toxins consistently. Some children died from excessive inhalation of the fumes. Children who worked in coalmines often died from explosions and injuries. Overall there was extreme difficulty faced with being a child and having to grow up working during the industrial revolution.

How Was the Piece Received at Its First Performance?

Explore the circumstances surrounding the composition of the last movement of the Drum Roll Symphony. How was the piece received at its first performance? Haydn wrote Symphony 103 (nicknamed the Drum Roll Symphony due to the long roll on the kettle drums at the start of the 1st movement) in the winter of 1794/1795 during his second visit to London. The success and popularity Haydn experienced in London during his first visit made him eager to return, along with the demand from Salomon that he should compose 6 new symphonies that Salomon himself would conduct in a series of concerts.However this trip, which was planned to be in the winter of 1793, was postponed due to the reluctance of Prince Anton to let Haydn have a second leave of absence (during this time there was much unrest in Europe). Haydn contented himself to stay in Vienna for a while and finally left for London on January 19, 1794, arriving two days after the scheduled first concert Salomon had promised him. Haydn’s visit to London was highly anticipated by the public and his fame meant he spent time in the highest of company including The Prince of Wales and the Dukes of Cumberland and Gloucester with whom he performed chamber music.These social events did not get in the way of his compositions and he produced a flood of music including his last 6 symphonies (it is thought that he had decided earlier that he would compose no more symphonies after his return to Vienna). This can be seen in Symphony 103 which was his penultimate symphony. While in his first visit to London he adjusted his style to please the audience, he was now sure they were on his side and so his last six symphonies aimed to push his listeners.They were more complex and overall were on a grander scale than his previous symphonies. Symphony 103 has many unusual features in it which shows Haydn’s interest in exploring the boundaries of his composition. Symphony 103, like a lot of his other works, has influences from the traditional music he heard during his 30 years working as the Kapellmeister for Prince Esterhazy of Austria. During the summer the family, and so Haydn, would spend time in their summer palace of Esterhaza which was in Hungary on the border with Austria.There, Haydn became hugely interested in the local traditional music as well as Croatian folk songs which he heard from people living in Croatian ethnic enclaves found on the east border of Austria with Hungary. These influences can be heard throughout the symphony, with the 3rd movement using some of the unusual Hungarian rhythms and the last being based on an old Croatian folk tune, which is first played by the violins after the horn opening, called â€Å"Divjcica potok gazi† which means â€Å"the little girl treads on a brook†.The song melody lineHaydn’s adaptation for his symphony While the earlier movements were meant to challenge the audience, the last movement of most of Haydn’s symphonies was a li vely, dance-like piece which would be light and undemanding (at least for the listener! ). Haydn clearly had this in mind when composing the last movement of this symphony as it is full of energy and variety with varying polyphonic and homophonic texture. However he did still use new ideas such as giving the bases and cellos a separate line in some parts which had hardly been done before.He also took advantage in using a clarinet which was a new instrument in that time and had only been used by him once before in symphony 102. This symphony was performed in the fourth of the Opera concerts on Monday 2rd March 1795. This was not where the symphony was originally meant to premiere as Salomon had planned it to be part of his own concert series however Salomon suddenly had to pull out of doing his own series due to being in financial disarray.Be that as it may, he agreed to that Haydn could perform his new symphonies in the Opera Concerts, in which series he himself frequently appeared as soloist. The new concerts were arranged on the largest scale known at that time. The performances took place every two weeks starting on Monday 2nd February 1795 in the great new concert hall of the King's Theatre which seated 800 audiences, more than most of the other important concert venues. Viotti was the artistic director and Haydn shared the conductorship with Vincenzo Federici, who for three years had been accompanist at the Italian opera in London.The orchestra led by the violinist William Cramer and comprised of no less than sixty players which was one of the largest orchestras seen in that day. Haydn himself was thought to have played the fortepiano in this premiere although this is now usually left out of performances. The piece was played, as requested by Haydn, in the second half so it could show its superiority over the other works played in the concert. The symphony was a complete success as the Sun wrote â€Å"HAYDN's new Overture was much applauded.It is a fine mixture of grandeur and fancy. † The Morning Chronicles reviewer also wrote â€Å"Another new Overture, by the fertile and enchanting Haydn, was performed; which, as usual, had continual strokes of genius, both in air and harmony. The Introduction excited deepest attention, the Allegro charmed, the Andante was encored, the Minuets, especially the trio, were playful and sweet, and the last movement was equal, if not superior to the preceding. † It is said that the second movement was even encored.The symphony was later played again as it was so popular however before Haydn introduced to Vienna he made a cut in the final. This cut took away the modulation into C flat, which although stood alone in this movement, was hinted at in the 3rd movement. This cut made the Finale tighter and conductors have kept this cut in out of respect for Haydn. Overall though this symphony showed the genius that Haydn was in being able to turn a simple tune into a complex and demanding sympho ny and paved the way for him to be known as â€Å"the Shakespeare of music†.