Your Future Position – Your Ceo Philosophies

1. How would you use the Strategic Planning Model to approach post-graduation â€Å"identification and securing† of the most promising position? 0r does the Strategic Planning Model stifle or enhance the strategic creativity of strong, direct individuals? I would use the strategic planning model very similar as I would if I were using it for a business planning tool. The only difference would be a slight deviation on the objectives. Instead of being a corporate objective, I would cut that down into smaller categories and identify how it would benefit me while still being considered a great asset to the company.In the end, I would compare and contrast my findings. See below. 1. ) Step 1: Prepare for planning (overall strategy for all opportunities) – Decide what needs to be looked at, what highlights I have, what opportunities are available and locations. Who should be involved? Define all expectations. 2. ) Step 2: Vision for employment (overall strategy for all opportu nities) – Define the perfect or ideal position. 3. ) Step 3: SWOT (need to do for each independent opportunity) – 360 scan of each company where employment has potential. Where are the strengths and weaknesses of the company?Where are the threats? Is there potential to move up the ladder? Look at external and internal (if available) factors. Research before, ask during interview. 4. ) Step 4: Context (need to do for each independent opportunity) – What is the area like? Is the community economically stable or not? Is the town/city the company is located in growing. What will the commuting time be like? Research before, ask during interview. 5. ) Step 5: Mission (need to do for each independent opportunity) – Does the mission statement of the company or department align with my personal goals.Can I see myself delivering on the criteria the statement is giving to its consumers? Research before, ask during interview. 6. ) Step 6: Problem Statement (need to d o for each independent opportunity) – Issues discovered from step 4. Indicate reaction to those roadblocks. Is the company private or public and are there any financial constraints that could hinder growth for the company or its employees. Research before, ask during interview. 7. ) Step 7: Strategies (need to do for each independent opportunity) – If there are any problems, how will I go around them to resolve? Is it something I can face head on?For employee strategies, who is the target client? What will be the priority topic once employment takes place? How can I fulfill it? Research before, ask during interview. Look at other items such as vacation time, benefits, and other fringe benefits. 8. ) Step 8: Goals (overall strategy for all opportunities) – Define what my short and long term overall employment goals will be. Be sure to match up with what the company can offer. 9. ) Step 9: Objectives (overall strategy for all opportunities and adjust if/when neces sary) – Similar to the goal, identify individual targets within each goal and provide a timeline snapshot.What do I want my efforts at this company to result in on a short term? 10. ) Step 10: Action Plan (overall strategy for all opportunities) – Organize the plan into smaller action plans for each objective. Build in status reviews/updates. Translate the actions into job descriptions and personal performance. Communicate with follow ups. Document all efforts including meetings with potential employers. Integrate the goal and objectives of myself with the goals and objectives of the company. 11. ) Step 11: Evaluate (overall strategy for all opportunities) – Evaluate the plan before I implement.Evaluate each employment opportunity as they arise. After offers are received, pick the best opportunity. 2. Prepare your version of a mission statement for Cleary University. Investing in your future: We strive to be a business education leader by providing a thorough an d rigorous academic schedule that matches what is experienced in the real business world. 3. Which basic philosophies would you adopt as the chief executive of a major corporation (identify and explain)? Simplicity/Clarity/Honesty, Improvement, Discretion Simplicity/Clarity/Honesty – This theory pertains to internal and external factors.In this case, I’m speaking of internal factors. If the business team openly talks whether it’s on an independent level or in a group setting, the team can manifest ideas to help the business stay competitive. Improvement – Since the company will be openly speaking with each other about various topics, by doing so, they can create new products or services, reduce redundancy in office procedures (creating more time for other things), or just enhance things. Discretion – Keep business matters private. Only discuss information about finances with the appropriate people.Keep HR issues with HR, etc. etc. If topics are con tained to the appropriate areas, then the risk of over exposure to the wrong areas will be contained. 4. How might Cleary University practice sustainability? Cleary University could practice sustainability by going green, which they have implemented already. Also, they couple try and incorporate some of the principles into various business decisions. Try to make it a common practice to do so. They can also continuously support initiatives (green, for example) throughout the community.

Organic vs Non Organic Foods Essay

It’s hard to walk into a grocery store and not notice a certain new kind of trend. There is a growing urge to have more organic items on shelves. The general belief is that organic items tend to be better for the consumer and the environment when compared to non-organic items. Although many people cant tell the difference, there are multiple pros and cons between organic and nonorganic. In terms of consumer health, both organic and processed foods have their benefits. The benefits of processed foods are that scientists can place additives that increase the nutritional value. According to Dr. Mehmet Oz (2010), this helps to â€Å"prevent neural-tube defects and certain childhood cancers, boost brain development and may increase intelligence, and reduce the incidence of rickets. † This means that theres nutrients that can be added to aid in helping the country with disease prevention. Organic foods lack the ability to be genetically modified but offer their own benefits as well. According to Maria Rodale (2010), some organically grown foods have â€Å" more conjugated linleic acid, which is a powerful cancer-fighting nutrient. † Both these types of food can help consumers healthy and prevent disease. There are some alarming differences between organic and processed foods especially when considering agriculture. â€Å"Organic† means that a food is grown without the aid of pesticides or fertilizers. Organic farmers use manure and nothing else to grow fruits, vegetables, and grains. It says in The Organic Myth that this can lead to some bad cases of E. Coli that wouldn’t be present in foods grown with pesticides since there are all sorts of bacteria in the manure (2004). The reverse is that without all those chemicals being sprayed on crops, you tend to have less pollution. Rodale states, â€Å"Growing foods organically prevents thousands of toxic chemicals from entering the environment and poisoning our soil, our wells, our wildlife, our children and ourselves† (2010). Organic goods also tend to cost more leading to them being classified as a luxury item. The downside is that most cattle and genetically altered crops have â€Å"unwanted additives like growth hormone and chemicals† (Oz 2010). It’s hard to know whether it’s worth the money to go organic or just stick with the usual. Foods grown without the aids of pesticides seem to be beneficial to the consumer and the environment, which is a big selling point for those who want to go green. On the other hand they are much more costly than non-organic crops. Many people would rather risk the potentially harmful additives to shave a few bucks of the price. It all depends on preference and beliefs but its definitely easy to see where they offer there own pros and cons. Miller, M. (2004). The Organic Myth. National Review, 56(2), 35-37. Oz, M. (2010). The Organic Alternative. Time, 176(9), 46-46. Rodale, M. (2010). 15 WAYS TO CHANGE THE WORLD (and your life)†¦ ONE APPLE AT A TIME. Men’s Health (10544836), 25(3), 113-138.

Language Learning & Teaching

‘Mother tongue’, ‘first language’, or ‘L1’ is the language that the child usually learns first by the process of interacting with the parents, family members and the society.   This language is usually not acquired by the process of formal education.   It is passed on from one generation to another by the process of interaction and communication.   It is important to know that the first language of the individual need not always be the dominant language.   For example, if the family relocates from one place to another, then there would automatically be a shift in the dominant language of the child, as the language for social communication would also change.   Suppose a child has very good skills at learning the first language, automatically the skills for learning the second language would be good, as it suggests various cognitive functions required for learning the language (such as thinking, memory, etc).   On the other hand, if th e child develops poor skills at learning the first language, automatically he/she would find it difficult to learn the second language and even others (Clark, 2000).‘Second language’ or ‘L2’ is a language that is different from the first language and is usually acquired by the process of formal education in school.   Usually, the second language is a language other than the first language or the mother tongue.   As in several parts of the world, a greater amount of importance is given to English, which has been the basis for international communication. A lot of research is being conducted to determine the manner in which the second language could be acquired, learnt and retained.   In some parts of the world, the second language is beginning to dominate the first language.   This is because of the greater amount of use of the second language in international communication, corporate sector and as a medium of instruction.   The term second languag e was given as it initially suggested the level of comprehension, understanding and the fluency of an individual with that particular language in comparison with the first language (Clark, 2000 & Ellis, 1994).  Hylenstam (1992) conducted a lot of research to determine the manner in which the second language and the first language skills were acquired and retained.  He found that after the age of 7 years, the child often found it difficult to learn a second language and obtain the skills required as good as that of the first language.   The individual frequently demonstrated a lot of grammatical errors whilst using the second language, after it was acquired following the age of 7 years (Clark, 2000).   However, research conducted by Hylenstam and Abrahamsson (2003) also found that that there was no exact cut-off period at which an individual would find it difficult to learn the second language, and term it as good as the first language.   Even during adulthood, the second l anguage skills could be acquired as good as before the age of 7 provided the individual made an effort and was motivated to learn and acquire the second language (Clark, 2000).Usually, in each and every nation of the world, the child would be learning two languages.   The United States is one of the few nations in which the children would be usually learning one language that is English.   According to Cummins, learning a second language did not affect the development of the child.   However, social interactions helped in development.   Studies based on cognitive functioning and learning abilities have demonstrated that during the phase of mental growth and development, there was no negative effect if the child learnt one language or two.   Children were able to learn a second language easily and utilise it in the same manner as the first language for communication, questioning, thinking and socialising.   All the knowledge gained from the first language could easily be transferred and utilised in the second language by the child (Clark, 2000 & Ellis, 1994).Children cannot learn a second language within a definite period of time.   Strong evidence is currently not available to suggest that children can learn a second language within a short period of time.   Evidence is also currently not available to demonstrate that children would be learning a second language faster than the adults (Clark, 2000 & Ellis, 1994).During the process of learning a second language, the child may experience several problems including improper pronunciation, not able to use grammar appropriately or poor comprehending capability.   It is important to note that several factors such as environmental, learning facilities, educational, ability to socialise, age, sex, motivation, personality type etc, play an important role in the second language development of the child.   It is for this reason that some children learn second language faster, whilst others take a long er time (Clark, 2000 & Ellis, 1994).One of the important factors that need to be considered for acquiring a second language is the age of learning.   This plays an important role compared to several other factors including motivation, cultural circumstances, opportunities etc.   The child should also get a positive response from others whilst learning the second language.   In the native home, some children may find it difficult to learn a second language.   Children whilst learning the first and the second language usually have similar attitudes.   In learning the first language, the child would usually do so at a younger age, and hence the complications and the fear of making mistakes are lesser.   The second language learning age is usually higher than the first language, and hence the complications and the fear of making mistakes are usually present.   Children tend to use the native pattern of pronouncing words (Clark, 2000 & Ellis, 1994).In 1995, Collier was able to demonstrate that even adolescents and adults had some amount of competence in learning a second language.   Children do have the cognitive competence of learning languages and this would enable them to learn and retain a language better than an adult.   A few researchers have contradicting views about the second language learning.   They feel that once a second language is learnt within a very short period of time and at a very young age, then the skills initially acquired of the first language is lost (Bialystok & Hakuta, 1994).   Some of these researchers hence feel that the second language should not be introduced at a very young age to children and hence both the first and the second language need to be imparted (McLaughlin, 1973).Once the first or the second language is learnt, the outcome is usually different.   For example, once the first language is learnt, due to the interactions between the society, parents and family, the fluency and the comprehension improv es compared to the second language.   It may be equally difficult for learning either the first language or the second language, but the role of variables is even greater for the second language (Clark, 2000 & Ellis, 1994).For learning the first and the second language, it is very important that an environment conducive for learning exists.   Communication between the parents, family, friends and society is very important.   The cognitive ability can be developed and the language skills could be improved through positive interactions in the language.   The child should be allowed to express themselves freely with the parents.   The language learning process should be enabled through positive interactions between the parents and the child.   The existent language base and real-life situations play an important role.   The child should be able to use the language at the school, home or in social settings.   The child should be able to use and develop both the languages equally.   For example, some children may not be able to use the second language at home due to inability of the family members to understand it.Besides, some children may also find it difficult to use the first language in school, as they may have another language as a medium of instruction.   This may hamper the learning process.   It is important that the child uses the languages in many instances as possible so as to develop the skill and the knowledge required.   Whilst learning the first and the second language, formal education would only be playing a passive role.   The main ingredient for the success at developing skill in a new language is positive interactions and usage of that language (Clark, 2000 & Ellis, 1994).Some children may find learning a second language a very tedious task.   Especially those children, who have problems in learning the first language, often develop similar problems in learning the second language.   For learning the language, such problems frequently develop as it is very important that the child develops strong relationships with the parents so that such problems can overcome patiently and gradually.   The use of the second language at home should in no manner affect the cognitive development and the learning process.New experiences with the second language and the use of new ideas would definitely help in improving the cognitive processes.   It is frequently seen that once the cognitive development has occurred with the first language, the same skills could be utilized in attaining the skills required for the second language.   Frequently, children who have developed tremendous skills with the first language (due to the cognitive advancement) may find it very easy to learn a second language.   Studies have even demonstrated that children able to excel in the first language may do equally well with the second language (Clark, 2000 & Ellis, 1994).Reading is another area in which the child should deve lop a habit in order to gain competence of the second language.   It helps to improve comprehension, understanding, thinking, flow of ideas, creative expressions, memory etc.   Usually, the first language is learnt through day-to-day communication and the second language is learnt through reading.   However, both communication and constant reading are required to develop skills in learning the language.Thus it can be said that development of the first language would in fact supplement the learning of the second language.   Positive interactions with family, parents, friends and society would help in developing skills with the second language.   Besides, reading would also aid in language development.   The manner in which the first and the second language is learnt is much similar to one another.   It need not always be that the first language dominates the second language.   The dominating language usually depends on the culture the child is exposed to.   In child ren below the age of 7 years, the process of learning the second language is much easier. In adults and adolescents, motivation plays a very important role in second language acquisition.References:Clark, B.A. (2000), First- and Second-Language Acquisition in Early Childhood. [Online], Available: http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/pubs/katzsym/clark-b.html, [Accessed: 2007, December 31].Ellis (1994). Differences between L1 and L2 acquisition. [Online], Available: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/L1%20and%20L2.htm, [Accessed: 2007, December 31].Klein, W., & Jankowski, B. (1986), Second Language Acquisition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.NWREL (2003). Overview of Second Language Acquisition Theory. [Online], Available: http://www.nwrel.org/request/2003may/overview.html, [Accessed: 2007, December 31].

Strategy in Action Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Strategy in Action - Assignment Example (Lionsgate.com, 2011) Organizational culture is the collection of values and norms that are shared by individuals in an organization that affect interaction within and outside the organization. It is an important tool as it brings employees towards a common goal by developing affinity and provides impetus for growth. A healthy culture promotes self actualization and achievement in employees. Open communication and flexibility within the organization provide grounds for innovation and experimentation. Constructive cultures are empowering and lead to highly motivated employees, team work and growth. (Expertplagas.com, 2009) The organizational culture of Lionsgate is influenced by its start as an independent film studio which has developed into a major studio with global presence. Thus the culture reflects the entrepreneurial initiative that independent studios boast of. Lionsgate combines flexibility with the strategic management of a major studio with the customer focus of a digital c ompany. A speech by Lionsgate’s co-COO, Jo Drake reflects the organizational culture of taking risks in media and movies, of looking at changes in the market place as challenges, and the focus on entrepreneurship and innovation. (indiewire.com, 2010) Curt Marvis, of Lionsgate, explains Lionsgate corporate culture of getting employees involved. According to him, if one person can do the job instead of ten, then Lionsgate will focus on doing so, and employees will be involved in different things that they can handle. This shows that the culture focuses on employee involvement and ownership; however the fact the Lionsgate has acquired various media companies over the world results in the impression that the organizational culture may vary along the acquired companies and may be not as ingrained as preferred. In the event of mergers and acquisitions, it takes times and effort, many a times unsuccessful to develop the company culture of the parent company in the acquired companies . (Variety.com, 2009) Challenges facing the Media and Broadcasting industry The Media and broadcasting company is facing major challenges in the future. The biggest challenge is the changing marketplace which has changed the way content is delivered to customers. The popularity of digital delivery poses threats for media and broadcasting companies as customers can access media easily and cheaply on the internet. The industry needs to develop and master digital delivery of television shows, news, movies and music in order to grab the market online and still retain profits (Vodafone.com, 2011). Another challenge is the increase in competition due to the abundance of independent film making and the cropping up of new competitors, customers have greater choice due to the internet and companies have to be on their toes to maintain performance. The media industry has seen an increasing trend in takeovers, acquisitions and mergers and thus performance and shareholder value needs to be main tained to protect the company from acquisitions. The media industry faces market saturation not only because of the increasing number of competitors but the increasing number of competitors worldwide and in different formats. News companies, movies and television all face threats from online competitors as well and need to maintain a major online presence. This has resulted in cost and margin difficulties, changing patterns of consumer behavior and the need to provide

Japan and China are clearly rivals for leadership in East Asia, Asia Essay

Japan and China are clearly rivals for leadership in East Asia, Asia and beyond. Briefly trace the relationship between the two - Essay Example The rivalry between these countries started since World War II and continues till today. The prime reason for this being one of the said nations always remained superior to the other.Before the 19th century china was the super power and with the restoration of Meji constitution Japan started gaining importance. However, China fought Japan by seeking economic assistance from Germany before World War II, but during World War II Japanese did many atrocities to Chinese population which strengthens the rivalry between the two. Internal and external politics of both countries The China being a republic nation possess its national military force known as People’s Liberation army which controls its sea, air and land territories in a unified manner.PLA was founded in 1927, and has more than 3 million members and is counted as the world’s powerful military force. Moreover, the Chinese republic is currently growing as the biggest manufacturer and exporter of goods and services in the current international market. The rapid growth of China in economical and social field has stunned the devolved as well as developing nations. The internal political scenario of China is very brittle and is struggling to survive the provocation of war as a communist regime. Evnthough, the economical status of the country is booming the republic is facing extreme provocation and threat to consider war with its competitor countries. About a decade ago the country called Japan was economically growing at such a rate that it out rated the growth of U.S.A and other advanced industrially civilized nations. However, its economic growth was also creating resentment abroad and this was resulting in economic disputes and demands to stop it’s free trade system. The country instead of focusing on military resources, concentrated highly on economic activates and grew largely as the world’s strong economic nation with living standards better than America. Unfortunately, currentl y Japan is suffering of recession and depicts a stagnant growth. As per,(Branigan,T,2010)â€Å"The most significant issue in recent domestic politics is the public’s growing dissatisfaction with LDP rule. The ruling LDP-Komeito coalition will probably remain in the minority in the Upper House at least through the next election in 2010†.Mean while the military system of the country is strong and is called the Japanese Self Defense Force and was formed after the occurrence of World War II. Relationship and power of both the countries The political and socio-economical scenario of both China and Japan has always been highly frictional. On many grounds, these countries constantly raised conflict and the relationship status of both the countries is at a very compromising and vulnerable state. The economical activities between the countries are at threat and Chinese government is accusing Japan of destroying the bilateral relationship among both countries. There is also wide spread notion that super power America also provoking these two countries to initialize a war. (Tadahi,Y.2008)writes that â€Å"The countries are locked in an increasingly tense row over Japan's detention of a Chinese captain after his trawler collided with a coastguard vessel near disputed islands. China's premier Wen Jiabao this week threatened further retaliation if the man was not release†

International Management Master Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

International Management Master - Assignment Example Morgan Chase, Allstate, Prudential, Dell, Cisco, Microsoft and Motorola have all adopted it in some form as they shift their managerial frames of reference toward the requirements of the global-network era. Companies would do well, the Oddou (1999) advises, to think rationally - not emotionally - about off shoring's relevant issues: What are their core competencies What form of governance is optimal How will work will be distributed and integrated to the new staff and how well they can get settles with the new environment Since outsourcing contracts often last for five or more years, corporate officers responsible for selecting the manager with whom they wind up going down the legal path often compare the pact to that of a marriage. The reason is that trust is as important to an outsourcing manager as it is to a spouse. But before an outsourcing relationship reaches that point, many outsourcing managers note that they wind up going through a systematic process of gathering intelligence about their possible partners, and often about themselves. Manager or staff selection first involves self-assessment. Before even undertaking the manager's selection, a corporation should determine whether it needs to outsource in the first place. A company must assess the raw economics of a project, says Howard Rubin, executive vice president with the Meta Group Inc., which advises corporations on outsourcing. It also must weigh the fixed costs of moving production or a task to an outsourcing vendor, as well as the variable ones, he notes. Once that's done, a strategic accounting must be completed. "If your business is building bridges, you don't want to worry about maintaining and painting the ones you've already built," Rubin says. Those are things you outsource if it takes away from your core business focus. It's not unusual for a company to decide not to outsource. One outsourcing officer of a major industrial company based in the Midwest says half the time his company examines an outsourcing request from a business unit, no outsourcing assignment winds up being made. There are numerous reasons for that, including fear about intellectual assets losing their protection once outside the corporate cocoon. "With IP (intellectual property), once you move outside, you're at risk of losing it," says one outsourcing manager in the Midwest. That's why trust becomes so important when selecting a Manager. It must be someone who can respect proprietary information. Trust, of course, must be earned. It's somewhat intangible, and generally doesn't emerge until hard fact-finding is completed. The Midwestern outsourcing manager says when an entire assignment is considered, and staffs needs to be selected, as many as 25 people can be working on a prospective mandate at his company. In hiring managers from another country or culture there are three aspects to be considered, what codifiability, standardizability and modularizability. Codifiability refers to the extent to which the activities in an occupation can be described completely in a set of

Metropolitan Steel Corporation Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Metropolitan Steel Corporation - Research Paper Example General Manager Administration, Human Resources, Marketing & Production, Mr. Iqbal Jamil Abbasi looks after the Administration, Marketing, Human Resource & Production. He has done his Masters in Management from the Asian Institute of Management, Philippines, and was in management cadre, Pakistan Steel Mills Limited for eight years. Mr. Iqbal Jamil Abbasi was highly cooperative in providing excellent information about Metropolitan Steel. He was extremely cooperative and provided all of the required information. Following is the set of questions, which were asked from Mr. Abbasi during the interview; There is inconsistency prevailing in the political environment due to ever changing policies and unstable political scenario. Every Government comes in with a new set of rules, which are impracticable to implement, therefore creating hassles instead of facilitating the processes. Another drawback is the ever-lessening coordination between different governmental departments with rampant corruption. Even for a fair deal bribe has to be offered. Due to the following reasons economic policies towards industries are not favorable: Pakistan steel used to increase prices at every mini budget, which resulted in low profit margin for MSC leading to subsequent loss. Now, MSC's policy has been amended and product price has been related to the increase in prices of Pakistan Steel billets. Even then frequently increased prices may results in cancellation of the orders there by forcing a loss on both the customer and the manufacturer. When raw materials are imported, they cost half the price than that of Pakistan

History and Contexts of Jeans Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

History and Contexts of Jeans - Assignment Example I had always admired my elder brothers and sister and thought how smart they were in their jeans, which for some reason were always blue or a shade of it; my main attraction to jeans has probably not changed since my pre-teen years. I could get into as much mischief as I wanted and they never really got very dirty, in addition, no matter how many trees and fences I scaled on my knees, they always remained intact. Their universal functionality is remarkable; I can go to class in them, and when I am out for fun either hiking or mountain climbing they come in hardy, perfectly. Besides even when they get dirty, I do not have to rush them into the washing machine, indeed there are people who like them being dirty and its thing with them; so much so that fashion houses have come up with â€Å"dirty jeans† to give the impression of roughness, freedom. For purposes of this reflection assignment, I decided to stay away from these important items of clothing for a week to appreciate the vital role they played in my life; however, I faced a significant challenge. In my closet, I hardly had a single item of clothing that was not Demin or Levis, I had to settle for cotton, and corduroy pants that I only ever wore in case I had to attend very formal gatherings. Therefore, in order to gain a better understanding of my exercise, it would be beneficial to go first over the history and social significance of jeans from a universal point of view for some hindsight. At the peak of the gold rush in California in 1853, 24-year-old German Levi Strauss, a refugee moved from New York to San Francisco with the aim of joining his brother in the dry goods business and opening a branch there. He arrived with a spade pick hammer and a bale of brown sail fabric that was intended to make tents and wagon covers; however, this did not go as he had planned; he identified a niche in the gold mining industry.  

Answer the questions in Bold Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Answer the questions in Bold - Essay Example Precedent research shows propositions by the locals and state, proposing the necessity for hospitals to meet patients’ needs (Miller, 2008). For this to be accomplished, health facilities should be fully outfitted for them to meet the obligatory qualifications. I believe that satisfying the needs of patients is the main motive why hospitals are put up; hence, this ought to be the mission for all health facilities. I suggest that each patient ought to be given attention and treatment to improve the health status of the community. Closing down the hospitals that fail to meet the needs of their patients is the best policy to discipline the health facilities in the country. Addressing the issue through policy has a great effect on the hospitals that violate the patients’ rights (Roach, 2006). If the hospitals do not employ more workers to attend to the patients’ needs or the bill guiding health operations, then the necessity close the

Management Risks in Financial Institutions Essay

Management Risks in Financial Institutions - Essay Example Basically, risk and return are related in the same direction. A minor example of this would be a bank charging different interest rates on different individuals who have opted for the same loan. The individual who has a relatively poor credit history is likely to receive a higher interest rate as there are chances of him/her not paying the loan bank. Therefore, there is a higher risk and the bank gets a higher return through the higher interest rate charged. However, risk needs to be managed and there can be several huge losses if the financial institution is not ready to deal with it. Risk management is a type of strategy which every financial institution needs to have at its core and there are several parts involved in this including monitoring the risks, measuring these risks and controlling risks. It is the analysis of risk mixed with the element of quality risk controls. Risk management is required by banks and financial institutions as a safety measure to protect the institutio n from any major financial problems. The uncertainty and the potential inherent risks that come with the financial markets makes it important for most of the financial institutions and banks to use risk management. The risk management controls are one of the major determinants of the financial stability of a bank. The most common types of risks faced by most financial institutions There are several types of risks involved with financial institutions and these risks are as follows: Systematic risk. This is also known as diversifiable risk. Basically this particular type of risk means the risk of the change of asset value associated with systematic factors. Therefore, the risk cannot be fully diversified. There are several subcategories under systematic risks and there are various ways in which the value of an asset can be affected. The determinant of the change in the value of the assets owned by the institution and it depends upon natural and economic factors including interest rate s affecting the value of the assets, an increase in inflation might cause an increase in fuel prices which might affect transportation and stock value and changes in economic conditions which may cause several changes in the value of assets. Interest rate risk is one of the major parts of systematic risk and the institutions needs to measure the variation and the responsiveness of the rate sensitive assets towards the changes in interest rates. Commodity price risk and foreign exchange risk are other risks which come under systematic risks that many investors try to measure and try to minimize these. Credit risk. This is the risk which is related to the payment by the debtors. Credit risk is the risk which all the banks face and they need to manage this in order to be proactive against any future losses. Basically the bank is the lender and is the creditor for the borrower and the risk is that the borrower might go bankrupt and might not be able to pay the bank back. This seems as a pretty low type of risk if a sole individual is involved, however, credit risk also involves borrowings worth millions of dollars by huge businesses. Even if the business is popular and has a good credit history, it can go bankrupt which might result in a loss of millions of dollars to the bank. In other words, it means that the company or the individual defaults which is why this risk is also known as default risk. Counterparty risk. This arises from the

Continuing Differences Between US Essay Example for Free

Continuing Differences Between US Essay U. S. GAAP IFRS Convergence In January 2008, the U. S. SEC issued a final rule that adopted rules that allowed non U. S. -based issuers financial statements in accordance with the IRRS, as issued by IASB, without the need to reconcile with the U. S. GAAP (SEC, pp. 20, 2008). In its ruling, the SEC acknowledged that the convergence efforts between the IFRS and U. S. GAAP have made progress in eliminating many disparities. The SEC acknowledged that its prior complaints on lack of information or disclosure by foreign issuers on certain areas, and the manner of presentation of their financial statements have been resolved by the convergence efforts. The SEC, however, recognize that a number of difference still exist, with some accounting subjects that the IFRS has yet to fully address ( SEC, pp. 20, 1998). Continuing Differences Between US GAAP and IFRS According to the SEC, due to their sources, U. S. GAAP and IFRS will continue to have differences regardless of their convergence. The SEC said that these include (i) the effects of mergers, combinations and other legacy transactions that happened when the convergence was still initiated, and (ii) those arising as a result of accounting elections (for example, hedge accounting) that foreign issuers make under those standards (SEC, pp. 21, 2008). The International Accounting Standards Board in its 2005 report said that certain divergence issues has to be addressed in the long-term. These include (i) classification of debts on refinancing or default under credit agreements, (ii) differences in financial instruments accounting, (iii) post-employment benefits, and (iv) long-lived assets impairment and borrowing costs capitalization. AIFRS/Australian GAAP PricewaterhouseCoopers reviewed the the Australian equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards (AIFRS) and gave recommendations to the Australian Accounting Standards Board. PwC pointed to divergences between Australian Standards (AIFRS) and IFRS: According to PWC, the implementation of AIRFS is expect to improve corporate governance and financial reporting in Australia. Ernst Young Report Ernst Young said the IRS differ significantly from those principles in use. Among other things, the IRS protocol on business combinations compel recognition of more intangible assets to be valued an recognized than practiced in local accounting rules. EY said that the IFRS will help companies improve their internal control as it requires more extensive reporting procedures, and will require greater transparency among firms as a common financial standard will be used. EY said in its report that the conversion to IFRS has a substantial impact on financial reporting which requires management and personnel to focus on improving strategy because: * financial statements presentation has been modified * measurement of assets and debts may result in increase in earnings and volatility in equity. * additional disclosures would be required. REFERENCES Final Rule: Acceptance From Foreign Private Issuers of Financial. January 9, 2008. Securities and Exchange Commission. http://www. sec. gov/rules/final/2007/33-8879. pdf International Convergence status. 15 June 2008. International Accounting Standards Board. http://72. 3. 243. 42/fasac/06-21-05_intl. pdf Padoa-Scioppa. 19 May 2006. Financial Times. retrieved 13 Aug. 2008. http://www. iasb. org/News/Announcements+and+Speeches/Work+on+converging+accounting+standards+must+go+on. htm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. 28 Jan. 2005. Submission to Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. http://www. aph. gov. au/SENATE/committee/corporations_ctte/completed_inquiries/2004-07/aas/submissions/sub22. pdf

The Invasions of Europe Essay Example for Free

The Invasions of Europe Essay On the later stage of the dark ages or the Middle Ages, Europe experienced loses from barbaric attacks by Vikings, Magyars and Moslem invaders which ranged from early 9th century up to 11th century. These invasions had made Roman Empire lost most of its land area as well as the trust of people to the Christian leaders. Vikings started their attack because of overpopulation in their homeland. They came first to England then to Iona, Ireland and the rest of the north and western part, destroying the most civilized part of the region and plundering the rich trading centers and monasteries. As each attack became successful, they would return in more numbers. Their invasions had become easier on them because they had their sail ships compared to their earlier invasions which was by foot. People started fearing to live in the coastal region. While some of the Vikings battle in the western half of Mediterranean, some began settling in the northwest of France and the others came to Moslem Spain and Great Britain. Chieftains would bribe them in order for Vikings not to attack their villages. Some groups such as Danes began the resistance and successfully defended England. As Normans settled down, they began to decrease in number. They became civilized and were converted to Christianity. They had lost their lust in plundering. During that period, in the other part of Europe, the Moslems had gone invading Spain, threatening Italy, droving out Byzantines in Sicily and southern Italy. They almost got into Rome. While Moslems continued their attack in the Mediterranean, Magyars began invading the east. These groups of invaders which simultaneously attacked from all sides had surrounded the European continent. Magyars invaded Germany each year. They had passed through Germany, France, Burgundy, all the way to Italy. While some of them continued to pursue their attacks at France, others left for Spain. Until the Magyar armies were annihilated by a German king Otto I, Europe became safe from invasions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   All of these invasions had contributed to the downfall of the rich Holy Roman Empire. But they experienced the worst attack from the Magyars mainly because during that time that they attacked, Europe was already suffering from attacks of Vikings and Moslems. There were almost no civilized regions left during that time and areas became less populated. They invasion became so damaging as they suffered simultaneous attacks from all sides.   As the Roman Empire tends to collapse, they failed to resist these attacks earlier because they had fewer warriors.   Some locals burn their fields not letting the barbarians have it. Most of the richest parts were prone to attack while monasteries were heavily subjected to being destroyed. People suffered heavily. They lost their lands, livelihood and their wealth. As they mourn, they ran to the church for comfort but they were disappointed as there were anomalies in the leader of the churches.   Some of them became robbers, adulterers, and murderers and converged into realms of politics. There were numerous replacements of popes. At a time there were â€Å"illegal doings† in the papal palaces. Some must have lost their trust in their belief. Yet, Christianity did not end there. It was reformed by Benedictine monks in France. As the Magyars were defeated during that time, they became converts to Christianity and settled at Hungary. Vikings were also converted to Christianity but one of the main reasons is that Christians didn’t want to trade with and marry non-Christians. During the latter course of Dark Ages, Europe gradually recovered from the invasion. Leaders were crowned but had conflicts with Christian leaders. There were tensions between them about who had the greatest power. And so the Dark Ages ended. References Kimball, C. (2001). Chapter 7: The Viking Era. A History of Europe. Retrieved December 7,   Ã‚  Ã‚   2007, from http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/europe/eu07.html. Knight, J. (2001). The Carolingan Age. Middle Ages: Almanac, 39-45. Retrieved December 7,    2007, from http://www.4shared.com/file/28008239/b4f1dc89/Gale_- _Middle_Ages_Reference_Library_Vols1-5.html [database].

Inroduction To Companies Etisalat Lanka Business Essay

Inroduction To Companies Etisalat Lanka Business Essay As a consultant of leading management consultancy I am going to do a brief research on the organizations and behavior section. To do this assignment I have selected two companies in the telecommunication industry. One is Etisalat Lanka PVT LTD which is based in Abu Dhabi and operating in 18 countries including Sri Lanka and second company is Lanka Bell Services PVT LTD which is operated only in Sri Lanka. So in this assignment I am going to discuss briefly in their organizations structure and culture areas, and also I am going to discuss about the current leadership styles of the companies. INRODUCTION TO COMPANIES Etisalat Lanka (PVT)(LTD) Sri Lankas first Cellular networks, then called Celltel inaugurated its operations in 1989. A brand name change was done on the 25th of January 2007 and thereafter named Tigo and this was transformed with Milicom disposing its Asian operations. They are now a company fully owned and operated by the giant Emirates Telecommunication Corporation in UAE. It has extended operations to Asian markets such as India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and now Sri Lanka, recording over 100 million subscribers across 18 countries offering opportunities for synergy with their other operations in the region. Etisalat officially commenced its operations in Sri Lanka on the 25th of February 2010. Lanka bell limited Lanka Bell is a telecommunication operator that provides full range of telecommunication service to business and residential customers in Sri Lanka. With the recent introduction revolutionary low cost CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology, Lanka Bell continues to expand its robust modern digital network that currently specializes in internet, data and voice services. Lanka Bell was formed in 1997 as the single largest BOI Company in Sri Lanka. It was subsequently acquired by the privately held diversified conglomerate Milford Holdings (Private) Limited in 2005. Lanka Bell remains firmly rooted in Sri Lanka as a telecommunications giant that continues to challenge the industry through its unparalleled portfolio of services. SECTION 01 The organizations structure and culture Lanka Bell and Etisalat Etisalat and Lanka bell both are running in the telecommunication industry so most of the factors in the culture and structure are same. They both are using functional organizational structure 1.1 Organization structure of Lanka Bell Services (PVT) (LTD) Finance Director SalesMarkt. Board of Directors Chairman Managing Director Customer Service Depart. Technical Mang. HR Admin GM Technical Operation Assistant manager Senior manager General Manager -HR Marketing manager Business Analysis Manager HR Manager- Revenue Assurance DGM control /MIS Area Sales Managers Sales Executives HR Assistants Billing staff Director Internal accountant Director Manager- credit control Director Senior service executives Director Trainer GM IT teams Associates clerical Supervisors Director Customer care Executives Director Internal accountant Director Billing staff Director Organization structure of Etisalat Lanka (PVT) (LTD) 1.3 Organizations culture at Lanka bell and Etisalat There are many definitions for organizational culture but a popular and simple way of defining culture is how things are done around here A more detailed definition is : The collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs, and attitudes that constitute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organization (Atkinson) There are four g types of culture such as: Power culture, Role culture, Task culture and person culture. As both companies are in the telecommunication industry and also both companies are larger companies in Sri Lanka they are following the Role culture. What is Role Culture? Role culture stereotyped as a bureaucracy and works by logic and rationality. Role culture rests on the strength of strong organizational pillars the functions of specialists in, for e.g.; finance, purchasing and production. The work of, and interaction between the pillars is controlled by procedures and rules and coordinated by the pediment of senior managers. Role or job description is more important than the individual and position is the main source of power. (Laurie J. Mullins 8th edition) So role culture is Common in most organizations today. In a role culture, organizations are split into various functions and each individual within the function is assigned a particular role. The role culture has the benefit of specialization. Employees focus on their particular role as assigned to them by their job description and this should increase productivity for the company. This culture is quite logical to organize in a large organization. Different dimensions of organizations culture in Etisalat and Lanka Bell Profit Orientation In Etisalat and Lanka Bell profit orientation is law because their main target is to give a best service to their customers, they are concerning highly on customer satisfaction and delight People Orientation People orientation is high in Etisalat because they are paying high salary to their staffs and they are also paying special incentives according to their performance, their working environment is very pleasant, they are organizing get to gather parties and motivational programs for their employees but in Lanka Bell People orientation is Law. Team Orientation Team Orientation is high in Etisalat because its employees prefer to work in groups rather in individuals to achieve their sales targets. So team orientation will lead the company to increase their sales. But in Lanka Bell team orientation is Low where their employees are prefer to work as individuals Innovation Innovation is high in Etisalat they are coming with new products quickly, they starts with prepaid connection, after that came with postpaid, launched 3G, broadband and they are going to launch Etisalat TV. But in Lanka Bell it is very low they are rely only in CDMA connection ] Mission statement of Etisalat Lanka PVT LTD To extend peoples reach. At Etisalat, we are actively developing advanced networks that will enable people to develop, to learn and to grow Vision statement of Etisalat Lanka PVT LTD A world where people reach is not limited by matter or distance. People will effortlessly move around the world, staying in touch with family, making new friends as they go, as well as developing new interests. Businesses of all sizes, no longer limited by distance, will be able to reach new markets. Innovative technologies will open up fresh opportunities across the globe, allowing the supply of new goods and services to everyone who wants them. Vision statement of Lanka Bell Be Sri Lankas premier next generation communication Information Technology solutions provider Mission statement of Lanka Bell To provide innovative next generation technological solutions by identifying and meeting customer needs better than any other industry player, while maximizing the growth of our business for the benefit if our stakeholders Impacts and relationships of two companies through their structure and culture Performance for two companies through their structure and culture How organizational theories underpins the practice of management The different approaches used by the management of both companies There many approaches used by the both companies those are : Human relations approach Systems approach Contingency approach Human Relations approach The main emphasis of the classical writers was on structure and the formal organization, but during the 1920,s the years of the great depression, greater attention began to be paid to the social factors at work and to the behavior of employees within an organization that is, to human relations. Human relations approach Emphasized importance of human attitudes, values and relationships for the efficient and effective functioning of work organizations. Systems approach The classical approach emphasized the technical requirement of the organizations and its needs-organizations without people the human relations approaches emphasized the psychological and social aspects, and the consideration of human- needs- people without organizations Attention is focus on the total work organization and the inter relationships of structure and behavior. Productivity is viewed as a function of the interplay among people, structure, and the environment. The organization is a complex social and technical open system that requires human, financial, and material resources. Contributions of Systems Approach To Management:- Under systems approach, managers have a good view of the organization.It gives importance to interdependence of the different parts of an organization and its environment. It foretastes consequences and plans actions. A system thinking warns managers against adopting piecemeal approach to the problem-solving Contingency Approach The contingency approach to organization developed as a reaction to the idea that there are universal principles for designing organizations, motivating staff etc. newer research suggested that different forms of organizational structure could be equally successful. (Class Notes) The contingency approach, which can be seen as an extension of the systems approach, highlights possible means of differentiating among alternative forms of the organization structures and systems of management. (Laurie J. Mullins 8th edition) The organizations structure must be matched to its environment to enhance performance. The optimal form of an organization is contingent on the circumstances faced by that organization including patients, third-party payers, regulators, and personnel. Section 02 Different leadership styles that Etisalat and Lanka Bell are following: Definition Leadership style is the way in which the functions of leadership are carried out, the way in which typically behaves towards members of the group. Both companies are using the Democratic style, and Laissez- faire (Genuine) style because of marketing growth and due to the size of the company, for which the autocratic style is not suitable to follow in the telecommunication industry. Democratic style is where the focus is more with the group as a whole, and there is greater interaction within the group. The leader ship functions are shared with the members of the group and the manager is more part of a team. Laissez- faire (Genuine) style is where the manager observes that members of the group are working well on their own. The manager consciously makes a decision to pass the focus of power to members, to allow them freedom of action to do as they think best, and not to interfere but is readily available if help is needed. There is often confusion over the style of leadership behavior. Analysis of different leadership styles and their effectiveness The democratic leader works with the group to help members to come to their own decisions, the Laissez- faire leader leaves the group alone to do whatever it wants. Both styles are good for both the companies, because there are number of teams, and departments, in both companies. Therefore the democratic style will suite certain departments and teams, when there is a situation where the team members are unable to make a good decision, compared to the Laissez- faire style which will be applicable to departments and teams who are able to make effective decisions rather than relying on the managers decisions. Effectiveness of Democratic Style Risk is low. Managers have experience in making effective decisions; therefore this reduces the risk of making bad or wrong choices. If the ideas are going to be open for everyone, then everyone needs to feel comfortable enough to put their ideas on the table. So there are lots of ideas will generated It takes advantage of the knowledge and expertise of individuals in different areas, for high quality, flexible decision making. Keeps staff informed about everything that affects their work and shares decision making and problem solving responsibilities. Staff likes the trust they receive and respond with cooperation, team spirit, and high morale increasing. Develops plans to help staff evaluate their own performance. Allows staff to establish goals Encourages staff to grow on the job and be promoted Effectiveness of Laissez- faire (Genuine) style The manager provides little or no direction and gives staff as much freedom as possible so it motivates employees. In the telecommunication sector there are lots of sales team so, those teams can do their own works to achieve their own goals, this will increase the sales All authority or power given to the staff and they determine goals, make decisions, and resolve problems on their own. Employees are involved in decisions. This encourages motivation through greater interest and involvement so new ideas are generated. The free reign approach can prove an effective type of leadership when the team has achieved identity and cohesion, resulting in motivated and resourceful team members. In such situations, the sharing of authority and minimal direction empowers team members. Impact that different leadership styles may have on motivation of employees of Etislat and Lanka Bell when they face the technological breakthrough When there is a technological breakthrough that has taken place last week affecting the companies, and the industry as whole, a democratic style leader could consider the following actions to motivate the employees: Introducing the main goal of the given project Encourage team members to communicate openly, honestly and continuously Members should be made aware of the companys economical structure and growth to help them think and produce ideas that are more applicable to the company. Arranging a brainstorming session to collect new ideas to compete with the breakthrough. The ideas collected through the brainstorming session have to go through the new product development process in order to face the new technological breakthrough. Increasing the working hours, and pay the employees more for working overtime. Should produce special incentives according to their performance SECTION 03 3.1 DIFFERENT MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES FOR LANKA BELL Maslows hierarchy of need theory A useful starting point is the work of Maslow and his theory of individual development and motivation published originally in 1943. Maslows basic preposition is that people wanting beings. They always want more, and what they want depends on what they already have. He suggests that human needs are arranged in a series of levels, a hierarchy of importance. (Mullins, pg 257, 8th Ed. 2007). In this motivation theory Maslow has identified the human needs in five main levels. From at the lowest level physiological needs, through safety needs, love needs and esteem needs, to the need for self-actualization. 450px-Maslows_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg.png Image 01. Maslows hierarchy of need model Herzbergs two-factor theory The Two-factor theory (also known as  Herzbergs motivation-hygiene theory  and  Dual-Factor Theory) states that there are certain factors in the  workplace  that cause  job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction. Herzbergs original study consisted of interviews with 203 accounts and engineers, chosen because of their growing importance in the business world from different industries in the Pittsburgh area of America. He used the critical incident method. Subjects were asked to relate times when they felt exceptionally good or exceptionally bad about their present job or any previous jobs, they were asked to give reasons and a description of the sequence of events giving rise to that feeling. Responses to the interviews were generally consistent and revealed that there were two different sets of factors affecting motivation and work. This led to the two-factor theory of motivation and job satisfaction. (Mullins, pg 261, 8th Ed. 2007). images.jpg Vrooms expectancy theory The model of motivation of Vrooms expectancy theory, particularly as it was extended by Porter and Lawler and supplemented by several other theories. Expectancy theory is a broad theory of motivation that attempts to explain the determinants of workplace attitudes and behaviors. The three major concepts underline expectancy theory are those of Valence, Instrumentality and Expectancy, which form VIE theory. Valance: Valance is a measure of the attraction a given outcome holds for an individual, or the satisfaction the person anticipates receiving from a particular outcome. Instrumentality: Instrumentality is a persons belief about the relationship between performing an action and experiencing an outcome. Determining peoples instrumentalities is important because their desire to perform a particular action is likely to be strong only when both valance and instrumentality are perceived as acceptably high. Expectancy: Expectancies are beliefs regarding the link between making an effort and actually performing well whereas knowledge about valances and instrumentalities tells us what an individual wants to do. We cannot know what the individual will try to do without knowing the persons expectancies. Conclusion Expectancy theory thus defines motivation in terms of desire and effort whereby the achievement of desired outcomes results from the interaction of valances, instrumentalities, and expectancies. Desire comes about only when both valance and instrumentality are high, and effort comes about only when all three are high. 4. Theory X and Theory Y of Douglas McGregor: McGregor, in his book The Human side of Enterprise states that people inside the organization can be managed in two ways. The first is basically negative, which falls under the category X and the other is basically positive, which falls under the category Y. After viewing the way in which the manager dealt with employees, McGregor concluded that a managers view of the nature of human beings is based Under the assumptions of theory X: Employees inherently do not like work and whenever possible, will attempt to avoid it. Because employees dislike work, they have to be forced, coerced or threatened with punishment to achieve goals. Employees avoid responsibilities and do not work fill formal directions are issued. Most workers place a greater importance on security over all other factors and display little ambition. In contrast under the assumptions of theory Y: Physical and mental effort at work is as natural as rest or play. People do exercise self-control and self-direction and if they are committed to those goals. Average human beings are willing to take responsibility and exercise imagination, ingenuity and creativity in solving the problems of the organization. That the way the things are organized, the average human beings brainpower is only partly used. On analysis of the assumptions it can be detected that theory X assumes that lower-order needs dominate individuals and theory Y assumes that higher-order needs dominate individuals. An organization that is run on Theory X lines tends to be authoritarian in nature, the word authoritarian suggests such ideas as the power to enforce obedience and the right to command. In contrast Theory Y organizations can be described as participative, where the aims of the organization and of the individuals in it are integrated; individuals can achieve their own goals best by directing their efforts towards the success of the organization. However, this theory has been criticized widely for generalization of work and human behavior. SUITABLE MOTIVATIONAL THEORY FOR MANGERS AT LANKA BELL From the theories mentioned above it is understandable that managers need to pick one or two theories that are more applicable for their own company to work more effectively and generate higher numbers of positive outcomes Therefore based on this assignment manager of Lanka bell needs to pick out a suitable motivational theory in order to run the company with great success. Understanding the needs of Lanka bell it would be advisable that the manager should initially pick Herzbergs two-factor theory due to the following reasons. Why Herzbergs two-factor theory is important? And effectiveness of using Herzbergs two-factor theory Herzberg (1968) saw two basic needs of individuals, and he suggests two factors. The need to avoid unpleasantness, satisfied (temporarily, and in a rather negative way) by environmental factors The need for personal growth, satisfied at work only by motivating factors Environmental Factor or Hygiene factor In this factor Herzberg has explained about the working environment which is company policy and administration, Salary and job security, in this factor he mentioned the main needs of the employers. Motivator factor Motivator factors, on the other hand, create job satisfaction and can motivate an individual to superior performance and effort. These factors fulfill the individuals higher need for a sense of self-actualization or personal growth, and include: Status Advancement Gaining recognition Being given responsibility Challenging work Achievement Growth in the job Effectiveness of using Herzbergs two-factor theory Herzberg encouraged managers to study the job itself (nature of tasks, levels of responsibility) rather than conditions of work. Dissatisfaction arise from environment factors-satisfaction can only arise from the job. If there is sufficient challenge, scope and interest in the job, there will be a lasting increase in satisfaction and the employee will work well; productivity will be above normal levels. the extent to which the job must be challenging or creative in order to provide motivation will depend on each individual, his ability, his expectation and tolerance for delayed success. CONCLUTION

Things Fall Apart - Oronoko :: Essays Papers

Things Fall Apartoronoko He had learn?d to take Tobaco; and when he was assured he should dye, he desir?d they give him a pipe in his mouth, ready lighted, which they did; and the executioner came, and first cut off his members and threw them into the fire; after that, with an ill favoured knife, they cut his ears and his nose, and burn?d them; he still smoak?d on, as if nothing had touched him; then they hacked off one of his arms, and still he bore up, and held his pipe; but at the cutting of his other arm, his head sunk, and his pipe drop?d; and he gave up the ghost, without a groan, or a reproach. My mother and sister were by him all the while, but not suffer?d to save him; so rude and wild were the Rabble, and so inhumane were the justices, who stood by to see the execution, who after paid dearly for their Insolence. They cut Caesar in Quarters, and sent them to several of the chief plantations: One Quarter was sent to Colonel Martin, who refused it; and swore he had rather see the quarters of Banister, and the Governor himself, than those of Caesar, on his Plantations; and that he cou?d govern the Negroes without terrifying and grieving that them with the frightful spectacle of a mangl?d King.? (p. 99-100) This is the second to last paragraph in the book, where Oroonoko is being decapitated. The executioner, Oroonoko and all the towns? people, who were looking on, were involved. The child of someone who was watching on was telling the story of Oroonoko?s death. The characters involved do not really agree with eachother. Some were in favor of the death of Oroonoko and some were greatly opposed. Most of the white people that were looking on, supported the decision that Oroonoko should die. We are hearing from the narrator at this time and I don?t think they are very skeptical at all. The way the story is told gives Oroonoko much bravery and compassion. There are no similes or metaphors in this particular passage. The only words that are repeated are the names of Caesar and plantations. This may suggest that this is an important person and an important place. The only historical events that I can think of would be Jesus or Napoleon. Both of these two figures, not relating to eachother, made such a bold statement for their day. Things Fall Apart - Oronoko :: Essays Papers Things Fall Apartoronoko He had learn?d to take Tobaco; and when he was assured he should dye, he desir?d they give him a pipe in his mouth, ready lighted, which they did; and the executioner came, and first cut off his members and threw them into the fire; after that, with an ill favoured knife, they cut his ears and his nose, and burn?d them; he still smoak?d on, as if nothing had touched him; then they hacked off one of his arms, and still he bore up, and held his pipe; but at the cutting of his other arm, his head sunk, and his pipe drop?d; and he gave up the ghost, without a groan, or a reproach. My mother and sister were by him all the while, but not suffer?d to save him; so rude and wild were the Rabble, and so inhumane were the justices, who stood by to see the execution, who after paid dearly for their Insolence. They cut Caesar in Quarters, and sent them to several of the chief plantations: One Quarter was sent to Colonel Martin, who refused it; and swore he had rather see the quarters of Banister, and the Governor himself, than those of Caesar, on his Plantations; and that he cou?d govern the Negroes without terrifying and grieving that them with the frightful spectacle of a mangl?d King.? (p. 99-100) This is the second to last paragraph in the book, where Oroonoko is being decapitated. The executioner, Oroonoko and all the towns? people, who were looking on, were involved. The child of someone who was watching on was telling the story of Oroonoko?s death. The characters involved do not really agree with eachother. Some were in favor of the death of Oroonoko and some were greatly opposed. Most of the white people that were looking on, supported the decision that Oroonoko should die. We are hearing from the narrator at this time and I don?t think they are very skeptical at all. The way the story is told gives Oroonoko much bravery and compassion. There are no similes or metaphors in this particular passage. The only words that are repeated are the names of Caesar and plantations. This may suggest that this is an important person and an important place. The only historical events that I can think of would be Jesus or Napoleon. Both of these two figures, not relating to eachother, made such a bold statement for their day.

Helen Keller: Author, Lecturer, Political Activist Essay -- Biography,

Helen Keller is one of the most inspirational people in American history. She had to overcome physical disabilities and many other obstacles to live the life that she did. Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her parents, Arthur Keller and Kate Adams, both served for the Confederates in the Civil War (Thompson, 2003). Like most parents, they were ecstatic when Keller was born. At 18 months old, she was a happy, healthy baby already learning to say her first few words. However, one morning, she woke up with an extremely high fever and had to go to the hospital. The doctor told her parents she had a serious illness know as â€Å"acute congestion of the stomach and brain.† This illness caused her to lose her sight and hearing for the rest of her life (Wilkie, 1969). She was unable to communicate with anyone and was shut off from the entire world. For years, Keller would just hang on to her mother’s skirt to get around and feel of people’s hands to try to find out what they were doing. She learned to do quite a few things this way including milk a cow and knead the dough bread. She learned to recognize people by feeling their face and clothes. By the age of six, Keller had made up 60 different signs to communicate with her family (Keller, 1988). She was a bright child, but she started getting frustrated and angry that she could not talk and began throwing temper tantrums. The family knew they had to do something to help the child, so they began looking for a teacher. In March of 1886, 21 year old Anne Sullivan arrived at the Keller’s house; she immediately began teaching Keller how to communicate by spelling letters into her hand. A month after Sullivan arrived, Keller had a big breakthrough in c... ...to the National Statuary Hall Collection (Wilkie, 1992). Keller has even had multiple films made of her life story. Keller was an author, lecturer, political activist, and an individual that many Americans will never forget. She conquered multiple obstacles and rose above her disabilities to gain international fame. Her dedication allowed her to help other disabled people live fuller lives. The struggles she had to overcome prove to people that if they put their mind to it, they can accomplish anything. Works Cited Forrest, Ellen. Helen Keller. Tucson: Learning Page, 2005. Print. Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life. New York: Bantam Dell, 1988. Thompson, Gare, and Nancy Harrison. Who Was Helen Keller? New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 2003. Print. Wilkie, Katharine E. Helen Keller: From Tragedy to Triumph. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1969.

Self Interest in the Political Philosophies of Mill and Locke Essay

Charles Baudelaire, a well-known English poet, once said that â€Å"Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.† The philosophical theme of self-interest has been a common idea among political thinkers for many years. In any issue that is linked to the realm of political philosophy, the role of self-interest within a society must be considered. The role of self-interest within a society is the basis for the moral thinking that involves weighing the â€Å"needs and obligations of an individual against the goods of the individual and in turn society† (The Role of Self interest in Political Philosophy). Before confronting an issue within a society, a political thinker must decide whether or not people are ultimately self-interested. The government system of checks and balances was established to confront the issue of self-interest. The political thinkers, John Stuart Mill and John Locke unveiled the mysteries of what it meant to live in freedom and posses s liberty, in which the self-interest of humanity does not impose on the rights of others. Both Locke and Mills believed that in order to govern over a society, people must have freedom. The difference between these political thinkers lies in how much freedom people should be entitled to within a political society. In order to understand how Mill and Locke came to the conclusion of how much freedom a person should possess, we must understand what a political thinker perceives as freedom and liberty. In John Locke’s writings, The Second Treaties of Government, he states that â€Å"all men exist in a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and person as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depend... ... Cited "Charles Baudelaire Quotes - BrainyQuote." Famous Quotes at BrainyQuote. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. . "Excerpts from John Stuart Mill, ON LIBERTY." Ashland University. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. . "John Locke: Second Treatise of Civil Government." Index. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. . "Lanterns of Liberty." Lanterns of Liberty | Illuminating the Truth. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. . "On Liberty by John Stuart Mill." Utilitarianism : Past, Present and Future. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. . Social Apartheid in Tri-Cities Bristol Virginia-Tennessee. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. . Web.

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AMERICAN CULTURE Visual and performing arts 3. Arts and letters The arts, more than other features of culture, provide avenues for the expression of imagination and personal vision. They offer a range of emotional and intellectual pleasures to consumers of art and are an important way in which a culture represents itself. There has long been a Western tradition distinguishing those arts that appeal to the multitude, such as popular music, from those—such as classical orchestral music—normally available to the elite of learning and taste.Popular art forms are usually seen as more representative American products. In the United States in the recent past, there has been a blending of popular and elite art forms, as all the arts experienced a period of remarkable cross-fertilization. Because popular art forms are so widely distributed, arts of all kinds have prospered. The arts in the United States express the many faces and the enormous creative range of the American peopl e. Especially since World War II, American innovations and the immense energy displayed in literature, dance, and music have made American cultural works world famous.Arts in the United States have become internationally prominent in ways that are unparalleled in history. American art forms during the second half of the 20th century often defined the styles and qualities that the rest of the world emulated. At the end of the 20th century, American art was considered equal in quality and vitality to art produced in the rest of the world. Throughout the 20th century, American arts have grown to incorporate new visions and voices. Much of this new artistic energy came in the wake of America’s emergence as a superpower after World War II.But it was also due to the growth of New York City as an important center for publishing and the arts, and the immigration of artists and intellectuals fleeing fascism in Europe before and during the war. An outpouring of talent also followed the civil rights and protest movements of the 1960s, as cultural discrimination against blacks, women, and other groups diminished. American arts flourish in many places and receive support from private foundations, large corporations, local governments, federal agencies, museums, galleries, and individuals.What is considered worthy of support often depends on definitions of quality and of what constitutes art. This is a tricky subject when the popular arts are increasingly incorporated into the domain of the fine arts and new forms such as performance art and conceptual art appear. As a result, defining what is art affects what students are taught about past traditions (for example, Native American tent paintings, oral traditions, and slave narratives) and what is produced in the future.While some practitioners, such as studio artists, are more vulnerable to these definitions because they depend on financial support to exercise their talents, others, such as poets and photographers, a re less immediately constrained. Artists operate in a world where those who theorize and critique their work have taken on an increasingly important role. Audiences are influenced by a variety of intermediaries—critics, the schools, foundations that offer grants, the National Endowment for the Arts, gallery owners, publishers, and theater producers.In some areas, such as the performing arts, popular audiences may ultimately define success. In other arts, such as painting and sculpture, success is far more dependent on critics and a few, often wealthy, art collectors. Writers depend on publishers and on the public for their success. Unlike their predecessors, who relied on formal criteria and appealed to aesthetic judgments, critics at the end of the 20th century leaned more toward popular tastes, taking into account groups previously ignored and valuing the merger of popular and elite forms.These critics often relied less on aesthetic judgments than on social measures and wer e eager to place artistic productions in the context of the time and social conditions in which they were created. Whereas earlier critics attempted to create an American tradition of high art, later critics used art as a means to give power and approval to nonelite groups who were previously not considered worthy of including in the nation’s artistic heritage. Not so long ago, culture and the arts were assumed to be an unalterable inheritance—the accumulated wisdom and highest forms of achievement that were established in the past.In the 20th century generally, and certainly since World War II, artists have been boldly destroying older traditions in sculpture, painting, dance, music, and literature. The arts have changed rapidly, with one movement replacing another in quick succession. a) Visual arts. The visual arts have traditionally included forms of expression that appeal to the eyes through painted surfaces, and to the sense of space through carved or molded mate rials. In the 19th century, photographs were added to the paintings, drawings, and sculpture that make up the visual arts.The visual arts were further augmented in the 20th century by the addition of other materials, such as found objects. These changes were accompanied by a profound alteration in tastes, as earlier emphasis on realistic representation of people, objects, and landscapes made way for a greater range of imaginative forms. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American art was considered inferior to European art. Despite noted American painters such as Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, and John Marin, American visual arts barely had an international presence.American art began to flourish during the Great Depression of the 1930s as New Deal government programs provided support to artists along with other sectors of the population. Artists connected with each other and developed a sense of common purpose through programs of the Public Works Administra tion, such as the Federal Art Project, as well as programs sponsored by the Treasury Department. Most of the art of the period, including painting, photography, and mural work, focused on the plight of the American people during the depression, and most artists painted real people in difficult circumstances.Artists such as Thomas Hart Benton and Ben Shahn expressed the suffering of ordinary people through their representations of struggling farmers and workers. While artists such as Benton and Grant Wood focused on rural life, many painters of the 1930s and 1940s depicted the multicultural life of the American city. Jacob Lawrence, for example, re-created the history and lives of African Americans. Other artists, such as Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, tried to use human figures to describe emotional states such as loneliness and despair. Abstract Expressionism.Shortly after World War II, American art began to garner worldwide attention and admiration. This change was due to the inn ovative fervor of abstract expressionism in the 1950s and to subsequent modern art movements and artists. The abstract expressionists of the mid-20th century broke from the realist and figurative tradition set in the 1930s. They emphasized their connection to international artistic visions rather than the particularities of people and place, and most abstract expressionists did not paint human figures (although artist Willem de Kooning did portrayals of women).Color, shape, and movement dominated the canvases of abstract expressionists. Some artists broke with the Western art tradition by adopting innovative painting styles—during the 1950s Jackson Pollock â€Å"painted† by dripping paint on canvases without the use of brushes, while the paintings of Mark Rothko often consisted of large patches of color that seem to vibrate. Abstract expressionists felt alienated from their surrounding culture and used art to challenge society’s conventions. The work of each art ist was quite individual and distinctive, but all the artists identified with the radicalism of artistic creativity.The artists were eager to challenge conventions and limits on expression in order to redefine the nature of art. Their radicalism came from liberating themselves from the confining artistic traditions of the past. The most notable activity took place in New York City, which became one of the world’s most important art centers during the second half of the 20th century. The radical fervor and inventiveness of the abstract expressionists, their frequent association with each other in New York City’s Greenwich Village, and the support of a group of gallery owners and dealers turned them into an artistic movement.Also known as the New York School, the participants included Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, and Arshile Gorky, in addition to Rothko and Pollock. The members of the New York School came from diverse backgrounds such as the American M idwest and Northwest, Armenia, and Russia, bringing an international flavor to the group and its artistic visions. They hoped to appeal to art audiences everywhere, regardless of culture, and they felt connected to the radical innovations introduced earlier in the 20th century by European artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.Some of the artists—Hans Hofmann, Gorky, Rothko, and de Kooning—were not born in the United States, but all the artists saw themselves as part of an international creative movement and an aesthetic rebellion. As artists felt released from the boundaries and conventions of the past and free to emphasize expressiveness and innovation, the abstract expressionists gave way to other innovative styles in American art. Beginning in the 1930s Joseph Cornell created hundreds of boxed assemblages, usually from found objects, with each based on a single theme to create a mood of contemplation and sometimes of reverence.Cornell's boxes exemplify th e modern fascination with individual vision, art that breaks down boundaries between forms such as painting and sculpture, and the use of everyday objects toward a new end. Other artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg, combined disparate objects to create large, collage-like sculptures known as combines in the 1950s. Jasper Johns, a painter, sculptor, and printmaker, recreated countless familiar objects, most memorably the American flag. The most prominent American artistic style to follow abstract expressionism was the pop art movement that began in the 1950s.Pop art attempted to connect traditional art and popular culture by using images from mass culture. To shake viewers out of their preconceived notions about art, sculptor Claes Oldenburg used everyday objects such as pillows and beds to create witty, soft sculptures. Roy Lichtenstein took this a step further by elevating the techniques of commercial art, notably cartooning, into fine art worthy of galleries and museums. Lichtens tein's large, blown-up cartoons fill the surface of his canvases with grainy black dots and question the existence of a distinct realm of high art.These artists tried to make their audiences see ordinary objects in a refreshing new way, thereby breaking down the conventions that formerly defined what was worthy of artistic representation. Probably the best-known pop artist, and a leader in the movement, was Andy Warhol, whose images of a Campbell’s soup can and of the actress Marilyn Monroe explicitly eroded the boundaries between the art world and mass culture. Warhol also cultivated his status as a celebrity. He worked in film as a director and producer to break down the boundaries between traditional and popular art.Unlike the abstract expressionists, whose conceptual works were often difficult to understand, Andy Warhol's pictures, and his own face, were instantly recognizable. Conceptual art, as it came to be known in the 1960s, like its predecessors, sought to break fre e of traditional artistic associations. In conceptual art, as practiced by Sol LeWitt and Joseph Kosuth, concept takes precedent over actual object, by stimulating thought rather than following an art tradition based on conventional standards of beauty and artisanship.Modern artists changed the meaning of traditional visual arts and brought a new imaginative dimension to ordinary experience. Art was no longer viewed as separate and distinct, housed in museums as part of a historical inheritance, but as a continuous creative process. This emphasis on constant change, as well as on the ordinary and mundane, reflected a distinctly American democratizing perspective. Viewing art in this way removed the emphasis from technique and polished performance, and many modern artworks and experiences became more about expressing ideas than about perfecting finished products. Photography.Photography is probably the most democratic modern art form because it can be, and is, practiced by most Ameri cans. Since 1888, when George Eastman developed the Kodak camera that allowed anyone to take pictures, photography has struggled to be recognized as a fine art form. In the early part of the 20th century, photographer, editor, and artistic impresario Alfred Stieglitz established 291, a gallery in New York City, with fellow photographer Edward Steichen, to showcase the works of photographers and painters. They also published a magazine called Camera Work to increase awareness about photographic art.In the United States, photographic art had to compete with the widely available commercial photography in news and fashion magazines. By the 1950s the tradition of photojournalism, which presented news stories primarily with photographs, had produced many outstanding works. In 1955 Steichen, who was director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, called attention to this work in an exhibition called The Family of Man. Throughout the 20th century, most professional photogra phers earned their living as portraitists or photojournalists, not as artists.One of the most important exceptions was Ansel Adams, who took majestic photographs of the Western American landscape. Adams used his art to stimulate social awareness and to support the conservation cause of the Sierra Club. He helped found the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in 1940, and six years later helped establish the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (now the San Francisco Art Institute). He also held annual photography workshops at Yosemite National Park from 1955 to 1981 and wrote a series of influential books on photographic technique.Adams's elegant landscape photography was only one small stream in a growing current of interest in photography as an art form. Early in the 20th century, teacher-turned-photographer Lewis Hine established a documentary tradition in photography by capturing actual people, places, and events. Hine photo graphed urban conditions and workers, including child laborers. Along with their artistic value, the photographs often implicitly called for social reform. In the 1930s and 1940s, photographers joined with other depression-era artists supported by the federal government to create a hotographic record of rural America. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Arthur Rothstein, among others, produced memorable and widely reproduced portraits of rural poverty and American distress during the Great Depression and during the dust storms of the period. In 1959, after touring the United States for two years, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank published The Americans, one of the landmarks of documentary photography. His photographs of everyday life in America introduced viewers to a depressing, and often depressed, America that existed in the midst of prosperity and world power.Photographers continued to search for new photographic viewpoints. This search was perhaps most disturbingly embodied i n the work of Diane Arbus. Her photos of mental patients and her surreal depictions of Americans altered the viewer’s relationship to the photograph. Arbus emphasized artistic alienation and forced viewers to stare at images that often made them uncomfortable, thus changing the meaning of the ordinary reality that photographs are meant to capture. American photography continues to flourish.The many variants of art photography and socially conscious documentary photography are widely available in galleries, books, and magazines. A host of other visual arts thrive, although they are far less connected to traditional fine arts than photography. Decorative arts include, but are not limited to, art glass, furniture, jewelry, pottery, metalwork, and quilts. Often exhibited in craft galleries and studios, these decorative arts rely on ideals of beauty in shape and color as well as an appreciation of well-executed crafts. Some of these forms are also developed commercially.The decora tive arts provide a wide range of opportunity for creative expression and have become a means for Americans to actively participate in art and to purchase art for their homes that is more affordable than works produced by many contemporary fine artists. 4. Performing arts As in other cultural spheres, the performing arts in the United States in the 20th century increasingly blended traditional and popular art forms. The classical performing arts—music, opera, dance, and theater—were not a widespread feature of American culture in the first half of the 20th century.These arts were generally imported from or strongly influenced by Europe and were mainly appreciated by the wealthy and well educated. Traditional art usually referred to classical forms in ballet and opera, orchestral or chamber music, and serious drama. The distinctions between traditional music and popular music were firmly drawn in most areas. During the 20th century, the American performing arts began to incorporate wider groups of people. The African American community produced great musicians who became widely known around the country.Jazz and blues singers such as Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday spread their sounds to black and white audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, the swing music of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller adapted jazz to make a unique American music that was popular around the country. The American performing arts also blended Latin American influences beginning in the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940, Latin American dances, such as the tango from Argentina and the rumba from Cuba, were introduced into the United States.In the 1940s a fusion of Latin and jazz elements was stimulated first by the Afro-Cuban mambo and later on by the Brazilian bossa nova. Throughout the 20th century, dynamic classical institutions in the United States attracted international talent. Noted Russian-born choreographer George Balanchine e stablished the short-lived American Ballet Company in the 1930s; later he founded the company that in the 1940s would become the New York City Ballet. The American Ballet Theatre, also established during the 1940s, brought in non-American dancers as well.By the 1970s this company had attracted Soviet defector Mikhail Baryshnikov, an internationally acclaimed dancer who served as the company’s artistic director during the 1980s. In classical music, influential Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who composed symphonies using innovative musical styles, moved to the United States in 1939. German-born pianist, composer, and conductor Andre Previn, who started out as a jazz pianist in the 1940s, went on to conduct a number of distinguished American symphony orchestras.Another Soviet, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, became conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D. C. , in 1977. Some of the most innovative artists in the first half of the 20th century successfully incorporated new forms into classical traditions. Composers George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, and dancer Isadora Duncan were notable examples. Gershwin combined jazz and spiritual music with classical in popular works such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935).Copland developed a unique style that was influenced by jazz and American folk music. Early in the century, Duncan redefined dance along more expressive and free-form lines. Some artists in music and dance, such as composer John Cage and dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, were even more experimental. During the 1930s Cage worked with electronically produced sounds and sounds made with everyday objects such as pots and pans. He even invented a new kind of piano.During the late 1930s, avant-garde choreographer Cunningham began to collaborate with Cage on a number of projects. Perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most popular, American innovation was the Broadway musical, which also became a m ovie staple. Beginning in the 1920s, the Broadway musical combined music, dance, and dramatic performance in ways that surpassed the older vaudeville shows and musical revues but without being as complex as European grand opera.By the 1960s, this American musical tradition was well established and had produced extraordinary works by important musicians and lyricists such as George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, and Oscar Hammerstein II. These productions required an immense effort to coordinate music, drama, and dance. Because of this, the musical became the incubator of an American modern dance tradition that produced some of America's greatest choreographers, among them Jerome Robbins, Gene Kelly, and Bob Fosse.In the 1940s and 1950s the American musical tradition was so dynamic that it attracted outstanding classically trained musicians such as Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein composed the music for West Side Story, an updated version of Romeo and Juliet set in New York that became an instant classic in 1957. The following year, Bernstein became the first American-born conductor to lead a major American orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. He was an international sensation who traveled the world as an ambassador of the American style of conducting.He brought the art of classical music to the public, especially through his â€Å"Young People's Concerts,† television shows that were seen around the world. Bernstein used the many facets of the musical tradition as a force for change in the music world and as a way of bringing attention to American innovation. In many ways, Bernstein embodied a transformation of American music that began in the 1960s. The changes that took place during the 1960s and 1970s resulted from a significant increase in funding for the arts and their increased availability to larger audiences.New York City, the American center for art performances, experienced an artistic expl osion in the 1960s and 1970s. Experimental off-Broadway theaters opened, new ballet companies were established that often emphasized modern forms or blended modern with classical (Martha Graham was an especially important influence), and an experimental music scene developed that included composers such as Philip Glass and performance groups such as the Guarneri String Quartet. Dramatic innovation also continued to expand with the works of playwrights such as Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, and David Mamet.As the variety of performances expanded, so did the serious crossover between traditional and popular music forms. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, an expanded repertoire of traditional arts was being conveyed to new audiences. Popular music and jazz could be heard in formal settings such as Carnegie Hall, which had once been restricted to classical music, while the Brooklyn Academy of Music became a venue for experimental music, exotic and ethnic dance presentations, and traditional p roductions of grand opera. Innovative producer Joseph Papp had been staging Shakespeare in Central Park since the 1950s.Boston conductor Arthur Fiedler was playing a mixed repertoire of classical and popular favorites to large audiences, often outdoors, with the Boston Pops Orchestra. By the mid-1970s the United States had several world-class symphony orchestras, including those in Chicago; New York; Cleveland, Ohio; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Even grand opera was affected. Once a specialized taste that often required extensive knowledge, opera in the United States increased in popularity as the roster of respected institutions grew to include companies in Seattle, Washington; Houston, Texas; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.American composers such as John Adams and Philip Glass began composing modern operas in a new minimalist style during the 1970s and 1980s. The crossover in tastes also influenced the Broadway musical, probably America's most durable music form. Starting in the 1960 s, rock music became an ingredient in musical productions such as Hair (1967). By the 1990s, it had become an even stronger presence in musicals such as Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk (1996), which used African American music and dance traditions, and Rent (1996) a modern, rock version of the classic opera La Boheme.This updating of the musical opened the theater to new ethnic audiences who had not previously attended Broadway shows, as well as to young audiences who had been raised on rock music. Performances of all kinds have become more available across the country. This is due to both the sheer increase in the number of performance groups as well as to advances in transportation. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the number of major American symphonies doubled, the number of resident theaters increased fourfold, and the number of dance companies increased tenfold.At the same time, planes made it easier for artists to travel. Artists and companies regularly tour, and they expand the audiences for individual artists such as performance artist Laurie Anderson and opera singer Jessye Norman, for musical groups such as the Juilliard Quartet, and for dance troupes such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Full-scale theater productions and musicals first presented on Broadway now reach cities across the country. The United States, once a provincial outpost with a limited European tradition in performance, has become a flourishing center for the performing arts. . Arts and letters The arts, more than other features of culture, provide avenues for the expression of imagination and personal vision. They offer a range of emotional and intellectual pleasures to consumers of art and are an important way in which a culture represents itself. There has long been a Western tradition distinguishing those arts that appeal to the multitude, such as popular music, from those—such as classical orchestral music—normally available to the elite of learning and taste. Popular art forms are usually seen as more representative American products.In the United States in the recent past, there has been a blending of popular and elite art forms, as all the arts experienced a period of remarkable cross-fertilization. Because popular art forms are so widely distributed, arts of all kinds have prospered. The arts in the United States express the many faces and the enormous creative range of the American people. Especially since World War II, American innovations and the immense energy displayed in literature, dance, and music have made American cultural works world famous.Arts in the United States have become internationally prominent in ways that are unparalleled in history. American art forms during the second half of the 20th century often defined the styles and qualities that the rest of the world emulated. At the end of the 20th century, American art was considered equal in quality and vitality to art produced in the rest of the world. Throughout the 20th century, American arts have grown to incorporate new visions and voices. Much of this new artistic energy came in the wake of America’s emergence as a superpower after World War II.But it was also due to the growth of New York City as an important center for publishing and the arts, and the immigration of artists and intellectuals fleeing fascism in Europe before and during the war. An outpouring of talent also followed the civil rights and protest movements of the 1960s, as cultural discrimination against blacks, women, and other groups diminished. American arts flourish in many places and receive support from private foundations, large corporations, local governments, federal agencies, museums, galleries, and individuals.What is considered worthy of support often depends on definitions of quality and of what constitutes art. This is a tricky subject when the popular arts are increasingly incorporated into the domain of the fine arts and new forms such as performance art and conceptual art appear. As a result, defining what is art affects what students are taught about past traditions (for example, Native American tent paintings, oral traditions, and slave narratives) and what is produced in the future.While some practitioners, such as studio artists, are more vulnerable to these definitions because they depend on financial support to exercise their talents, others, such as poets and photographers, are less immediately constrained. Artists operate in a world where those who theorize and critique their work have taken on an increasingly important role. Audiences are influenced by a variety of intermediaries—critics, the schools, foundations that offer grants, the National Endowment for the Arts, gallery owners, publishers, and theater producers.In some areas, such as the performing arts, popular audiences may ultimately define success. In other arts, such as painting and sculpture, success is far more dependent on criti cs and a few, often wealthy, art collectors. Writers depend on publishers and on the public for their success. Unlike their predecessors, who relied on formal criteria and appealed to aesthetic judgments, critics at the end of the 20th century leaned more toward popular tastes, taking into account groups previously ignored and valuing the merger of popular and elite forms. These critics ften relied less on aesthetic judgments than on social measures and were eager to place artistic productions in the context of the time and social conditions in which they were created. Whereas earlier critics attempted to create an American tradition of high art, later critics used art as a means to give power and approval to nonelite groups who were previously not considered worthy of including in the nation’s artistic heritage. Not so long ago, culture and the arts were assumed to be an unalterable inheritance—the accumulated wisdom and highest forms of achievement that were establis hed in the past.In the 20th century generally, and certainly since World War II, artists have been boldly destroying older traditions in sculpture, painting, dance, music, and literature. The arts have changed rapidly, with one movement replacing another in quick succession. a) Visual arts. The visual arts have traditionally included forms of expression that appeal to the eyes through painted surfaces, and to the sense of space through carved or molded materials. In the 19th century, photographs were added to the paintings, drawings, and sculpture that make up the visual arts.The visual arts were further augmented in the 20th century by the addition of other materials, such as found objects. These changes were accompanied by a profound alteration in tastes, as earlier emphasis on realistic representation of people, objects, and landscapes made way for a greater range of imaginative forms. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American art was considered inferior to European art. Despite noted American painters such as Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, and John Marin, American visual arts barely had an international presence.American art began to flourish during the Great Depression of the 1930s as New Deal government programs provided support to artists along with other sectors of the population. Artists connected with each other and developed a sense of common purpose through programs of the Public Works Administration, such as the Federal Art Project, as well as programs sponsored by the Treasury Department. Most of the art of the period, including painting, photography, and mural work, focused on the plight of the American people during the depression, and most artists painted real people in difficult circumstances.Artists such as Thomas Hart Benton and Ben Shahn expressed the suffering of ordinary people through their representations of struggling farmers and workers. While artists such as Benton and Grant Wood focused on rural life, man y painters of the 1930s and 1940s depicted the multicultural life of the American city. Jacob Lawrence, for example, re-created the history and lives of African Americans. Other artists, such as Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, tried to use human figures to describe emotional states such as loneliness and despair. Abstract Expressionism.Shortly after World War II, American art began to garner worldwide attention and admiration. This change was due to the innovative fervor of abstract expressionism in the 1950s and to subsequent modern art movements and artists. The abstract expressionists of the mid-20th century broke from the realist and figurative tradition set in the 1930s. They emphasized their connection to international artistic visions rather than the particularities of people and place, and most abstract expressionists did not paint human figures (although artist Willem de Kooning did portrayals of women).Color, shape, and movement dominated the canvases of abstract expressio nists. Some artists broke with the Western art tradition by adopting innovative painting styles—during the 1950s Jackson Pollock â€Å"painted† by dripping paint on canvases without the use of brushes, while the paintings of Mark Rothko often consisted of large patches of color that seem to vibrate. Abstract expressionists felt alienated from their surrounding culture and used art to challenge society’s conventions. The work of each artist was quite individual and distinctive, but all the artists identified with the radicalism of artistic creativity.The artists were eager to challenge conventions and limits on expression in order to redefine the nature of art. Their radicalism came from liberating themselves from the confining artistic traditions of the past. The most notable activity took place in New York City, which became one of the world’s most important art centers during the second half of the 20th century. The radical fervor and inventiveness of t he abstract expressionists, their frequent association with each other in New York City’s Greenwich Village, and the support of a group of gallery owners and dealers turned them into an artistic movement.Also known as the New York School, the participants included Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, and Arshile Gorky, in addition to Rothko and Pollock. The members of the New York School came from diverse backgrounds such as the American Midwest and Northwest, Armenia, and Russia, bringing an international flavor to the group and its artistic visions. They hoped to appeal to art audiences everywhere, regardless of culture, and they felt connected to the radical innovations introduced earlier in the 20th century by European artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.Some of the artists—Hans Hofmann, Gorky, Rothko, and de Kooning—were not born in the United States, but all the artists saw themselves as part of an international creative movement an d an aesthetic rebellion. As artists felt released from the boundaries and conventions of the past and free to emphasize expressiveness and innovation, the abstract expressionists gave way to other innovative styles in American art. Beginning in the 1930s Joseph Cornell created hundreds of boxed assemblages, usually from found objects, with each based on a single theme to create a mood of contemplation and sometimes of reverence.Cornell's boxes exemplify the modern fascination with individual vision, art that breaks down boundaries between forms such as painting and sculpture, and the use of everyday objects toward a new end. Other artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg, combined disparate objects to create large, collage-like sculptures known as combines in the 1950s. Jasper Johns, a painter, sculptor, and printmaker, recreated countless familiar objects, most memorably the American flag. The most prominent American artistic style to follow abstract expressionism was the pop art move ment that began in the 1950s.Pop art attempted to connect traditional art and popular culture by using images from mass culture. To shake viewers out of their preconceived notions about art, sculptor Claes Oldenburg used everyday objects such as pillows and beds to create witty, soft sculptures. Roy Lichtenstein took this a step further by elevating the techniques of commercial art, notably cartooning, into fine art worthy of galleries and museums. Lichtenstein's large, blown-up cartoons fill the surface of his canvases with grainy black dots and question the existence of a distinct realm of high art.These artists tried to make their audiences see ordinary objects in a refreshing new way, thereby breaking down the conventions that formerly defined what was worthy of artistic representation. Probably the best-known pop artist, and a leader in the movement, was Andy Warhol, whose images of a Campbell’s soup can and of the actress Marilyn Monroe explicitly eroded the boundaries between the art world and mass culture. Warhol also cultivated his status as a celebrity. He worked in film as a director and producer to break down the boundaries between traditional and opular art. Unlike the abstract expressionists, whose conceptual works were often difficult to understand, Andy Warhol's pictures, and his own face, were instantly recognizable. Conceptual art, as it came to be known in the 1960s, like its predecessors, sought to break free of traditional artistic associations. In conceptual art, as practiced by Sol LeWitt and Joseph Kosuth, concept takes precedent over actual object, by stimulating thought rather than following an art tradition based on conventional standards of beauty and artisanship.Modern artists changed the meaning of traditional visual arts and brought a new imaginative dimension to ordinary experience. Art was no longer viewed as separate and distinct, housed in museums as part of a historical inheritance, but as a continuous creative proces s. This emphasis on constant change, as well as on the ordinary and mundane, reflected a distinctly American democratizing perspective. Viewing art in this way removed the emphasis from technique and polished performance, and many modern artworks and experiences became more about expressing ideas than about perfecting finished products.Photography. Photography is probably the most democratic modern art form because it can be, and is, practiced by most Americans. Since 1888, when George Eastman developed the Kodak camera that allowed anyone to take pictures, photography has struggled to be recognized as a fine art form. In the early part of the 20th century, photographer, editor, and artistic impresario Alfred Stieglitz established 291, a gallery in New York City, with fellow photographer Edward Steichen, to showcase the works of photographers and painters.They also published a magazine called Camera Work to increase awareness about photographic art. In the United States, photographi c art had to compete with the widely available commercial photography in news and fashion magazines. By the 1950s the tradition of photojournalism, which presented news stories primarily with photographs, had produced many outstanding works. In 1955 Steichen, who was director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, called attention to this work in an exhibition called The Family of Man.Throughout the 20th century, most professional photographers earned their living as portraitists or photojournalists, not as artists. One of the most important exceptions was Ansel Adams, who took majestic photographs of the Western American landscape. Adams used his art to stimulate social awareness and to support the conservation cause of the Sierra Club. He helped found the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in 1940, and six years later helped establish the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (now the San Francisco Art Instit ute).He also held annual photography workshops at Yosemite National Park from 1955 to 1981 and wrote a series of influential books on photographic technique. Adams's elegant landscape photography was only one small stream in a growing current of interest in photography as an art form. Early in the 20th century, teacher-turned-photographer Lewis Hine established a documentary tradition in photography by capturing actual people, places, and events. Hine photographed urban conditions and workers, including child laborers.Along with their artistic value, the photographs often implicitly called for social reform. In the 1930s and 1940s, photographers joined with other depression-era artists supported by the federal government to create a photographic record of rural America. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Arthur Rothstein, among others, produced memorable and widely reproduced portraits of rural poverty and American distress during the Great Depression and during the dust storms of th e period.In 1959, after touring the United States for two years, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank published The Americans, one of the landmarks of documentary photography. His photographs of everyday life in America introduced viewers to a depressing, and often depressed, America that existed in the midst of prosperity and world power. Photographers continued to search for new photographic viewpoints. This search was perhaps most disturbingly embodied in the work of Diane Arbus. Her photos of mental patients and her surreal depictions of Americans altered the viewer’s relationship to the photograph.Arbus emphasized artistic alienation and forced viewers to stare at images that often made them uncomfortable, thus changing the meaning of the ordinary reality that photographs are meant to capture. American photography continues to flourish. The many variants of art photography and socially conscious documentary photography are widely available in galleries, books, and magazi nes. A host of other visual arts thrive, although they are far less connected to traditional fine arts than photography.Decorative arts include, but are not limited to, art glass, furniture, jewelry, pottery, metalwork, and quilts. Often exhibited in craft galleries and studios, these decorative arts rely on ideals of beauty in shape and color as well as an appreciation of well-executed crafts. Some of these forms are also developed commercially. The decorative arts provide a wide range of opportunity for creative expression and have become a means for Americans to actively participate in art and to purchase art for their homes that is more affordable than works produced by many contemporary fine artists. . Performing arts As in other cultural spheres, the performing arts in the United States in the 20th century increasingly blended traditional and popular art forms. The classical performing arts—music, opera, dance, and theater—were not a widespread feature of America n culture in the first half of the 20th century. These arts were generally imported from or strongly influenced by Europe and were mainly appreciated by the wealthy and well educated. Traditional art usually referred to classical forms in ballet and opera, orchestral or chamber music, and serious drama.The distinctions between traditional music and popular music were firmly drawn in most areas. During the 20th century, the American performing arts began to incorporate wider groups of people. The African American community produced great musicians who became widely known around the country. Jazz and blues singers such as Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday spread their sounds to black and white audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, the swing music of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller adapted jazz to make a unique American music that was popular around the country.The American performing arts also blended Latin American influences beginning in th e 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940, Latin American dances, such as the tango from Argentina and the rumba from Cuba, were introduced into the United States. In the 1940s a fusion of Latin and jazz elements was stimulated first by the Afro-Cuban mambo and later on by the Brazilian bossa nova. Throughout the 20th century, dynamic classical institutions in the United States attracted international talent.Noted Russian-born choreographer George Balanchine established the short-lived American Ballet Company in the 1930s; later he founded the company that in the 1940s would become the New York City Ballet. The American Ballet Theatre, also established during the 1940s, brought in non-American dancers as well. By the 1970s this company had attracted Soviet defector Mikhail Baryshnikov, an internationally acclaimed dancer who served as the company’s artistic director during the 1980s. In classical music, influential Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who composed symphonies using i nnovative musical styles, moved to the United States in 1939.German-born pianist, composer, and conductor Andre Previn, who started out as a jazz pianist in the 1940s, went on to conduct a number of distinguished American symphony orchestras. Another Soviet, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, became conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D. C. , in 1977. Some of the most innovative artists in the first half of the 20th century successfully incorporated new forms into classical traditions. Composers George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, and dancer Isadora Duncan were notable examples.Gershwin combined jazz and spiritual music with classical in popular works such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). Copland developed a unique style that was influenced by jazz and American folk music. Early in the century, Duncan redefined dance along more expressive and free-form lines. Some artists in music and dance, such as composer John Cage and dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, were even more experimental. During the 1930s Cage worked with electronically produced sounds and sounds made with everyday objects such as pots and pans.He even invented a new kind of piano. During the late 1930s, avant-garde choreographer Cunningham began to collaborate with Cage on a number of projects. Perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most popular, American innovation was the Broadway musical, which also became a movie staple. Beginning in the 1920s, the Broadway musical combined music, dance, and dramatic performance in ways that surpassed the older vaudeville shows and musical revues but without being as complex as European grand opera.By the 1960s, this American musical tradition was well established and had produced extraordinary works by important musicians and lyricists such as George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, and Oscar Hammerstein II. These productions required an immense effort to coordinate music, drama, and dance. Because of this, the musical became the incubator of an American modern dance tradition that produced some of America's greatest choreographers, among them Jerome Robbins, Gene Kelly, and Bob Fosse.In the 1940s and 1950s the American musical tradition was so dynamic that it attracted outstanding classically trained musicians such as Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein composed the music for West Side Story, an updated version of Romeo and Juliet set in New York that became an instant classic in 1957. The following year, Bernstein became the first American-born conductor to lead a major American orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. He was an international sensation who traveled the world as an ambassador of the American style of conducting.He brought the art of classical music to the public, especially through his â€Å"Young People's Concerts,† television shows that were seen around the world. Bernstein used the many facets of the musi cal tradition as a force for change in the music world and as a way of bringing attention to American innovation. In many ways, Bernstein embodied a transformation of American music that began in the 1960s. The changes that took place during the 1960s and 1970s resulted from a significant increase in funding for the arts and their increased availability to larger audiences.New York City, the American center for art performances, experienced an artistic explosion in the 1960s and 1970s. Experimental off-Broadway theaters opened, new ballet companies were established that often emphasized modern forms or blended modern with classical (Martha Graham was an especially important influence), and an experimental music scene developed that included composers such as Philip Glass and performance groups such as the Guarneri String Quartet. Dramatic innovation also continued to expand with the works of playwrights such as Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, and David Mamet.As the variety of performanc es expanded, so did the serious crossover between traditional and popular music forms. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, an expanded repertoire of traditional arts was being conveyed to new audiences. Popular music and jazz could be heard in formal settings such as Carnegie Hall, which had once been restricted to classical music, while the Brooklyn Academy of Music became a venue for experimental music, exotic and ethnic dance presentations, and traditional productions of grand opera. Innovative producer Joseph Papp had been staging Shakespeare in Central Park since the 1950s.Boston conductor Arthur Fiedler was playing a mixed repertoire of classical and popular favorites to large audiences, often outdoors, with the Boston Pops Orchestra. By the mid-1970s the United States had several world-class symphony orchestras, including those in Chicago; New York; Cleveland, Ohio; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Even grand opera was affected. Once a specialized taste that often required extensi ve knowledge, opera in the United States increased in popularity as the roster of respected institutions grew to include companies in Seattle, Washington; Houston, Texas; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.American composers such as John Adams and Philip Glass began composing modern operas in a new minimalist style during the 1970s and 1980s. The crossover in tastes also influenced the Broadway musical, probably America's most durable music form. Starting in the 1960s, rock music became an ingredient in musical productions such as Hair (1967). By the 1990s, it had become an even stronger presence in musicals such as Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk (1996), which used African American music and dance traditions, and Rent (1996) a modern, rock version of the classic opera La Boheme.This updating of the musical opened the theater to new ethnic audiences who had not previously attended Broadway shows, as well as to young audiences who had been raised on rock music. Performances of all kinds ha ve become more available across the country. This is due to both the sheer increase in the number of performance groups as well as to advances in transportation. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the number of major American symphonies doubled, the number of resident theaters increased fourfold, and the number of dance companies increased tenfold.At the same time, planes made it easier for artists to travel. Artists and companies regularly tour, and they expand the audiences for individual artists such as performance artist Laurie Anderson and opera singer Jessye Norman, for musical groups such as the Juilliard Quartet, and for dance troupes such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Full-scale theater productions and musicals first presented on Broadway now reach cities across the country. The United States, once a provincial outpost with a limited European tradition in performance, has become a flourishing center for the performing arts.