An Example of the Question of Truth - 1531 Words

Do we really know what the â€Å"truth† is? How can we distinguish what the truth is in real life? Are you every completely sure of the truth? In the Question of the Truth Unit we read a variety of selections based off of people’s perception of the truth, though in many of these selections the truth wasn’t what people expected. These selections help develop a contrast between how things seem on the surface, and how they really are. A couple of these selections accept the surface appearance of things as embodying reality and not the actual truth. Plato’s â€Å"Allegory of the Cave† is a prime example of what appears to be true and what actually is. In â€Å"Allegory of the Cave† men have been chained by the leg and by the neck since childhood, so that they can’t move. This also makes it so that they can only see what is in front of them. Since this is how they have lived everyday of their life, these men believe that this is how everyone lives. They don’t know that the outside world exists. Behind these men there is a fire burning, and in front of this fire there is a parapet on a track. There are figures of men and animals in wood, stone, or other materials which project above the parapet. This made it so the prisoners thought that reality was these shadows. They think these shadows are are there is, but in reality there are actually objects that you can see and touch. When they decide to let one of the prisoners free, it was painful for him to stand up, turn his head, and to walk withShow MoreRelatedExplain The Six Chief Characteristics Of Philosophy1269 Words   |  6 PagesThe main goal behind philosophy is to seek the deepest, and most detailed truth behind everything in the universe. Many different concepts such as relativism attempt to disprove the truth that philosophy attempts to pursue. To understand what it means for philosophy to pursue truth, we must first understand the nature of philosophy, or what philosophy really is. To understand the nature of philosophy, we must look at the six chief characteristics of philosophy. The six chief characteristics of philosophyRead MoreWhat Is Truth About Truth Essay981 Words   |  4 Pages What is Truth? What is truth? Simply, it is knowing that something is right or wrong. But is it really that easy? The answer is as no. The problem with truth is it has a long history and has been a central issue in epistemology. In the first century, Jesus Christ was on trial, and in the gospel of John, chapter 18:38 Pontius Pilate asked Jesus Christ: ‘And What is Truth’? Ever since then, many philosophers have attempted to answer the question. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophyRead MoreThe Text Of The Meno By Plato938 Words   |  4 Pagesof the Meno by Plato, the dialogue develops and attempts to answer the question of what virtue is, and whether it is teachable. The paradox explained can be used to discuss merely anything, and we can thus say that either one knows or does not know. If a person knows, then they cannot investigate or question their knowledge. However, if a person does not know, they cannot inquire about it which means a person cannot question for not knowing what they do not know. Plato goes ahead and resolves theRead More`` I Have A Dream, And Florence Kelley s Speech On Child Labor And Women s Suffrage1571 Words   |  7 Pageseducated white woman and Truth being a freed slave who often shows her illiteracy throughout her speech) they both depend on rhetorical questions, exemplification, repetition, and with these devices, their establishment of pathos to encourage and call their audience to action. While Florence Kelley’s speech does well, Sojourner Truth’s is more effective due to the fact that she pinpoints the enemy and draws her audience together with her word choice. Kelley asks the questions â€Å"If the mothers and theRead MoreThe Nature and Importance of Truth Essays851 Words   |  4 Pagesexactly is truth? What is true? These questions are two completely different questions. In order to answer what is true, you must first determine what truth actually is. If we look in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, we see the definition that says â€Å"The things that are true†. This is not what we are looking for in a definition of this word, but really there is no defining line between what is true, and what is not. Truth is essentially divided into two main types of truth. There is empirical truth thatRead MoreDescartes Was A Philosopher That Did Not Take Any Truth961 Words   |  4 Pagesdid not take any truth without questioning it. This is key in truly understanding the world around us. A real seeker of truth must doubt everything once in their lifetime. Without doubt, we have no reason. Without reason, we cannot hold any truths to be correct. Descartes truly understood how the rudiments vested in us by an infinite power play a powerful role in the way we live today. 1. What is your initial point of view? My initial point of view is that in order to seek the truth, we must doubtRead More1.Explain Some Of The Benefits A Student May Gain By Studying1290 Words   |  6 Pagesis one of the oldest and powerful methods of teaching. The method develops critical thinking and involves giving students questions but not answers. It involves inquiry, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of thoughts and ideas. Asking questions such as what is real? How we acquire knowledge? Or how can we make value judgments? The Socratic Method helps bring these questions into sharper focus and provide a foundation for the answers we are looking for (Pg.2). 3. Explain how critical thinking canRead MoreCritical Thinking and Example Essay631 Words   |  3 Pages24, 2012 Logical fallacies My whole paper will be over the logical fallacies and the examples I had made for each one. Now this all have to do with some kind of philosophy terms and what they truly mean but in my own words and examples. 1. Mere Assertion- Mere Assertion is when someone doesn’t want to give up an argument even known they can’t prove their right with no evidence. * Example: My daughter says she is right when she said she saw a movie last night, but she has no movieRead MoreRhetorical Analysis Of AinT I A Woman1035 Words   |  5 Pages[Yunus Sanni] English 1020 Campbell [6 oct 2017] Rhetorical Analysis of [â€Å"I Ain’t a woman† by Sojourner Truth] Aint I a Woman? ,the name given to a speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth, (1797–1883),she gave this speech to the Women’s Convention of 1851, she speaks on the inequalities that women and blacks faced at that time in America. she uses rhetorical strategies in order to achieve a successful and powerful delivery of her message.Sojourner uses personal experiencesRead MoreWhy Is Knowledge Considered A Belief?982 Words   |  4 Pagesis human nature to ask the â€Å"why† question. As soon as humans are able to speak for the most part, the first question we all start asking is â€Å"why.† â€Å"Why† is the sky blue, â€Å"Why† does the sun rise in the east and set in the west. â€Å"Why† is the number one question for the study of knowledge and how it can be acquired. In order to have â€Å"knowledge† you must understand how you to achieve that knowledge through truth, belief and justification. The next couple of questions that are asked are usually â€Å"what

Essay on Pardoners Manipulation of Audience - 788 Words

Pardoners Manipulation of Audience The Pardoner has had a graduate education in the rhetoric of confession. Chaucer might intend it to be merely cutely ironic that this confessor confesses -- as in isnt that a turning of the tables, la! On the other hand, it may well be that the Pardoner is practicing his rhetorical prowess on the other pilgrims, and on us, with the extreme skill of a cynical and perceptive man whos heard every villainy and mastered every deception. His intention, in his confession to the pilgrims, is obviously not to manipulate them into pity, forgiveness and acceptance, any more than it is to get them to actually pay to touch his holy relics; it is a confession,†¦show more content†¦His keen insight into human depravity is what makes him such a brilliant con. He plays on the most deep-seated insecurities of his flock when he describes the magical powers of his relics. They will cure sick livestock (livestock being the most valuable possession of the average listener, not to mention shepherds); they will prosper crops (for all the farmers in the audience). That covers the m en! To the women, he offers the fantastic promise that his relics will cure their husbands of their jealousy and suspicion. This is doubly clever, in light of the Wife of Baths tale, because it picks up on her ideal of women empowered to cheat on doting, trusting, forgiving husbands. Let maken with this water his potage, And never shal he more his wyf mistriste, Though he the sooth of hir defaute wiste; Al had she taken preestes two or three. Its trebly clever, actually, because the last line can be read both as sexual solicitations to the women in his flock, as well as an insult to the three priests present on the pilgrimage. His next con is even more wickedly clever; he demonstrates how he subtly manipulates his flock into coming forward and making offerings to his relics in order to avoid suspicion that they have committed some horrible sin. If any wight be in this chirche now, That hath doon sinne horrible,Show MoreRelatedOne More Drop of Temptation: The Pardoners Tale1102 Words   |  4 Pagesencouraged its own consumption. The Pardoner’s Tale has sparked my interest from the beginning. The sermon that the pardoner tells focuses on the sins of the tavern, those being gambling, drinking, and swearing. These three indulgences are what led them to their downfall later in the tale. This tale is one that utilizes alcohol consumption as a catalyst. The Pardoner’s Tale is a tale that utilizes alcohol consumption as a driving factor for the tale and the pardoner’s intentions are then revealed toRead More The Pardoner as Symbol in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales2609 Words   |  11 Pagespaints a portrait of medieval life through the voices and stories of a wide variety of speakers. The people on the Pilgrimage tell their stories for a wide range of reasons. Each Tale is told in order to accomplish two things. The Tales provoke their audience as much as they are a kind of self-reflection. These reactions range from humor, to extreme anger, to open admiration. Each story is symbolic for a meaning above the actual plot of the narrative itself. The theme of social and moral balance is oneRead More The Rich Diversity of Meanings of the Pardoners Tale Essay5609 Words   |  23 PagesThe Rich Diversity of Meanings of the Pardoners Tale Chaucer’s innovation in the Pardoner’s performance tests our concept of dramatic irony by suggesting information regarding the Pardoner’s sexuality, gender identity, and spirituality, major categories in the politics of identity, without confirming that information. Our presumed understanding of the Pardoner as a character lacks substantiation. As we learn about the Pardoner through the narrator’s eyes and ears, we look to fit the noble

Geography Synoptic Essay Free Essays

string(51) " gentrification was well established by this time\." With reference to examples, assess the degree to which the level of economic development of a country affects planning and management in urban areas. The economic development of a country can be defined as the growth of industry, wealth, employment and the level of urbanisation. The planning and management issues that are linked to economic development, are those associated with processes such as urbanisation, suburbanisation and counter-urbanisation of cities. We will write a custom essay sample on Geography Synoptic Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now These may include pollution of water, air and noise. Other issues may be the increase in transport and waste, created by people living, travelling through and working in urban areas. These problems need solutions, which often leads to planning and carrying out redevelopment of urban areas. The effects of urbanisation on a city can be seen in Sao Paolo, a newly industrialised country in Brazil where housing improvement schemes are evident. Furthermore we can see issues of planning and management in the UK, a more economically developed country, due to increasing re-urbanisation and suburbanisation. Using these 2 counties of different levels of development, I will be able to eventually assess to what extent the level of economic development will affect planning and management of cities. Urbanisation (the movement of people from rural to built-up areas) in Sao Paolo is increasing rapidly. Being the largest city in the southern-hemisphere, with a population density of 21,000km2, it is constantly growing in size. However the rate of increase is slowing, along with the reduced rural-urban migration and natural increase rates. The population of central areas is also decreasing; a pattern that mirrors that of cities in more affluent parts of the world. The city was initially increasing in size because it was a ‘centre of agriculture’, with exports including coffee and cotton. The city continues to develop today as an industrial centre with manufacturing and services. These industries offer reliable employment to people living in rural areas where the main industry of agriculture is unreliable. Another pull factor is its temperate climate in comparison to the tropical low-lands surrounding it. The huge population means that social provisions are of a much higher quality, including education and healthcare. However this movement of people into the city brings its problems, mostly in the variation of quality of life. Although a prosperous city, it does have the highest unemployment rate in Brazil at 5. 3% in August 2012. The contrast between rich and poor is very extreme. A survey of living standards carried out in 2002 revealed that HDI indexes for Sao Paulo varied from the Portuguese national average to Sierra Leone’s (the world’s poorest country. This is reflected by the housing available in the city, from condominiums (luxury housing blocks), to corticos (inner-city dilapidated accommodation) and favelas (illegal slums. ) It was estimated that the sub-standard housing occupies 705? of Sao Paolo, and that 605? of population growth in recent years, has gone straight to the favelas. Not only are these areas unsightly and extremely over-populated at 100,000? , absolute poverty is present. The services and infrastructure are inadequate, with little running water, drainage or rubbish collection and many open sewers causing diseases like cholera and dysentery. Many are unemployed and try to find work in the informal section of the economy. The pollution in the city is high, with 255? of Brazil’s vehicles circulating Sao Paolo. However, improvements are being made: air quality is improving with the reduction of sulphur dioxide and lead levels, although ozone and carbon monoxide are still of concern. $1 million is spent each day on rubbish collection and with only 2 landfill sites in 2001, there isn’t enough space for all the rubbish created. However, urbanisation is decreasing and urban regeneration is taking place to improve living conditions for those already living there. Housing improvement schemes are aiding the regeneration of the city. Favelas have been the main target since 1990, when the city- funded community groups allowed families to renovate their existing homes to include electricity. Despite great publicity only 8000 houses were built, which would on average house 40,000 people (in comparison to the 100,000 living in the favelas. ) Improvements have been attempted since, for example in 2000, when investment was put into Santo Andre. The aim was to alleviate poverty by providing work for entrepreneurs, community healthcare workers and literacy programmes. So although this is an LEDC/RIC, it still faces overpopulation problems; it does seem that the planning and management changes are aiding the over-population problem and improving the overall quality of life. In contrast Notting Hill is in the UK, an economically developed country with an average GDP (ppp) per capita of $35,494 in comparison to $11,719 in Brazil (World Bank 2011). Notting Hil is an area of London, an example of re-urbanisation; when people move into the city centre or inner city due to regeneration. Gentrification is what has happened in Notting Hill, as individuals moved into old housing that was formerly in a state of despair and refurbished and improved it. This changed the composition of the whole neighbourhood, because the affluent newcomers displaced the low-income groups that formerly lived there. Often the new comers work in professional or managerial jobs. A positive outcome of this is that more affluent people have been attracted to the area and therefore their purchasing power is much greater. This means that some house prices now rival those of upmarket Mayfair, but it has meant that the area has become more prosperous. The demand for services to meet the needs of these new-comers has meant new bars and restaurants and services of a higher status. In turn this brings employment to the area for those in design, building, decoration etc. Not only is this a hotspot for people such as Stella McCartney, but it is also a popular area for families. There are parks and communal gardens making the area extremely desirable to those who can afford it. The film ‘Notting Hill’ gave the area huge amounts of publicity, despite the fact that gentrification was well established by this time. You read "Geography Synoptic Essay" in category "Essay examples" There are lots of well known and expensive restaurants that line the streets to accommodate the affluent people coming to the area. These include The Westbourne Pub, the Lazy Daisy Cafe and the Goulbourne Road Area. However, there are negative impacts; unfortunately those who lived here before the gentrification are finding it increasingly difficult to either buy houses or afford the living costs of the ones they already own/ rent – the average house price is ? ,320,599. This also means that private rentals are starting to decline, as more and more properties are purchased. Furthermore the friction between residents and newcomers can cause crime to increase (seen during the 1976 riots. ) An article in the Daily Telegraph by Ross Clark revealed, â€Å"Parts of Notti ng Hill are still run-down and prone to crime. ’ However in general it is clear the Notting Hill is a very desirable area for the people who have sufficient income to live there. Transport has also been managed in Notting Hill, and this year (2012) the Metropolitan Police would like to restrict the use of roads in specified ‘safety zones’ by both vehicles and pedestrians which in turn would reduce pollution from cars and overcrowding of people. Also London has the famous congestion charge which has recently been extended to Notting Hill at ? 8 on the day or ? 10 on the day, once again reducing pollution and congestion. Equally this area has a tube station and many bus routes, facilitating travel during the ban of cars, and reducing carbon emissions per person. Waste is also heavily managed in this area with ‘Monash Waste Transfer and Recycling’ which is managed by the City Council. Not only can people dispose of waste and stop it littering and polluting the water and streets, but it also gives residents a chance to recycle, reducing the amount put into landfill, and reducing the amount of unrenewable resources we use. Equally in the U. K. the opposite is also happening with counter-urbanisation, where people migrate to rural areas, often ‘leap-frogging’ the green belt to get away from the pollution and crime that cities are famous for. This is often families who increase the affluence of an area but unfortunately this means they work in professional or managerial jobs which requires transport links to the city, and services for the whole family within the rural area. For example Crosby in the Isle of Man. The ‘A1’ commuter route has been extended, which although facilitating travel, may also increase congestion and pollution towards the rural area, which almost defeats the point of ‘clean and peaceful living. In addition modern facilities are in demand from the families; extentions, garages etc. A perfect example being the Eyreton Barn Conversions. However, this would provide work for the construction industry within the village, benefiting the local economy. However, the addiction of all these services, including a refurbished play park and BMX track, although necessary for recreation of young people within the village, are arguably expanding what should be a centre of agriculture. Expansion can also be seen in Ballawattleworth Estate, Peel in the Isle of Man where people are moving from the centre of the city to the outskirts (suburbanisation. ) Once again this has meant the increase in the building of schools. At the Queen Elizabeth II high school a new dining room, classrooms and KS5 learning Centre have been necessary to cater for the increased intake of pupils as more people move to the area. When comparing LEDCs and MDCs it is vital to take into account other, wider issues. For example LEDCs may have more natural disasters and less revenue to deal with them. In Brazil between 1980 and 2010 there were 146 natural disasters and over 4000 people killed; in the UK there have been 67 with only 751 killed. Therefore planning and managing an urban area which is more prone to natural disaster is going to pose far more problems socially, economically, environmentally and politically. Not only is it more difficult, but the country as a whole can’t afford the damage so has to seek aid from other countries. A lot of natural disasters are also weather related, for example the floods in Brazil, due to the tropical climate. Located right next to the equator, it is a perfect target for tropical down-pours as the rising condensation comes straight down again as precipitation. Furthermore pollution is a much larger issue in Sao Paolo due to the favelas with open sewers; in the UK clean drinking water and plumbing mean that pollution isn’t an issue. Finally, the health issues created in the favelas mean that healthcare is needed for more people than in the U. K. This is economically counter-productive for the city as paying more health-care for residents also means less money available for improvement of the areas that need it. Whereas in the U. K. the NHS means healthcare is free, although diseases such as cholera don’t need treatment as working sewers are something we already have. In conclusion, I think it is true that the level of economic development has an impact on planning and management issues. If a country such as Brazil had more money then they would be able to combat poverty and sanitation by demolishing the favelas. As an MDC we do have the funding to lessen the issues, but in 200 years time Sao Paolo will have developed demographically and moved to stage 4 of the DTM. With a slower increase or stable population they may find regenerating much easier, as there will be less people to cater for. Notting Hill expanded during the 19th and 20th Centuries due to rural to urban migration and by the 1950s slum conditions affected the area and poverty took hold – much like the current state of Sao Paolo. Gentrification and re- urbanisation may occur here too when and if the economy can support it. How to cite Geography Synoptic Essay, Essay examples

Computer Viruses and their Effects on your PC Essay Example For Students

Computer Viruses and their Effects on your PC Essay Table of ContentsWhat is a Virus? 1HOW A VIRUS INFECTS YOUR SYSTEM: ..2HOW DOES A VIRUS SPREAD? .3BIGGEST MYTH: I BUY ALL OF MY PROGRAMS ON CD ROM FROM THESTORE. STORE BOUGHT SOFTWARE NEVER CONTAINS VIRUSES. 3INFECTION (DAMAGES) 4PROTECT YOUR COMPUTER, NOW!! .. 5A virus is an independent program that reproduces itself. It can attachitself to other programs and make copies of itself (i.e., companion viruses). It can damage or corrupt data, or lower the performance of your system by usingresources like memory or disk space. A virus can be annoying or it can cost youlots of cold hard cash. A virus is just another name for a class of programs. They do anything that another program can. The only distinguishingcharacteristic is the program has ability to reproduce and infect other programs. Is a computer virus similar to a human virus? Below is a chart that will showthe similarities. Comparing Biological Viruses Human VirusesHuman Virus EffectsAttack specific body cells Modify the genetic information of acell other than previous one. It performs tasks. New viruses grow in theinfected cell itself. An infected program may not exhibit symptoms for awhile. Not all cells with which the virus contact are infected. Viruses canmutate and thus cannot clearly be diagnosed. Infected cells arent infected morethan once by the same cell. Computer Virus EffectsAttack specific programs (*.com,*.exe) Manipulate the program: The infectedprogram produces virus programs. The infected program can work without error fora long time. Program can be made immune against certain viruses. Virus programcan modify themselves possibly escape detection this way. Programs areinfected only once by most viruses. There are many ways a virus can infect you system. One way is, if thevirus is a file infecting virus, when you run a file infected with that virus. This particular kind of virus can only infect if YOU run the program! Thisvirus targets COM and EXE files, but have also been found in other executablefiles. some viruses are memory resident which will infect every file run afterthat one. Other are direct action injectors that immediately infect otherfiles on your hard drive then leave. Another way viruses infect your system isif they are polymorphic. Polymorphism is where the virus changes itself withevery infection so it is harder to find. Also, virus writers have come up witha virus called a multipartite virus. This virus can infect boot sectors and themaster boot record as well as files therefore enables it to attack more targets,spread further and thus do more damage. A computer virus can be spread in many different ways. The first way isby a person knowingly installing a virus onto a computer. Now the computer isinfected with a virus. The second way is inserting your disk into an infectedcomputer. The infected computer will duplicate the virus onto your disk. Nowyour disk is a virus carrier.Any computer that comes in contact with thisdisk will become infected. For example, I once caught a virus from CochiseCollege by copying two non-infected disks, the computer was infected.What ifmy friend borrows an infected disk? Your friends computer will most likelybecome infected the instant that he/she uses your disk into a computer. Thethird way, is the Internet. A lot of programs on the Internet contain liveviruses. However, there seems to be countless numbers of ways to becomeinfected. Every time you download a program from somewhere or borrow a diskfrom a friend, you are taking a risk of getting infected. .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 , .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .postImageUrl , .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 , .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43:hover , .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43:visited , .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43:active { border:0!important; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43:active , .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43 .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u6e43b40894262df5f72e2a6c69bfea43:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Angela's Ashes written by Frank McCourt EssayComputer software bought in stores have been know to carry viruses. How? CD-ROMS are non-recordable? A virus may be installed into a computer atthe time of manufacturing.In September of 1996, the September edition ofMicrosoft SPCD has a file infected with a virus called Wazzu. Watch out forSIAMKTOOLSCASEED3905A.DOC.Microsoft aided the spread of Wazzu bydistributing a Wazzu-infected document on the Swiss ORBITconference CD, andkeeping an identical copy of the infected document on its Swiss Website for atleast five days after being notified of the problem. It is noted, by Microsoftrecords , that over 2 million of the infected CDs were sold. The CDs werereplaced on a recall from Microsoft, however: this aided the spread of the WazzuVirus. The major damages can vary, but here are the most common: A.Fill upyour P.C. with Garbage:As a virus reproduces, it takes up space. This space cannot be used bythe operatorAs more copies of the virus are made, the memory space is lessened. B.Mess Up Files:Computer files have a fixed method of being stored. With this being thecase, it is very easy for a computer virus to affect the system so someparts of the accessed files cannot be located. C.Mess Up FAT:Fat (File Allocation Table) is the method used to contain theinformation required about the location of files stored on a disk. Anyallocation to this information can cause endless troubleD.Mess Up The Boot Sector:The boot sector is the special information found on a disk. Changingthe boot sector could result in the inability of the computer to run. E.Erase The Whole Hard Drive/ Diskette:A virus can simply format a disk. This will cause you to lose all ofthe data stored on the formatted disk. F.Reset The Computer:Virus can reset your computer. Normally, the operator or user has topress a few keys. The virus can do this by sending codes to the operatingsystem. G.Slowing Things Down:The object of this virus can slow down the running line of a program. This causes a computer with 100 megahertz to act like a computer with 16megahertz. That is why a 486 or 586 computer can slow down and run as ifit were a 286. As I would call it Turtle Speed. H.Redefine Keys:The computer has been programmed to recognize certain codes with thepress of certain keys. For Example: When you press the letter T, yourcomputer puts a T on your display. A virus can change the command. Imagine if every time you pressed the T, your computer would format your harddrive. I.Lock The Keyboard:Redefining all the keys into an empty key. Then the user cannot use thekeyboard to input any data. People are often telling me I am paranoid of viruses. Some forms of paranoiaare healthy. When it comes to securing your system from viruses, trust no one,not even your mother-when you change disks with her, that is. Thank god for theinvention of Anti-Virus Software. Anti-Virus Software is a program that canprotect your PC from a virus. They can also remove a virus, once it is detected. However, there are thousands of viruses in existence. And finding a consistantvirus scanning program can be rough. I have read many articles on popular virusscanning programs. I have found the top two virus scanning programs to be: #1.)McAfee Virus Scan#2.)Norton Anti-VirusBoth of these programs can prevent a virus from entering your computer. If one sneaks past, then you will have a choice to delete the file, clean thevirus or move the virus. I would highly suggest you to check out these programsand test them. Conclusion:Remember, one virus can shred many years of work on your computer. Protectyourself and always, use an Anti-Virus Program. .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 , .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .postImageUrl , .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 , .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2:hover , .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2:visited , .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2:active { border:0!important; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2:active , .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2 .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .udd376d50455c49b0f5cf4daa16f5a1d2:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: The Great Gatsby Essay ThesisCategory: Technology

The Storm Analysis Essay Example For Students

The Storm Analysis Essay The Storm The setting for The Storm by Kate Chopin begins with a thunderstorm. The first characters that the author mentions are Bobinot and his son Bibi. They buy a can of shrimps for Calixta but are prevented from getting them to her by the storm (Chopin, 96). The author changes the setting and tells about Calixta at home.A man named Alcee arrives at her house that she has not seen in a long time.The violence of the storm forces Alcee and Calixta into the house and then into passion that ends at the same time as the storm.Chopin uses setting as a catalyst to this action, a parallel to the passion between the characters, and as a key to the theme of the story. We will write a custom essay on The Storm Analysis specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Setting in this story is the catalyst to the passion that occurs between Alcee and Calixta.The storm occurs just as Alcee rides by. Calixta has to go out to get Bibis coat and sees Alcee.The storm forces Alcee and Calixta into the house and makes them shut the door (96).The fact that the door to the bedroom is open and the big white bed can be seen, contributes to the setting by foreshadowing future events. The storm obscures the view of other cabins and implies that they are totally alone in the house with no one to see them.They are trapped together in the world of the storm and cannot leave.Lightning strikes the tree and makes Calixta fall backward into Alcees arms (97).The setting in The Storm forces Alcee and Calixta together and into each others arms. The storm serves as a parallel to the passion between Alcee and Calixta. The storm is unavoidable and so is the passion because of it. When the storm forces them into each others arms, the familiarity with their previous lives takes over and they begin having an affair (97). The storm ending at the same time as the passion, implies that they are parallel with each other.Just as the storm is a passing event that changes nature for a short time, so the affair is passing and changes the emotions of Alcee and Calixta.A storm leaves the world peaceful, bright and clean.The author portrays the affair as leaving their family relationships peaceful and full of new joy.With the last line of the story, So the storm passed and everyone was happy, (99) Chopin compares the storms outcome with that of the affair. The storm is key to the story because it is the all-powerful force of nature that drives the two lovers together, which would be almost impossible without the storm.Because the storm occurs when Alcee is riding by Calixtas house, it forces him to go there.He must take refuge inside her house when the rain starts to drench him (96). By portraying the storm as bringing freshness and happiness, the author is implying that it would bring happiness to the relationships of Calixta and Alcees families.If the storm had not occurred, Calixta would have been angry with Bobinot for coming home so ragged.Also, Alcees wife would not have gotten the relief of knowing that she could do as she pleased for a little while longer if Alcee had not written her a letter.Chopin implies that the storm renews the relationships between the families of Alcee and Calixta by showing the love that they show their families after the passionate encounter. In conclusion, Chopin uses the storm to symbolize the freshn ess and renewing that comes from the actions of Calixta and Alcee.The author makes the storm the driving force in bringing the two main characters together.The thunderstorm is parallel with the passion and brings happiness to everyone.Without the storm the characters would not have felt a new love for each other.The storm was the key to making all the good things happen in this story.

Free Essays on Kobe Earthquake

On Tuesday the 17th of January in 1997, and earthquake struck in south central Japan in the town of Kobe and Osaka, Japan's second most populated and industrialised area, after Tokyo. The shock occured at a shallow depth on a fault running from Awaji Island through to the city of Kobe, which has a population of 1.5 million. The earthquake, measuring at a magnitude of 7.2 (mj) began at 5:46 am, and the strong ground shaking lasted for about 20 seconds, causing severe damage over a large area. After the earthquake 5,500 deaths were confirmed, and 35,000 were seriously injured. More that 300 000 people were homeless because of the destruction of their homes. 180 000 buildings were badly damaged or destryoed, and because of this, all economic activity in Kobe virtually halted. Because so many people lost their homes, severe crowding in shelters occured, and sanitation problems increased with a risk of communicatable desease. After only two weeks of the earthquake, influenza and pnuemonia were commonly seen. After the earthquake, fires broke out and spread and were uncontrollable for more than 4 weeks, and caused losses almost as much as the ones resulting from the shaking. The direct damage caused by the shaking was approximately 13 trillion yen (147 billion U.S), and damaged occured more than 100 kilometres from the epicentre. The repair costs ranged from U.S 95 billion to 147 billion, which is an economic loss greater that the gross national product of many countries. The region shaken by the earthquake amounts for almost one fifth of th Japanese economy. The region of Kobe is seen as a hotspot for earhquakes due to its location over the intersection of the three tectonic plates: the Pacific, Eurasian, and Phillipene, making the Earthquake of 97 a natural disaster which no one could predict or prevent.... Free Essays on Kobe Earthquake Free Essays on Kobe Earthquake On Tuesday the 17th of January in 1997, and earthquake struck in south central Japan in the town of Kobe and Osaka, Japan's second most populated and industrialised area, after Tokyo. The shock occured at a shallow depth on a fault running from Awaji Island through to the city of Kobe, which has a population of 1.5 million. The earthquake, measuring at a magnitude of 7.2 (mj) began at 5:46 am, and the strong ground shaking lasted for about 20 seconds, causing severe damage over a large area. After the earthquake 5,500 deaths were confirmed, and 35,000 were seriously injured. More that 300 000 people were homeless because of the destruction of their homes. 180 000 buildings were badly damaged or destryoed, and because of this, all economic activity in Kobe virtually halted. Because so many people lost their homes, severe crowding in shelters occured, and sanitation problems increased with a risk of communicatable desease. After only two weeks of the earthquake, influenza and pnuemonia were commonly seen. After the earthquake, fires broke out and spread and were uncontrollable for more than 4 weeks, and caused losses almost as much as the ones resulting from the shaking. The direct damage caused by the shaking was approximately 13 trillion yen (147 billion U.S), and damaged occured more than 100 kilometres from the epicentre. The repair costs ranged from U.S 95 billion to 147 billion, which is an economic loss greater that the gross national product of many countries. The region shaken by the earthquake amounts for almost one fifth of th Japanese economy. The region of Kobe is seen as a hotspot for earhquakes due to its location over the intersection of the three tectonic plates: the Pacific, Eurasian, and Phillipene, making the Earthquake of 97 a natural disaster which no one could predict or prevent....

Privacy and surveillance in the Information Age Essay

Privacy and surveillance in the Information Age - Essay Example According to Nissenbaum (1998, p.4), information technology has not only affected communication, but has actually led to a need to redefine privacy. With increasing surveillance and information recording, personal privacy is taking a new direction. According to Nock (1993) the cost of surveillance is personal privacy and the American public has to trade between privacy and security. The biggest turn in information technology came at about the mid of 20th century with the invention of the electronic computer. As soon as the computer was invented, it was used by governments and large corporations for information capture, storage and analysis. Information technology did not only help in increasing the way information is captured and stored, but also in the way the same information can be analyzed as well as manipulated (Hughes, 2004, p.78). As a result, the role of the government and private corporations can in safeguarding information has increased and has also taken a new course. Information stored in computes is easier to disseminate and can be accessed from remote access points. This leads to the risk of losing this information to hackers and this can lead to private information being disseminated by unauthorized personnel. Information and communication technology has changed the way people communicate and carry out their daily social, political and economic activities. With the arrival of computers and the internet, communication has always increased, and people are today better able to communicate. Business transactions have taken a new route as private firms can now easily capture, analyze and disseminate different formats of communication and information. A good example of this is the US based international retail giant Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has been able to develop a system based in computers and wide area network that is able to capture information from all the retail stores and then sending this information to a central database where the

A wireless solution for a sporting goods company Research Paper

A wireless solution for a sporting goods company - Research Paper Example Retrieved December 05, 2012, from http://www.att.com/network/ 22 Executive Summary At the present, the majority of organizations use computers to carry out their day to day tasks. In this scenario, they use computers to collect, process, and store business and customer related data and information. However, when the size of business increases they need many people to carry out these tasks simultaneously. For this purpose, they build a network of computers in the firm. In a computer network, computers are connected with each other. They can share data and resources with each other. There are different ways and technologies that can be adopted to implement a computer network. In this scenario, wireless networks is a latest form of networking. Some of the other categories of wireless networking are: WLAN, 3G, 4G, WiFi, WiMax and various other standards and tools. They offer wonderful services and facilities to personal life and business areas. Hence, seeing these advantages of wireless networks the management of the Athlete’s Shack (TAS) has decided to implement new Wireless technology based WLAN. The major aim of the Athlete’s Shack (TAS) is to enhance overall corporate credibility and develop better performance based arrangement at a corporation. Introduction I have been hired as a technology consultant at Wireless Technology Company (WTC). WTC Company helps organizations and businesses resolve issues regarding network planning and design. I have been asked to write a report to propose a wireless networking solution for the Athlete’s Shack. In this report, I will present a detailed analysis of WLAN architecture for the Athlete’s Shack (TAS). This project (the implementation of the WLAN at Athlete’s Shack (TAS)) will involve implementing a wireless technology that will connect all of its stores through wireless broadband service, installing WLANs at each store, and providing its employees with iPads for better customer service. Additionally, TAS is unsure how to start this process. Thus, they have hired the services of our firm for completing this project. This report will discuss various aspects of wireless network design and its implementation. This report will also discuss the issues involved in this project. Problem Situation The Athlete’s Shack (TAS) runs its business through a chain of sporting goods stores. In the past few years, TAS has got massive popularity and now it has 10 stores in the area. Before, TAS was running its business through manual and traditional means. Additionally, the technology based systems and tools were used at a very small level. In this scenario, all the stores of the Athlete’s Shack were completely disconnected from each other. Hence, they required a solution that can better support and facilitate the corporate operations and dealings. TAS was facing the following problems through traditional ways: Lack of communication Lack of data security Redundancy of da ta Complex management of business operations Less hold/control of management Long term processing cycle Difficult order processing cycle No centralized

Introduction to Visual Cultures and Narrative Form Essay

Introduction to Visual Cultures and Narrative Form - Essay Example Said (1979, pp. 1-3) in his criticism of orientalism redefined it as the constellation of false assumptions that underlay the attitude of the Western nations towards the Middle East. The Western nations, America and European thereby used orientalism culture and romanticized images of Middle East and Asia as a justification of their colonial and imperial ambitions. Said fiercely denounces this culture and equally criticizes the Arab elites whose practices revolved around internalized ideas from British and American orientalists. The danger linked to the orientalism culture by the West is that some East can treat it as truth thereby affecting relations and ideologies. However, Said (1979) emphasizes that it is hard to label half of the continent as orient and manage to generalize that what applies to Egyptians equally applies to Chinese. Orientalism in this paper supports Edward Said’s critical theory approach to international relations theory where the West forms a one-way imag e of the Oriental. The discussion focuses on definition of terms, orientalism and Occident, and early orientalism and contemporary orientalism. The orient according to Said (1978, p. 4) refers to a representations’ system enclosed by forces from politics that introduced the orient into western consciousness, Western learning, and Western Empire. The system of representation results from the condensation of diverse attributes into a single image not from facts but from perceptions that are regarded as a standard of comparison (Hall, 1992). In addition, orientatlism offers a criterion for evaluation that other world societies rank negatively or positively thereby functioning as an ideology. For the West, the orient is constructed relative to the West and has largely assisted in the definition of Europe or the West since it is views as the contrasting image, experience, idea, and personality (Said, 1979, pp. 1-2). The

Management Essays Operations Management

Management Essays Operations Management Operations Management This paper will argue the analysis of the book â€Å"The Goal† by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox. It will stress the positive and negative aspects of the book, and will discuss the criticism and which areas of the book were least interesting. The paper will also emphasize the areas of interest. The Goal is a riveting, fast-paced business novel about overcoming the barriers to making money. It has helped me better understand the fundamentals of identifying and solving problems created by constraints. After finishing the book one will be able to start successfully addressing productivity and quality problems. The authors feature some important aspects of business management; they have explained the theories in simple terms that make it appealing and logical for the readers. In this captivating business novel, which illustrates modern economic theory, Alex Rogo is a UniCo plant manager whose factory and marriage are failing. Alex Rogo manages a failing manufacturing plant, and because he dedicates most of himself to his work his marriage is difficult. When he learns from his district manager that profits must increase or the plant will be closed, Alex realizes he needs assistance. He turns to a former professor, Jonah, whom Alex discovers is now a management consultant. With his help and the help of the plant staff, Alex turns the plant around. However, in the process he also abandons many management principles that he previously thought were ironclad. To regenerate the plant, he follows advice from a vague former college professor who teaches that reduction in the efficiency of some plant operations may make the entire operation more productive. Alexs attempts to find the road to profitability and to keep his employees in the struggle involve the reader. Thankfully the authors economic models including a game with match sticks and bowls are easy to understand. Although some characters are as mysterious as the goods manufactured in the factory, others ring true. Also, the story of Alex and his wifes separation and reunion makes a touching contrast to the rest of the book. The reading is recommended for anyone with an interest in the state of America’s economy. It is energetic and interesting and offers food for thought for managers in any field of work. The performances are natural, with sound effects to enhance a picture of reality. Although it is a novel, its title is more attractive for business collections. Anyone who considers himself a manager should buy and consume this book immediately. If you are the only one in your work place to have read it, your progress to success may suddenly increase as this is one of the most exceptional business books I have ever encountered. After reading The Goal I was very impressed with the way it was written. Reading a business book in a narrative format was something I was not expecting. The narrative format caught and kept my attention throughout the entire book. That explains why it has sold over a million copies. I have since recommended this book to both my family, who manages their own business, and to my friends. It is not just as a book about business but it can help one in every aspect of life. Some of my manager friends who have started the book say that the approach to keep it away from the traditional, boring business books is wonderful and interesting. I enjoyed the fact that the authors allowed the reader figure out what Jonah (an oracle like figure) meant before Alex got it. I felt it did take Alex a long time to understand; and it seemed as though there were some basic changes in his plant that the amateur eye could see but over all, I have nothing but praise for this book. If it was not for Jonah arriving at the plant one could have assumed that Jonah was the subconscious of Alex Rogo and that he had the answers the whole time. I felt that The Goal did an excellent job leaving an open ended question and showing that life is indeed a process of ongoing improvement. Let me explain some of the many levels on which this novel is important. First, the book shows how to view businesses as systems better then any other business book on the market. It compares important works as a guide to constraints and well defines them in everyday life. The metaphor of how to speed up a slow-moving group of boy scouts will be beneficial to anyone who has done any hiking with a group. Second, the book helps you learn how to progress the performance of an organization by providing you with a replicable process that you can apply to analyzing any human or engineering system. The main metaphor is improving a manufacturing process but the same principles apply more broadly to other circumstances. Third, you will experience the power of the Socratic Method as a way to encourage your mind to learn and to use Socratic questions to stimulate the minds of others to become better thinkers. Fourth, the authors use problem simulation as a realistic way to help you experience t he learning process they are advocating. And last, the book is good in bringing home the consequences of allowing your business processes to run in a cycle. Eli Goldratt truly has a modern approach not only to management but also in teaching his theory. The Goal is about the ongoing struggle of a manufacturing plant manger as he searches for a way to save his plant from being shut down. With the leadership of an old high school physics professor Jonah, he develops a tactic to make his factory run more efficiently and become more beneficial. The theory of constraints is a simple theory that is usually the most effective and unnoticed. Goldratt understood that no matter how simple the theory is to comprehend, it would not be as successful unless it was deeply understood. If he were to simply set rules in a textbook style format as to how to approach a constraint, the chances of long-run improvement would be slim. Since business is in a steady stage of change, the constraints within them must also change. Unless the manager has a true comprehension of the theory they will be unable to adjust the environment to the changes to remain successf ul. This book was enormously effective in delivering its message and educating readers on management and accounting theories. Through the text, author Eli M. Goldratt introduces and explains the Theory of Constraints. His main character, Alex Rogo, and Rogos team of plant executives must save a declining production plant by increasing throughput and cutting operational costs. He uses the characters to guide readers through the thought process behind the theory as the characters ask questions and search for answers. Readers are given time to consider these questions and form ideas before the answers to the theory are given. Students can carefully consider all the information and weigh all possibilities to form their own opinions at times his theories become too complex and conflicting. Goldratt has been an especially productive author in recent years. Goldratt has written a novel in which he provides an analysis of those concepts as applied in a imaginary company. He has a cast of characters, a plot, and a context. He relies greatly on conversation to advance the narrative. At times these advanced narratives can be confusing for a new reader, but he tries to explain the theories in an easy and understandable manner. As in any other well-written novel, The Goal examines issues in dispute that create conflicts. Ultimately they are resolved, even if somewhat too neatly. Although of greatest relevance to manufacturing companies, Goldratts Theory of Constraints with suitable modifications can also be of extensive value to other companies with bottlenecks that also delay and often disrupt a process of some kind. The Theory of Constraints portion was a bit put down and the romance line was a little tedious, but all in all it was a decent read. The Goal is a business management book which tries to explain the theory of constrain in a manner that hasn’t been done before. The author’s way of explanation is different and does not feel like a business book, instead gives the feeling of a novel. This new way of narration can at times feel complicated, as it makes a person loss touch with the business and management, and make them involved with the interpersonal conflicts of the book. The Goal introduces the Theory of Constraints, is changing how America does business. The Goal is a fascinating, business novel about overcoming the barriers to making money. It helps to learn the basics of identifying and solving the problems created by constraints. From the moment you finish the book you will be able to start successfully addressing chronic productivity and quality problems. This theory provided a persuasive solution for factories struggling with production delays and low revenues. Theory of Constraints is strange but can be the best resource for organizations that have established improvement. The simplicity of the ideas Goldratt places on constraints helps him teach his ideas. He helps us define our organizational goals and the concepts of productivity throughput, inventory, and operational cost. Jonah the teacher makes Alex and his staff the students discover the questions and answers they have been searching for to save their factory. This work is incredible for any new business manager. It is also a very common sense and basic approach to describing some of the major problems of the manufacturing organization. These problems are easily overlooked when dissecting financial reports. An extraordinarily effective novel for learning management, this novel succeeds in being exceptional at so many levels that it could receive a multiple of five stars. It is difficult to picture a management book in novel form ever approaching this one in usefulness. Most people will learn more that they can apply from this book about management than many learn to apply from an M.B.A. The central story is built around the dilemmas facing Alex Rogo, a newly appointed plant manager. The plant can not seem to ship, its losing money, and bad things can happen to good people if all this does not change soon. Alex is at a loss for what to do until he pulls out a cigar that Jonah had recently given him. That cigar reminds him to contact Jonah for help. From there, the path to revival begins. Unlike many books that take complex ideas and oversimplify them so the ideas lose their meaning, this book simplifies ideas in ways that boost their meaning. They do this by making the ideas easier to view and employ. If you do not understand about typical factory accounting, you may get a little lost from time to time; but that is not a problem. The accounting just alters common awareness of what needs to be done. Companies that do not put an asset charge on operational assets could make the mistake from this book of seeking too little earnings. Companies need to earn on-going returns that surpass the cost of capital, too. The greatest success from this book is The Fifth Discipline following it. The discussion of the beer game simulation in The Fifth Discipline will add to the comprehension of system dynamics. Elis character as a slaughterer of sacred cows began in 1979 when the beginning of his computerized scheduling system disproved the legend that fixed scheduling does not work. This work led to the awareness that the present measurements used on the shop floor are a major stumbling block to improvement and led to the almost unavoidable next development step. But when he attacked Cost Accounting as enemy number one of productivity, he should have produced great conflict. Instead, Eli was sincerely welcomed by both manufacturing and financial people. Many companies are now discarding efficiencies and questioning other uses of cost accounting for making decisions. Today Elis process of ongoing improvement is increasingly accepted as a powerful, practical holistic approach in which other methods such as MRP, Just in Time, Statistical Process Control are synergistically matched. It seems suitable that a man characterized as unconventional but also full of common sense should mask The Goal, a manufacturing textbook, as a novel or, as some say, a love story. It is also appropriate that it should become an underground best seller in boardrooms, universities and on the factory floor. Eli Goldratt demonstrates his intellect both as a scholar and as a teacher with The Goal. The operational ideas that he presents are innovative in their practicality and common-sense approach. These concepts, jointly described as Theory of Constraints have closed the loop for prepared thinking and problem solving. This has lead to a change in this thinking that connected the departments into chains and emphasized up-stream suppliers and down-stream consumers. Where these short falls were in looking at the productivity of the entire chain and providing a problem solving method for continuously improving that productivity, Theory of Constraints provides a problem solving method as well as an executive approach that drives ongoing improvement in any business. The business novel approach is very attractive as a delivery and teaching method. Most of us struggle through the yearly crop of dry business texts that are commonly uninspiring. This book is presented with a storytellers obsession for detail, while still driving the key points of the theory. Every organization can gain from the concepts presented in The Goal. Implementation is not costly, unlike other improvement fads. Theory Of Constraints shows you, the manager, how to hub on what is really important in your operation, in spite of your daily fire drills. In conclusion, â€Å"The Goal† by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox is a business text camouflaged as a novel. It is a remarkable cast of actors that dramatizes a charming tale of discovery and freedom. In the story the manager of a troubled plant learns from a mathematician turned consultant that many of his management practices and financial assumptions are faulty. After he retools his thinking, he convinces everyone at the factory to get with the new program. The storys flow is slowed by irrelevant dialogue and subplots, but it is still a good story and a appealing format for serving up the authors messagethat businesses weighed down by archaic habits can be wildly beneficial when fresh mathematical methods are used courageously. References Mathematics books, last viewed: 20th May’04 http://mathematicsbooks.org/Business_Economics_Finance_Theory.html

Discrimination is Everywhere! Essay -- Prejudice Stereotype

Discrimination—Everywhere! Discrimination can be confused with other terms such as prejudice and stereotype. It is important to differentiate between the three terms so that we better understand what we deal with in society. Stereotypes are images held in our minds in regards to certain racial or cultural groups, without consideration of whether the images held are true or false. Stemming from stereotypes is prejudice. The prejudicial attitude occurs when we prejudge a person, good or bad, on the basis that the stereotypes associated with the person/group being prejudged are true. Discrimination is the combination of the terms mentioned above, but involves actually acting out with unfair treatment, directing the action towards the person/group. Prejudice and discrimination do not just occur racially, but it is found among gender, religion, culture, and geographical background. Remember that prejudice is a result of attitude and discrimination is a result of action. At one point in our lives, we have all experienced a type of discrimination. It happens to everyone, even if they happen to be the â€Å"dominating† group of their society. By dominating, I am referring to the stereotype that white, rich men dominate the society. Is it false, or true? I, myself, have experienced discrimination. One example is the wonderful experience of buying a car. It is tough enough to get up the courage to deal with the salesmen at the dealership, but even harder when you are a young female. Mo...

Mao’s domestic policies Essay

Essay Question: To what extend do you consider Mao’s domestic policies more successful than his foreign policies? Between the years 1949 and 1976 China was in a faze of changes, which varied in good and bad, the way roller coasters vary in ups and downs. Mao Zedong was the Chairman during those years whom one could make responsible for numerous successes and failures in China. His domestic and foreign policies were the causes of millions of deaths, economic highs and lows, unhappy peasants and many more factors which harmed and helped China to build up and backwards after feudalism had been removed from China. The Five Year Plan, which was a duplicate of the plan that Russia used to overcome the countries misery, took place between 1952 and 1956 and was a success for entire China. The Hundred Flowers Campaign, which Mao started in 1957, is known to be one of his greatest failures and resulted in chaos, along with the collectivisation plan in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and the Great Leap Forward Mao failed to help his country. As he supported the Korean War in the 1950’s Chinas budget decreased my thousand of millions of Yuan. This foreign policy was a disaster for China and even though several domestic policies were introduced, none of them could really keep China and it’s masses in population contend. Due to the support China had provided Korea with many more people died. If Korean had not been supported by Chinas budget, then one could argue that not as many people would have been killed the Korean War. Maybe the number of deaths could have been reduced to half a million or so, one can only speculate, yet it is clear that this foreign policy did not do any good, but much more harm. It did not only destroy human lives, it also harassed the Chinese budget and as a result made China very weak. PRC Expenditure in Percentages of Total Budget: As is shown on the table in 1950 the percent of money which was taken away from the budget is 41,5 %. This is almost half of the entire Chinese budget. Most of this money supported the Korean War and helped Korean to defend itself. By 1957 this percentile had gone down, but all most every other one went up. For an example 51,4 % of the Chinese budget was being used to support the economic development. This is a vast amount of money needed to support the economic development of a country. Even though this foreign policy supported Korean, it was and opposition for the donator, China. The Five Year Plan can be viewed purely as a success. Mao was impressed with what Lenin had accomplished with it and decided to do the same. Mao and the PRC, People Republic of China, build up the same Five Year Plan as Russia and succeeded. The National Resources Committee, NRC, had already taken care of several industrial ideas, which Mao had, and they were also the ones who had total control over the industrial investment sections. During the Five Year Plan a significant amount of migration took place. Families moved from the countryside into the large cities to find jobs at factories. One major factor that makes the Five Year Plan a success is of the inflation, from which China had been suffering for many years, which Mao achieved to decrease. It dropped from over 1,000 percent to nearly 15 percent and was a result of a raise of taxes and a change of the Chinese currency from the Chinese Dollar to the Yuan. Not only did the PRC want to focus on the production of steel, coal and petrol-chemicals, but also on transportations such as the Chinese automobile. An event, which is a perfect example to demonstrate the successes of the Five Year Plan would be the construction of a road and railway bridge, which crossed the Yangzi River, which can be seen as a contribution to the modernization of China. By 1952 the PRC had introduced their goals of what they wanted to achieve during the Five Year Plan. Their targets were to produce at least 555,000 bicycles by 1957, yet instead they produced more than 1,740,000. Also, they planned on manufacturing 4,000 trucks, but they achieved to produce more than 7,500. However magnificent this all sounds and how proud China must have been, if Russia had not helped China to industrialize, they would have never been able to compare themselves with the Soviet Union after their Five Year Plan had Worked so well. Meaning, China was not as successful as Russia had been, because China got the Soviet Unions support, whereas Russia made it on their own two feet. However, one should give credit to Mao for the Five Year Plan, because this was one of his only successful domestic policies and it gave China a better economic position in the world. The Hundred Flowers Campaign, which was a domestic policy, introduced in 1956, was probably Mao’s greatest Failure during has dictatorship. When Mao became the Chairman in 1949 he strict freedom of speech policies, since he did not welcome any other political opinions other than those of communism. In 1956, Mao Zedong decided it was time to allow people in China to speak their minds free from fear of persecution by the government. Mao wanted to encourage free speech and healthy arguments. This was introduced with the phrase â€Å"let a hundred flowers bloom.† With this he wanted allow the expression of diverse ideas. Mao colleagues to stop this policy, due to the fact that Stalin had lost power in Poland and Hungry through this policy. However, he pressured boldly forward. After some time thing got out of hand and Mao replaced it with the ‘anti-rightist’ operation. Mao sent intellectuals, layers and even teacher to the countryside, had them humiliated publicly, or let them be assassinated. The Hundred Flowers Campaign was a disaster. Thousands were killed because they had their own opinion and expressed it freely, just the way Mao had provoked. When Mao said: â€Å"It is only by using discussion, criticism and reasoning that we can really foster correct ideas, overcome wrong ideas and really settle issues.† and then killed the majority of those who obeyed his new policy, one must ask oneself, what he really intended with this. One could argue that Mao did not create the Hundred Flower Campaign to get feed-back and criticism so that he can improve the countries situation, it is thought that Mao introduced the Campaign to find those who had something to say against him and his ideas in a quicker and more efficient way than before. In conclusion, Mao became more powerful, however, be betrayed his own country. This is how one can see where his domestic policies were much less successful than his foreign ones. With his foreign policy mention earlier, he provoked death due to a war, whereas in his domestic policies he provoked death due to his own ignorance and utter ruthlessness. Once one has made one mistake, it seems as though one has released a chain of reactions. At least this is the case for Mao, because his next mistake was not far from his last one. The Great Leap Forward, which took place in 1958-1962, was a hardship on the peasants. Even though China had modernized and industrialized there were still many problems to come. Although Mao stood upright for equal treatment of all humans and even though Mao and his family were peasants, he set up a list of strict rules for the peasants to obey. This was a result of the following. Mao realized that not enough food was being produced and brought to the cities, because of the migration that took place in the Five Year Plan. Too much of the population was now working in the factories and the economic planner concluded that this was the fault of the peasants. Since the peasant families were increasing rapidly each month, too much grain was going to the individual families, and thus, Mao decided to put the peasants under strict central control and direction. During the great peasant revolution Mao had given the serfs freedom and the land that once belonged to the landowners now belonged to them. However, the Collectivisation Plan changed everything. Now the peasants were not working for themselves anymore, but for the government, to prevent another shortage of grain in the cities. China’s agricultural land was split into 70,000 communes, each consisting of 750,000 brigades, each made up of 200 households. The setting of prices, distribution of products, farming methods and the sales were all controlled by the PRC. Since the targets of grain production of the government were so high, there was not much grain left for the people. Hunger and death was well known during that time, and millions had died of starvation. Alone in Tibet 20% of the population had starved to death. The main problem of this crisis was that nobody told Mao about these happenings, because they were all afraid to undergo the same destiny as all the others who told him the bad news. However, one man did find the courage after all and open his heart to Mao. Mr. Peng Dehuai was the minister of defence, and decided to let Chairman know about the disasters that were going on. He was dismissed and sent to the countryside. By now nearly all of China was afraid to say anything against or even to him. The Collectivisation system pulled China down more than ever. In 1958 200 million tons of grain were being produced, but in 1962 less than 160 million tons were produced. A similar thing happened to the meat production. In 19584,3 million tons of meat were being manufactured and by 1968 only 1,9 tons were being produced. Mao’s plan had once again not worked. Almost thirty million people died in China from his domestic policies, however, his foreign policies did not cause such harsh consequences for anyone. One must look at the success of the domestic and foreign policies from three different perspectives. One, the Chinese citizens perspective during Mao’s dictatorship, two, Mao’s own viewpoint, and three, the perception of the success of today’s people. The Chinese people of that time lived the changes, the success and most of all the failures. Like in many situations, the negative things were paid more attention, due to the harsher memories, which are well in mind. The people suffered, lost family members and were tortured mentally and physically. Even though Mao became like a God for them after the â€Å"Little Red Book† was published in May 1964. It was a book of quotations from Mao and was there to give the Chinese citizens a better view of what he was doing. Mao was feared and therefore obeyed. From Mao’s point of view, things seemed to be going great because be barely received feedback from his colleagues, because they were too afraid of him as well. The fear, which developed through out the years came from the punishment that people had to undergo. The rumours of what was happening did not even have to go around the country; the majority of the people saw the humiliations and various other punishments with their own eyes. Anyhow, Mao was partially not informed about the millions of deaths that were occurring, therefore he was probably satisfied with his work, and believed that he was successful. Then, if one looks at the overall damaged he caused with his domestic and foreign policies one can see that his domestic policies were much less successful than his foreign policies. If Mao would still be alive today he would possibly realize his mistakes and would think similar to the perspective of today. Mao was a man with visions and ideas, which he thought to be most important. However, he did more harm then did he help people with his domestic and foreign policies. One can even consider his foreign policies more successful in some ways, because his support in the Korean War did not kill as many people as his domestic polices resulted in killing. Nevertheless, one mustn’t generalize everything. One must also look from different perspectives such as Mao’s for an example. He was often left uninformed about what was really going on in the country; therefore he was most likely felt successful. The peasants had a much different point of view due to the more authentic experiences they had to undergo. But by looking at the situation form the modern eyes of today, one can clearly see the successes and failures of Chairman Mao’s dictatorship. His domestic policies were less successful than his foreign policies due to the numbers of deaths. It seems as though Mao released a chain reaction of mistakes as he did his first one with the Hundred Flowers Campaign in 1957, and that there was no way of stopping it.

Erikson’s Timeline Essays

Erikson’s Timeline Essays Erikson’s Timeline Essay Erikson’s Timeline Essay Harmonizing to Erikson. there are eight phases of life. They are babyhood. early childhood. childhood ( play age ) . childhood ( school age ) . striplings and immature maturity. I merely turned 34 this month and I know psychologically that I am in the maturity part of my life. Over the old ages I have caught myself inquiring inquiries like ; who am I? And how do I suit myself into society? I would state over 10 old ages ago I began the 6th phase of my life. familiarity versus isolation. When I finished high school I thought I found that particular individual until I noticed that we became different people. I wanted more out of person to be able to day of the month and be able to fall in love with the right individual. The relationship between the two phases is complex and many people define themselves through intimate relationships with others ; and other proper sequence of the phases can be reversed in many people. Woman in the society traditionally exemplified a meeting of familiar ity and place issues such as adult female identify being defined by her intimate relationships. Sometimes it can be difficult to divide the differences between the development of intimate relationships and grownup itself. Erikson believes that a individual is unable to be genuinely intimate with others until he or she has made advancement with turn toing their ain individuality. Marcia’s. the research worker for individuality position. developed a similar thought with turn toing their ain individuality. Macias besides developed an thought designed to find the quality of familiarity in a person’s life. A individual answered several inquiries about dating. friendly relationship. and interpersonal he or she committednesss may be classified into four classs ; Intimate-works at developing common personal relationships. has several near friends. involved in a committed love relationship. and is able to show both affectionate and angry feelings in the relationship. Pre-intimate- is a individual who has dated but is involved in a committed love relationship. is cognizant of the possibilities of associating closely with others. and feels conflicted about committedness and love relationships. Stereotyped- constricted and immature individual who has non gone beyond superficial dating relationships. has several friends but they lack important deepness. and he/she day of the months on a regular basis but does non acquire involved. Isolated- deficiencies endurance personal relationships. seldom dates and the individual tend to be dying and immature lacking assertiveness and societal accomplishments. If I were to make a trial on myself I would state that I am a really mature individual who knows what she wants in life because when I am with a individual I am really committed and seek my hardest to do things work. I would neer rip off or make anything to ache the individual that I am with. I don’t have any jobs showing my feelings to my spouse. I have a friend who refuses to be in a relationship. I feel that she still has a batch of turning up to make and she enjoys playing with other people’s feelings. These people don’t cognize what love is yet and might non of all time open that page for person else. As for me I know what love is and what it takes to hold a good solid relationship. Mentions: McAdams. ( 2006 ) The individual: A new debut to personality psychological science ( 4th ed. ) Hoboken NJ: John Wiley A ; Sons.

Philosophical Quotes on Violence

Philosophical Quotes on Violence What is violence? And, accordingly, how should non-violence be understood? While I have written a number of articles on these and related topics, it is useful to look at how philosophers have synthesized their views on violence. Here is a selection of quotes, sorted out into topics. Voices on Violence Frantz Fanon: Violence is man re-creating himself.George Orwell: We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.Thomas Hobbes: In the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power, but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.Niccolà ² Machiavelli: Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.Niccolà ² Machiavelli: I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness. [†¦] A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and confident; for, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from whence spring murders and rapine; for these as a rule injure the whole community, while the executions carried out by the prince injure only one individual [†¦] From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. Against Violence Martin Luther Kind Jr.: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.Albert Einstein: Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism- how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business.Fenner Brockway: I had long put on one side the purist pacifist view that one should have nothing to do with a social revolution if any violence were involved... Nevertheless, the conviction remained in my mind that any revolution would fail to establish freedom and fraternity in proportion to its use of violence, that the use of violence inevitably brought in its train domination, repression, cruelty. Isaac Asimov: Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

The secret life of bees Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The secret life of bees - Essay Example olding of occurrences at the household of the Boatwright sisters and the community of worshippers of Our Lady of Chains, the Black Madonna, accorded opportunities for Lily to find what she was looking for. The primary character and narrator of the story is Lily, who was searching for answers regarding her mother’s past, prior to the event of her death. The struggles she was subjected to h encompasses theories of psychosocial framework delving into concepts of trust (in oneself and in T-Ray), guilt (due to the death of her mother), isolation (feeling alone and lonely), role confusion (her perception of being a girl and not acting like one) and feelings of despair (due to the loss of Lily’s mother). The story evolved in finding solutions to her dilemma through the assistance of a group (the Boatwright sisters and the community of worshippers) who were instrumental in giving her the much needed support and love, as well as the answers she was looking for. Her experiences of living and working with bees gave her the strength to accept the things that she could not change (being abandoned by her mother, the way her father treats her, racial inequalities, among others) and the resilience to accept what she has (her talents in writing, taking care of bees, being in love with Zach despite racial differences). The lesson of learning to accept the need to reveal the truth, despite its painful memory, as she revealed everything to August set her free and provided the impetus for understanding the facts about her mother’s abandoning her and T-Ray. This enabled her to move on and to actually forgive his father and to open herself to the love that Boatwright sisters and the community of worshippers give her. The Secret Life of Bees presented an analogy between Lily, as a bee, in search of her mother (the Queen). The secret she kept from the Boatwright sisters, though not immediately revealed, has caused her fear, anxiety and insecurities with regard to her relationships

Case Report on a Supreme Court decision that has been important in Essay

Case Report on a Supreme Court decision that has been important in shaping the interpritation of the Constitution - Essay Example This and other court appointments by the outgoing administration caused considerable consternation among the victorious Democratic-Republicans. During his long tenure, the decisions of the Marshall Court laid down the groundwork for an independent judiciary, the Court’s role as final arbiter of the Constitution, and practical guidelines for the functioning of a nation with distributed domestic sovereignty. Marshall’s greatest contribution to American constitutional practice was the establishment of the concept of judicial review: the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter in determining whether Acts of Congress and actions of the Executive (i.e., the President) are consonant with the language of the Constitution. This was accomplished through the resolution of an otherwise obscure suit at law brought by a Maryland businessman, William Marbury, requesting the Supreme Court issue a writ of mandamus to Secretary of State James Madison, requiring the latter to deliver to Marbury an already signed and sealed appointment as Justice of the Peace for the District of Columbia. Marbury was one of a group of 42 men appointed justices of the peace by the lame duck Adams Administration. In the ensuing months, 25 had their appointments confirmed by the new administration. Marbury belonged to the denied group. Marbury v. Madison, unlike virtually all other cases before the Supreme Court, w as one in which the judges sat as a trial court of original instance. Marbury’s request for a writ of mandamus was brought under the terms of article 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Marbury and the host of other ‘midnight’ appointments were a partisan political issue and Marshall was desperate to keep the court from become politicized, realizing that under such conditions, an independent judiciary could not prevail. Marbury had failed in his attempt to secure documentation from the Senate (i.e., from that

International Business Master Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

International Business Master - Essay Example The manufacturers can alert customs about unauthorized products entering the United States, and customs will act to prevent this. However, not all people feel that these products should be excluded from the market. The idea the United States grew up around is the free market economy, and many argue that these actions are just another offshoot of this. Many people who purchase these unlicensed imports view manufactures in a hypocritical light, saying that manufactures sell off excess items in gray markets to bring up cash flows. One industry that felt this gray market bind is Apple Computes, Inc. Apple has spent quite a bit of time and money in an effort to bring up the value of the Mac and further improve the reputation of the computer and the company. Apple Computers has spent much of its time and effort focusing on providing excellent customer service and instruction in order to help people who purchase their computers better use the computers. However, gray marketers are not concerned at all with customer service quality, and this is where Apple Computers, Inc is running into problems. Customers can purchase Macs from these gray markets and then complain about the customer service presented after the computer has been purchased.

300 Word Essay about Emerson Essay Example for Free

300 Word Essay about Emerson Essay Emerson’s assertion â€Å" every young man [ or women ] is born with some determination in his [ or her ] nature, and is a potential genius† is very powerful and I agree. At a young age most children fantasies about what they wish to become. For example I wanted to be a surgeon when I was younger. Over time the interest in becoming a surgeon faded away because I started to know more about the many things you can study and do for the rest of your life. Having a huge goal when I was little influenced and made me think twice as I grew. Did I really want to become a surgeon and possible save lives, or study material remains of past human life and activities? The point is having a goal since I was little makes me push myself more because I know I want to be more than a high school graduate. See more: The stages of consumer buying decision process essay I have my own determination because I know I’m the one that needs to work for myself to become as successful as I wish and I want to be good and passionate about something. My parents are fond of me and they really support my decisions, they really want me to be better than them and they give me the best they can to achieve what I want. My parents are my support. For that same reason I agree with Emerson. We all want to do something for someone to either prove them wrong or make them proud. This could be yourself. What we are passionate about is different but we all have something to look forward to. It all really depends when we find what we are passionate and determined about. Our determination about things become intensified and much clearer as we grow up and they may change.

Impact of Corporate Culture on IT Company Growth and Profits

Impact of Corporate Culture on IT Company Growth and Profits The Impact of Corporate Culture on the Growth and Profitability of IT Companies: The Case of Google Abstract In todays global economy, companies from different industries are trying to create a unique competitive advantage to stay in business and maximize their shareholders equity. In doing so, companies should analyze their largest expenses and try to minimize these costs while utilizing their resources in order to make the most from these expenditures. The largest operating expense in U.S. companies is salary. To maximize this expenditure, businesses should devise ways in which to motivate their employees to be more productive. Controlling employees to come to work is easy, but how can companies motivate their employees to work to their full capacity? One way in which this can be accomplished is by creating a suitable, attractive, and tension-free working environment for employees. In doing so, companies can create a strong corporate culture which could offer a competitive advantage. As an example, Google has become one of the largest IT companies in the world in fewer than two decades from its establishment. Not only has Google grown to be one of the largest IT company in the world, it has also developed unique and innovative products, a high job growth, and a secure position as one of the top five companies for which to work. Google has managed to achieve this not only by developing appropriate business strategy, but also creatin g a strong corporate culture that concentrates mainly on employees and customers. In this research, I will try to analyze Googles achievements. I will conduct a small survey to examine the adaptability of Googles flexible corporate culture in IT companies located in Utah. Introduction Statement of the Problem The old saying, â€Å"You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink† may hold true for employees as well; you can make employees come to work, but it is not easy to make them work to their full capacity. Companies may use different methods to control their employees to make them work to their fullest working capacity, but this does not always succeed. To understand employees work satisfaction and engagement in their work, it is useful to analyze a survey conducted by the Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) (Houser, 2009). The GMJ surveyed U.S. employees to understand how engaged they are in their work and their attitudes toward their managers. According to the study, there are three types of employees: 1. Engaged employees: Those who work with passion, motivation, and have deep feelings toward their company. These people are the ones who move the organization. 2. Not-engaged employees: Those who are physically present in the company but mentally absent. These employees are not motivated, and they dont care about their company. They come to work simply to put in hours. The survey refers to them as â€Å"walking through their workday.† 3. Actively disengaged employees: Those who are not only unhappy, but they express their unhappiness in different ways. They may undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish. The study results showed that 26% of respondents are engaged in their work, 56% of the respondents are not engaged in their work, and 18% of the respondents are actively disengaged in their work. The following chart illustrates the finding of this study. The respondents of the survey were asked if they would fire their manager, given the opportunity. Respondents indicated that 24% would fire their manager if they were given the chance. Of this number, 6% of those respondents were engaged in their work, 23% of the number were not engaged in their work, and 51% of the respondents were actively disengaged in their work. Therefore, less engaged employees tend to dislike their managers, and would fire them, given the opportunity. According to the study, this lack of productivity costs companies billions of dollars. Approximately 24.7 million employees age 18 and over are actively disengaged; this represents 18% of the total workforce. From 2000 to 2007, actively disengaged employees in the U.S. cost the countrys economy from $334 to $431 billion every year in low productivity. The Cost Of Disengagement In this study, I will analyze the different reasons why employees are disengaged from their work, and I will suggest recommendations to solve this problem by taking as an example a successful company in the U.S. Purpose of the study Today, different companies are trying to find a unique competitive advantage. One competitive advantage that was overlooked for many years is an attractive organizational culture. Not only will a superior organizational culture help in attracting and retaining the best employees, it can also be used to create a loyal customer base. In this paper, I will investigate the organizational culture of Google, Inc. in the information technology (IT) industrial sector. I will analyze how Google has capitalized on its organizational culture to become one of the largest search engines and IT companies in the world. I will conduct a small survey on organizational culture on IT companies located in Salt Lake City, Utah to determine useful recommendations by analyzing the results of the survey and comparing these to Googles organizational culture. Before analyzing organizational cultures, it would be beneficial to answer some questions as to why this topic was selected as well as other related issues. Why I Focused on Organizational Culture Many companies have tried to come up with a competitive advantage to maximize the shareholders profits. For years, an attractive corporate culture was not considered as vital to the success of an organization. Unlike external factors of business, which are not directly controlled by organizations, corporate culture is an internal environmental force which can be manipulated by organizations in their favor. Why I Emphasized the Employees Employees are the executers of the plans and strategies of the organization. Most companies consider employees as their asset, but, in my opinion, employees are much more than this. According to a study conducted by the United States Census Bureau, companies largest operating expense is salary. (U.S.CensusBureau, 2000) (See charts below). By taking care of their employees, organizations can get the best results from them. The following charts show the breakdown of operating expense for different industries in 1997 as it was studied by the U.S. Census Bureau under the Economic and Statistics Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Even though, this study was conducted more than a decade ago, I have included it, because I believe it shows the general trend of the breakdown of operating expenses within U.S. industries. Merchant wholesale companies have five major operating costs. Of these, payroll was by far the largest operating expense. If payroll expense and fringe benefits, which are operating expenses toward employees, are combined, more than half of the total operating expenses go toward employee salaries. The breakdown of operating expenses of retail trade has the same tendency as that of the merchant wholesaler. In fact, the only difference is that the expenses for rent by retail trade businesses are a little bit higher than that of the merchant wholesaler. The breakdown of operating expense for business services, which include IT industries, shows a larger expense toward employees. Payroll, consisting of 51% of total operating expense, contract labor, consisting of 5% of total operating expense and fringe benefits, consisting of 8% of total operating expense makes up a total of 64% of the total operating expense. The breakdown of the operating expenses for legal services follows the same trend as for business services. The following chart compares payroll expenses of different sectors of business According to the above chart, business services, health services and legal services pay the highest portion of operating expenses to payroll. Clearly, if companies are paying the majority of their operating expense toward the salaries of their employees, they should try to get the most from their workforce. Another study conducted in 2007 by the AmericanTimeUseSurvey through the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (AmericanTimeUseSurvey, 2007) showed that of the total working people in U.S., those who were between the ages of 25 to 54 living in households with children under the age of 18 spent most of their time either working or in work-related activities. The survey was provided from data taken on non-holiday weekdays. Out of the total 24 hours, those between the age of 25 to 54 living in households with children under the age of 18 spent 8.7 hours working or on work-related activities, 7.6 hours sleeping, 2.6 hours on leisure and sports, 1.2 hours caring for others, 1.1 hours on household activities, 1.1 hours in eating and drinking and the remaining 1.7 hours on other activities. The following chart illustrates these hours in percentiles. Based on this survey, people with children between the ages of 25 to 54, who were part of the labor force, spent the majority of their time at the workplace or doing work-related activities. If companies created a suitable and stable environment, this labor force would be motivated to work harder to help companies maximize their profits. This study will research and analyze how companies could create a competitive advantage by attracting and retaining the best employees through a superior corporate culture. Why I focused on IT IT, by any comparison, is the fastest growing industry in the world. Companies are spending billions of dollars every year, which has made the IT industry one of the most profitable industries in the world. According to a study conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2005 and published in 2007 (U.S.CensusBureau, Information and Communication Technology: 2005, April 2007), the information industry by itself contributes 52.4 billion dollars to the IT industry through purchases of hardware and software annually. The finance and insurance sectors spent $44.2 billion; the manufacturing, professional, scientific, and technical services sectors spent $32.5 billion; the health care sector spent $27 billion; and the social assistance business sector spent $19.9 billion on IT hardware and software components in 2005 alone. Based on this study, more than $200 billion was spent on IT hardware and software by different business sectors in 2005. According to this study, the noncapital and capital expenditures for computer software were higher compared to IT hardware. It is a general assumption that if companies are investing more on computer software, the software industry is generating a lot of money. In 2005 alone, the noncapital expenditure for computer software was $54.2 billion, whereas the capital expenditure for the same sector was $49.8 billion. Therefore, this research will focus on computer software companies. Why Focus on Google? Google is one of the fastest growing companies in the world. It has grown sevenfold over the last decade. According to Fortune, Google was listed as the fourth best company to work for in 2009 (100 Best Companies to Work for 2009: Google GOOG from Fortune, 2009). Even though Google was listed as the fourth best company to work for in 2009 by Fortune, it has the highest job growth rate when compared to the other companies listed in the top ten. While Google has a 40% job growth rate, NetApp, which was listed in first place, only has a 12% job growth rate. Edward Jones and Boston Consulting Group, listed second and third, have only a 9% and 10% job growth rate respectively (100 Best Companies to Work for 2009: Google GOOG from Fortune, 2009). Google has shown tremendous growth over the past few years. As the following chart indicates, from 2004 to 2008, the net income of the company increased tenfold. Even when the world economy was in a recession at the end of 2007 and 2008, Google managed to secure a high net income (GoogleInc, 2008). Google has an interesting workforce distribution. As of December 31, 2008, 40% of Googles total workforce was in sales and marketing, 36% in research and development, 15% in general and administrative positions, and the remaining 9% in operations (Google Inc., 2008). According to this data, Google places nearly as large an emphasis on research and development as it does for sales and marketing. Having a large staff in research and development will ensure a strong future market when it is supported with an appropriate corporate strategy. Even if it is difficult to conclude that Google will have a bright future based on the distribution of its workforce, it is certain that this strong contingency of Googles research and development team has proven to be valuable by developing new and exciting technologies, making it difficult for competitors to catch up. Literature Review In todays globalized and integrated world, change within industries and organizations occurs rapidly. Understanding the impact of an organizations environment could assist organizations in coping with this change. The organizational environment includes all elements existing outside the boundary of the organization that have the potential to affect the organization (Daft, Organization Theory and Design, 8th ed., 2004). The organizational environment consists of the external environment and the internal environment. The external environment is made up of those forces that exist outside of the organizations boundaries and have an effect on the organization. The external environment is further divided into the general environment and the task environment. The general environment is the outer layer that is widely dispersed and affects organizations indirectly (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). The general environment includes technological, socio-cultural, economic, legal/political, and international factors. On the other hand, the task environment is closer to the organization and includes the sectors that conduct day-to-day transactions with the organization and directly influence its basic operations and performance (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). The task environment includes customers, labor market, suppliers and competitors. The internal environment includes the elements within the organizations boundaries (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). It includes employees, management and culture of the organization. In this paper the focus is on the culture of the organization and its affect on the performance of the organization. A corporate culture is defined as the set of key values, beliefs, understandings, and norms shared by members of an organization (Martin, 2002) (Kilmann, Ralph H.; Saxton, Mary J.; Serpa, Roy, 1986) (Smircich, 1983). It could also be defined as an â€Å"interdependent set of beliefs, values, ways of behaving, and tools for living that are so common in a community that they tend to perpetuate themselves, sometimes over long periods of time. This continuity is the product of a variety of social forces that are frequently subtle, bordering on invisible, through which people learn a groups norms and values, are rewarded when they accept them, and are ostracized when they do not† (Bemowski, 1995) (Wilhelm, 1992). Corporate culture is derived from both the management and the organization itself. The management, through its philosophy, values, actions and the organization through its roles, structure, systems and technology comprise the corporate culture. Feedback is received from the corporate culture to the management and organization. The following illustrates this process. Classification Schemes There are different classifications of corporate culture defined by different authors. The different views of four authors will be considered in the following: 1. Henry Migliore After studying 24 organizations, Henry Migliore included 20 cultural factors, which he referred to as the â€Å"Corporate Culture Index† (Migliore, Henry; R.T. Martin; Tim Baer; and Jeffrey L. Horvath, 1989). These factors include the following characteristics. * Member Identity: the degree to which employees identify with the organization as a whole in their type of job or field of professional expertise * Team Emphasis: the degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals * People Focus: the degree to which management empowers the employees within the organization * Autonomy: the degree to which departments within the organization are encouraged to operate in a coordinated or interdependent manner * Control: the degree to which rules, regulations, and direct supervision and used to control employee behavior * Risk Tolerance: the degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative, and risk-seeking 2. Geert Hofstede Geert Hofstede believes the behavior of organizations is affected by a national and regional cultural grouping. To study this point, he looked for a national difference among over 100,000 of IBMs employees in different parts of the world. He came up with five dimensions of culture that influence national regional groupings (Hofstede, 1980). These are: * Power distance: the expectation of society on the levels of power an individual possess in the society. A high score of power distance reflects the expectation of the society that some individuals possess more power than others. A low score of power distance reflects the expectations of the society that all people have equal rights * Uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which a society accepts uncertainty and risk * Individualism vs. Collectivism: the degree to which people stand up for themselves or act as part of a group * Masculinity vs. Femininity: the degree to which the society gives value to the male or female * Long vs. Short-term Orientation: the degree to which a society values long term or short term orientation 3. Deal and Kennedy According to Deal and Kennedy, organizational culture is the way things get done in an organization (Deal Kennedy, 1982). They measured an organizations culture using different elements. These elements include: * Feedback: response from the organization * Risk: the degree of uncertainty in the organization Using these two elements, Deal and Kennedy suggested four classifications of corporate cultures (Deal Kennedy, 1982). These are: * The Tough-Guy Macho Culture: The feedback, which is the response from the organization, is quick and the reward is high. * The Work Hard/Play Hard Culture: Few risks are taken, but the feedback, which is the response from the organization, is rapid. * The Bet Your Company Culture: This involves high risk, but it may take a long time to know the outcome of the decision or action. * The Process Culture: This is associated with bureaucracy in the organization. It is common in organizations where there is little or no feedback. 4. Charles Handy Charles Handy developed Roger Harrisons work of 1972 which linked organizational structure to organizational culture (Handy, 1985). According to this idea, there are four types of culture. These are: * Power Culture: A few will rule the organization from the middle. * Role Culture: Employees have clearly delegated authority and the structure of the organization is highly defined. * Task Culture: Teams are formed to solve particular problems; this is a common organizational culture for a matrix structure. * Person Culture: Employees focus on individualism rather than team work. These organizations will face a hard time staying above water. A corporate culture has two levels, visible and invisible. The visible level of culture can be seen at the surface level. It includes symbols, stories, heroes, slogans and ceremonies. The invisible level is deeper values and shared understandings held by organization members who include expressed values, assumptions and deep beliefs. The following illustrates the levels of corporate culture. It is difficult to express the invisible level of corporate culture since it cannot be seen as compared to the visible level of corporate culture. The visible level of corporate culture has different entities. These include: * Symbols: an object, act, or event that conveys meaning to others. Symbols can be considered a rich, non-verbal language that vibrantly conveys the organizations important values concerning how people relate to one another and interact with the environment (Pratt Rafaeli, 2001). * Stories: narratives based on true events that are repeated frequently and shared among organizational employees (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). * Heroes: s who exemplify the deeds, character, and attributes of a strong corporate culture (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). * Slogans: a phrase or sentence that succinctly expresses a key corporate value (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). Companies use slogans to convey their core values and missions. Examples of slogans are Googles â€Å"Dont be evil,† and Microsofts â€Å"Our passion, your potential.† * Ceremonies: a planned activity that makes up a special event, and is conducted for the benefit of an audience (Trice Beyer, 1984). According to research conducted at Harvard on 207 U.S. firms (Kotter Heskett, 1992), corporate cultures can be divided into adaptive and unadaptive corporate cultures. The study found that a strong corporate culture by itself does not guarantee company success. However, when strong corporate culture adapts to the external environment, it will bring success to the companys business. In both adaptive and unadaptive corporate cultures, there are visible behaviors and expressed values. In the adaptive corporate culture, managers are concerned with their customers (external environment) and employees (internal environment). On the other hand, in an unadaptive corporate culture, managers are concerned only with themselves. Therefore, they dont want change or risks. A strong corporate culture should always be adapted to the external environment (Kotter Heskett, 1992). Table 1: Adaptive and Unadaptive Corporate Culture Adaptive Corporate Cultures Unadaptive Corporate Cultures Visible Behavior Managers pay close attention to all their constituencies, especially customers, and initiate change when needed to serve their legitimate interests, even if it entails taking some risks. Managers tend to behave somewhat insularly, politically, and bureaucratically. As a result, they do not change their strategies quickly to adjust to or take advantage of changes in their business environments. Expressed Values Managers care deeply about customers, stockholders, and employees. They also strongly value people and processes that can create useful change (e.g. leadership initiatives up and down the management hierarchy). Managers care mainly about themselves, their immediate work group, or some product (or technology) associated with that work group. They value the orderly and risk-reducing management process much more highly than leadership initiatives. Types of Cultures There are four types of corporate culture, which can be further classified into two matrixes. These are the needs of the environment, which could be flexible or stable, and the strategic focus, which can be external or internal. The four categories associated with this are adaptability, achievement, involvement, and consistency (McDonald Gandz, 1992) (Denison Mishra, 1995). The four types of corporate cultures are: 1. Adaptability culture: A culture characterized by values that support the companys ability to interpret and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. It emerges in an environment that requires fast response and high-risk decision making. Managers encourage values that support the companys ability to rapidly detect, interpret, and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. Employees have autonomy to make decisions and act freely to meet new needs, and responsiveness to customers is highly valued. Managers also actively create change by encouraging and rewarding creativity, experimentation, and risk taking (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). 2. The achievement culture: A results-oriented culture that values competitiveness, personal initiative, and achievement. It is suited to organizations that are concerned with serving specific customers in the external environment but without the intense need for flexibility and rapid change. This is a results-oriented culture that values competitiveness, aggressiveness, personal initiative, and willingness to work long and hard to achieve results (Hooijberg Petrock, 1993). 3. The involvement culture: A culture that places high value on meeting that needs of employees and values cooperation and equality. It has an internal focus on the involvement and participation of employees to rapidly meet changing needs from the environment. This culture places a high value on meeting the needs of employees, and the organization may be characterized by a caring, family-like atmosphere. Managers emphasize values such as cooperation, consideration of both employees and customers, and the avoidance of status differences (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). 4. Consistency culture: A culture that values and rewards a methodical, rational, orderly way of doing things. It has an internal focus and a consistency orientation for a stable environment. Following the rules and being thrifty are valued, and the culture supports and rewards a methodical, rational, orderly way of doing things, since there is no stable environment. It is rather difficult to have this kind of corporate culture (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). The Start of Search Engines Most people agree that the first pre-web search engine was Archie created by Alan Emtage in 1990, while he was a student at McGill University. At that time, the Internet was used by learning institutions to store different kinds of documents on shared machines. Since there were no search engines at that time, if one did not know the exact machine address and file name, it would not be possible to find the document. Emtage created an interface for the search engine, calling it Archie, and used an indexed filing system. In order to use Archie, a user would log in to an Archie server via a command line interface and type in keywords that matched the file title being searched. The result from Archie would display the possible machine locations in which the file could be found. The user then had to log in to each machine and look for the individual file. Archie provided the machine name where the file could be found, but the user had to know a keyword in the title of the file being search ed. This may seem useless today, but it was the best technology available at the time. In 1993, students at the University of Nevada created another search engine similar to Archie, which they called Veronica. The main difference between Archie and Veronica was that Veronicas search results showed the possible document names. As the Internet started to grow larger, from 130 sites in 1993 to 600,000 in 1996, the glory of Archie and Veronica also faded. Matthew Gray, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created a web based search engine known as WWW Wanderer. The Wanderer had a list of indexed sites at the back end and a search interface that allowed users to search the index at the front end. In 1994, Brian Pinkerton, a researcher from the University of Washington, developed a more powerful search engine by the name of WebCrawler. WebCrawler could index the full text of a web document it found and also use a linking of different web pages, just as Googles PageRanking algorithm does. Alta Vista was the next stronger search engine invention. Unlike other search engines, Alta Vista was created to test the performance of the superfast Alpha processor. After Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) made a superfast Alpha processor, the company was looking for a way to test its performance. One of DECs researchers, Louis Monier, was working at Western Lab in Palo Alto, California, and came up with the idea of building a search engine that could load the entire Internet onto the Alpha computer to show the processors speed. Not only did Monier come up with the idea, he also built the search engine. However, the management of DEC did not realize the magnitude of this discovery. Some believe that the management could not understand the marketability of Alta Vista, because they considered DEC to be a hardware, not a software company. In January 1998, Compaq purchased DEC for $9.6 billion dollars. Compaq recognized the marketability of Alta Vista and started to invest more into it. Rod Schrock, a Compaq executive, was given the responsibility of Alta Vista, and developed the site to look like Yahoo. In June 1999, Compaq sold Alta Vista to CMGI, an Internet holding company, for $2.3 billion dollars, mostly in stock. CMGI could not hold on to Alta Vista for long since it lost 90 percent of its value. In 2003, CMGI was forced to sell Alta Vista to Overture Services, Inc. for $140 million. Yahoo acquired Overture Services, Inc., and Alta Vista became owed by Yahoo, its former fierce competitor. Yahoo had opened its doors two years prior in March 1995. Yahoo was started as a project to win a fantasy basketball league by two Stanford PhD candidate students, Jerry Yang and David Filo in the early 1990s. Both were studying electronic design automation, which was a popular field when they began studying but the subject got cold when these students reached their fourth year of their doctoral work. â€Å"The prospects of finishing and getting on with life were pretty grim. The real story is that we were bored with our PhDs and we did everything we could to avoid writing our thesis,† (Battelle, 2005) Yang recalls. To win a fantasy basketball league, Filo came up with an Internet crawler that collected data from basketball sites using protocol and compiled the data based on different categories like players performance, trade amount, history, etc. Yang and Filo won the fantasy basketball league using their project (Battelle, 2005). After the first browser was released in 1993, Yang started surfing the Web and maintaining a list of sites he was most interested in. Filo continued to develop software, and later wrote â€Å"Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web,† which helped to automate the list of sites Yang was collecting. Yang created a home page for the software Filo developed and called it Akebono, named after a famous sumo wrestler (Battelle, 2005). â€Å"Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web† became quickly famous, first among Stanford graduate students and then throughout the Web. In 1995, Yang and Filo realized the potential of â€Å"Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web,† and decided to invest more time into it. First and foremost, they wanted to have a catchy name for the site. Both, Yang and Filo, were inspired by computer science acronyms that started with â€Å"YA† for â€Å"yet another.† They began to search the dictionary, and when they got to â€Å"Yahoo,† they knew they had a winner (Reid, 1997). The dictionary defined the term as â€Å"a rude, unsophisticated, uncouth person,† but the word also lent itself to reverse engineering by way of an acronym: Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle (Battelle, 2005). Filo and Yang tried to sell their project, Yahoo, to different companies. However, they were unable to find Impact of Corporate Culture on IT Company Growth and Profits Impact of Corporate Culture on IT Company Growth and Profits The Impact of Corporate Culture on the Growth and Profitability of IT Companies: The Case of Google Abstract In todays global economy, companies from different industries are trying to create a unique competitive advantage to stay in business and maximize their shareholders equity. In doing so, companies should analyze their largest expenses and try to minimize these costs while utilizing their resources in order to make the most from these expenditures. The largest operating expense in U.S. companies is salary. To maximize this expenditure, businesses should devise ways in which to motivate their employees to be more productive. Controlling employees to come to work is easy, but how can companies motivate their employees to work to their full capacity? One way in which this can be accomplished is by creating a suitable, attractive, and tension-free working environment for employees. In doing so, companies can create a strong corporate culture which could offer a competitive advantage. As an example, Google has become one of the largest IT companies in the world in fewer than two decades from its establishment. Not only has Google grown to be one of the largest IT company in the world, it has also developed unique and innovative products, a high job growth, and a secure position as one of the top five companies for which to work. Google has managed to achieve this not only by developing appropriate business strategy, but also creatin g a strong corporate culture that concentrates mainly on employees and customers. In this research, I will try to analyze Googles achievements. I will conduct a small survey to examine the adaptability of Googles flexible corporate culture in IT companies located in Utah. Introduction Statement of the Problem The old saying, â€Å"You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink† may hold true for employees as well; you can make employees come to work, but it is not easy to make them work to their full capacity. Companies may use different methods to control their employees to make them work to their fullest working capacity, but this does not always succeed. To understand employees work satisfaction and engagement in their work, it is useful to analyze a survey conducted by the Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) (Houser, 2009). The GMJ surveyed U.S. employees to understand how engaged they are in their work and their attitudes toward their managers. According to the study, there are three types of employees: 1. Engaged employees: Those who work with passion, motivation, and have deep feelings toward their company. These people are the ones who move the organization. 2. Not-engaged employees: Those who are physically present in the company but mentally absent. These employees are not motivated, and they dont care about their company. They come to work simply to put in hours. The survey refers to them as â€Å"walking through their workday.† 3. Actively disengaged employees: Those who are not only unhappy, but they express their unhappiness in different ways. They may undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish. The study results showed that 26% of respondents are engaged in their work, 56% of the respondents are not engaged in their work, and 18% of the respondents are actively disengaged in their work. The following chart illustrates the finding of this study. The respondents of the survey were asked if they would fire their manager, given the opportunity. Respondents indicated that 24% would fire their manager if they were given the chance. Of this number, 6% of those respondents were engaged in their work, 23% of the number were not engaged in their work, and 51% of the respondents were actively disengaged in their work. Therefore, less engaged employees tend to dislike their managers, and would fire them, given the opportunity. According to the study, this lack of productivity costs companies billions of dollars. Approximately 24.7 million employees age 18 and over are actively disengaged; this represents 18% of the total workforce. From 2000 to 2007, actively disengaged employees in the U.S. cost the countrys economy from $334 to $431 billion every year in low productivity. The Cost Of Disengagement In this study, I will analyze the different reasons why employees are disengaged from their work, and I will suggest recommendations to solve this problem by taking as an example a successful company in the U.S. Purpose of the study Today, different companies are trying to find a unique competitive advantage. One competitive advantage that was overlooked for many years is an attractive organizational culture. Not only will a superior organizational culture help in attracting and retaining the best employees, it can also be used to create a loyal customer base. In this paper, I will investigate the organizational culture of Google, Inc. in the information technology (IT) industrial sector. I will analyze how Google has capitalized on its organizational culture to become one of the largest search engines and IT companies in the world. I will conduct a small survey on organizational culture on IT companies located in Salt Lake City, Utah to determine useful recommendations by analyzing the results of the survey and comparing these to Googles organizational culture. Before analyzing organizational cultures, it would be beneficial to answer some questions as to why this topic was selected as well as other related issues. Why I Focused on Organizational Culture Many companies have tried to come up with a competitive advantage to maximize the shareholders profits. For years, an attractive corporate culture was not considered as vital to the success of an organization. Unlike external factors of business, which are not directly controlled by organizations, corporate culture is an internal environmental force which can be manipulated by organizations in their favor. Why I Emphasized the Employees Employees are the executers of the plans and strategies of the organization. Most companies consider employees as their asset, but, in my opinion, employees are much more than this. According to a study conducted by the United States Census Bureau, companies largest operating expense is salary. (U.S.CensusBureau, 2000) (See charts below). By taking care of their employees, organizations can get the best results from them. The following charts show the breakdown of operating expense for different industries in 1997 as it was studied by the U.S. Census Bureau under the Economic and Statistics Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Even though, this study was conducted more than a decade ago, I have included it, because I believe it shows the general trend of the breakdown of operating expenses within U.S. industries. Merchant wholesale companies have five major operating costs. Of these, payroll was by far the largest operating expense. If payroll expense and fringe benefits, which are operating expenses toward employees, are combined, more than half of the total operating expenses go toward employee salaries. The breakdown of operating expenses of retail trade has the same tendency as that of the merchant wholesaler. In fact, the only difference is that the expenses for rent by retail trade businesses are a little bit higher than that of the merchant wholesaler. The breakdown of operating expense for business services, which include IT industries, shows a larger expense toward employees. Payroll, consisting of 51% of total operating expense, contract labor, consisting of 5% of total operating expense and fringe benefits, consisting of 8% of total operating expense makes up a total of 64% of the total operating expense. The breakdown of the operating expenses for legal services follows the same trend as for business services. The following chart compares payroll expenses of different sectors of business According to the above chart, business services, health services and legal services pay the highest portion of operating expenses to payroll. Clearly, if companies are paying the majority of their operating expense toward the salaries of their employees, they should try to get the most from their workforce. Another study conducted in 2007 by the AmericanTimeUseSurvey through the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (AmericanTimeUseSurvey, 2007) showed that of the total working people in U.S., those who were between the ages of 25 to 54 living in households with children under the age of 18 spent most of their time either working or in work-related activities. The survey was provided from data taken on non-holiday weekdays. Out of the total 24 hours, those between the age of 25 to 54 living in households with children under the age of 18 spent 8.7 hours working or on work-related activities, 7.6 hours sleeping, 2.6 hours on leisure and sports, 1.2 hours caring for others, 1.1 hours on household activities, 1.1 hours in eating and drinking and the remaining 1.7 hours on other activities. The following chart illustrates these hours in percentiles. Based on this survey, people with children between the ages of 25 to 54, who were part of the labor force, spent the majority of their time at the workplace or doing work-related activities. If companies created a suitable and stable environment, this labor force would be motivated to work harder to help companies maximize their profits. This study will research and analyze how companies could create a competitive advantage by attracting and retaining the best employees through a superior corporate culture. Why I focused on IT IT, by any comparison, is the fastest growing industry in the world. Companies are spending billions of dollars every year, which has made the IT industry one of the most profitable industries in the world. According to a study conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2005 and published in 2007 (U.S.CensusBureau, Information and Communication Technology: 2005, April 2007), the information industry by itself contributes 52.4 billion dollars to the IT industry through purchases of hardware and software annually. The finance and insurance sectors spent $44.2 billion; the manufacturing, professional, scientific, and technical services sectors spent $32.5 billion; the health care sector spent $27 billion; and the social assistance business sector spent $19.9 billion on IT hardware and software components in 2005 alone. Based on this study, more than $200 billion was spent on IT hardware and software by different business sectors in 2005. According to this study, the noncapital and capital expenditures for computer software were higher compared to IT hardware. It is a general assumption that if companies are investing more on computer software, the software industry is generating a lot of money. In 2005 alone, the noncapital expenditure for computer software was $54.2 billion, whereas the capital expenditure for the same sector was $49.8 billion. Therefore, this research will focus on computer software companies. Why Focus on Google? Google is one of the fastest growing companies in the world. It has grown sevenfold over the last decade. According to Fortune, Google was listed as the fourth best company to work for in 2009 (100 Best Companies to Work for 2009: Google GOOG from Fortune, 2009). Even though Google was listed as the fourth best company to work for in 2009 by Fortune, it has the highest job growth rate when compared to the other companies listed in the top ten. While Google has a 40% job growth rate, NetApp, which was listed in first place, only has a 12% job growth rate. Edward Jones and Boston Consulting Group, listed second and third, have only a 9% and 10% job growth rate respectively (100 Best Companies to Work for 2009: Google GOOG from Fortune, 2009). Google has shown tremendous growth over the past few years. As the following chart indicates, from 2004 to 2008, the net income of the company increased tenfold. Even when the world economy was in a recession at the end of 2007 and 2008, Google managed to secure a high net income (GoogleInc, 2008). Google has an interesting workforce distribution. As of December 31, 2008, 40% of Googles total workforce was in sales and marketing, 36% in research and development, 15% in general and administrative positions, and the remaining 9% in operations (Google Inc., 2008). According to this data, Google places nearly as large an emphasis on research and development as it does for sales and marketing. Having a large staff in research and development will ensure a strong future market when it is supported with an appropriate corporate strategy. Even if it is difficult to conclude that Google will have a bright future based on the distribution of its workforce, it is certain that this strong contingency of Googles research and development team has proven to be valuable by developing new and exciting technologies, making it difficult for competitors to catch up. Literature Review In todays globalized and integrated world, change within industries and organizations occurs rapidly. Understanding the impact of an organizations environment could assist organizations in coping with this change. The organizational environment includes all elements existing outside the boundary of the organization that have the potential to affect the organization (Daft, Organization Theory and Design, 8th ed., 2004). The organizational environment consists of the external environment and the internal environment. The external environment is made up of those forces that exist outside of the organizations boundaries and have an effect on the organization. The external environment is further divided into the general environment and the task environment. The general environment is the outer layer that is widely dispersed and affects organizations indirectly (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). The general environment includes technological, socio-cultural, economic, legal/political, and international factors. On the other hand, the task environment is closer to the organization and includes the sectors that conduct day-to-day transactions with the organization and directly influence its basic operations and performance (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). The task environment includes customers, labor market, suppliers and competitors. The internal environment includes the elements within the organizations boundaries (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). It includes employees, management and culture of the organization. In this paper the focus is on the culture of the organization and its affect on the performance of the organization. A corporate culture is defined as the set of key values, beliefs, understandings, and norms shared by members of an organization (Martin, 2002) (Kilmann, Ralph H.; Saxton, Mary J.; Serpa, Roy, 1986) (Smircich, 1983). It could also be defined as an â€Å"interdependent set of beliefs, values, ways of behaving, and tools for living that are so common in a community that they tend to perpetuate themselves, sometimes over long periods of time. This continuity is the product of a variety of social forces that are frequently subtle, bordering on invisible, through which people learn a groups norms and values, are rewarded when they accept them, and are ostracized when they do not† (Bemowski, 1995) (Wilhelm, 1992). Corporate culture is derived from both the management and the organization itself. The management, through its philosophy, values, actions and the organization through its roles, structure, systems and technology comprise the corporate culture. Feedback is received from the corporate culture to the management and organization. The following illustrates this process. Classification Schemes There are different classifications of corporate culture defined by different authors. The different views of four authors will be considered in the following: 1. Henry Migliore After studying 24 organizations, Henry Migliore included 20 cultural factors, which he referred to as the â€Å"Corporate Culture Index† (Migliore, Henry; R.T. Martin; Tim Baer; and Jeffrey L. Horvath, 1989). These factors include the following characteristics. * Member Identity: the degree to which employees identify with the organization as a whole in their type of job or field of professional expertise * Team Emphasis: the degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals * People Focus: the degree to which management empowers the employees within the organization * Autonomy: the degree to which departments within the organization are encouraged to operate in a coordinated or interdependent manner * Control: the degree to which rules, regulations, and direct supervision and used to control employee behavior * Risk Tolerance: the degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative, and risk-seeking 2. Geert Hofstede Geert Hofstede believes the behavior of organizations is affected by a national and regional cultural grouping. To study this point, he looked for a national difference among over 100,000 of IBMs employees in different parts of the world. He came up with five dimensions of culture that influence national regional groupings (Hofstede, 1980). These are: * Power distance: the expectation of society on the levels of power an individual possess in the society. A high score of power distance reflects the expectation of the society that some individuals possess more power than others. A low score of power distance reflects the expectations of the society that all people have equal rights * Uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which a society accepts uncertainty and risk * Individualism vs. Collectivism: the degree to which people stand up for themselves or act as part of a group * Masculinity vs. Femininity: the degree to which the society gives value to the male or female * Long vs. Short-term Orientation: the degree to which a society values long term or short term orientation 3. Deal and Kennedy According to Deal and Kennedy, organizational culture is the way things get done in an organization (Deal Kennedy, 1982). They measured an organizations culture using different elements. These elements include: * Feedback: response from the organization * Risk: the degree of uncertainty in the organization Using these two elements, Deal and Kennedy suggested four classifications of corporate cultures (Deal Kennedy, 1982). These are: * The Tough-Guy Macho Culture: The feedback, which is the response from the organization, is quick and the reward is high. * The Work Hard/Play Hard Culture: Few risks are taken, but the feedback, which is the response from the organization, is rapid. * The Bet Your Company Culture: This involves high risk, but it may take a long time to know the outcome of the decision or action. * The Process Culture: This is associated with bureaucracy in the organization. It is common in organizations where there is little or no feedback. 4. Charles Handy Charles Handy developed Roger Harrisons work of 1972 which linked organizational structure to organizational culture (Handy, 1985). According to this idea, there are four types of culture. These are: * Power Culture: A few will rule the organization from the middle. * Role Culture: Employees have clearly delegated authority and the structure of the organization is highly defined. * Task Culture: Teams are formed to solve particular problems; this is a common organizational culture for a matrix structure. * Person Culture: Employees focus on individualism rather than team work. These organizations will face a hard time staying above water. A corporate culture has two levels, visible and invisible. The visible level of culture can be seen at the surface level. It includes symbols, stories, heroes, slogans and ceremonies. The invisible level is deeper values and shared understandings held by organization members who include expressed values, assumptions and deep beliefs. The following illustrates the levels of corporate culture. It is difficult to express the invisible level of corporate culture since it cannot be seen as compared to the visible level of corporate culture. The visible level of corporate culture has different entities. These include: * Symbols: an object, act, or event that conveys meaning to others. Symbols can be considered a rich, non-verbal language that vibrantly conveys the organizations important values concerning how people relate to one another and interact with the environment (Pratt Rafaeli, 2001). * Stories: narratives based on true events that are repeated frequently and shared among organizational employees (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). * Heroes: s who exemplify the deeds, character, and attributes of a strong corporate culture (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). * Slogans: a phrase or sentence that succinctly expresses a key corporate value (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). Companies use slogans to convey their core values and missions. Examples of slogans are Googles â€Å"Dont be evil,† and Microsofts â€Å"Our passion, your potential.† * Ceremonies: a planned activity that makes up a special event, and is conducted for the benefit of an audience (Trice Beyer, 1984). According to research conducted at Harvard on 207 U.S. firms (Kotter Heskett, 1992), corporate cultures can be divided into adaptive and unadaptive corporate cultures. The study found that a strong corporate culture by itself does not guarantee company success. However, when strong corporate culture adapts to the external environment, it will bring success to the companys business. In both adaptive and unadaptive corporate cultures, there are visible behaviors and expressed values. In the adaptive corporate culture, managers are concerned with their customers (external environment) and employees (internal environment). On the other hand, in an unadaptive corporate culture, managers are concerned only with themselves. Therefore, they dont want change or risks. A strong corporate culture should always be adapted to the external environment (Kotter Heskett, 1992). Table 1: Adaptive and Unadaptive Corporate Culture Adaptive Corporate Cultures Unadaptive Corporate Cultures Visible Behavior Managers pay close attention to all their constituencies, especially customers, and initiate change when needed to serve their legitimate interests, even if it entails taking some risks. Managers tend to behave somewhat insularly, politically, and bureaucratically. As a result, they do not change their strategies quickly to adjust to or take advantage of changes in their business environments. Expressed Values Managers care deeply about customers, stockholders, and employees. They also strongly value people and processes that can create useful change (e.g. leadership initiatives up and down the management hierarchy). Managers care mainly about themselves, their immediate work group, or some product (or technology) associated with that work group. They value the orderly and risk-reducing management process much more highly than leadership initiatives. Types of Cultures There are four types of corporate culture, which can be further classified into two matrixes. These are the needs of the environment, which could be flexible or stable, and the strategic focus, which can be external or internal. The four categories associated with this are adaptability, achievement, involvement, and consistency (McDonald Gandz, 1992) (Denison Mishra, 1995). The four types of corporate cultures are: 1. Adaptability culture: A culture characterized by values that support the companys ability to interpret and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. It emerges in an environment that requires fast response and high-risk decision making. Managers encourage values that support the companys ability to rapidly detect, interpret, and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. Employees have autonomy to make decisions and act freely to meet new needs, and responsiveness to customers is highly valued. Managers also actively create change by encouraging and rewarding creativity, experimentation, and risk taking (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). 2. The achievement culture: A results-oriented culture that values competitiveness, personal initiative, and achievement. It is suited to organizations that are concerned with serving specific customers in the external environment but without the intense need for flexibility and rapid change. This is a results-oriented culture that values competitiveness, aggressiveness, personal initiative, and willingness to work long and hard to achieve results (Hooijberg Petrock, 1993). 3. The involvement culture: A culture that places high value on meeting that needs of employees and values cooperation and equality. It has an internal focus on the involvement and participation of employees to rapidly meet changing needs from the environment. This culture places a high value on meeting the needs of employees, and the organization may be characterized by a caring, family-like atmosphere. Managers emphasize values such as cooperation, consideration of both employees and customers, and the avoidance of status differences (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). 4. Consistency culture: A culture that values and rewards a methodical, rational, orderly way of doing things. It has an internal focus and a consistency orientation for a stable environment. Following the rules and being thrifty are valued, and the culture supports and rewards a methodical, rational, orderly way of doing things, since there is no stable environment. It is rather difficult to have this kind of corporate culture (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). The Start of Search Engines Most people agree that the first pre-web search engine was Archie created by Alan Emtage in 1990, while he was a student at McGill University. At that time, the Internet was used by learning institutions to store different kinds of documents on shared machines. Since there were no search engines at that time, if one did not know the exact machine address and file name, it would not be possible to find the document. Emtage created an interface for the search engine, calling it Archie, and used an indexed filing system. In order to use Archie, a user would log in to an Archie server via a command line interface and type in keywords that matched the file title being searched. The result from Archie would display the possible machine locations in which the file could be found. The user then had to log in to each machine and look for the individual file. Archie provided the machine name where the file could be found, but the user had to know a keyword in the title of the file being search ed. This may seem useless today, but it was the best technology available at the time. In 1993, students at the University of Nevada created another search engine similar to Archie, which they called Veronica. The main difference between Archie and Veronica was that Veronicas search results showed the possible document names. As the Internet started to grow larger, from 130 sites in 1993 to 600,000 in 1996, the glory of Archie and Veronica also faded. Matthew Gray, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created a web based search engine known as WWW Wanderer. The Wanderer had a list of indexed sites at the back end and a search interface that allowed users to search the index at the front end. In 1994, Brian Pinkerton, a researcher from the University of Washington, developed a more powerful search engine by the name of WebCrawler. WebCrawler could index the full text of a web document it found and also use a linking of different web pages, just as Googles PageRanking algorithm does. Alta Vista was the next stronger search engine invention. Unlike other search engines, Alta Vista was created to test the performance of the superfast Alpha processor. After Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) made a superfast Alpha processor, the company was looking for a way to test its performance. One of DECs researchers, Louis Monier, was working at Western Lab in Palo Alto, California, and came up with the idea of building a search engine that could load the entire Internet onto the Alpha computer to show the processors speed. Not only did Monier come up with the idea, he also built the search engine. However, the management of DEC did not realize the magnitude of this discovery. Some believe that the management could not understand the marketability of Alta Vista, because they considered DEC to be a hardware, not a software company. In January 1998, Compaq purchased DEC for $9.6 billion dollars. Compaq recognized the marketability of Alta Vista and started to invest more into it. Rod Schrock, a Compaq executive, was given the responsibility of Alta Vista, and developed the site to look like Yahoo. In June 1999, Compaq sold Alta Vista to CMGI, an Internet holding company, for $2.3 billion dollars, mostly in stock. CMGI could not hold on to Alta Vista for long since it lost 90 percent of its value. In 2003, CMGI was forced to sell Alta Vista to Overture Services, Inc. for $140 million. Yahoo acquired Overture Services, Inc., and Alta Vista became owed by Yahoo, its former fierce competitor. Yahoo had opened its doors two years prior in March 1995. Yahoo was started as a project to win a fantasy basketball league by two Stanford PhD candidate students, Jerry Yang and David Filo in the early 1990s. Both were studying electronic design automation, which was a popular field when they began studying but the subject got cold when these students reached their fourth year of their doctoral work. â€Å"The prospects of finishing and getting on with life were pretty grim. The real story is that we were bored with our PhDs and we did everything we could to avoid writing our thesis,† (Battelle, 2005) Yang recalls. To win a fantasy basketball league, Filo came up with an Internet crawler that collected data from basketball sites using protocol and compiled the data based on different categories like players performance, trade amount, history, etc. Yang and Filo won the fantasy basketball league using their project (Battelle, 2005). After the first browser was released in 1993, Yang started surfing the Web and maintaining a list of sites he was most interested in. Filo continued to develop software, and later wrote â€Å"Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web,† which helped to automate the list of sites Yang was collecting. Yang created a home page for the software Filo developed and called it Akebono, named after a famous sumo wrestler (Battelle, 2005). â€Å"Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web† became quickly famous, first among Stanford graduate students and then throughout the Web. In 1995, Yang and Filo realized the potential of â€Å"Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web,† and decided to invest more time into it. First and foremost, they wanted to have a catchy name for the site. Both, Yang and Filo, were inspired by computer science acronyms that started with â€Å"YA† for â€Å"yet another.† They began to search the dictionary, and when they got to â€Å"Yahoo,† they knew they had a winner (Reid, 1997). The dictionary defined the term as â€Å"a rude, unsophisticated, uncouth person,† but the word also lent itself to reverse engineering by way of an acronym: Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle (Battelle, 2005). Filo and Yang tried to sell their project, Yahoo, to different companies. However, they were unable to find