Controlled Environment Essays - , Term Papers

Controlled Environment What controlled environment did you spend time in? How long? When I graduated from High School I entered into the Merchant Marine Academy at Fort Schuyler in New York. From then until I was in my mid thirties I was involved with ocean liners, tankers and ships. For periods of one year at a time I would be on a ship traveling the world, making shipments and patrolling the seas. The controlled environment was both on the ship and in the academy. Once on the ship I had to obey the rules and morals taught to us in the academy. Was there an effort to separate you from your former identity? No not really. Contrary to the NAVY, ARMY or Marines our boot camp was less severe and did not include such physical conditioning. Our personalities were not changed because we were not in combat and did not have to learn to be a killing machine. What were the most important rules you had to follow? Besides not falling in the water, we had to obey almost everything our captain told us. Our captain was like our parents his wishes were our commands. The captain set the standards and the rules for us to follow. What were the least and less important rules you had to follow? There was a uniform but it was not very important that we followed it. As an officer we had to look respectable but usually the uniform requirements were not met. We also had a curfew but that was rarely followed and it was rare for a person to get into any trouble for breaking curfew. What were some of the make-dos the inmates made up for their deprivations with? Since there was no T.V. almost every night after dinner we held chess and checkers tournament. The games were fast paced and mostly just for fun, no money was ever wagered. We also drank a lot of beer when we were at sea for extended amounts of time. Which were accepted by the authorities and which were not? Well the chess tournaments everyone enjoyed and were accepted by all, officers, Plebes and Captains. However drinking and other drug use was prohibited. Being caught with illegal drugs meant immediate dismissal from the corps. Being caught with alcohol meant some kind of military punishment(I never got caught). How did the inmates respond to their situation? Almost everyone on the ship enjoyed their work and being away from home. However after long periods, occasionally fights would arise and officers would end up with a black eye or broken nose. But on a whole it was usually pretty peaceful and an enjoyable environment. Do you consider your experience in the controlled environment beneficial? Absolutely, it taught me discipline and how to treat others. My experience also taught me to value what I have at home and didnt have when at sea. Do you miss the environment? When my kids are bothering me I miss the solitude of the open ocean. However, at the same time I have also had my fill of that lifestyle. Would you do it again? In a heartbeat. The person whom I interviewed is a very close family friend who entered in to the Merchant Marine Academy at the age of 18. I also interviewed another friend who was in the army and fought in Vietnam. Many of his answers coincided with those of Owen(from the merchant marines). Mikes experiences in the ARMY were a little more structured than Owens. But Mikes experience was not as enjoyable or beneficial. The benefits received from the ARMY were discipline and respect. As a sailor Owen also benefitted by seeing the world and experiencing many cultures while being in a controlled environment. Mike portrayed the ARMY to be a very structured environment, where everything that a soldier did was monitored and taken into account. The rules he had to follow were very distinct and if broken meant physical punishments (push-ups etc.). The ARMYs rules based around the constitution and defending our Nation. The Merchant Marine rules based around the safety of their officers and the good being tra nsported. Finally, contrary to Owens experiences Mikes, made an effort to separate him from his identity. Mike was reshaped from an average man to a killing machine. Through

“The Host”, a 2006 Essays

â€Å"The Host†, a 2006 Essays â€Å"The Host†, a 2006 Essay â€Å"The Host†, a 2006 Essay Name: Lecturer: Course: Date: â€Å"The Host†, a 2006 The Host is a 2006 monster film from South Korea that contains both comedy and drama. The film mainly deals with the adverse effects brought about by America’s military presence in the state of Korea. The plot of the movie is based on Park Hee-bong, an elderly man in his late sixties. Park Hee-bong is a businessperson who manages a snack bar on the banks of the Han River. He still supports his family that consists of two sons, one beautiful daughter and a granddaughter. The family seems to be a little poorer than the average South Korean family. The elder brother, Gang-du, is depicted as an immature and incompetent individual who is in his forties. His lives alone as his wife left him a long time ago. The youngest son, Nam-il is currently unemployed and thus results to gambling. The daughter, Nam-joo, is a professional archer who has won medals in various competitions and currently a member of the Korean national team. During one of the afternoon a mysteries monster arises from the depths of the Hans River runs amuck throughout the entire settlement resulting in death and panic among the settlers. The entire village turns into wailing as the once peaceful riverbank is instantly turned into a terrifying sea of blood. The monster carries of with Gang-du’s daughter Hyun-seo and the monster mysteriously disappears just as it had appeared. The reigning government is caught utterly unawares and helpless as all its efforts are deemed useless. The remaining family members are left mourning the loss of their loved one. However, their agony is short lived as they soon find out that she is not yet dead but alive. They all decide to carry out a mission on how to save her. The creators of the film are considered to have come up with an ingenious way of highlighting the plea of the South Koreans in view of the occupation of the American army. This is done in a rather comical but yet dramatic manner. Carrying historical background regarding Seoul indicates there was once an environmental disaster at hand whereby the activities of the united states of American military resulted in the dumping of a considerable amount of formaldehyde down the sewers and into the river. This resulted in environmental concerns in addition to the creation of a conflict between South Korea and the United States’ military. The movie attempts to both comically and dramatically depict the events of this tragic event. The movie portrays the American army and its government as both uncaring and reckless towards the Korean people. The directors effectively used satire in the movie by naming the chemical used to tackle the destructive monster as â€Å"Agent Yellow† in allegory to Agent Orange. This makes the movie fall in the category of anti-American films through its political allusions and commentary concerning the United States of America. The themes of the movie are also highly critical of the activities carried out by the United States military. The film also goes to the lengths of satirizing the Korean government depicting it as bureaucratic, inept, and fundamentally uncaring. The movie portrays mixed groups of the Korean youth. There are those who act heroically, there are others who seem self-righteous while others seem utterly oblivious of the prevailing predicaments that their society is in. The character of Park Nam-il has been purposefully as an anachronism. The character is used to refer to the violent protests that were a dominant of the past Korean political regime. The character of Park Nam-il also alludes to the college protesters who in the caused uproar through protests and demonstrations against oppressive regimes. The film can therefore be considered as form of literature where by it acts as a true mirror of the society.

Literature reveiw for my dissertation. (how relationship marketing can Essay

Literature reveiw for my dissertation. (how relationship marketing can boost company images in the car industry with specific emphasis on the issue of trust.) - Essay Example The findings of this research will provide insight of the car industry that started as early as 1769. At that time having a car was something that was left for the rich thus the marketing strategies were not taken very seriously by those who were producing cars. This is because the industry was not ventured into by so many people thus competition was very low. The automobile industry started with steam cars, coal gas cars to recently where cars are using unleaded fuel. The car industry has continued to expand as very many companies have ventured in this business to meet the demand of cars world wide. Today, cars are not considered as a luxury but as a necessity. For this reason, car industries have seen the need of employing marketing strategies to ensure that their cars sell. In trying to attract customers, car industries keep coming up with new models of cars every time. There has been a consideration of all kinds of people in coming up with better and easy to handle cars. For inst ance, the automatic cars are made for the disabled people. Moreover, they can be used by any one who does not know how to drive because they are easy to understand and handle. Car industries have seen the importance of having strategic marketing plans thus the knowledge of what is going around in this industry. That is, what are the needs of their customers and what are their competitors doing to win very many clients. With such knowledge, this industry has seen the need of carrying out the SWOT analysis that helps the different car firms to know how they are going to differentiate their products and services from their competitors. This enables them to find out ways in which they are going to build customer trust as they carry out research, analyses it and then come up with new and better strategies of keeping their customers. Such research focuses mostly on what the customer needs and not the company (Ledgerwood, 2006, pp. 95-100). It is the quality of the car that matters and not the quantity and how cheap it is. Car industries are now bound to making cars that can last longer and are safe. Customers need to be assured that their vehicles will not breakdown after ten days of buying them. Once a customer buys a vehicle, they always want to know how long it can last on the road. Trust will be built if the car industry tells the truth. Customers become very disappointed when they are assured that a car will last for five to eight years then it only serves them for two years. If such a thing happens, then that brand is surely going to lose market (Ennew, 2006, pp. 94-100). Safety is another issue; customers need to be assured that the vehicles they are buying have the best safety products like safety belts and air bags. With the number of car accidents increasing world wide, safety has become a first priority when purchasing cars.

Personal Development Plan that Would Help in Studies Scholarship Essay

Personal Development Plan that Would Help in Studies - Scholarship Essay Example There are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week, and like most students, I want to do many things like enjoying my life whilst I learn and do well in my studies. If I do not manage time very well, I will not achieve both, and I put my long-term goals and objectives in danger. The starting point of time management is having clear goals in life. I would like to begin my personal strategic analysis by defining my personal mission and vision statements and the core values that guide me in life. I define my Mission as the basic purpose of why I think I exist. I define my Vision as my aspiration in life, what I want to achieve in the future. I define my Core Values as the standards of personal and professional behaviour that will guide me in realising my mission and attaining my vision (Cottrell 12). I believe that without a clear direction of where I want to go, why I want to go there, and the basic rules that will guide me in this journey of my life, it will be difficult for me to reach my destination, much less know how I will get there (Maxwell 168). I always try to find a reason for everything I do, and in this story of my life, I feel that I have a specific mission that it is my purpose, my destiny that is mine alone to fulfil. If this is my purpose, how and what do I see myself doing in the future What is my vision My vision is to be one of the best professionals in the world in whatever it is I decide to do. I have many interests, and I think it would be too early to be too specific. At this stage, I aim to be good in what I do, and for this, I need to learn how to manage my time well. The first step is to have a clear set of priorities so that when there is a conflict between two or more activities, I would do whichever is more important according to the priorities that I have.  

Culture report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Culture report - Essay Example The most important day observed by Germany is designated as â€Å"The fall of the Wall† with great zeal every year. This day signifies for the reunion of German, which played an imperative role in the national development of Germany. Another significant event, which takes place in Germany, is Christmas, which marks the birth of Christ (Lueschen, Blood and Lewis). Therefore, religion plays a significant role in shaping the culture in Germany. At the same time, German culture is inclined towards collectivism because of this reason German people often under weigh the rights of an individual versus those of many. Along with this, gender and racial discrimination is at par in German atmosphere (Lueschen, Blood and Lewis). In parallel, the value of German language in world history cannot be negated. Therefore, this paper is providing some of the German customary greetings, which include Hallo (hello), Guten Morgen (good morning), Guten Tag (good day) and Guten Abend (good

Assessing and Managing Supply Chain Risks

Assessing and Managing Supply Chain Risks 1. Introduction The current trend of outsourcing to low cost countries combined with supplier base reduction has provided significant cost reductions for businesses. However, globalization and implementation of more streamlined supply chains have increased risks for companies when acquiring goods and services needed for their operations. By the term risk is meant a chance of facing undesired consequences such as damage, loss, or injury. More scientifically, risk is defined as the combined probability for an undesired event and the potential damage the event might cause. This definition, or variations of this definition, has been applied by a number of researcher investigating risk (March and Shapira, 1987; Zsidisin, 2003; Spekman and Davis, 2004; Wagner and Bode, 2006; Ritchie and Brindley, 2007). The detrimental effects does not have to be existential to the companies, but typically they cause lost sales, decreased market share and large contractual penalties for the parties affected (Zsidisin, 200 3). A very well-know example of such a detrimental effect is the $400 mill loss suffered by the Swedish cell phone manufacturer Ericsson due to a lightning bolt which struck their sub-supplier of semi-conductors (Latour, 2001). Another example is the battle against the foot-and-mouth disease in the UK agricultural industry during the year 2001. This event temporarily paralyzed the agricultural industry, while the tourism industry suffered great losses. Even luxury car manufacturers such as Volvo and Jaguar were affected since deliveries of quality leather used in various parts in the car compartment were temporarily stopped (Norrman and Jansson, 2004). A general ban on sale and export of British pigs, sheep and cattle was introduced during the outbreak. The tourism industry also suffered as many tourists changed their vacation plans due to transport bans and detergent washing of cars, boots and clothing in affected regions. Similarly, the fruit company Dole lost over $100 million dollars when a hurricane caused massive damage to the area in Central America where their banana suppliers were located (Griffy-Brown, 2003). The outbreak of SARS in Southeast Asia affected various industries such as the electronics industry, retailing, tourism, and the airline industry with losses at the national level stipulated to $38 billion just for Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand (Overby et al., 2004). The economic impact of the hurricane Katrina is stipulated to $100-125 billion. More than half of that amount is due to the flooding of New Orleans which paralyzed industry and disrupted normal living conditions in the affected areas (Boettke et al., 2007). However, the most famous of such disruptive events is probably the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001, which caused immediate financial losses and initiated a massive restructuring of the airline industry (Bhadra and Texter, 2004). The above mentioned examples illustrate that supply chains may not be well prepared for dealing with unanticipated events causing disruption in sub-systems of supply chain networks. The traditional cost-efficiency focus of supply chain systems have led companies to eliminate buffers in the form of inventories and multiple sourcing throughout the network. However, this has also led them to remove mechanisms in the supply chain which previously moderated the effects of undesired, disruptive events in the chain. An alternative approach is to introduce more agility in the supply chain. This approach has successfully been applied as a response to the fact that more and more market places in the twenty-first century require a proliferation of products and services, shorter product life cycles and increased demand for innovation (Narasimhan, Swink and Kim, 2006). In agile supply chains, stock out penalties occur immediately in the form of lost sales and the key performance measure is no lon ger productivity or cost, but customer satisfaction. Traditional stable partnerships are substituted with more fluid clusters where partners enter and leave the network at a more rapid pace. In general, there is also a focus on operator self-management to maximize the actors autonomy (Mason-Jones, Naylor and Towill, 1999). The actors higher level of autonomy in agile supply chains makes them better able to respond to changes in supplies upstream as they have no or few bindings keeping them from changing to alternative sources of supply. However, supply chain companies dealing with commodity goods rather than fashion goods can not necessarily be expected to have the same degree of freedom. Their day-to-day competition would require them to eliminate all forms of waste to remain competitive. Any cost driving measure to mediate or avoid risk such as excess production capacity, excess inventory, and increased supplier base would therefore have to be weighed against the expected costs of future unknown disruptive events. To do this, a proactive identification of potential supply and demand hazards is required at a strategic level. The point is to identify where unanticipated risk events have the biggest impact on the supply chain network, identify the type and number of risks, their associated costs, and as sess alternative counter-measures to improve the resilience of the supply chain. The intent of this conceptual paper is to establish a decision framework in order to aid the proactive identification and management of potential upstream and downstream supply and demand hazards. The framework is developed based on a broad variety of literature integrating multiple perspectives on risk from supply chain management, marketing, and organizations theory. The risk framework presented separates itself from previous efforts in its comprehensiveness, and it has been designed to match the supply chain management framework developed by the Global Supply Chain Forum (GSCF). Previous categorization attempts have usually only presented sub-sets of risk factors and have not paid much attention to how supply chain risks can be dealt with proactively. For instance, Zsidisin (2003) listed a number of useful supply risk characteristics and classified them into characteristics belonging to items, markets and suppliers based on the results of a case study. Item characteristics included impact on profitability and the newness of product application, while market characteristics involved global sourcing, capacity constraints, market price fluctuation, and number of qualified suppliers. Risks associated with suppliers were capacity constraints, inability to reduce costs, incompatible information systems, quality problems, cycle times, and volume and mix requirements changes. However, Zsidisins list of supply risk characteristics did not contain important risk elements such as behavioral appearance of supply chain actors and risks associated with skills and qualities of the individual supply chain organizations, nor did it pay much attention to mitigation of risk events. In addition, the network perspective of supply chain management was not evident in the sense that an event can appear several tiers away from the focal organization but still damage the organization via an unknown dependence. Spekman and Davis (2004) also discussed a typology for categorizing risks. They found that risk lies inherent in every supply chain flow of goods, information, and money and they mentioned many of the same risk characteristics as in Zsidisin (2003). In addition, criminal acts and breach of norms were included as risk elements in the supply chain. However, they did not focus much on actions to minimize or avoid the effects of undesired events. Dealing with risk was eventually reduced to the introduction of buffers or building trust. An exception is made for the management of security risks where they briefly mention the necessity of proactive planning to avoid such risks. Another example is Peck (2005) who reported from an empirical study where the sources and drivers of supply chain vulnerability were investigated. She used the knowledge achieved to develop a multi-level framework for risk analysis and did not put much emphasis on identifying individual risk characteristics and tactics to improve the supply chains resilience. However, the framework illustrated in an intuitive manner how unanticipated and undesirable events at other nodes in a network could influence and cause problems at different levels for a focal company via dependencies. Kleindorfer and Saad (2005) also attempted to provide a conceptual framework to assess risk and introduced three tasks as the foundation of risk management. These were Specifying sources of risk and vulnerabilities, Assessment, and Mitigation. The sources of risk and vulnerability were thereafter divided into operational contingencies, natural hazards, and terrorism and political instability. Kleindorfer and Saad (2005) did not elaborate in much detail on which risks to include in each of these categories, thus from a practical risk assessment point of view, the model becomes less interesting. In a similar vein, Ritchie and Brindley (2007) developed a framework to encapsulate the main strands of supply chain risk management. They distinguished between seven sources of risk, but were not specific about which risks to expect in each category and they were not very detailed in their description of risk avoidance or mediation tactics. In stead, they used their general model as a guide in an exploratory case study where the purpose was to focus on supply chain members degree of awareness of supply chain risks, and how supply chain members identified and responded to identified risks. Ring and Van De Ven (1992) developed a framework for structuring cooperative relationships between organizations based on varying degree of risk and reliance on trust. They based their paper on the assumption that the degree of risk inherent in any transaction depends in the direct proportion to decreases in time, information, and control. Examples provided were commercial risk (risk of not finding a price-performance niche in the market), technological risk (probability of bringing the technology to market), scientific risk (lack of knowledge), engineering uncertainty (will the technology work?), and corporate risk. By corporate risk they referred to the risk of wrong allocation of resources in the organization. However, these types of risk are strongly connected with internal managerial and organizational skills of the focal company, and thus cover only a small portion of the risk concept from a supply chain management perspective. Risks arising from process sharing and network inf licted risks were barely mentioned. In summary, a higher level of precision in supply chain risk assessment frameworks combined with normative guidelines for risk avoidance seems present in extant literature. This call has formally been put forth by Harland, Brenchley and Walker (2003) who provided an easy-to-follow procedure for risk assessment in supply chain networks. They concluded that more managerial guidance is required to support risk management and redesigning of supply strategies to incorporate risk strategies . An attempt to answer this call has been made in the following sections. Mapping of risks in the supply chain has been emphasized combined with a discussion of tactics for risk mitigation and risk avoidance. In essence, this covers steps two to four in the model by Harland, Brenchley and Walker (2003) (Figure 1). Guidance for mapping of the supply chain is the main goal for many of the supply chain management frameworks recently developed. Mapping of the supply chain has therefore only received limited attention in this paper, but references to some well-known supply chain frameworks are provided. Steps five and six have been left for the managers to decide as the strategy formation and implementation would be situation specific and dependent on the outcome of steps one to four. 2. Research method The framework is developed based on a literature review where multiple perspectives on risk from marketing theory, organizations theory, and supply chain management have been integrated into a composite supply chain risk framework. Relevant contributions were identified through library searches and key word searches in Proquest and ScienceDirect databases. Search words were used either alone or in combination to find contributions which could bring added insight about risk from different theoretical perspectives. Key word searches typically included words such as supply chain management, marketing, or organization theory, and words such as risk, framework, uncertainty, vulnerability, resilience, etc. A large number of research contributions were identified from this procedure and contributions were further selected based on a qualitative assessment of the title and abstract of each identified contribution. A guideline for the literature review was to find an answer to the question what do we know from theory which could be relevant for supply chain managers in their efforts to identify and reduce the level of risk in their supply chains? The emphasis on theory was decided since an exploratory empirical investigation would be descriptive of current practices which would not fit with the normative purpose of this investigation. Ex post empirical testing of the entire framework in a single study were also considered difficult to accomplish due to the amount of risk factors included. However, a varying degree of empirical validity is offered through the previous empirical testing performed by the researchers referenced. Some empirical guidance and initial face validity was also provided through discussions with the general director of a sub-supplier to the Norwegian oil and gas industry. 3. Supply chain management and risk The term supply chain management (SCM) has primarily been linked to the study of either internal supply chains integrating internal business functions, the management of two party relationships with tier one suppliers, the management of a chain of businesses or with the management of a network of interconnected businesses (Harland, 1996). Transaction cost analysis (TCA), organization theory (OT) and relational marketing (RM) literature have contributed substantially to the development of SCM research (Croom, Romano and Giannakis, 2000). However, a definition of SCM given by the members of the Global Supply Chain Forum states that Supply chain management is the integration of key business processes from end user through original suppliers that provides products, services, and information that add value for customers and other stakeholders. This distinguishes SCM from the previous mentioned theories since it is the network or chain perspective which is emphasized (Lambert, Cooper and P agh, 1998). 3.1. Mapping the supply chain In order to be able to assess risk in a focal companys supply chain, a thorough insight is required about how the supply chain is configured. A number of frameworks have been developed for the purpose of achieving such knowledge, but Lambert, GarcÃÆ'Â ­a-Dastugue and Croxton (2005) identified only five frameworks which recognized the need to implement business processes among supply chain actors. Such implementation is considered a key area where supply chain management can offer improvement to supply chain actors (Hammer, 2001). However, only two of the five frameworks provided sufficient details to be implemented in practice (Lambert, GarcÃÆ'Â ­a-Dastugue and Croxton, 2005). On the other hand, these two frameworks are both supported by major corporations which indicate a high level of face validity. The first framework is the SCOR model developed by the Supply-Chain Council (SCC, 2008). The SCOR model focuses on five different processes which should eventually be connected across firms in the supply chain. These are the plan, source, make, deliver, and return processes. The second framework was developed by the Global Supply Chain Forum in 1996 and was presented in the literature in 1997 and 1998 (Cooper, Lambert and Pagh, 1997; Lambert, Cooper and Pagh, 1998). Similar to the SCOR model, the GSCF model focuses on a set of distinct business processes to be shared among business organizations. However, a main difference between the two supply chain frameworks is their linkage to corporate strategy. While the SCOR framework emphasizes operations strategy, little reference is made to organizations corporate strategies. The GSCF framework, on the other hand, directly links with the corporate and functional strategies of the companies and thus offers a wider scope (Lambert, GarcÃÆ'Â ­a-Dastugue and Croxton, 2005). Since risk is inherent at every level of an organization, and should be considered also at the strategic level, the GSCF framework was chosen as a starting point for our development of a supply chain risk management framework. 3.2. Identify risk and its location In the GSCF framework, supply chain management consists of three inter-related elements: 1) the structure of the supply chain network, 2) the management components governing the shared supply chain processes, and 3) the different types of processes linked among supply chain actors. Who to link with, which processes to link, and what level of integration and management should be applied are considered key decisions for successful management of supply chains (Lambert, Cooper and Pagh, 1998). From a supply chain risk management perspective, these managerial questions make way for three propositions regarding risk and the focal company. The first proposition concerns the unpredictability of human nature when processes are shared with others. The second concerns the vulnerabilities created because of dependencies between multiple network actors, and the third refers to the skills and qualities of the different supply chain actors organization and management. Stated formally: P1: A focal companys exposure to supply chain risk depends on the level of human behavior unpredictability in the supply chain and the impact such unpredictability can have on the companys supply chain. P2: A focal companys exposure to risk depends on the number and strength of dependencies in its supply chain and the impact an external risk event may have on the company. P3: A focal companys exposure to risk depends on the supply chain actors skills and qualities to identify potential risks in advance and to solve risk situations once they occur. Although they address different aspects of risk to a focal company, the propositions are closely related. For instance, without the existence of network dependencies, behavioral unpredictability at another supply chain actor becomes irrelevant. Similarly, the focal company does not have to worry about the skills and qualities of other supply chain actors because there is always another alternative to select. Also, an increase in the supply chain actors skills and qualities will indirectly reduce the level of human unpredictability since it rules out some of the mistakes humans can make; however, it does not rule out the focal companys uncertainty about other supply chain actors intended strategic actions. The relationship between the propositions has been outlined as arrows in Figure 2. Each category between the arrows refers to a more precise definition of the risks mentioned in the propositions. The categories follow the naming convention in the GSCF framework, and together, they c onstitute a holistic representation of supply chain risks relevant for successful supply chain management. The formal definitions for the three types of supply chain risk in Figure 2 are provided below and explained in the subsequent sections: Supply chain processes risk refers to the perceived risk of other companies in the supply chain behaving intentionally or unintentionally in a manner which could be harmful to the company. Supply chain structure risk is closely linked with the total number and type of dependencies in the network. It is a measure for the level of significant detrimental effects an undesired and unanticipated event can have on a companys supply chain network. This event can occur externally or internally to a local market or industry and affect either a single node or a multitude of nodes simultaneously. Supply chain components risk refers to the technical, managerial and organizational abilities each supply chain actor has developed in order to embrace opportunities, detect and avoid potential supply chain disruptions, and to mediate the effects of a disruption once it has occurred. 3.3. Supply chain processes risk A focal companys exposure to supply chain risk will, according to proposition one, depend on the level of human behavior unpredictability and the impact such unpredictability can have on the companys supply chain. When companies begin to explore the competitive advantage of accessing and managing processes belonging to other companies in the chain, they therefore need to identify how the sharing of a process can change its vulnerability to unanticipated events and agree on strategic actions to reduce the processes vulnerability. The main factors to consider when processes are shared with other actors are shown in Figure 3 and explained below. In general, the sharing of processes across tiers in a network can be problematic since it simultaneously makes the focal company more vulnerable to risk. Under working market conditions, each actor is free to choose its trading partner for every transaction. A natural moderating effect on risk therefore exists since there is no dependency on other specific actors in the network. However, when companies begin to integrate processes, as prescribed by supply chain management literature, they distance themselves from the market by creating lock-in effects with selected partners due to the specificity of tangible and intangible assets deployed. From a transaction cost theory point-of-view (Williamson, 1975, 1985), specific investments in shared processes must be protected against the risk of possible opportunistic behavior from the other actor in each partnership. Opportunistic behavior refers to actors self-interest seeking with guile (Williamson, 1975) where guile means lying, stealing, cheating, and calculated efforts to mislead, distort, disguise, obfuscate, or otherwise confuse (Williamson, 1985). In practice, this type of supplier behavior would materialize in hazards like broken promises, production delays, increased costs, production shortcuts, and masking of inadequate or poor quality (Provan and Skinner, 1989; Wathne and Heide, 2000). Any uncertainty of whether the suppliers behave, or would attempt to behave, opportunistically therefore increases the impression of risk to the actor performing the risk assessment[1]. However, transaction cost theory has been criticized for its assumption of opportunistic decision makers. Critics argue that it is a too simplistic and pessimistic assumption about human behavior, and that opportunism represents the exception rather than the rule (Macneil, 1980; Granovetter, 1985; Chisholm, 1989). John (1984) also argued that undesired attitude such as hard bargaining, intense and frequent disagreements, and similar conflictual behaviors do not constitute opportunism unless an agreement has been reached of not to do so. In addition, even well-meant behavioral actions by one party may have negative effects for another party in the supply chain. The perception of risk linked with human behavior where processes are shared can therefore not be restricted to a matter of opportunism alone, but needs to include any kind of undesired human behavior whether it is opportunistic, undesirable or well-intended, but still potentially harmful. It has been suggested that behavioral uncertainty can be reduced with the introduction of formal and informal safeguards to the relationship. In a successful relationship, relational rules of conduct work to enhance the well-being of the relationship as a whole and take explicit account for the historical and social context within which an exchange takes place (Heide and John, 1992). Flexibility among the parties, solidarity, information exchange, and long-term orientation are norms typically associated with, and referred to, as relational safeguarding mechanisms in contemporary research (Ivens, 2002). The presence of these norms in a relationship has been found to improve the efficiency of relationships and to reduce parties behavioral uncertainty (Heide and John, 1992). Alternatively, ownership, or some form of contractual command-obedience authority structure can be used to protect against inherent behavioral uncertainty. Vertical integration has traditionally been prescribed by transaction cost literature as an answer to handle uncertainty in repeated transactions when there are specific investments involved (Williamson, 1975, 1985). However, Stinchcombe (1985) found that the safeguarding features of hierarchical relationships can be built into contracts as well. These features included authority systems, incentive systems, standard operating procedures, dispute resolution procedures, and non-market internal pricing. It should be noted that advanced pricing mechanisms used can include agreed risk sharing and paying an insurance premium to a third party to protect against the financial consequences of a business interruption (Li and Kouvelis, 1999; Doherty and Schlesinger, 2002). However, a prerequisite for risk transfer mitigation to work is the a bility to clearly define the type, cause and boundaries for when the agreed risk transfer applies. Also, well defined standard operating procedures are particularly important since they indirectly describe the non-conformance cases. Breaches in quality performance or EHS procedures, shipment inaccuracies, delivery times, etc. by the focal company or another party are indications of reduced control over the supply chain. Hence, an increased frequency of such incidents in other nodes in the network will lead to an impression of greater behavioral uncertainty and supply chain risk. The impression of risk when processes are shared would naturally depend on the degree of lock-in which exists between two parties. A second risk factor in supply chain processes risk therefore refers to the criticality of specific nodes in the network (Craighead et al., 2007). More precisely, critical nodes are actors in the supply chain responsible for delivery of critical components or important subsystems where the number of supplier choices is limited. However, a node can be critical even though there may be little dependence in day-to-day operations. The increased popularity of outsourcing to third parties necessarily increases other actors involvement in the companys material and information flow. But, since both information and materials represent a form of capital investment, this also means that other actors in some cases handle large parts of a companys tied-up capital either in the form of information or in the form of goods. This risk is called degree of capital seizure in the framework. For instance, it is generally not very difficult to switch from one supplier of IT-server capacity to another, but the dependence on the supplier of server capacity can prove severe if sloppy routines at the supplier destroy the electronic database stored. A similar logic applies for other actors with control over much of the companys information and material flow. Large distribution centers are one example. A typical risk event would be a fire causing damage to much of the companys goods stored; however, such an event would not be attributable to the processes shared and is therefore not a supply chain process risk. Instead, such a risk event has been characterized as external to the network and described under supply chain structure risk. However, another example would be the distribution centre not informing the focal company of a changed general staff leave. This would be a breach in the supplier relationship management process because it is a deviation from expected service leve ls in that particular period. 3.4. Supply chain structure risk The decision of who to link with in a network requires an explicit knowledge and understanding of the supply chain network configuration. According to proposition two, this includes a thorough comprehension of the risk inflicted upon the company because of dependencies established in relationship with other network actors. Therefore, the supply chain manager needs to assess how vulnerable the company is to unanticipated changes in the network and its exogenous environment. Dependencies are created with individual partners in the network and the level of dependency must therefore be assessed for each node. However, attributes of the network configuration itself may increase or reduce the impression of risk. A field risk category and a network complexity risk category have been created to reflect this duality. Field risk includes risk factors which are exogenous to the network, and not endogenously created as in supply chain process risk. Field risk is assessed for each node, but supply chain structure risk must also take the complexity of the network into consideration. For instance, geographically dense nodes within a network may represent a great risk to a company even though each actor itself may not be very important. This is similar to the Dole example mentioned in the introduction where a hurricane destroyed the banana harvest in the area where Dole had most of its suppliers (Griffy-Brown, 2003). Network complexity risk refers to decision makers perceiving large networks as more uncertain since the involvement of more actors and more people implicitly includes more things which can go wrong (Craighead et al., 2007). This perception naturally becomes even stronger when the number and strength of identified critical nodes under supply chain processes risk is high. However, if a focal company is engaged in several sub-networks of supply and demand, this would moderate the perception of risk similar to the basic idea of diversification in modern portfolio theory. The reason is that the company can rest on several independent business pillars and prosper with the remaining pillars while the problem in the failing supply chain is sorted out. Field risk factors such as currency fluctuations, political or legal changes, environmental, and social risks are external to the supply chain network, and refer to the country or region where suppliers, or clusters of suppliers, are located (JÃÆ'Â ¼tner, Peck and Christopher, 2002). Climate changes, in particular in combination with population growth, should receive attention since such changes may alter and threaten the living conditions in large regions of the world with serious effects on both the supply side and demand side to companies (Gilland, 2002; Yea, 2004; Leroy, 2006). An undesirable side-effect of global trade is that supply chains have become significantly more vulnerable to both organized and unorganized crime. Although cargo thefts have not yet caused major supply chain disruptions, the extent of such crime is steadily increasing and should receive attention from a proactive risk management perspective particularly if shipment of critical components is part of the day-to-day operations (Caton, 2006; Barnett, 2007). Another type of crime is abduction of key personnel for ransom money. Kidnappings are mentally challenging to the abducted and the organizations they work for, and can strain organizational resources for a substantial amount of time after a kidnapping incident. In addition, if a decision to pay ransom money is made, the amount required could be financially problematic to smaller companies. This type of crime has generally been associated with Latin America; however, experts have anticipated that such kidnappings will spread to other parts of the world (O Hare, 1994). Although no scientific follow-up study has been identified

Sex in the Media Essay examples -- Media Essays

Media Essay Advanced Composition No Means No "I don't believe in rape. No means no. Wait, if no meant no, all men would die a virgin. No means work on the neck, the nipples and come back in five minutes. I'm not saying a father should give this version of the birds and bees to his son. Listen she's gonna block your hands four or five times at least. I didn't raise you to be a quitter out there now did I. She wouldn't dress like that if she didn't want to get fingered." Comedian, Daniel Tosh expressed this quote meaning for it to be harmful. But, is it really harmful? Is this what society really thinks? Are women supposed to be easy? Do men need to take control and get what they want? A simple joke can be seen as what our society really thinks subconsciously. I believe our society has changed greatly from the past. Skirts are getting shorter, bikinis smaller. People are getting all kinds of plastic surgery to try and make there outer appearance to look even greater. Society has impacted us in a way that most people do not even think about what is happening. Our appearance on the outside has shaped the way society thinks in the present day. Jean Kilbourne in her article, Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt, explains how media has impacted on what we see people to be today. She explains this better for girls but it can be applied to all genders in the situation she explains if people are ugly, fat, disfigured, or handicap they are seen as being the outcast of what normal is. 2 But what is normal? According to Random House Unabridged Dictionary, normal in terms of biology and medicine is only of natural occurrence. In order to be normal there can't be any physical or mental alterations done to make yourself appear normal. Anyone ... ...ading America. Boston, New York: Bedford, 2004. 455-476. Messner, Michael A. "Center of Attention: the Gender of Sports Media." Rereading America. Boston, New York: Bedford, 2004. 477-489. - "Men feel increased pressure to conform to an aggressive dominant male stereotype, which leads to low self-esteem and high incidence of depression." -"Boys feel significant anxiety and sadness about growing up to be men." -"Despite feeling outwardly content, many boys feel deep feelings of loneliness and alienation." Stiles, John. Answers.Com. 04 Mar. 2004. 05 Oct. 2006 . "Advertisement was in excess of $450 billion in the United States." Tannen, Deborah. "Sex, Lies, and Conversation." Rereading America. Boston, New York: Bedford, 2004. 313-317. "Talk is about intimacy. Marriage is an orgy of closeness: you can tell your feelings and thoughts, and still be loved."

John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse Essay

â€Å"Lost in the Funhouse† explores the many layers of the theme â€Å"illusion of reality.† This concept is first introduced in the second paragraph as the explanation of initials or blanks replacing proper names in fiction-writing. The â€Å"attempt† at disguising a place name by shortening it, is really a tool used by authors to make a place seem real, in need of disguising. John Barth explains that this tactic is merely an â€Å"illusion of reality.† In the following pages of this story, the theme â€Å"illusion of reality† is present in the funhouse and self-perception during adolescence. The illusion of reality is a concept manifested in a funhouse. The funhouse itself is an illusion, with its rooms of mirrors that distort reality, moving floors and walls that disorient you, and its mazelike qualities that take you away from the realities of life. A funhouse is an alternative world, one meant for lovers embarking on a new adventure together. Ambrose can see its falseness from his single perspective and is aware of its deceptive powers. He is aware of the perversion inherent in the funhouse, the sleazy goals of sexual gratification disguised as child-like pleasures. To be lost in a funhouse is symbolic of the confusing and disorienting aspects of adolescence and particularly the sexual aspects of puberty. One’s perception of the self during adolescence can also be an illusion of reality. At one point in the story, we are led to believe that Ambrose is to be forever lost in this funhouse. This is representative of Ambrose’s fear that he will die illusioned, never sure of who he really is. Being lost in a funhouse alone is very much like particularly painful stages of adolescence. It is a place of romance, but for Ambrose it is a scary and confusing place, where he is still too young to be a part of the romance, but old enough to recognize and have that desire. These feelings are not only contained to adolescence, the sensation of being outside the fold and being unable to make sense of one’s emotions are present throughout life. Barth puts it best, â€Å"We will never get out of the funhouse† (9).

The Cherokee Removal essays

The Cherokee Removal essays The process of the removal of the Cherokees took place in 1838. This is when the Cherokees were evicted from their homes and work area into stockades by General Winfield Scott and his army. The Cherokees were related to the Iroquois of New England and also to northern New York. The Cherokees were divided into three separate groups before they migrated and spreaded out through out the southeast of the United States of America. Life for the Cherokees follow went with the women performing farm duties, raising crops, and the men of the Cherokees went out hunting for food. In the Cherokee life there were no leaders that ruled over them. The Cherokee life went on from generation to generation, meaning things were being passed down from one to another. Government wise the Cherokees were more democratic. As time went by, the Cherokee met up with the Europeans, who brought along many new things with them. The Cherokees started to bond with them a little bit more. The Europeans brought along diseases and helpful items such as fabrics and hatchets. The Cherokee started to hunt more for fabric and also started to barter much more with the Europeans. Due to the expansion and growth of the Europeans, the Cherokees without doubt were swept up into Europeans wars. Here is when fights and wars really started to break out, because of a conference that was taken place in South Carolina with, the colonial governor and some of his men killing some of the Cherokee. After the killing took place the British and the Cherokee started to attack one another. When all of the wars and disputes took place, against others, this was when Americans want to get rid of the Cherokee for good. If I had to argue for the Cherokees to stay I would tell president Andrew Jackson that first, there is really no reason why anyone or any army should come around make a cluster of people leave their area. Especially, when they were not bothering anyone at the time. Basicall...

Free Essays on Interpretation Of Bible And Koran

INTRODUCTION: Throughout the world there are numerous religions in practice today. The most prominent of the Worlds' religions are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Sikhism. Each religion is discernible in its own unique way, with its various traditions, methods and places of worship, art, literature etc. In addition to that each religion has texts or scriptures which are considered to be sacred, holy and very important. Scriptures in the religious sense means the 'Word of God' as revealed in a particular book like the Bible or the Koran. Scripture can also stand for an inspired book or a source of teaching that a particular religion honors as all-important. Some scriptures have much spiritual truth in them, others have very little. Scriptures play an extremely important role in religion. It is through these scriptures and sacred texts that rituals, traditions and rules of a particular religion are passed on through centuries and from generation to generation. This paper studies the probl em associated with the interpretation of the Bible and Koran in Part I and in Part II it deals with the status of women in the Bible and Koran. PART I: INTERPRETATION OF THE KORAN AND THE BIBLE: The method that is used to interpret the scriptures determines the results of one's theology. It is the difference in the hermeneutical (method of interpretation) approach that spawns the divisions in the realm of theology. THE KORAN Islam is the second most practiced religion in the world. Its teaching show many similarities with the Jewish and the Christian scriptures. Islam's basic scripture is the Koran, revealed to Prophet Mohammed (p.b.u.h) by angel Gabriel (Jibrail) who recited the verses to Mohammed, who in turn taught them to his followers who memorized them and wrote them down on leaves and scraps of paper. The Koran has 114 surahs (chapters), arranged in order of decreasing length. Several interpretations of the Koran are availa... Free Essays on Interpretation Of Bible And Koran Free Essays on Interpretation Of Bible And Koran INTRODUCTION: Throughout the world there are numerous religions in practice today. The most prominent of the Worlds' religions are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Sikhism. Each religion is discernible in its own unique way, with its various traditions, methods and places of worship, art, literature etc. In addition to that each religion has texts or scriptures which are considered to be sacred, holy and very important. Scriptures in the religious sense means the 'Word of God' as revealed in a particular book like the Bible or the Koran. Scripture can also stand for an inspired book or a source of teaching that a particular religion honors as all-important. Some scriptures have much spiritual truth in them, others have very little. Scriptures play an extremely important role in religion. It is through these scriptures and sacred texts that rituals, traditions and rules of a particular religion are passed on through centuries and from generation to generation. This paper studies the probl em associated with the interpretation of the Bible and Koran in Part I and in Part II it deals with the status of women in the Bible and Koran. PART I: INTERPRETATION OF THE KORAN AND THE BIBLE: The method that is used to interpret the scriptures determines the results of one's theology. It is the difference in the hermeneutical (method of interpretation) approach that spawns the divisions in the realm of theology. THE KORAN Islam is the second most practiced religion in the world. Its teaching show many similarities with the Jewish and the Christian scriptures. Islam's basic scripture is the Koran, revealed to Prophet Mohammed (p.b.u.h) by angel Gabriel (Jibrail) who recited the verses to Mohammed, who in turn taught them to his followers who memorized them and wrote them down on leaves and scraps of paper. The Koran has 114 surahs (chapters), arranged in order of decreasing length. Several interpretations of the Koran are availa...

647 W5D Fish Bone diagram Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

647 W5D Fish Bone diagram - Essay Example Fishbone diagrams allow for a thoughtful analysis that avoids overlooking any possible cause for a need (Reilly, Myers, Salvador & Trowbridge, 2014). The diagram employs a technique that is easy to implement and that creates an easily comprehensible visual representation with categories. One can concentrate on the group that is most likely to cause the problem. Location can address the need to a given situation. However, the fishbone diagram goes further to indicate the areas of weakness requiring rectification in time before causing sustained difficulties (Wang, 2013). In the example below the problem in question is the â€Å"effect.† It illustrates the Missed Free Throws. The causes are categorised as either service setting or manufacturing setting. In this example, the manufacturing setting groups come first because they have no variability. They include materials, measurement, people, methods and environment. Enough details that identify the exact root causes are then fixed under each major category. The detailed sub-categories are generated from the data collected from the data sheets and brainstorming from group

Operations management of Tesco Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 16

Operations management of Tesco - Essay Example This paper illustrates that in the UK the largest food retailer is Tesco. It has around 2,318 stores across the world in different locations. In the UK itself, it has around 1,878 stores spread widely across in different parts of the country. Tesco also operates in Asia and Europe. The company headquarters is in Hertfordshire, in the UK. The online website of the company that is Tesco.com is completely owned subsidiary providing complete service through the online service. It also has two other different online platforms tesco.net and also tescodirect.com. Tesco gives its customer the option for both online and offline services. Tesco has both the type of customers external and also internal. The company has over 326,000 employees across all the stores of the company in the whole world. Tesco sells about 40,000 food items in its superstores along with apparels and also other items. It has its own products under three labels which are value, finest and normal. The company gets 50% of sales from its own products. The company has many stores with gas stations. It has become one of the major largest petrol retailers in the country. Tesco also has the service for personal finance as in joint venture with Royal Bank of Scotland. The company has over 3.4 million customers by providing various services, products and also financial services. The market share for grocery companies has grown in a huge way over the years. With the start of online retailing the retail market has taken a new look and the online market store has started to gain a lot of popularity in the market. Research done by Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD), in the UK has found that the rate at which Tesco is growing is going to increase in the next few years. The growth of the company will increase at a high pace because of its online platforms that have customers to buy products online.