Business law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 3

Business law - Essay Example In well known case Donogue VS Stevenson * the Court decided that the manufacturer is liable for the act done because everybody owes a duty of reasonable care to their neighbour.In this case Mrs. Donogue made a valid claim that her continuous illness is due to the consumption of drink in which the decomposed snail was found and it was due to the negligence of manufacturer Mr. Stevenson. Now let’s discuss how the above said principles are applicable to the given cases and also we‘ll advise the parties to the case that how can they resort to these principles to get the benefit of the Law. Since the maintaining the activities of the park in a proper manner are the first and foremost duty of the local council as the maintainer of the park, it owes some duty towards others. The local council must take reasonable standard of care regarding the activities of the park so that it should not cause any harm to the passersby. In the famous case Boulton VS Stone** it was held that defendant should take reasonable care to avoid injuries. here also. The gardner had to take reasonable care in arranging the flower pot in the right side of the path so that harm to the others should be avoided .Here it is obvious that the gardner has done the breach of duty by arranging the pots in the wrong side, hence Mrs.Marple can file a case against the gardner as defendant and entitled to get compensation from him for the injury caused to her. It is apparent from above discussions that Mrs. Turtle can sue the Local council and the doctor as defendants and they are liable to pay off the damages. As said before the local council had to exercise due cares regarding the maintenance of those play amenities in the park as same way in the activities of the park. Mrs. Turtle can sue the doctor as there was a breach of duty on the part of doctor. If he attended Gemma in appropriate manner,

Literacy Essay Essay Example for Free

Literacy Essay Essay For as long as I can remember literature has always played an important role in my life. As a young child, I can remember how excited I’d be at story time each night before bed. My interest in literature carried on throughout my school years from kindergarten when I was placed in the red bird group, which was the group of strongest readers†¦. to high school†¦when I had the benefit of being taught by one of the best English teachers ever, Ms. Irena King. Now as an adult and professional, I am very appreciative of the literary foundation that was laid for me by my family and my teachers. I understand how important literacy is in everyday life. First, as a young child, literacy played a very important role in my life even before I could read. I was always fond of books of all kinds. Coloring books, magazines, and picture books†¦I loved them all. I remember each trip to the grocery store; I would always get a new Little Golden Book. I absolutely had to have the entire collection and would want them read to me each night before bed. My favorite of this collection was The Gingerbread Man. I would sit for hours and look at the pictures. My mother would often encourage me to keep an interest in books. She always kept a subscription of Highlights Magazine for me and I would watch the mail each day in hopes that a new issue had arrived. As I grew older, my love for books did not change, but the type of books I wanted did. I had the largest collection of Sweet Valley High books and was a faithful subscriber to Fresh Magazine. I think that these are some of my fondest memories from my childhood, and I am so appreciative of my familys support of my passion for reading. Next, my interest for literature carried on from my early years to my school years. This was very evident when I started kindergarten. I vividly remember there were different groups within our kindergarten class.

The Effect Of Financial Constraints On Small And Medium Enterprises Finance Essay

The Effect Of Financial Constraints On Small And Medium Enterprises Finance Essay CHAPTER 1 Introduction The relation between financial constraints and the survival and growth of the SME has been document across Africa and world. The researcher will look at the economy of Kenya and make evident of the financial constraints that are facing the small and medium enterprise hence affecting the survival and growth of small and medium size enterprises. There is a need to research in this field since the SME are the backbone of the Kenyan economy. In fact with the growing inflation, not to mention the difficulties the SME have in accessing the financial aids they are barely making it to the second birthday. Overview of the Context Kenyan is a developing country in Africa. The increasing role of the SME sector is confirmed by the recently completed Kenya 2003 Economic Survey, According to the survey, total employment recorded in the informal sector increased from 3.7 employees in 1999 to 5.1 million in 2002, while the formal sector increased only from 1.74 million to 1.76 million employees during the same period. However, the growth of the informal sector in number of employees does not necessarily reflect growth and high productivity of the enterprise itself, as the number of informal sector companies grew largely because of the depressed formal economy and under employment in the formal firms. Having said that, the SME in Kenya faces a lot of challenges and one of them is the financial constrains which really inhibits its growth and survival. Hence the call for this research paper. The researcher will use the research methodologies to extract evidence that really financial constraints is a major factor that affect the growth and survival of the SME in Kenya. Statement of the problem. In Kenya, SME have little access to finance, which thus hampers their emergence and eventual growth and survival. Financial constraint remains a major challenge facing SME in Kenya Wanjohi and Mugure (2008) and this will be evidence in this research paper. Their main sources of capital are their retained earnings and informal savings and loan associations, which are unpredictable and not very secure. SME can rarely meet the conditions set by financial institutions, which see them as a risk because of poor guarantees and lack of information about their ability to repay loans. The financial system in most of Africa is under-developed however and so provides few financial instruments. The researcher has come up with some of the reasons why SME find it hard to access finance in Kenya: High interest rates by the financial institutions Delay in the loan processing due to lack of securities and other requirements by the financial institutions. Some of the SME do not have a good track records hence most of the local banks fear to give them the unsecured loans. Banks are particularly nervous of smaller businesses due to a perception that they represent a greater credit risk. Kariukis (1995) study of bank credit access in Kenya illustrates this point further. A survey of 89 small and medium-scale firms in manufacturing and service industries, combined with secondary information from commercial banks, found that from 1985 to 1990 the average real volume of credit for the sample firms fell, except for the year 1986 which showed a marginal increase of 1.5 per cent. Small scale borrowers were found to be faced with higher nominal interest rates at higher inflation rates in the latter half of the 1980s. Moreover, the explicit transactions costs of borrowing were found to be high in relation to interest costs. Because the information is not available in other ways, SME will have to provide it when they seek finance. They will need to give a business plan, list of the company assets, details of the experience of directors and managers and demonstrate how they can give providers of finance some security for amounts provided. The researcher recognized that in the current context of the most severe financial and economic crisis in decades, various factors such as increased risk aversion, decreased liquidity, bleak prospects for economic growth, etc. are having or are expected to have a highly negative effect on SME and entrepreneurs access to short and long term financing. Small firms are particularly vulnerable because: It is more difficult for them to downsize since they are already small. They are individually less diversified in their activities. They have weaker financial structures or lower capitalization. They have lower or no credit ratings. They are heavily dependent on credit. They have fewer options for finance, especially in financial markets. With this in view, the measures that most governments are taking or planning to take to counteract the effects of the crisis and stimulate their economies should include easing SME and entrepreneurship access to finance. Numerous money lenders in the name of Pyramid schemes comes up, promising hope among the SME that they can make it to the financial freedom through soft borrowing. The rationale behind turning to these schemes among a good number of entrepreneurs is mainly to seek alternatives and soft credit with low interest rates while making profits. Objectives The general objective of the research is to establish the effects that the financial constraints have on the survival and growth of the small and medium enterprises in Kenya. Some of the specific objective that the researcher will bare in the study will evolve around the small and medium sized enterprises in Kenya. To establish effect of economic activities on the survival and growth of the SME in Kenya. To assess the impact of high interest rates by local commercial banks on the survival and growth of the small and medium sized enterprises in Kenya. To establish the effect of commercial banks lending policies and access to credit on the growth and financial performance of SME in Kenya. To establish the effect of the firm capital structure on the growth and survival of the small and medium enterprises in Kenya. To establish the impact of government policies in Kenya on the economic growth on the survival and growth of the small and medium business. 1.5 Research Questions How do high interest rates affect the survival and growth of the firm in Kenya? What effect do the banks lending policies and access to credit have on the growth and survival of the SME in Kenya? How do the government policies in Kenya on the economic growth affect the survival and growth of the small and medium sized business? What effect do the external borrowings have on the survival and growth of the small business enterprises in Kenya? How the economic activities affect the growth and survival of the firm in Kenya? 1.6 The significance of the study. Small and medium sized enterprises are the backbone of virtually all economies in the world. However, the process has long been constrained by the limited availability and accessibility of financial resources to meet a variety of operational and investment needs within the SME sectors. SME and entrepreneurs play a significant role in all economies and are key agents of employment, innovation and growth. A significant number of entrepreneurs and SME could use funds productively if they were available, but are often denied access to financing, thus impeding their creation, survival and growth. Although SME form a broad spectrum as far as their relative size, sector of activity, seniority, location and performance are concerned; there is a vital need for innovative solutions for their financing in particular for innovative and high- growth SME in a globalised knowledge-based economy. The researcher however will be interested to know how does this financial constraints really affect the growth and survival of SME and she will undertake the study t establish the necessary fact that make the growth of SME restrained in Kenya. 1.7 The scope of the study. The Kenya government is commitment to foster the growth of SME emerged as one of the key strategies in the 1986 report Economic Management for Renewed Growth. It was reinforced as a priority in the 1989 report, The Strategy for Small Enterprise Development in Kenya a document that set out the mechanisms for removing constraints to growth of the SME sector. In 1992, the government published the SME policy report, Sessional Paper No. 2, Small Enterprises and Jua Kali Development in Kenya. This report was reviewed in 2002, leading to a new policy framework that provides a balanced focus to SME development in line with the national goals of fostering growth, employment creation, income generation, poverty reduction and industrialization SME in Kenya have not seen much development since Kenyan independence due to financial constraints and other factors that are not going to be discussed on this research paper. Small enterprises have a potentiality of boosting a kenya economy. Although they are faced by many challenges, they still have opportunities to grow. These include linkage with multinational companies, networks with other businesses, diversification of market and products, enabling environment and franchising opportunities which is geatly being encouraged the coalition government that is currently running the government of Kenya although the impact has yet to felt on the small and medium enterpeises due to its size and limied resources. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction. Kenya being a developing country, the researcher will borrow some of empirical research done by experts in other developed and developing countries. A large number of empirical studies have addressed the issue of financial constraints, mainly in order to study the relation between the firms investments and the availability of internal and external funds. Under perfect capital markets, internal and external sources of financial funds are perfectly substitutable Modigliani and Miller (1958), so that the availability of internal funds should not affect investment decisions. Small firms cannot exploit economies of scale in the same way as large firms can they face more financial constraints. Since young companies have not accumulated sufficient cash flow and are unable to rely on bank financing, they have to depend on the equity investments. The analysis of the effects of financial constraints on the firm survival and growth therefore is important. 2.2 Theoretical account of financial constraints The financing constraint literature has been the first to recognize that partitioning firms helps to provide important insights into their behaviors. The pioneers in this field have undoubtedly been Fazzari, Hubbard and Petersen (1988) who point out the fact that firms are definitely not homogeneous. They classify firms according to their dividend payout ratio. Their main aim in doing this is to show that firms that have different dividend payout ratios and therefore belong to different categories, have differential access to finance. Some firms are financially constrained while others are not. Following Fazzari, Hubbard and Petersen (1988), a number of studies have tried to distinguish between various categories of firms. For instance, Whited (1992) uses measures of indebtedness, interest coverage, and whether or not a firm has a bond rating to discriminate among firms. Kaplan and Zingales (1997) use both quantitative and qualitative data to distinguish among firms.Bond et al (1999) classify firms according to whether a firm operates in a bank-based or market-based system.Cleary (1999) uses a financial constraint index to differentiate between firms, which takes into account a number of factors such as firm liquidity, leverage, profitability, and growth. Carpenter and Guariglia (2003) use the number of employees to distinguish between large and small firms. However, the factor common to all these studies is that they have tried to discriminate only within firms that have access to capital markets. A high percentage of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises remains in the informal sector with limited opportunities for growth. Africa has one of the largest informal sectors in the world, World Bank, (2006). In Kenya the availability of finance tends to be extremely limited and difficulty to get external financing as researcher came to find out on this quest on the Kenya town and from the SME managers. The SME financial resources are usually restricted to equity capital and bank debt to those who are able to access it. As the business establishes itself, however, it gains access to resources from its own productive activity and sources of external finance. According to Aghion (2007), access to external finance improves market selection by allowing small firms to be more competitive. Additionally, financial accessibility significantly facilitates the growth of firms. Unlike large firms, SME are restricted in their funding options. Therefore, a new hierarchy of sources of finance for SM E can be defined. In this new hierarchy of sources of finance for SME there are three sources of finance, internal finance, debt finance and new capital contributions. Large firms that have access to capital markets are able to issue equity; however, SME do not normally have access to this form of finance of new capital contributions Cost of new debt financing Cost of internal finance 2.3 The Financial constraint variables According to many studies, small firms do not even recognize their own growth potential Scott Rosa (1996).This is more evident in the research since most of the managers of the small and medium size enterprises are more concerned about the survival of the firm rather than the growth of the firm in most Kenya region. This research however will look at some of the variables that help to clarify this phrase in the Kenyan market. 2.3.1 The effect of government policies. Similar evidence regarding the lack of importance given by small scale enterprises to tax policies is also found in Southern Africa, including Niger, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Malawi, and Zimbabwe Mead (1994). Studies for these locations found little concern for government regulations, except from those enterprises concentrated in targeted locations and specific sectors such as food processing. Instead the greatest concern for the majority of those surveyed was the lack of access to working capital, credit and finance. 2.3.2 The effect of commercial bank lending rates and access to credit. According to Holmes and Kent (1991), SME are characterized by 2 factors: they cannot issue equity and are concerned about ownership and control. Small firms usually do not have the option of issuing additional equity to the public. Even if they were able to issue private equity, managers of SME would restrain from doing so as issuing equity would lead to a dilution in ownership and control. Therefore, managers of SME will usually prefer to go for debt financing, mainly comprising of bank financing. On the other hand, managers of larger firms usually consider a broader range of funding options. As Steel (1994) highlights, high transactions costs and risks associated with small loans, a lack of collateral and an historical orientation towards larger enterprises, continue to restrict small scale enterprise access to formal credit. This no different from Kenya where access to credit is really issue and Kariukis (1995) study of bank credit access in Kenya illustrates this point further. 2.3.3 The impact of government policies Data on the SME sector in Kenya is scarce, although the National SME Baseline Survey provides comprehensive and reliable information; it has not been updated since 1999 and does not contain information for medium-sized firms. The survey indicates that the contribution of the SME sector to GDP increased from 13.8 percent in 1993 to 18.4 percent in 1999.Thia shows that the government policies put in place in Kenya also do affect the growth and survival of the small and medium size enterprises. 2.3.4 The effect of internal capital structure. It should be noted that growth is not the objective of all firms. For example, when firms are faced with serious difficulties during periods of economic downturns, they may shift their objective from growth to survival waiting for better economic conditions to expand. This has been observed in crisis economies where firms downsize and try to keep their costs as low as possible until the economic situation improves. Some firms may choose to remain small if their entrepreneurial capabilities are inconsistent with large size because financial constraints force the poor to start small business, the lack of firm growth could result in social immobility where the small firms remain poor. On the other hand, if small firms have the potential of becoming large, poor firm owners could become rich as their firms expand. Moreover, firm growth in Africa, where technology is usually labour intensive, is usually associated with job creation, which in turn is the key to poverty reduction. Therefore, whether firms have potential to grow or remain small has important policy implications. Slow growth of firms in Africa has been explained as being the result of the lack of access to financial resources McCormick et al. (1997) and Biggs and Srivastava, (1996). This is particular to developing economies where financial markets are under-developed. 2.4 Conceptual Framework. The financial constrained as outlined above is a diverse business phenomena that need to be researched since its the back bone of any business growth and survival may it be a small business in the slums or a major manufacturing business. The researcher is mainly focused on the small and unquoted firms in Kenya. The local commercial banks have a role to play in all this and so is the government. The firm own capital structure also do contribute a lot to the survival and growth of the firm. In Kenya the economic activities that are carried out also influence a lot the GDP of the country hence the economic growth. CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction The researcher will mainly use secondary research methodology although the tertiary methodology or the search tool will also be used for the purpose of this research. This will include books, magazines, newspapers to collect data and information regarding the topic. The researcher will also make use of the internet to obtain information about SME and other related information. Secondary data are data that have been collected for some other purpose. Secondary data can provide a useful source from which to answer the research question(s). Punch (1998) mentions several advantages of using existing data. Expenditure on obtaining data can be significantly reduced and data analysis can begin immediately, so saving time. Also, the quality of some data may be superior to anything the researcher could have created alone Thomas (2004). On the other hand, the chosen research method also has several disadvantages such as data that have been gathered by others for their own purposes can be diffic ult to interpret when they are taken out of their original context. It is also much more difficult to appreciate the weak points in data that have been obtained by others. 3.2 Research Area The propose research area is the SME in Kenya. The length of time within which to finish this project will be estimated one month since time and resources might be a major constraint. The researcher proposes to choose at least 15 major towns in Kenya since Small business are all over the country and do research in a at least 10 firms in each town, so as to capture the operation of financial reporting in the country so as to ascertain whether financial constraints are really a major constraint in the survival and growth of small and medium size business in Kenya. As a mean of testing the hypothesis of the study, the researcher will apply the methods below of data collection. 3.3 Observation To judge the effect of financial constrains on survival and growth of a small business in Kenya. The researcher will have to visit the local banks and financial institutions and find out how ones access to finance limits the growth of the business. I propose to use time-series method to judge the observation. The observation will assist me to ascertain that the formal financial sector has provided very little or no service to small business men hence they are unable to finance their small business. 3.4 Interview This will be conducted individually. Structured and unstructured questions will be used to collect information on the subject under investigation. This is to help the researcher obtain responses to questions like; in your view is business growing? How best can it be financed? ,and others. I propose to conduct the interview in such a manner that each sector will have equal probability of being selected. Interviews will enable me to do most of the qualitative part of my research, and the information gained here is usually more realistic. 3.5 Questionnaire I will prepare systematic and well organized questions that will enable me; have responses to the questions raised in the introduction and moreover test the hypothesis of the research. This is demonstrated in Chapter 1 where several questions to this effect have been formulated. 3.6 Data Analysis I will not only rely solely on the information from the various responses from the varied sectors but, also the statistical publications from international organization in Kenya who have done a similar research on SME. I propose to make a thorough analysis of the official and unofficial data received. I will propose the use of quantitative and the qualitative analysis. REFRENCES Punch, K F. (1998), Introduction to social research: Quantitative and qualitative approaches. Kariuki N (1995) The Effects of Liberalization on Access to Bank Credit in Kenya, Small Enterprise Development, 6 (1), 15-23 Central Bureau of Statistics, International Center for Economic Growth, and K-Rep Holdings, National Micro and Small Enterprise Baseline Survey, 1999. Central Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Planning and National Development, Economic Survey, 2003 Wanjohi, A.M. and Mugure, A.(2008). Factors affecting the growth of MSEs in rural areas of Kenya: A case of ICT firms in Kiserian Township, Kajiado District of Kenya. Republic of Kenya (1992). Sessional Paper No. 2 on Small Enterprises and Jua Kali Development in Kenya. Government Printer, Nairobi Biggs, T. and Srivastava, P. (1996) Structural Aspects of Manufacturing in Sub-Saharan Africa: Findings from a Seven Country Enterprise survey, World Bank Discussion paper No. 346. Modigliani, F. and Miller, M. (1958), the cost of capital, corporation finance and the theory of investment. Aghion, P., Fally, T. and Scarpetta, S. (2007): Credit constraints as a barrier to the entry and post-entry growth of firms, Economic Policy, vol. 22 (52): 731-790. Savignac, F. (2008): The impact of financial constraints on innovation: what can be learned from a direct measure? Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Volume 17 (6):553-569. Petersen, M. and Rajan, R. (1994): The benefits of firm-creditor relationships: Evidence from small business data, Journal of Finance, 49, 3-38. Aghion, P., Fally, T. and Scarpetta, S. (2007): Credit constraints as a barrier to the entry and post-entry growth of firms, Economic Policy, vol. 22 (52): 731-790. World Bank. (2006) Doing Business in 2005. The World Bank. Washington D. C., USA. Scott, M. Rosa, P. (1996). Opinion: Has Firm Level Analysis Reached its Limits? Time for a rethink. International Small Business Journal 14, 4, 81-89. Mead D (1994) The legal, regulatory and tax framework and small enterprises, Small Enterprise Development, 5 (2), 10-17 Steel W (1994) Changing the institutional and policy environment for small enterprise development in Africa, Small Enterprise Development, 5 (2), 4-9 Kaplan, S. and L. Zingales (1997), Do investment-cash-flow sensitivities provide useful measures of financing constraints? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112, pp169-216. Whited, T. (1992), Debt, Liquidity Constraints and Corporate Investment:Evidence from Panel Data, Journal of Finance, 4 ,pp1425-1460. Kaplan, S. and L. Zingales (1997), Do investment-cash-flow sensitivities provide useful measures of financing constraints? Quarterly Journal of Economics,112, pp169-216. Carpenter R.E and A. Guariglia (2003), Cash Flow, Investment and Investment Opportunities: New Tests using UK panel Data, Unpublished. Fazzari, S., G. Hubbard, and B. Petersen (1988), Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1, pp141-95. Holmes, S. and Kent, P., (1991), An Empirical Analysis of the Financial Structure of Small and Large Australian Manufacturing Enterprises, Journal of Small Business Finance, 1 (2), pp141-154. QUESTIONNAIRES. Why did you choose to start a business in this area? Does your business follow the government policies in regard to paying taxes Yes â‚ ¬Ã‚  No â‚ ¬Ã‚  What is the number of the employees in your business? How is the business in this area affected by the economy trends preferring at the moment? Who is the highest ranking member of your business? What is the annual turnover of your business? Where does your business get the initial capital to start it up? What is your source of financing? What form of financial instruments do you have in place? Which banking or financial sectors do you operate in your business? How do the interest rates affect your business? What are some of the difficulties do you experience when getting bank access? What can you say is the reason for your business failure to grow? How is the government policies put in place in Kenya helping you achieve your financial goals? What are the major issues does your enterprise face when accessing credit facilities in the banking sectors in the Kenya? What would you say is the challenge facing the small business in Kenya in terms of finances?

Theme of Isolation in Dekkers Blink and Taylors Julie :: essays research papers

Many people experience isolation throughout their lives. Isolation is withdrawal from society or feeling of being disconnected from a certain group. Why is there isolation? What causes isolation? What might it lead to? There are various factors that can lead to isolation. People can be easily isolated by their knowledge, background or by their differences. There are effects that can also occur due to isolation. There are a lot of questions regarding isolation and alienation. There are literatures and novels relating to this issue such as Blink and Julie. Blink is written by a famous author named Ted Dekker. The main theme of the book is about romance between two isolated characters. University student Seth Border, who is well known for his intelligence, falls in love with the princess of Saudi Arabia, Miriam Fahd. Seth develops the ability to predict the future as he come across Miriam. It is ironic that his name, Seth, means appointed or to be chosen (Origin and Meaning of the name Seth). He is given extremely high intelligence and is chosen to have supernatural power which eventually leads to isolation. As for Miriam, she escapes from Saudi Arabia, because she could not adapt to the environment and treatment of women in her society. She decides to go to United States for freedom. However, she feels more isolated in United States because she did not know anyone there. This is when she meets her destiny, Seth Border. Julie is one of brilliant novels written by well-known Canadian author Cora Taylor. Julie Morgan is the main character of this novel. She also has the ability to predict the future just like Seth. The difference between them is that she has this ability since birth. She is very emotional and sensitive. Her timidity causes isolation in her life. She believes that things she dreams about is true, however, her family think she is just too creative. She becomes doubtful and withdraws herself from society. Julie and Blink have a lot of things in common. Both involve characters with special ability to predict the future. Julie Morgan and Seth Border they are both very smart. For this reason, they are isolated. Julie and Seth have problem adapting to their environment which is another factor that has isolated them. They both go through unbearable pain, betrayal and other family problems. This eventually causes them to isolate themselves. On the other hand, Miriam, Seth’s lover, experiences alienation because of her ethnic group.

London prepares for the Olympics

The photograph on the sheet was taken in early 2009 and presents a snapshot of the major development under way in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics. In the foreground one can see Stratford east railway station where key transport developments are taking place. In the background are a number of Olympic construction projects, including the Westfield Shopping Mall. In the past, the land shown in the photograph used to be mainly low industrial units, transport depots and railway sidings. It was relatively low-value land, which is one of the reasons that this site was chosen for the Olympics. The owners of the various industrial units have received support and compensation to enable them to relocate elsewhere. 1. What is the evidence that major redevelopments are taking place? It is evident that there is construction going on in the area, this can be seen particularly from the machinery but also because: -the Westfield Shopping Mall can be seen in the background, still under construction. – There are lots of buildings which can be seen in the background. -there is a large sign which says ‘Everyone's London 2012' which suggests that the developments taking place are on a large scale to attract large amounts of people. 2. The development at the railway station is part of an overall plan to provide a top quality public transport infrastructure for the Olympic Games. What are the benefits of this approach to transport management? -Well, the Olympic Games by nature are going to attract large amounts of people to come, and this is financially rewarding. However, public transport infrastructure must be carefully taken into consideration, because no matter how amazing the Olympic Games are, if people cannot reach there, then it may end up being a big problem (for example financially, if many people do not even bother to purchase tickets to attend the Olympic Games, as the destination is not accessible. -well thought out infrastructure is convenient for people when travelling. -Also, regarding long term benefits, it means that more people in the local area can travel after the Olympic Games to work in other areas (perhaps secure jobs with higher incomes). -the temporary workers on the Olympic Site can travel there conveniently. – The main benefit is that it will help to ensure the public gets to the venues in time and in some degree of comfort. 3. Notice that there is a slogan in the photograph, albeit partially obscured that reads ‘Everyone's London 2012'. A) What do you think is meant by this slogan?It means that all these developments which are taking place for the Olympic Games, when finished are for everyone to enjoy and experience, for example not just the athletes and tourist, but local people as well. Basically, the ambition of ‘everyone's 2012' is to inspire people of all ability, belief, postcode, and colour to participate fully in the Games – and it extends far beyond London and late summer 2012. B) How will the local community benefit from the building work taking place in preparation for the Olympics? -the area is hoped to be regenerated socially, economically and environmentally. -the sporting facilities can be used by the community; this can promote a healthy lifestyle in an area with high levels of obesity. -the community can enjoy more entertainment/recreation facilities such as the Westfield Shopping Mall. -improvements in transport infrastructure have the most long term benefits as local people can benefit from its convenience, also it means that local people could travel to other areas for job opportunities. -lots of temporary jobs will be needed, especially in the construction industry, so local people's skills can be used, and local people can be trained as well (e.g. apprenticeships). – Boosting social and economic prospects in Stratford and the Lower Lee Valley, an area of high unemployment and deprivation. – Bringing about the transformation of largely derelict, brown-field sites through comprehensive and co-ordinated development. -Improvements to transport infrastructure which would be of benefit to the wider Thames Gateway area. C) One critical element of London's winning Olympic bid was the so-called ‘legacy' of the games- the longer term benefits arising for the local community. Can you see from the photograph what some of these might be? Well, there are obviously a lot of developments going on, and it is likely that the sports facilities could be used in the future by local communities, as well as recreational uses such as the Westfield Shopping Mall, and generally the area will attract tourists, and therefore increase the economy of the area (e.g. prices going up such as hotels charging more money etc which will benefit the tourist industry). Other benefits include: * Sports facilities with a national and international profile. * The Olympic stadium itself, which could be used for an Athletic or Premiership football stadium. * 4,000-4,500 new residential units built to house teams in the Olympic village- could be used to provide affordable and key worker housing. * A 1,000,000 sq ft media centre would be created for the games, which would have the latest technology and could be used as a centre for media based organizations and creative industries in the future and would also encourage associated and complementary industries and lever in much needed private investment. * An increase in tourism linking into and complementing existing and planned regeneration in east London (people still go to Barcelona and Munich to visit the Olympic sites) * Wholesale environmental and landscaping improvements and new urban design concepts * Staging a major international event such as the Olympics would be a major cultural boost to east London, which has long suffered from the image of dereliction and unattractiveness. It would be an excellent chance to publicise the area's wide cultural diversity and create tourist attractions such as an Olympic Park. 4. If you were to visit the areas shown here one year after the photograph was taken, how do you think it would have changed? I think there would still be a high level of construction going on, and the area would look more developed e.g. the Westfield Shopping Mall might have more added to its exterior (such as the windows etc). There might also be more people there (e.g. working/just observing etc).

The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations

The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations JOHN H HANNAH III UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX The Effect of Outsourcing on Public Sector Organizations This paper will examine the particular issues associated with the impact of outsourcing on public sector organization’s performance and employee commitment. As the move to outsourcing is part of a wider phenonom for flexibility in the organizational, structure, development and change paradigms of public sector organizations.This paper begins by examining the problems associated with an outsourcing strategy in public sector organization. Many counties within the US, have chosen to outsource the investment and operation of non-competitive public services, such as water and waste management, public transports, mail services, information and communication technology services, facilities management and road infrastructures. Outsourcing today has become an essential revenue and growth strategy for almost every existing corporation. It creates flexibility in the company, ensuring the maximum utilization of available resources within the company. It also offers corporations cost advantages and help free up their management resources. Orange county government-anywhere USA, requested the services of a Home Land Security Specialist to assist in the collaborative, assessment, development and strategic enhancement of it municipality’s Information Technology (IT) and Critical Facilities’ (CF) upgrades and security.Upon the completion of plan, expectations and deliverables, a series of introductions with Directors, Managers and Supervisors, it was apparent the federal dollars associated with the project was indeed the motive for the invitation. In my initial general assessment and development of a strategy, the organization handbook was the first critical reading which uncovered a mission statement, values, ethical guidelines and the organizational cultural premise. â€Å"The Mayor’s outline the v ision, values and mission as simple – to serve. You have an important job to do as we work to meet the needs of our citizens.We ensure that roads are built and maintained; we protect environmental resources; we respond to crisis and emergency situations; we staff facilities that care for people; and we ensure that the quality of life of our citizens is protected our challenge is to build on the strengths of our diverse community so that everyone can enjoy the very best Orange County has to offer. We are committed to maintaining an organization where citizens are engaged in civic affairs, take ownership in their government and have input in the decision making process†.The following core values serve as our foundation: 1. FAIRNESS, 2. WORK ETHIC 3. INTEGRITY AND CHARACTER 4. EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION: 5. PROFESSIONALISM AND ACCOUNTABILITY (Orange County Government, 2012) . The role of the Security Specialist in this public sector organization is to examine the particular issues associated with the impact of outsourcing on public sector organization’s performance and employee commitment and develop a strategy to move this organization toward outsourcing initially in the areas of IT and CF.Provide an assessment and evaluation of the organizational readiness for change in the area of outsourcing. This paper begins by examining the problems associated with an outsourcing strategy in public sector organization in the form of an assessment. As public sector moves to outsourcing as part of a wider strategy to increase flexibility in the organizational, structure, development and change paradigms of public sector organization. Outsourcing helps organizations to be focused.Since the most valuable resource within management is time, once a process is successfully outsourced, the management gets more and effective time to explore new revenue streams, time to accelerate other projects and time to focus on customers. Traditionally executives spend 80 per cent of their time managing details, and only 20 percent on planning and customer relations, in other words, a successful outsourcing process can help reverse this ratio.Outsourcing can also help companies to have access to new technologies that might not be used in their company. This is mainly because the outsourcers use the latest state-of-the art technologies to serve their private sector clients. And this might also increase the change paradigm shift and rapid migration of these companies to new technology. Outsourcing also helps multi functional areas and department of a public sector providing the benefit of 24-hour operational cycles and providing necessary services to their customer.The ever- growing pressure for increased productivity and profitability of city, county and state governments thus, the pressures to reduce costs and improve productivity are the main factors that influenced the beginning of offshore outsourcing. For example, the main advantages to move producti on to private contracting of products and services to reduce in-house human resources management cost. Hence, today outsourcing has become an attractive and powerful strategy for companies to reduce cost and improve performance.These models provide theoretical guidelines upon which valid and reliable organizational assessments should be based. All of these models provide value to management and human resource organizational leaders performing organizational assessments based on a internal aspects or a system theory evaluation approach (Erwin & Garman, 2010). The McKinsey 7S Framework model is used as a tool to assess and monitor changes in the internal situation of an organization closed system assessment. The model is based on the theory that, for an organization to perform well, these seven elements need to be aligned and mutually reinforcing.So, the model can be used to help identify what needs to be realigned to improve performance, or to maintain alignment (and performance) dur ing other types of change. The basic premise of the model is that there are seven internal aspects of an organization that need to be aligned if it is to be successful evaluation and assessment tool. The Seven Interdependent Elements of the 7s model are Hard elements (strategy, structure and systems) and the Soft Elements (shared values, skills, style and staff) (Waterman, Peters, & Phillips, 1980)Burke & Litwin Model (The Casual Model of Organizational Performance & Change) – The Burke & Litwin Model, suggests linkages that hypothesize how performance is affected by internal and external factors. It provides a framework to assess organizational and environmental dimensions that are keys to successful change and it demonstrates how these dimensions should be linked causally to achieve a change in performance. According to Burke-Litwin’s model, an organization may conduct a change intervention in stages as they relate to a specific focus in two stages â€Å"First order and Second order† changes.If an OD intervention is directed toward structure, systems, and management practice result, it can be considered a first order change, if interventions are directed toward mission, strategy, leadership, and organizational culture then result in second order change (Burke & Litwin, 1992). The Marvin Weisbord-Six-Box Model (Weisbord’s Model) is designed to assess the functioning of organizations based mainly on the techniques and assumptions of the field of organizational development. The model represents a particular way of looking at organizational structure and design.It gives attention to issues such as planning, incentives and rewards, the role of support functions such as personnel, internal competitions among organizational units, standards for remuneration, partnerships, hierarchies and the delegation of authority, organizational control, accountability and performance assessment. The model also follows the basic ‘systems' approac h to organizational functioning including the well-known inputs and ‘outputs' categories. The six-box model is comprised of the following components (boxes): (1). Purposes, (2). Structure, (3) relationships; (4). Rewards, (5). Leadership, (6).Coordinating technologies. The only disadvantage to this model is it s design to only address internal environments (Weisbord, 1978). An open system organizational development theory and (Burke & Litwin) model will be utilized to conduct a diagnosis analysis planned change assessment to the organization. These changes are usually designed to address an organization problem or to help an organization prepare for future. It is the one method of quickly bringing change, which focus on human and social aspects of the organization as a way to improve organization’s ability to adapt and solve problems.The best theory is developed from practice; the best practice should be grounded in theory (Seeger, 2006; Brown, 2011). The Burke & Litwin Model hypothesizes’ how performance is affected by internal and external factors. Public sector management occurs within a complex, dynamic system involving stakeholders, coupled with informational and resource material flows and behaviour that is characterized by interactions related to internal and external environments. According to Burke-Litwin’s model, an organization may conduct a change intervention in stages as they relate to a specific focus in two stages â€Å"First order and Second order† changes.If an OD intervention is directed toward structure, systems, and management practice result, it can be considered a first order change, if interventions are directed toward mission, strategy, leadership, and organizational culture then result in second order change (Burke & Litwin, 1992). The theory of Organizational readiness for change is considered a multi-level, multi-faceted construct. From and organization-level construct, readiness for change refers t o organizational members' shared resolve to implement a change (change commitment) and shared belief in their collective capability to do so (change efficacy).Organizational readiness for change varies as a function of how much organizational member’s value the change and how favorably they appraise three key determinants of implementation capability: task demands, resource availability, and situational factors. When organizational readiness for change is high, organizational members are more likely to initiate change, exert greater effort, exhibit greater persistence, and display more cooperative behavior (Weiner, 2009). References Bateman, T. S. , & Snell, S. A. (2007). Management: Leading & collaboratiing in a competitive world (7th ed. . New York, NY: McGraw Hill – Irwin. Boland, T. , & Fowler, A. (2000). A systems perspective of performance management in public sector management. The International Journal of Public Sector organizations, 13(5), 417-446. doi:10. 110 8/09513550010350832 Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed. ). Boston, MA: Prentice Hall. Burke, W. W. , & Litwin, G. H. (1992). Causal model of organization performance and change’. Journal Management, 18(3), 523-545. doi:10. 1177/014920639201800306 Erwin, D. G. , & Garman, A. N. (2010).Resistance to organizational change: Linking research and practice,. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 31(1), 39-56. doi:10. 1108/01437731011010371 Harrison, M. I. , & Shirom, A. (1999). Organizational diagnosis and assessment: Bridging theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kotter, J. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 59-67. Retrieved from http://89. 248. 0. 102/upload/Topplederprogrammet/Kotter. pdf Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in Social Science. London, England: Harper Row. Orange County Government. 2012, April). Employee Handbook. Fl. Retrieved from http://www. ocfl. net/Portal s/0/resourcelibrary/employment-employehandbook. pdf Waterman, R. , Peters, T. J. , & Phillips, J. R. (1980). Structure is not organization. Mckinsey Quarterly, 2-20. Retrieved from http://www. tompeters. com/docs/Structure_Is_Not_Organization. pdf Weisbord, M. (1978). Organizational Diagnosis: A Workbook of Theory and Practice. Addison-wesley. Wiener, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4, 67. doi:10. 1186/1748-5908-4-67

Repudiate, Refute, and Reject

Repudiate, Refute, and Reject Repudiate, Refute, and Reject Repudiate, Refute, and Reject By Maeve Maddox How can I resist jumping into the fray over Sarah Palins use of the word refudiate? Heres the notorious tweet as it originally appeared: Ground Zero Mosque supporters, doesn’t it stab you in the heart as it does our throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, please refudiate.† Here is the tweet with which it was replaced: Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real. I was amazed and delighted that a mere word could cause such a stir. Within minutes, it seems, we were informed that the word had been used once before, in 1984, by science-fiction writer John Sladke. Looking up Sladke, of whom Id never heard, I learned that he wrote satire. That could explain his use of refudiate. The word is a portmanteau that seems to combine refute with repudiate. The corrected tweet uses refute where reject would be more appropriate. Refudiate is an amusing word and one which, like misunderestimate is going to be used a lot in jest. It does not, however, seem to bring any new meaning or connotation to the language. repudiate: To cast off, disown (a person or thing previously claimed as ones own or associated with oneself). Repudiate is a transitive verb. You repudiate something or someone you no longer wish to be associated with. You can repudiate a debt, a wife, or a belief. †¦this paper argues that it may well be in poor people’s interests for their governments to repudiate debt.   Its time to repudiate this doctrine and satisfy U.S. energy needs without reliance on military intervention. Will NAACP repudiate their own racist comments about Kenneth Gladney, caught on tape? J.C. Watts says Christians should repudiate extremist groups refute: To prove (something) to be false, esp. by means of argument or debate. Refute is also a transitive verb. You refute an argument or a doctrine or a claim by offering evidence to disprove it. Does Neuroscience Refute Free Will? Trademark Owners Often Can Refute the First-Sale Doctrine The major evidence that refutes Mr. Stinnett’s claim †¦ comes from archival documents that were declassified in 1999†¦ Vice provost Dr Patrick Prendergast told the news provider the plans [to include non-traditional students] refuted the perception among some of TCD as an elite institution. Gerdemann hopes to refute the continually underlined idea that no one can contest the Tour de France without doping†¦ reject: To refuse to recognize, acquiesce in, submit to, adopt, or allow†¦; to refuse to believe (a statement, etc.), to discard from consideration. NZ Government must reject whaling plan Belmonte, Lakas reject plan to slash pork barrel Scotland must reject dependency culture Germany Will Probably Reject Opel Aid Request, Lawmaker Says By all means, have fun with refudiate. Just dont use it in your serious writing when what you mean is repudiate, refute, or reject. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Creative Writing 101Loan, Lend, Loaned, LentEnglish Grammar 101: Prepositions

Lucy Stone, Abolitionist and Womens Rights Reformer

Lucy Stone, Abolitionist and Women's Rights Reformer Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818–October 18, 1893)  was the first woman in Massachusetts to earn a college degree and the first woman in the United States to keep her own name after marriage. While she started out on the radical edge of womens rights at the beginning of her speaking and writing career, shes usually described as a leader of the conservative wing of the suffrage movement in her later years. The woman whose speech in 1850 converted Susan B. Anthony to the suffrage cause later disagreed  with Anthony over strategy and tactics, splitting the suffrage movement into two major branches after the Civil War. Fast Facts: Lucy Stone Known For: A major figure in the abolitionist and womens rights movements of the 1800sBorn: August 13, 1818 in West Brookfield, MassachusettsParents: Hannah Matthews and Francis StoneDied: October 18, 1893 in Boston, MassachusettsEducation: Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Oberlin CollegeAwards and Honors:  Inducted into National Womens Hall of Fame; the subject of a U.S. postal stamp; statue placed in Massachusetts State House; featured in the Boston Womens Heritage TrailSpouse(s): Henry Browne BlackwellChildren: Alice Stone BlackwellNotable Quote: I believe that the influence of woman will save the country before every other power. Early Life Lucy Stone was born on August 13, 1818, on her familys Massachusetts farm in West Brookfield. She was the eighth of nine children, and as she grew up, she watched as her father ruled the household, and his wife, by divine right. Disturbed when her mother had to beg her father for money, she was also unhappy with the lack of support in her family for her education. She was faster at learning than her brothers, but they were to be educated while she was not. She was inspired in her reading by the Grimke sisters, who were abolitionists as well as proponents of womens rights. When the Bible was quoted to her, defending the positions of men and women, she declared that when she grew up, shed learn Greek and Hebrew so she could correct the mistranslation that she was sure was behind such verses. Education Her father would not support her education, so she alternated her own education with teaching to earn enough to continue. She attended several institutions, including Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1839. By age 25 four years later, she had saved enough to fund her first year at Oberlin College in Ohio, the countrys first college to admit both women and blacks. After four years of study at Oberlin College, all the while teaching and doing housework to pay for the costs, Lucy Stone graduated in 1847. She was asked to write a commencement speech for her class, but she refused because someone else would have had to read her speech because women were not allowed, even at Oberlin, to give a public address. Shortly after Stone, the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree, returned to her home state, she gave her first public speech. The topic was womens rights and she delivered the speech from the pulpit of her brothers Congregational Church in Gardner, Massachusetts. Thirty-six years after she graduated from Oberlin, she was an honored speaker at Oberlins 50th-anniversary celebration. The American Anti-Slavery Society A year after she graduated, Lucy Stone was hired as an organizer for the American Anti-Slavery Society. In this paid position, she traveled and gave speeches on abolition and womens rights. William Lloyd Garrison, whose ideas were dominant in the Anti-Slavery Society, said of her during her first year of working with the organization, She is a very superior young woman, and has a soul as free as the air, and is preparing to go forth as a lecturer, particularly in vindication of the rights of women. Her course here has been very firm and independent, and she has caused no small uneasiness in the spirit of sectarianism in the institution. When her womens rights speeches created too much controversy within the Anti-Slavery Society- some wondered whether she was diminishing her efforts on behalf of the abolition cause- she arranged to separate the two ventures, speaking on weekends on abolition and weekdays on womens rights, and charging admission for the speeches on womens rights. In three years, she earned $7,000 with these talks. Radical Leadership Stones radicalism on both abolition and womens rights brought large crowds. The talks also drew hostility: according to historian Leslie Wheeler, people tore down the posters advertising her talks, burned pepper in the auditoriums where she spoke, and pelted her with prayer books and other missiles. Having been convinced by using the Greek and Hebrew she learned at Oberlin that indeed the Biblical proscriptions on women were badly translated, she challenged those rules in churches that she found to be unfair to women. Raised in the Congregational Church, she was unhappy with its refusal to recognize women as voting members of congregations as well as their condemnation of the Grimke sisters for their public speaking. Finally expelled by the Congregationalists for her views and public speaking, she joined with the Unitarians. In 1850, Stone was a leader in organizing the first national womans rights convention, held in Worcester, Massachusetts. The 1848 convention in Seneca Falls had been an important and radical move, but the attendees were mostly from the local area. This was the next step. At the 1850 convention, Lucy Stones speech is credited with converting Susan B. Anthony to the cause of woman suffrage. A copy of the speech, which was sent to England, inspired John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor to publish The Enfranchisement of Women. Some years later, she also convinced Julia Ward Howe to adopt womens rights as a cause along with abolition. Frances Willard credited Stones work with her joining the suffrage cause. Marriage and Motherhood Stone had thought of herself as a free soul who would not marry; then she met Cincinnati businessman Henry Blackwell in 1853 on one of her speaking tours. Henry was seven years younger than Lucy and courted her for two years. Henry was anti-slavery and  pro-womens  rights. His eldest sister  Elizabeth Blackwell  (1821–1910), became the first woman physician in the United States, while another sister,  Emily Blackwell  (1826–1910), became a physician as well. Their brother Samuel later married  Antoinette Brown  (1825–1921), a friend of Lucy Stones at Oberlin and the first woman ordained as a minister in the United States. Two years of courtship and friendship convinced Lucy to accept Henrys offer of marriage. Lucy was especially impressed when he rescued a fugitive slave from her owners. She wrote to him, A wife should no more take her husbands name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost. Henry agreed with her. I wish, as a husband, to  renounce  all the privileges which the  law  confers upon me, which are not strictly  mutual. Surely  such a marriage  will not degrade you, dearest. And so,  in 1855, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell married. At the ceremony, Minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson read  a statement by the bride and groom, renouncing and protesting the marriage laws of the time, and announcing that she would keep her name. Higginson published the ceremony widely with their permission. The couples daughter Alice Stone Blackwell was born in 1857. A son died at birth; Lucy and Henry had no other children. Lucy retired for a short period from active touring and public speaking and devoted herself to raising her daughter. The family moved from Cincinnati to New Jersey. In a letter written to her sister-in-law Antoinette Blackwell on February 20, 1859, Stone wrote, ...for these years I can only be a mother- no trivial thing, either. The next year, Stone refused to pay property taxes on her home. She and Henry carefully kept her property in her name, giving her independent income during their marriage. In her statement to the authorities, Lucy Stone protested the taxation without representation that women still endured, since women had no vote. The authorities seized some furniture to pay the debt, but the gesture was widely publicized as symbolic on behalf of womens rights. Split in the Suffrage Movement Inactive in the suffrage movement during the Civil War, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell became active again when the war ended and the  Fourteenth Amendment  was proposed, giving the vote to black men. For the first time, the Constitution would, with this Amendment, mention male citizens explicitly. Most woman suffrage activists were outraged. Many saw the possible passage of this Amendment as setting back the cause of woman suffrage. In 1867, Stone again went on a full lecture tour to Kansas and New York, working for woman suffrage state amendments, trying to work for both black and woman suffrage. The woman suffrage movement split on this and other strategic grounds. The  National Woman Suffrage Association, led by  Susan B. Anthony  and  Elizabeth Cady Stanton decided to oppose the  Fourteenth Amendment because of the language male citizen. Lucy Stone,  Julia Ward Howe, and Henry Blackwell led those who sought to keep the causes of black and woman suffrage together, and in 1869 they and others founded the  American Woman Suffrage Association. For all her radical reputation, Lucy Stone was identified in this later period with the conservative wing of the woman suffrage movement. Other differences in strategy between the two wings included the AWSAs following a strategy of state-by-state suffrage amendments and the NWSAs support of a national constitutional amendment. The AWSA remained largely  middle  class,  while the NWSA embraced working-class issues and members. The Womens Journal The next year, Lucy raised enough funds to start a suffrage weekly newspaper,  The Womans Journal. For the first two years, it was edited by  Mary Livermore, and then Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell became the editors. Lucy Stone found working on a newspaper far more compatible with family life than the lecture circuit. But I do believe that a womans truest place is in a home, with a husband and with children, and with large freedom, pecuniary freedom, personal freedom, and the right to vote. Lucy Stone to her adult daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell Alice Stone Blackwell attended Boston University, where she was one of two women in a class with 26 men. She later got involved with  The Womans Journal,  which survived until 1917. Alice was the sole editor during its later years. The Womans Journal  under Stone and Blackwell maintained a Republican Party line, opposing, for instance, labor movement organizing and strikes and  Victoria Woodhulls  radicalism, in contrast to the Anthony-Stanton NWSA. Last Years Lucy Stones radical move to keep her own name continued to inspire and enrage. In 1879, Massachusetts gave women a limited right to vote for the school committee. In Boston, however, the registrars refused to let Lucy Stone vote unless she used her husbands name. She continued to find that, on legal documents and when registering with her husband at hotels, she had to sign as Lucy Stone, married to Henry Blackwell, for her signature to be accepted as valid. Lucy Stone did, in the 1880s, welcome Edward Bellamys American version of Utopian socialism, as did many other woman suffrage activists. Bellamys vision in the book  Looking Backward  drew a vivid picture of a society with economic and social equality for women. In 1890, Alice Stone Blackwell, now a leader in the woman suffrage movement in her own right, engineered a reunification of the two competing suffrage organizations. The National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association united to form the  National American Woman Suffrage Association, with  Elizabeth Cady Stanton  as president,  Susan B. Anthony  as vice president, and Lucy Stone as chairman of the executive committee. In an 1887 speech to the New England Womans Club, Stone said: I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned.   Death Stones voice had already faded and she rarely spoke to large groups later in her life. But in 1893, she gave  lectures at the Worlds Columbian Exposition. A few months later, she died in Boston of cancer and was cremated. Her last words to her daughter were Make the world better. Legacy Lucy Stone is less well known today than  Elizabeth Cady Stanton,  Susan B. Anthony, or  Julia Ward Howe, whose Battle Hymn of the Republic helped immortalize her name. Stones daughter Alice Stone Blackwell published her mothers biography,  Lucy Stone, Pioneer of Womans Rights,  in 1930, helping to keep her name and contributions known. But Lucy Stone is still remembered today primarily as the first woman to keep her own name after marriage. Women who follow that custom are sometimes called Lucy Stoners. Sources Adler, Stephen J. and Lisa Grunwald. Womens Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present. New York: Random House, 2005.â€Å"Lucy Stone.† National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.â€Å"Lucy Stone.† National Womens History Museum.McMillen, Sally G. Lucy Stone: An Unapologetic Life. Oxford University Press, 2015.Wheeler, Leslie. Lucy Stone: Radical Beginnings. Spender, Dale (ed.). Feminist Theorists: Three Centuries of Key Women Thinkers. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983

Cultural Identity Journal Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Cultural Identity Journal - Research Paper Example Having been in the United States for nine years now, my job as a yoga instructor paved the way for me to belief in the benefits accorded by meditation. I feel yoga sets us on a journey of self discovery, where we no longer need to continue searching for happiness, we realize it is already within us. Still, I do not lose track of my purpose for living and that when I die, the life I lived would be judged and would be decided on the fate of my eternal existence. II. VALUES I value relationships more than any material blessings. I treasure the times I spent with my family in Poland, especially the bond that we shared and the happiness felt by the mere presence of family members. My primary values are sharing my talents to others so that others’ lives would be enriched by their interaction with me. This would enable me to attain a sense of worth through my personal contribution to life: by doing good in the tasks and responsibilities as an interpreter and a yoga instructor. I hone stly believe that relationships are worth dying for: that we strive hard in life for the benefit of those we love. The people we love dearly are worth protecting more than any material things, which we ultimately leave on earth when we die. III. CULTURAL PATTERNS A. Application of Hofstedes's Five Dimensions I am basically a COLLECTIVIST. Poles often form extended families - with grandparents who take care of grandchildren while parents are working. In many instances children live in the same town or neighborhood where the parents and grandparents live. Polish people, especially young, are very attached to their parents, family and home in Poland and feel unsecure on their own. As explained in Hofstede’s dimension, collectivism manifests finding â€Å"societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyaltyâ₠¬  (Itim International par. 2). B. UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE Poles are basically averse of taking risks and therefore manifest high levels of UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE. Polish society is not that mobile as American or western European societies from many reasons and partly because of this cultural dimension, therefore the unemployment is high in some areas of Poland but people are not willing or cannot move somewhere else. I believe that I am more than an exception to the rule since I bravely took the risk of living away from my family and pursuing opportunities in America. C. POWER DISTANCE I also believe that there are inequalities in societies but that the roles that each person plays determine their power. Therefore in terms of the POWER DISTANCE INDEX, I believe that power and inequality are matters of perspectives. I treat people of higher authority with due respect but I do not acknowledge that they are better or more authoritative than me. I contend that it is their roles and respo nsibilities that require people to classify them to belong to higher or lower levels in an organizational hierarchy, for example; but their inner self and category as a member of the universal world is just the same as mine. D. MASCULINITY versus FEMININITY In terms of defining MASCULINITY versus FEMININITY, I still believe that although contemporary societies exhibit more equality in gender, still more societies are

Infrastructure Issues in India Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Infrastructure Issues in India - Term Paper Example This paper attempts to evaluate existing infrastructural issues in India and how they affect the country’s overall economic prospects. India’s poor infrastructure is a huge obstacle towards the country’s overall economic growth prospects. In essence, India is among the fastest growing economies in Asia and the world in general though its huge growth projects have been hindered by the extremely poor infrastructure found in the subcontinent. The paper further examines the relevant frailties in India’s infrastructure evaluating the available options for improvement and better performance. To underscore the infrastructural issues of India and its needs, the paper will conduct a comparative analysis between India and China as regards infrastructure. Conceivably Indian infrastructural planning has been below the standards resulting into substandard infrastructures. Economic growth requires adequate and quality infrastructure, which serves as a huge aid towards d evelopment and economic activity. Poor infrastructure, on the other hand, hinders basic economic activities and dilutes government’s attention on crucial economic matters. For better economic performance, it is essential to have an infrastructure that can support the economy and its business activities. Therefore, it is of great importance that India elevates its infrastructure to an advanced level that can support its economic and growth perspectives. In essence, India needs to consider the investment in power, energy, healthcare, water/waste management and address policies supporting the development of infrastructure. Such an approach will go along way in boosting the country’s infrastructural levels providing it with the necessary impetus to pursue its ambitious economic endeavors. Statistically, more than half of India’s shipment and 80 percent of traveler traffic moves on the freeway network, which largely comprises two-lane roads. The country has 700 kilom eters of thruways, mostly reserved for cars, buses and trucks. Most of the expressways with four lanes run through Ahmedabad and Vadodara as well as between Pune and Mumbai. China, on the other hand, has 74,000 kilometers of superhighways up from 147 kilometers in 1989 (Huang 3). Therefore, is far much behind China in the road network and though India’s has ambitious infrastructural projects it will take a long time for the subcontinent to catch up with China. In August 2009, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh developed a goal of constructing 20 kilometers of new highways a day as a fraction of efforts to advance infrastructure graded below Kazakhstan’s and Guatemala’s, according to the World Economic Forum. The daily standard was 4.5 kilometers in 2011, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. India endeavors to expend as much as $1 trillion in five years on power plants, roads, and ports (Sundaram 1). India may use $5.3 billion tripling the span of its expre ssway network to reduce traffic jams that are slowing commerce, wasting fuel, in addition to sapping economic growth. The country proposes to add approximately 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of highways with at least six lanes. In an interview, Raghav Chandra -who is the joint secretary at the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways- confirmed that India has great plans to refurbish its road network so as to create an enabling environment for trade and overall economic

Islamic history Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Islamic history - Research Paper Example For this reason, it made him the legitimate successor to the Prophet. This implied that all other rulers were not legitimate. The Ottomans and Safavis rulers also used religion to legitimize their rule through the use of propaganda. From the safavid reading, the semi-secret Shi’ite had a propaganda that taught that all rulers of Islam were illegitimate and that the head of the Muslim community who is the Imam would one day appear and over through the mighty in order to set things right. This meant that the person who will over through the mighty rulers would be the one chosen by God.1 The rulers legitimized their rule by indicating that whoever God has given power or authority, no person can be able to resist. This prevented any person to go against or challenge a ruler who has been put into power by God.2 According to the report of the Carmelite mission, religion was put in display by building large mosques where people went to pray.3 Religion was also seen through the rituals that people performed. A good example was the use of prayers where people went to mosques for prayers thrice a day. This was in the morning, noon, and in the evening. Before prayers, people wash and call the name of God and â€Å"Ali in their prayers.4 Religion is also put on display through their daily activities.5 The Persians were allowed to have one wife who was placed in special places called the saraglios. These women were closely protected and hidden. The rulers’ use of religion changed it for their own benefit. They used religion to present themselves as gods especially to their soldiers. This was to the extent that soldiers went to fight without armor because they believed that their leaders are protecting them. Others went into battles without armor because they were willing to die for their monarch.6 When going into battles, most of these men fought in the name of the rulers because they considered them to be prophets and gods.7 The rulers also personalized

Castle bingo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Castle bingo - Essay Example CRM integrates marketing, service and supply-chain functions in order to achieve greater efficiency in delivering greater value to discriminating customers. Consequently, CRM improves customer services, facilitates better integration of marketing tools, increases organisation revenues and reduces costs associated with customer services by a significant level (Richards & Jones, 2008). Castle Bingo and Benefits of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) The three primary elements of CRM have been described hereunder. Operational CRM Operational CRM consists of software packages that are used to efficiently arrange inbound and outbound customers interactions. Operational CRM aid in processes related with sales, customer service, marketing and automating communications. Service automation helps an organisation to manage service operations delivered through web, contact centre and face to face. Some of the significant benefits of operational CRM to Castle Bingo may include: Sales Force Aut omation Enterprise marketing Automation Customer Service and Support (Bhatnagar, 2012). Analytical CRM Analytical CRM involves analysing customer vital information in order to effectively meet the marketing and customer service goals and deliver appropriate message to the right customer at right time through appropriate channel. The significant benefit of Analytical CRM to Castle Bingo may involve Customer retention Segmentation and targeting Development of new products according to the customer’s specifications (Bhatnagar, 2012). Collaborative CRM Collaborative CRM comprises the system that facilitates customers to perform various services on their own through variety of interaction channels. It renders people process as well as data together and further facilities in channelling the data along with customer related information for ensuring proactive decision making. It ensures timely sharing of information and results in enhanced customer services. The major benefits of Col laborative CRM to Castle Bingo may involve: Providing effective customer communication across different channels, Increases the efficiency of online services and help in reducing customers service costs associated with offline services and Facilitate in better access to customers data during the time of interaction with customers (Bhatnagar, 2012). The Principles of Big Data and Metrics The data driven decision-making is currently being widely recognized and is viewed to be an increasing enthusiastic aspect related with the notion of ‘Big Data.’ Big Data refers to traditional enterprise data which comprises valuable information regarding the nature of the customers that is ascertained through CRM systems, web store transactions, ERP data as well as general ledger data. Furthermore, it also includes social data such as customers’ feedback streams, micro blogging internet sites like Twitter and social media like Facebook (Dijcks, 2012). The perception of Big Data c an primarily be attributed with four principles that have been discussed below. More Granular Information or Micro Segmentation The principle of micro segmentation can be

Mesopotamia Creation Stories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Mesopotamia Creation Stories - Essay Example This is because a text's genre serves to channel writers and readers by providing a common ground to determine the production and interpretation of specific texts. Biblical and Mesopotamian creation stories are linguistically, culturally, and historically very different from modern day ways of thinking, experiencing and interpreting the world. So as to correctly as possible interpret the writings of Genesis it is necessary to school oneself in other Near Eastern creation stories. The present paper will compare and contrast Mesopotamian creation stories with that of the Bible. Firstly, the creation story, "Epic of Creation" will be used to develop the Mesopotamian interpretation of how the cosmos and humankind came to be. Secondly, the Biblical interpretation of creation of this universe and humans will be presented. Next, issues of translation will be addressed. Finally, a conclusion shall synthesize the main arguments of the paper, and demonstrate the critical need for comparative analysis of creation stories in the Near East. The Mesopotamian myth of creation is quite violent, especially with regard to later civilizations, such as Egypt, and the later Biblical Creation Story. ... In turn these serpents produced Anshar, the heavens, and Kishar, the earthly world. And from these two came the great gods, Anu, Enlil, and Ea, as well as the other gods of the sky, earth, and the underworld. Many of these new gods were noisy, which upset Apsu and Tiamat, since they could not rest. These primordial goddesses then discussed whether they should annihilate their progeny. When Ea, the all-knowing, learned of Apsu's plan to destroy the gods he used his magic to capture her and Mummu. Tiamat was furious and created a monstrous army of gods and freak creatures to punish Ea and his cohorts. Ea went to his father Anshar, and Anshar advised him to send Anu to fight Tiamat. But both Anu and Ea were afraid of the goddess and her army. Then Ea called Marduk forth. Marduk promised to conquer Tiamat if he were given supreme authority over the gods. The gods agreed that he was to have lordship scepter, the throne, and an invincible weapon. Armed with bow and arrows, lightning, the winds, a hurricane, and a special net, Marduk rode forth to meet Tiamat in his chariot, which was a tempest, drawn by four fearsome steeds. They clashed and Marduk caught Tiamat in his net. When she opened her mouth to swallow him, Marduk let loose the hurricane, which filled her jaws and belly, thereby stunning her. The Marduk shot an arrow into her belly and killed her. Tiamat's army fled in confusion at her downfall, but Marduk caught them in his net, chained them, and cast them into the underworld. As he was cutting up Tiamat's body, Marduk conceived a plan. From one half he made the dome of the heavens, and with the other half he made the earth. He

Survey Design Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Survey Design - Assignment Example Please send back the filled questionnaire within two weeks of receipt. Thank you in advance. The target population for the study is employees and employers in the Department of Veterans Affairs who agree to participate in the study. The reason for the choice of the population are that the employers and employees are mostly affected by workplace conflicts and the ability of resolving workplace conflicts in an amicable manner is beneficial for the employers and employees for work efficiency and effectiveness The chosen sample will consist of 100 employers and employees in the Department of Veteran Affairs. The sample is divided into two strata consisting of 50 employers and 50 employees to ensure the data is collected within the available time and the conclusions are all encompassing in terms of the views and opinions of the employees and the employers. The benefits of the sample chosen include accessibility and allows for the limited time for the research to be enough for completion of the study in a comprehensive manner1. The sampling process to be used is probability random sampling ensuring the selection of an appropriate sample for the study2. Stratified sampling will be in the division of the sample to two strata consisting of employers and employees. The benefits of using stratified random sampling include equitable distribution of the population under study, ensures equitable representation of the two strata in the sample chosen for use in the study, and accounting for the differences in the groups used for the study. The order of the questions has an effect on the responses through providing context for preceding questions. In a survey, having closed-ended questions before open-ended questions result in mentioning of concepts mentioned in earlier close-ended questions in filling open-ended questions. Open-ended questions have order effects in terms of contrast and assimilation effects in questionnaires where

Castle bingo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Castle bingo - Essay Example CRM integrates marketing, service and supply-chain functions in order to achieve greater efficiency in delivering greater value to discriminating customers. Consequently, CRM improves customer services, facilitates better integration of marketing tools, increases organisation revenues and reduces costs associated with customer services by a significant level (Richards & Jones, 2008). Castle Bingo and Benefits of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) The three primary elements of CRM have been described hereunder. Operational CRM Operational CRM consists of software packages that are used to efficiently arrange inbound and outbound customers interactions. Operational CRM aid in processes related with sales, customer service, marketing and automating communications. Service automation helps an organisation to manage service operations delivered through web, contact centre and face to face. Some of the significant benefits of operational CRM to Castle Bingo may include: Sales Force Aut omation Enterprise marketing Automation Customer Service and Support (Bhatnagar, 2012). Analytical CRM Analytical CRM involves analysing customer vital information in order to effectively meet the marketing and customer service goals and deliver appropriate message to the right customer at right time through appropriate channel. The significant benefit of Analytical CRM to Castle Bingo may involve Customer retention Segmentation and targeting Development of new products according to the customer’s specifications (Bhatnagar, 2012). Collaborative CRM Collaborative CRM comprises the system that facilitates customers to perform various services on their own through variety of interaction channels. It renders people process as well as data together and further facilities in channelling the data along with customer related information for ensuring proactive decision making. It ensures timely sharing of information and results in enhanced customer services. The major benefits of Col laborative CRM to Castle Bingo may involve: Providing effective customer communication across different channels, Increases the efficiency of online services and help in reducing customers service costs associated with offline services and Facilitate in better access to customers data during the time of interaction with customers (Bhatnagar, 2012). The Principles of Big Data and Metrics The data driven decision-making is currently being widely recognized and is viewed to be an increasing enthusiastic aspect related with the notion of ‘Big Data.’ Big Data refers to traditional enterprise data which comprises valuable information regarding the nature of the customers that is ascertained through CRM systems, web store transactions, ERP data as well as general ledger data. Furthermore, it also includes social data such as customers’ feedback streams, micro blogging internet sites like Twitter and social media like Facebook (Dijcks, 2012). The perception of Big Data c an primarily be attributed with four principles that have been discussed below. More Granular Information or Micro Segmentation The principle of micro segmentation can be

Survey Design Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Survey Design - Assignment Example Please send back the filled questionnaire within two weeks of receipt. Thank you in advance. The target population for the study is employees and employers in the Department of Veterans Affairs who agree to participate in the study. The reason for the choice of the population are that the employers and employees are mostly affected by workplace conflicts and the ability of resolving workplace conflicts in an amicable manner is beneficial for the employers and employees for work efficiency and effectiveness The chosen sample will consist of 100 employers and employees in the Department of Veteran Affairs. The sample is divided into two strata consisting of 50 employers and 50 employees to ensure the data is collected within the available time and the conclusions are all encompassing in terms of the views and opinions of the employees and the employers. The benefits of the sample chosen include accessibility and allows for the limited time for the research to be enough for completion of the study in a comprehensive manner1. The sampling process to be used is probability random sampling ensuring the selection of an appropriate sample for the study2. Stratified sampling will be in the division of the sample to two strata consisting of employers and employees. The benefits of using stratified random sampling include equitable distribution of the population under study, ensures equitable representation of the two strata in the sample chosen for use in the study, and accounting for the differences in the groups used for the study. The order of the questions has an effect on the responses through providing context for preceding questions. In a survey, having closed-ended questions before open-ended questions result in mentioning of concepts mentioned in earlier close-ended questions in filling open-ended questions. Open-ended questions have order effects in terms of contrast and assimilation effects in questionnaires where

Domestic and perfect Essay Example for Free

Domestic and perfect Essay ‘In the Grass’ and The Vindication of the Rights of Women are two works which consider the woman and her relationship with men. This is the only way they are similar, because the lead woman of each one is very different in their ideals of their relationship with their man. In the poem, ‘In the Grass’ by Annette Droste-Hustoll, we find a woman who is mourning the loss of a beloved man, though one doesn’t know if it is her husband, father, or brother, it’s just a man who is very important to her. This woman is the perfect female of the family and unbelievingly domestic and ‘perfect’. A major issue is the repeated use of the word sweet. It seems to not only mean ‘sweet repose’, ‘sweet reeling’, and ‘sweetly laughter’, but sweet, devoted female. This poem is a sort of mourning remembrance of the perfect life where this woman was the little darling of the now gone man. The phrase ‘Sweetly laughter flutters down, dear voice mummers and trickles’, is a major phrase used to conjure up to the reader this perfect family life. It is an image of the ideal family, the man strong and ruling and the female soft and yielding. She reigns in her domestic sphere, giving the man a place of rest. But, now the man is gone, and she is remembering the good times. She is lost because she no longer has the only life she knew how to live. Finally, the last series of lines tells the only course left to her is to go with him, ‘Please, a soul, to fly with him’. She believes she no longer has a reason to live without her guide and protector. She was a queen, but only with him, and all she wants is to go with him and continue their happy relationship. She is not envisioning life on her own, perhaps she can’t. Is she an individual being or an extension of him like his arm or leg? When Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Right of Women, the woman in the poem, â€Å"In the Grass†, was the ideal. Women in Wollstonecraft’s class were supposed to be soft creatures that let their husband do the thinking while they discussed clothes and child rearing. Wollstonecraft was against this and preached women’s rights. For this she was called ‘a hyena in petticoats’, but she refused to be silenced. Remember how in the poem ‘In the Grass’, the word ‘sweet’ is repeated over and over to set the tone of a darling little women by her man’s grave? Wollstonecraft strongly rejects this, calling all those endearments given to women from men, ‘those pretty feminine phrases, which the men condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence. ’ Slave was a harsh word to be throwing around, especially with slavery still existing in the US, but she wanted to shock. She was writing to shock women out of their dependence. Rousseau wrote that the only good virtues of a man are the ones he creates himself and not the ones he is told he should have. Wollstonecraft thinks this should be extended to women and she should be valued by her own worth rather than by the weak virtues men tell her she should have. She tells mothers, ‘The mother, who wishes to give true dignity of character to her daughter must†¦. proceed on a plan diametrically opposite to that which Rousseau has recommended. ’ In the end, perhaps it is safe to say each writer is creating a piece of literature that reflects the times they lived in. Droste-Hulsholl wrote during the Romantic Movement, when all things were idealized, including the relationship between men and women. Wollstonecraft wrote with Enlightenment ideals which encouraged the rights and the power of the individual to take hold of his/her life and change him/herself and the world. They created such different pieces because they saw the world in totally different ways.

Essy on South China Sea Dispute

Essy on South China Sea Dispute The main idea of the South China Sea dispute is a series of complex, legal, technical and geographic components critical to understanding the dispute. However, the issues involving territory and sovereignty are the most pervasive security problems facing the region especially after the cold war. It is considered to be a major flashpoint for the conflict in East Asia as the significances is the assumed presence of natural resources such as oil, hydrocarbon, manganese nodules and fish after the cold war, its strategic location is straddling as the worlds second busiest international sea lane in South East Asia. Its small features and indeterminate maritime regime are the subject of conflicting claims among China and Taiwan and four member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Therefore, this research aims to study the historical background and the evolution of the South China Sea Dispute, and its conflict management and resolution. In this case, there are several impacts from internal and external factors related to the claimants. However, it is thus possible to state that the dispute is difficult to be solved by using one approach among the parties as its commitment has been both limited and ambiguous behind, involved with territory, maritime zone and the rich resources assumed existed in the South China Sea. Meanwhile the relations between the conflicting parties have been at a level where their behavior does not seem threatening and the militarization is unlikely used to solve the problem. The author will examine the Impact of ASEAN and the U.S. involving in this issue and its role as well as the approaches that have been used in solving the dispute such as CBMs, ARF, and the Indonesian workshop, with a view to proposing the possibility of the conflict solutions towards, the process on Code of conduct, multilateral Conflict Resolutions and other joint development cooperation over the existing resources. INTRODUCTION After the cold war, the South China Sea is considered to be a major flashpoint as the significances of these islands are the assumed presence of natural resources such as oil, hydrocarbon, manganese nodules and fish, as well as their strategic location straddling as the worlds second busiest  international sea lane in South East Asia. Several countries1thus claim sovereignty over parts of these waters for several decades2. Since the nature of this dispute has become political, a number of political efforts for peaceful settlement have been increasing. 1 ASEAN Countries: Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam. And other two disputants: China and Taiwan. 2 Noel M. Novicio, Introduction, in The South china Sea Dispute in Philippine Foreign policy: Problem (Singapore : Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, 2003) The three million square kilometers South China Sea is the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. It is two thirds the size of the combined land territory of all the ASEAN states. Most Southeast Asian countries have coastlines overlooking or close to the South China Sea. Some would be wary about having to share a common maritime boundary with such a big and increasingly powerful nation as China, or even having it as a very close neighbor. The main idea of the South China Sea dispute is a series of complex, legal, technical and geographic components critical to understanding the dispute. Nonetheless, the issues involving territory and sovereignty are the most pervasive security problems facing the region. Non-claimants most immediate concerns evolve around freedom of navigation through this important sea lane linking Middle East, South Pacific, Southeast and Northeast Asian and the North American markets and resources. Six nations China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei presently claim the Spratly Islands in part. All except Brunei maintain some form of presence there. Vietnam reportedly has stationed troops on 21 islands, the Philippines on eight, China on six, Malaysia on three and Taiwan on one. Their competing claims are founded on a variety of historical, territorial and legal issues. China claims the Spratly and the Paracel islands as well as the surrounding waters and has attempted to prevent the other claimants, whether Vietnam, the Philippines or Malaysia, from developing the oil and gas potential of their own claim zones. The parties concerned assent to resolve their disputes in the South China Sea through friendly consultations and negotiations in accordance with universally recognized international law, under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the law of the Sea, as well as exercising self restraint and exploring ways for cooperation in the disputed areas. China maintains its absolute sovereignty over the Spratly Islands while support the joint economic development of the disputed areas. China has generally preferred the bilateral negotiations to the use of multinational forum favored by other  claimants. In sum China would appear to see the benefits of diplomacy in the Spratlys dispute, but has stopped short of any commitment with, might limit its future actions3. 3 Mara C. Hurwitt, LCDR, USN. B.A. University of North Carolina, U.S. Strategy in Southeast Asia: The spratly Islands Dispute,(Master Thesis. Fort Leavewoth, Kansa), 1993.pp 1 7 4 Joshua Goldstein, International Relations (New York: Harper Collins College Publisher, 1994), pp. 47-49 Despite a strong initial objection by China, ASEAN manage to place the dispute on the agenda of ARF and claimed some success in dealing with China on the Spratly issue. The collective identity of ASEAN also shows an important step of ASEAN as a bridge of confidence and security building among Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Later on ASEAN and China had adopted the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of the parties in the South China Sea, but no legally binding documents were drawn up. However, the core of the South China Sea dispute remains to be of territorial sovereignty and not law of the sea issues. METHODOLOGY/EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN This study uses qualitative The Methodology for this research is descriptive analysis, including the data and relevant information, facts and articles, which are used to support the analytical method to understand and recommend the trend to settle the disputes. The information in this research is mostly from primary sources: speeches and direct quotes of the concerned people through, books and official documents. The interview from the related persons and academic scholars are also included. The secondary sources: updated articles, news concerning the issue form books, newspapers, magazines and websites including relevant research papers and studies addressing on this issue will also be studied. Theoretical Frameworks Realism In World Politics, the Realist Theory has been notable for the international relations since 1919. The ideology of realism mainly focuses on the term of power with a pessimistic view of human natures power, and the pursuit of interest.4 The reason why realism is still the central tradition in the study of word politics (Keohane 1989 a:36) is that it offers something of a manual for  maximizing the interest of state in a hostile environment.5 After the cold war, the Realist theory became dominant as many contemporary realist writers often claimed to rest on an older classical tradition which includes Thucydides (c.460-406 BC), Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 1527) and Thomas Hobbes (1588 1679), with the fact that these realists viewed that state leaders should conduct themselves in the realm of international politics are often grouped under the doctrine of raison d à ©tat, or reason of state together. This also shows how state leader conduct their foreign affairs to ensure the security of the state.6 It is largely seen that realist concludes that the first priority for state leader is to ensure the survival of their state.7 The passion of egotistic behavior and self interest in international politics are significant characteristics.8 There are three core elements that are present in both older and modern realist, statism, survival and self-help, three Ss to elaborate more in the realist concept.9 For Statism, it identifies that state is the key actor while the other actors are less important with the sovereignty as its distinguishing trait. State is the only actors that really count. The other actors rise and fall, unlike State that is permanent.10 The second principle action is the pre-eminent goal. It is the priority for the leaders in order to attain all other goals. And the third one is self help. There is no other state or institution that can be relied on to ensure the survival. 5 Tim Dunne and Brian C.Schmidt, Introduction: the timeless wisdom of realism in The globalization of world Politics: An Introduction to International relations ed. John Baylis and Steve Smith (Third edition, NewYork: Oxford University, 2005) 6 Ibid. p.162 7 Ibid. p. 164 8 Jack Donnelly, Realism and International Relation (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p.9 9 Ibid. p.172 10 Ibid. p.173 11 Ibid. pp.69 170 Kenneth Waltzs theory of International Politics has argued that states, especially the great powers, have to be sensitive to the capabilities of other states. Power is a means to the end of security; states however, should consider security rather than power.11 Realism is used to study the background, the nature of the claimant nations and the cause of the dispute behind anxiety to deal with the problem. The past, present and future status of the claimants are also applied by Realism. Neo liberalism This refers to a school of thought who believes that nation-states are, or at least should be, concerned first and foremost with absolute gains rather than relative gains to other nation-states. It is also called Neo liberalism Institutionalism. This school employs game theory to explain why states do or do not cooperate, since their approach tends to emphasize the possibility of mutual wins; they are interested in institutions which can result in joint profitable arrangements and compromises. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, have stated that Neo liberalism is a response to Neo realism, while not denying the anarchic nature of the international system, neoliberals argue that its importance and effect has been exaggerated.12 They view institutions as the mediator and the means to achieve cooperation among actors in the system. Both theories, however, consider the state and its interests as the central subject of analysis; Neo liberalism may have a wider conception of what those interests are. Neo liberalism argues that even in an anarchic system of autonomous rational states cooperation can emerge through the building of norms, regimes and institutions. 12 Steven L. Lamy, Neo Liberalism in The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International relations, ed. John Baylis and Steve Smith (Third edition, New York: Oxford University, 2005),pp. 212 217. In this case, the author will use Neo liberalism in the recommendation through the joint development resource and other cooperation, which will be the approach to settle the conflict. International Regime An international regime is viewed as a set of implicit and explicit principles, norms, rules and procedures around which actors expectations converge in a particular issue-area as Stepen Krasner, 1983, had defied. An issue-area comprises of interactions in such diverse areas as nuclear nonproliferation, telecommunications, human right or environmental problems. A basic idea behind international regimes is that they provide a transparent state behavior and a degree of stability under conditions of anarchy in the international system. It is more than a set of rules it is higher level than institution. It has four elements principle, norm, rules and decision making procedures This regime theory is used to explain the ARF with regards to settle the dispute. Regime can explain this phenomenon of ARF and others documents involved with the forum among the claimants and ASEAN along with the future of ASEANs institutionalization and recommendations moving forward and developing as a Code of conduct. Conflict Resolution Conflict resolution is a wide range of methods of addressing sources of conflict matter at the inter-personal level or between states and of finding means of resolving a given conflict or of continuing it in less destructive forms than, say, armed conflict. Processes of conflict resolution generally include negotiation, mediation, diplomacy and creative peace building. The term conflict resolution is sometimes used interchangeably with the terms dispute resolution or alternative dispute resolution. The processes of arbitration, litigation, and formal complaint processes through an ombudsman, are part of dispute resolution and therefore they are also part of conflict resolution In this issue Confident-building Measures (CBMs) has been used to explain the approaches that ASEAN should try to settle the dispute such as ARF, using CBMs and move forward to Preventive Diplomacy in order to develop code of conduct. One of the definitions for CMBs is to limit or reduce the level of fear among parties in conflict, which is essential for building confidence and a sense of security. Confidence-building measures (CBMs) aim to lessen anxiety and suspicion by making the parties behavior more predictable.13 Such agreements are meant to build trust among the conflicting parties and limit escalation. Some common CBMs are agreements meant to give each party assurance that the other is not preparing for a surprise military action or pursuing policies associated with such future action. Such agreements provide a way to avoid misunderstandings about ambiguous events or perceived threats and play an important role in instilling a sense of stability and security. 13 Michelle Maiese, Objectives of Confidence-Building Measures, in http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/confidence_building_measures/South Asia Mutual confidence is crucial to reducing the likelihood of violent confrontations. In addition, such measures can allow for new institutional arrangements that will pave the way for more peaceful relations. Finally, confidence-building measures can be crucial tools in preventive diplomacy and can be explained the recommendation to settle the dispute as one approach in the future. Mediation/Third Party in Conflict Management Mediation is a special kind of negotiation designed to promote the settlement of a conflict. In this negotiation a distinctive role is played by a third party, that is, one not directly involved in the dispute in question14. The Third party should be impartial in the dispute. Its role is not to be confused with being a facilitator or providing good offices. The third party searches actively for a settlement and is sometimes described as a full partner in the negotiations15. 14 Jacob Bercovitch, From Conflict Management to conflict Resolution: The Problem Solving Approach, in Social Conflict and Third Parties Strategies of Conflict Resolution, (USA: Westview Press., 1984), pp.19-35. 15 G.R. Berridge, Mediation, in Diplomacy Theory and Practice, (Third Edition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp.194-211. To summarize this method, Mediation/Third Party is used to explain the trend and possibility in resolving the issue as one options to settle the long dispute in the South China Sea. The primary means available to the six Spratly Islands contestants to influence the outcome of the dispute are diplomacy and military force-or some combination of the two. Clearly, the claimants do not all possess equal strengths and capabilities, particularly in the area of military power, and have developed their strategies accordingly. As a regional forum, ASEAN can employ its own diplomatic powers to mediate a peaceful settlement in the Spratlys; however, its efforts cannot succeed unless the claimant nations themselves are willing to engage in multilateral negotiations. FORUM AND PROCESS OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT It seems that negotiations aimed at resolving territorial disputes have essentially been bilateral in nature, however; the overwhelming differences in the relative size and bargaining strength of China and the other claimants, as well as the existence of ASEAN which provides a natural grouping for the Southeast Asian claimants, have also led to calls by some of the claimants from the latter to negotiate with China on a collective basis. This move has gathered momentum especially after the Mischief Reef discovery in early 1995, which unified the ASEAN states as never before. However, as is common with negotiations regarding territory, progress has been slow. Attempts have therefore been made for some time now to explore cooperation in various fields while setting aside the issue of sovereignty and forestalling conflict. In this chapter, the author will review all the forum and process of conflict management both bilaterally and multilaterally. 3.4.1 China and ASEAN ASEANs role in the Spratly disputes has entered a new phase with the China-Philippines spat in the Mischief Reef area. ASEANs leaders are intent on not letting the controversy block its eventual goal of creating a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality in Southeast Asia and the economic development this will engender. In this context, some observers believe ASEAN should take a united stand against China in order to persuade China to resolve the issue peacefully and multilaterally.16 16 Mark J. Valencia, pp.42. 17 Ibid, 42. 18 Buszynski, Leszek (2003) ASEAN, the Declaration on Conduct, and the South China Sea. Contemporary Southeast Asia. Vol.25. pp.343-36 At the end of the 1995 annual meeting in Brunei, ASEAN Foreign Ministers issued a joint communiquà © urging all claimants to refrain from taking actions that could destabilize the region, including possibly undermining the freedom of navigation and aviation in the affected areas.17 The statement also reiterated the importance of promoting confidence-building measures and mutually beneficial cooperative ventures in the Indonesian- sponsored workshops. Ultimately ASEAN and China which along with the United States and Japan were included in the Bali talks agreed on guidelines for implementing the previously agreed 2002 Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). Negotiations were difficult and the guidelines reveal more by what they do not say than by what they do. Indeed, they lack specifics, timelines and enforceability and their practical focus is on soft security issues such as environmental protection, marine science and transnational crime. Many saw the guidelines as only a first step towards a binding code of conduct. Nevertheless, the agreement was significant because with the world watching there was a lot at stake. 18And they also needed to demonstrate that the South China Sea is safe for commerce. At the least, such a united front could moderate Chinas future actions in the area and push the dispute towards an interim solution. There was some urgency about taking a united stand before Vietnam joined ASEAN in order to avoid Chinas viewing ASEAN as a vehicle for Vietnams agenda. There still may be a need to take a stand before Dengs death and the inevitable uncertainty it would bring. There has long been a divergence of views within ASEAN regarding the China threat and since ASEAN makes decisions by consensus, this divergence could reappear under stress. Apart from the problem that none of the three ASEAN claimants has shown any inclination to compromise with the others on the issue of sovereignty, ASEAN remains divided in its attitude towards China. Although Vietnam is now an ASEAN member, other members will try to prevent the organization from being dragged into the Vietnam-China rivalry. Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore are not even claimants (although Singapore and Thailand are concerned about the safety of sea-lanes in the South China Sea, and Thailand has offered to mediate the dispute). Some ASEAN states are concerned that confronting China now in the Spratlys could strengthen hardline nationalists in the struggle over the succession to Deng Xiaoping. Malaysia and Singapore prefer to encourage Chinas participation in a network of regional organizations as an embryonic structure of good citizenship. Nevertheless, if Chinas strategy is clearly to divide and dominate, ASEAN may yet see the wisdom of jointly proposing a multilateral solution.19 19 Joyner, Christopher C. (2002) The Spratly Islands Dispute: Legal Issues and Prospects for Diplomatic Accommodation in John C. Baker and David G. Wiencek, eds., Cooperative Monitoring in the South China Sea: Satellite Imagery, Confidence-building Measures, and the Spratly Islands Disputes (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger). pp. 17-34 20 Tà ¸nnesson, Stein (2002) The History of the Dispute in Timo Kivimà ¤ki, ed,.War or Peace in the South China Sea? (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies). pp. 6-23 When Chinese Defense Minister General Liang Guanglie was telling the Shangri la Dialogue in Singapore on June 3 that China is committed to maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea and that China stood by the DOC, news media were reporting that on May 26 a Vietnamese survey ship operating on its claimed continental shelf had its seismometer cables cut by a Chinese patrol boat.20 Shortly after that event, China sent two vice chairmen of its Central Military Commission to Southeast Asia to try to reassure ASEAN claimants. But a second such incident occurred on June 9, just two weeks later. Earlier, on March 4, the Philippines had protested an incident on the Reed Bank in which two Chinese patrol boats allegedly threatened to ram a Philippine survey ship. Then, on the eve of General Liangs visit to Manila, Chinese fighter jets allegedly harassed Philippine fisher folk near disputed islands in the South China Sea. Worse, China responded to frenetic protests from Vietnam and the Philippines by warning that any exploration in the vicinity of the disputed Spratly Islands without its consent was a violation of its jurisdiction and sovereignty, as well as of the DOC. The real-time link between Chinas stark and sweeping position and its enforcement sent a chill down the spines of ASEAN claimants and drew US attention. Indeed, Indonesia demonstrated that it could lead, not only to resolve regional disputes but also ASEAN as a whole. ASEAN and Vietnam in particular made a major compromise by agreeing to drop a clause that would mandate that it form an ASEAN position before dealing with China on South China Sea issues. Of course, there is nothing to prevent the claimants from informally consulting among themselves before approaching China, but the gesture was important to convince China that Vietnam cannot use ASEAN to gang up on it. Chinas position was that it should only have to deal with rival claimants Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Of course, as chair of ASEAN, Indonesia had a responsibility to improve the standing of ASEAN and its members. But Indonesia had more at stake than its reputation as a regional leader. Indeed, Indonesia has formally protested Chinas so-called nine-dashed line claim which overlaps some of its claimed maritime area in the South China Sea. 3.4.2 ASEAN Regional Forum In the early 1990s, the South China Sea Conflict and Sino-ASEAN Relations prospect of a rising China was still perceived as a threat in Southeast Asia. China at that point launched a diplomatic offensive to counteract the existing ideational and normative structures that created this threat perception. It relentlessly denounced the idea that China posed a threat to Southeast Asia. However, it took time before Chinas new policy had the desired impact and the perception of China as a threat decreased. ASEAN meantime changed its behavior toward China. Chinas foreign minister was, for the first time, invited to the ASEAN ministerial meeting in 1991. The year after, China became a dialogue partner of the ASEAN. However, at this point China was both inexperienced and reluctant to participate in multilateral frameworks. It only joined the ARF in 1994. This was, to quote Ren Xiao, a leading Chinese expert on Sino-ASEAN relations, a remarkable development, as China at the time had little expe rience in multilateral processes, except those within the United Nations system.21 21 Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problen of Regional Order (London Routledge, 2001). p. 175. In reality, Chinas move was a hedge against ARFs taking an anti-China direction rather than reflecting a genuine interest in participating. During the same period, only limited progress was  made in the SCS, which continued to be perceived as the next Asian flashpoint. The SCS conflict was stalemated at a high intensity level, and there was no mutual trust or confidence. 22 22 Global Times Report:US,Philippines Start Joint Naval Exercise,' June 29, 2011, Open Source Center, OSC-CPP20110629722004 23 Buszynski, Leszek (2003) ASEAN, the Declaration on Conduct, and the South China Sea. Contemporary Southeast Asia. Vol.25. pp.343-362. Military exercises between the US Navy and ASEAN members have been exceedingly common even so during the George W. Bush administration. Since 1995, Cooperation Afloat Readiness And Training (CARAT) naval exercises have been conducted annually between the US and six out of 10 ASEAN members: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. This year, Cambodia became the first new CARAT participant in 16 years. Additionally, the Philippines and the US have held regular exercises in the wake of the global war on terror. As for other ASEAN members, Laos is landlocked, while Myanmar and the US are famously at loggerheads. Despite its symbolism coming some decades after the Vietnam conflict, the recent emergence of US-Vietnam naval exercises is not exceptional when viewed in the wider regional context. During the last ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton created a stir during the usually low-key gathering. She declared that The United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asias maritime commons and respect for international law in the South China Sea and that America seeks a collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants for resolving the various territorial disputes without coercion. Though the United States has maintained a potent naval presence in the region since WWII, this incident broke new ground in identifying American interests regarding the South China Sea. At the ARF, participants including China concluded by resolving to continue discussions on the matter. Despite the fear mongering that some commentators have done, China did not object to participating in further dialogue over the matter which was already underway with ASEAN to begin with. The ministers statement reaffirms that the eventual conclusion of a Regional Code of Conduct in the South China Sea should follow on from the earlier declaration mentioned above.23 An ASEAN-China Joint Working Group on the Implementation of the DOC occurred in Vietnam in April 2010 and another Joint Working Group Meeting was in China before at the end of 2010. Over time, this becomes a significant trust- and confidence-building process. It also helps develop routines for communication. This is useful for the successful progression toward an East Asian community, both in the sense of long-term peace building and the willingness and ability to handle issues and tensions occurring during the process. Moreover, it strengthens the voice of moderation. Different Track-2 processes facilitate the gathering of policy makers in a more informal setting to allow for relatively open and frank discussions on security issues. Preventive Security Regimes The most important are those subsumed under ASEAN, namely the Declaration of a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN); the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Co-operation in Southeast Asia; the 1976 ASEAN Concord: and the 1992 ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea .24Together, the regimes embodied in these instruments exert significant normative pressures on the ASEAN claimants to moderate their behaviour, refrain from resorting to the military potion, seek co-operative modes of conduct and explore peaceful resolution of disputes. There are a number of preventive security regimes which condition state behaviour over the Spratlys. It can be argued, however, that given the low levels of institutionalization and the relatively weak sanctions upon aberrant behaviour contained in these regimes, they are soft regimes. The non-activation of the ASEAN High Council provided for by the Treaty of Amity also weakens the force of this particular regime for the ASEAN claimants. 25Nevertheless, de spite their softness, the regimes have proved remarkably successful in constraining conflict and enhancing co-operation and confidence among the ASEAN states.. 24 Ibid, 106. 25 Ibid,106. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the Council on Security Co-operation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP) have significant potential for reinforcing preventive diplomacy and security in the Spratlys in the future if regime-building progresses gradually in the years ahead. For the present, their writ is highly proscribed by Chinas refusal to discuss the Spratlys in the ARF. Escalating tensions in 2009-10 demonstrated the consequences of the failure to implement the DoC. Those tensions also challenged ASEANs credibility and its oft-repeated claim to centrality of Asias security architecture. As chair of ASEAN in 2010, Vietnam prioritized the issue, with a modicum of success: The Joint Working Group met twice in 2010 in Hanoi in April and in Kunming in December but did not achieve an agreement. Indonesia also pushed the issue when it held the ASEAN chair in 2011: The Joint Working Group met in April in Meden, which coincided with a  dramatic increase in tensions in the South China Sea. As M. Taylor Fravel notes in this volume, China adopted more aggressive tactics between March and June, including harassing survey ships chartered by Vietnam and the Philippines. 26By mid-year, tensions in the South China Sea had escalated to their highest point since the end of the Cold War. 26 Dutton, M. Taylor Fravel, James R. Holmes, Robert D. Kapan, Will Rogers and Ian Storey. Center for a New American Security, January :2012.pp 53.. (http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_CooperationFromStrength_Cronin_1.pdf) Conclusion Summary The resolution to the South China Sea maritime border dispute is difficult because it is as complex as these multiple claims are various in the motives and concerns. It would be summarized that the dispute is difficult to be solved by using one approach as its commitment has been both limited and ambiguous behind, involved with territory, maritime zone and the rich resources assumed existed in the South China Sea. Other underlying claimant motivations vary but economics is clearly another common driving factor. The potential for profit in the form of oil, gas, fish, and mineral resources seems to be behind many claims, although (especially in the case of oil) this is based more on expectations of future discoveries than on proof of existing reserves. The desire to use claimed territories to extend exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and continental shelf zones within which a country may control exploration, exploitation, and preservat