The Silver-tongued Rapist in Vladimir Nabokovs Lolita Essay -- Naboko

The Silver-tongued Rapist in Lolita    You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. So says Humbert Humbert at the start of Lolita in his account to the "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury" (9). He refers to himself as a murderer (he is, after all, "guilty of killing Quilty"), not as a rapist, the far more serious offense Lolita levels at him. That I, and everyone else who reads the book, call Dolores Haze by the name "Lolita" demonstrates the efficacy of Humbert's fancy prose style - under the spell of his aesthetic mastery, we, the jury, must bend to his subjective vision through memory, and thus we see the twelve-year-old nymphet as Lolita, as she is in Humbert's arms. It is difficult to castigate Humbert when we see the world through his European eyes.    Humbert's main strength is his sense of humor. Nabokov is sure to throw Humbert's way all the American kitsch he can handle - mostly in the form of Charlotte Haze. His sly insults sail over her head, but Humbert wins our approval by making sure we understand them. Similarly, we admire him be...

New Venture Creation

Introduction of a New Venture Creation Our aim- to engage with SimVenture; a business simulation that allowed us to build and sell computers through our virtual company named ‘Genesis’. The formation and running of our virtual company integrated us with new venture creation and about being an entrepreneur. It reinforced concepts previously presented in our course lectures and engaged us in a competitive and volatile business environment. SimVenture ran for three virtual years with five members on its team- each with a different role in the company. [pic]Home Screen for Genesis on SimVenture This report accounts for the working and performance of Genesis in financial and operational terms with the key decisions taken in running the organisation, and my involvement in the operation of the business. We needed to fully utilize the features that arose with new ventures, by making sound decisions. These features included innovation, fast growth, vision, employment creation and money making power, along with the ability to take greater risks for higher returns. (Stages in Planning for a New Business Venture)The Operation of Genesis After conducting market research, we decided our target market to be the ‘Corporations’ industry due to its characteristics of high order and market size. Selling points were decided after noting the requirements of Corporations, demonstrating that we used consumer driven marketing strategy where we researched the needs of the consumer before making our product. Competitor research was also carried out to see what products were offered at what prices so that we could decide the mix of attributes and price of our product.In an article ‘How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy' in Harvard Business Review (2008), Michael Porter discussed the factors that lead to changes in strategy due to competition. As per the needs of Corporations, our product design had vast features, good performance and style, and average qua lity. We purchased components for Genesis throughout the three years from a small wholesaler, Sourceline, who offered the best discounts relative to credit terms. From commencement, we decided to outsource all production since this would give us more time to invest somewhere else in the business.This however, can affect the business negatively because of problems of relying on the producer in terms of delays. Even so, this saved us time, space and equipment. (Harvard Business Review, 2008) Genesis Product Mix Customer feedback research was carried out every quarter of the financial year till the end of the period, keeping us well informed of customer feedback on our product. Customer Feedback for Genesis [pic] Our goal for Genesis was to be a well known and highly publicized brand within these three years of operation.As per our marketing strategy, rigorous advertising was carried out with the local newspaper. TV and radio adverts were included along with trade magazines. A network was joined where entrepreneurs would meet and increase their business circles and potential customer base. Leads were generated starting from 1000 going up to 9999. A premium website was also created for e-commerce and to provide online customer support. Lastly, we held annual exhibitions for three years at ‘Meet the Corporate Buyer’ to promote our product to the corporate sector.Competitive pricing was adopted, making the product relatively cheaper for the superior attributes Genesis offered as compared to the competitors. Sales channels were kept at various hours in personal selling (entrepreneurial marketing) and a contract with a distributor to sell our product from the second month of the operation of Genesis was concluded. In the third year, a major accomplishment of the business was the addition of another distributor which sufficiently expanded sales. (Establishing Competitive Prices)The ‘Organisation’ I started my role of the ‘Organisationâ⠂¬â„¢ by the completing all legal requirements within the first month of the running of Genesis. This would give us an upper hand in the future, where legal requirements may need to be met. For example, if we urgently required another employee to increase the workforce, time would not be wasted, as our Employee Contract would already be prepared. Also, setting up a Limited Company would portray Genesis as a more professional and successful company, making it better for its image.Furthermore, Health and Safety Contracts and Distributor Contracts were created in order to avoid any problems later when employees needed to be hired or when we contracted with a distributor. [pic] The second step was of recruitment and selection. With the feedback of the team, we gradually increased the number of employees working for Genesis, ensuring that all of them were proficient in a variety of skills. Joseph Schumpeter states, â€Å"Individuals with key experiences and expertise are key elements in the new venture creation†- Schumpeterian ?Unternehmergeist' (Fiery souls). Therefore, all the employees, including the entrepreneur, received significant amounts of training so that they could work to the best of their potential. As numbers of employees grew, we shifted from external sources of training to on the job training. This decreased our costs since more employees could avail the training opportunity at the same cost. It was crucial to ensure that stress levels for the employees and entrepreneur was controlled, because if neglected, this would decrease efficiency and lead to obscuring time management.The entrepreneur was heavily trained in sales and marketing, fields he was not experienced in, since being an only employee at the start, it was up to him to suffice sales. Another key decision taken was that the entrepreneur was made to work full time and quit his previous job (as long as his income was not less than that at his previous job as this could be a dissatisfa ctory factor), so that he could concentrate more on Genesis and make it his primary source of income. (Wikipedia, Joseph Schumpeter) Workforce of Genesis [pic] The third limb of organisation was resources.Before incurring any shortage of storage space, Genesis was relocated onto bigger and more favourable premises with 1000 square feet of space, gaining a better image within the first year coupled with enhancement of our customer pool. We continued to purchase tools, office equipment, furniture, and transport so that the employee to resource ratio was not distorted to lower productivity. Finally, maintenance, cleaning and IT support were also contracted out, creating a sound structural base for Genesis and saving time on trivial matters. pic] Relocated Premises of Genesis Financial Aspect of Genesis This section will critically evaluate the financial performance of Genesis and will be an explanation of the available financial data on the business. [pic] First and foremost, we needed our monetary sources mapped out to overcome the financing gap many small firms face. The ? 10000 of savings of the entrepreneur was taken as the start-up capital to finance our new venture. We also acquired two grants of ? 500 each from the government for training and promotion of new ventures.Being a new business, we could avail the option of taking a loan from friends and family or from a bank, but opted not to do so as this would only raise our future costs in terms of interest payments. Lastly, selling equity to private investors was ruled out as we did not want to dilute the ownership of the business. We hired a bookkeeper in the first month of the business so that we could be updated with the accounts and forecasting of Profit and Loss, Cashflow, Balance Sheet, Ratios, Budgets and Targets. This is crucial for any business because it shows if the company is financially viable.Moreover, we used ratios to analyze company figures. In the above figure, we see that the rate of capi tal employed is 34%, showing that the company is profitable. The current ratio is supposed to be around 1. 5 to be good in terms of liquidity. The current ratio of Genesis is at 10. 4, demonstrating that there is less risk for customers and stakeholders to lose their money. Since we took no loans, our gearing ratio is zero. The asset turnover ratio shows us that the company’s assets are being used efficiently to generate sales (greater than 1 shows that the company is operating efficiently).As discussed earlier, we purchased components from Sourceline. Sourceline offered a 30 days payment term and provided 10% discount for purchases done for over 2000 components. This was favourable for us since by the end of three years, 18500 components were ordered, availing the 10% discount. The credit terms gave us time to pay our debts and that money could be utilized somewhere else in the business. From the profit forecast, and the last operational month’s costs, we get the brea keven point of 83 units. This is considerably lower than the actual sales of 295 units and shows the success of the company by its large margin of safety.Throughout the three years, we saw a steady increase in the bank balance from ? 207,000 at the end of the first year to ? 1,044,500 by the end of the third year. This would show any viewer the success and growth of the company from its initial start up with ? 10,000. In the first two months of the third financial year, another key decision was that we decided to give a promotional 10% discount for two months on sales, resulting in increased sales as we were incurring all advertisement costs together at the beginning of the year. (Pricing Strategy)Bank Balance Increase in the 3rd Year of Operation | |Operational Year | | |1st |2nd |3rd | |Bank Balance |? 20,6951 |? 718,807 |? 1,044,510 | |Profit |? 44,837 |? 25,805 |? 8,310 | |Debtors |? 170,600 |? 96,080 |? 186,180 | Conclusion Even though we had a faced a major problem after the first mentoring session, we succeeded. Our problem- we had lost the venture on the computer! We had to play it all over again and just hope that it kept going as smooth as it did in the previous game. And it did. That being said, there were still decisions that we could have taken differently to provide a different outcome for Genesis.Perhaps we could have decided differently with respect to costing strategies, for example by dividing the costs of the business (advertising etc) evenly throughout the year instead of incurring them together at the start of each year. Also since there were a lot of leads generated and not enough sales in comparison, advertising could have been decreased, allowing more resources to be available for the business. Furthermore, we could have not implemented just-in-time (JIT) stock and kept stocks so that the first two months could have been utilized for production even though there were no sales.Another decision taken differently could have been that we c ould have started doing partial in-house production after the first year since significant idle time emerged. The product of Genesis could also have been altered to a different mix of attributes to show an innovating product which has reached its maturity period and now wants to sustain its growth. When we decided a 10% decrease in price for two months, our product was ‘better than it needed to be’, showing that we were bordering the line of giving the customer too much for its price. Lastly, we neglected to conduct a SWOT and PEST analysis.These could have provided us with a major competitive advantage if we were in the real world and in fact, would have been a necessity. Although spoken about in general, it was not officially conducted which I could say, was a mistake. PEST Analysis SWOT Analysis [pic] Every member of our group felt that our business was running like a well-oiled machine. The team worked well together and gave a professional and productive environment , as demonstrated by the outcome of Genesis. It was established that together we were going to gain much more than we could alone and that unity is what would get us ahead- be it a game or real life.For this very reason, I can call myself a team player. References 1) All business, â€Å"Establishing Competitive Prices†, Retrieved on 26th April 2010 from 2) New Venture Creation, Webct, â€Å"SWOT Analysis† and â€Å"Pest Analysis† Illustrations Porter, Michael E, Harvard Business Review (2008), â€Å"The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy†, Retrieved on 25th April 2010 from â€Å"Pricing Strategy†, Retrieved on 26th April 2010 from 3) â€Å"Stages in Planning for a New Business Venture†, Retrieved on 25th April 2010 from Wikipedia, â€Å"Joseph Schumpeter†, Retrieved on 27th April 2010 from New Venture Creation Introduction of a New Venture Creation Our aim- to engage with SimVenture; a business simulation that allowed us to build and sell computers through our virtual company named ‘Genesis’. The formation and running of our virtual company integrated us with new venture creation and about being an entrepreneur. It reinforced concepts previously presented in our course lectures and engaged us in a competitive and volatile business environment. SimVenture ran for three virtual years with five members on its team- each with a different role in the company. [pic]Home Screen for Genesis on SimVenture This report accounts for the working and performance of Genesis in financial and operational terms with the key decisions taken in running the organisation, and my involvement in the operation of the business. We needed to fully utilize the features that arose with new ventures, by making sound decisions. These features included innovation, fast growth, vision, employment creation and money making power, along with the ability to take greater risks for higher returns. (Stages in Planning for a New Business Venture)The Operation of Genesis After conducting market research, we decided our target market to be the ‘Corporations’ industry due to its characteristics of high order and market size. Selling points were decided after noting the requirements of Corporations, demonstrating that we used consumer driven marketing strategy where we researched the needs of the consumer before making our product. Competitor research was also carried out to see what products were offered at what prices so that we could decide the mix of attributes and price of our product.In an article ‘How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy' in Harvard Business Review (2008), Michael Porter discussed the factors that lead to changes in strategy due to competition. As per the needs of Corporations, our product design had vast features, good performance and style, and average qua lity. We purchased components for Genesis throughout the three years from a small wholesaler, Sourceline, who offered the best discounts relative to credit terms. From commencement, we decided to outsource all production since this would give us more time to invest somewhere else in the business.This however, can affect the business negatively because of problems of relying on the producer in terms of delays. Even so, this saved us time, space and equipment. (Harvard Business Review, 2008) Genesis Product Mix Customer feedback research was carried out every quarter of the financial year till the end of the period, keeping us well informed of customer feedback on our product. Customer Feedback for Genesis [pic] Our goal for Genesis was to be a well known and highly publicized brand within these three years of operation.As per our marketing strategy, rigorous advertising was carried out with the local newspaper. TV and radio adverts were included along with trade magazines. A network was joined where entrepreneurs would meet and increase their business circles and potential customer base. Leads were generated starting from 1000 going up to 9999. A premium website was also created for e-commerce and to provide online customer support. Lastly, we held annual exhibitions for three years at ‘Meet the Corporate Buyer’ to promote our product to the corporate sector.Competitive pricing was adopted, making the product relatively cheaper for the superior attributes Genesis offered as compared to the competitors. Sales channels were kept at various hours in personal selling (entrepreneurial marketing) and a contract with a distributor to sell our product from the second month of the operation of Genesis was concluded. In the third year, a major accomplishment of the business was the addition of another distributor which sufficiently expanded sales. (Establishing Competitive Prices)The ‘Organisation’ I started my role of the ‘Organisationâ⠂¬â„¢ by the completing all legal requirements within the first month of the running of Genesis. This would give us an upper hand in the future, where legal requirements may need to be met. For example, if we urgently required another employee to increase the workforce, time would not be wasted, as our Employee Contract would already be prepared. Also, setting up a Limited Company would portray Genesis as a more professional and successful company, making it better for its image.Furthermore, Health and Safety Contracts and Distributor Contracts were created in order to avoid any problems later when employees needed to be hired or when we contracted with a distributor. [pic] The second step was of recruitment and selection. With the feedback of the team, we gradually increased the number of employees working for Genesis, ensuring that all of them were proficient in a variety of skills. Joseph Schumpeter states, â€Å"Individuals with key experiences and expertise are key elements in the new venture creation†- Schumpeterian ?Unternehmergeist' (Fiery souls). Therefore, all the employees, including the entrepreneur, received significant amounts of training so that they could work to the best of their potential. As numbers of employees grew, we shifted from external sources of training to on the job training. This decreased our costs since more employees could avail the training opportunity at the same cost. It was crucial to ensure that stress levels for the employees and entrepreneur was controlled, because if neglected, this would decrease efficiency and lead to obscuring time management.The entrepreneur was heavily trained in sales and marketing, fields he was not experienced in, since being an only employee at the start, it was up to him to suffice sales. Another key decision taken was that the entrepreneur was made to work full time and quit his previous job (as long as his income was not less than that at his previous job as this could be a dissatisfa ctory factor), so that he could concentrate more on Genesis and make it his primary source of income. (Wikipedia, Joseph Schumpeter) Workforce of Genesis [pic] The third limb of organisation was resources.Before incurring any shortage of storage space, Genesis was relocated onto bigger and more favourable premises with 1000 square feet of space, gaining a better image within the first year coupled with enhancement of our customer pool. We continued to purchase tools, office equipment, furniture, and transport so that the employee to resource ratio was not distorted to lower productivity. Finally, maintenance, cleaning and IT support were also contracted out, creating a sound structural base for Genesis and saving time on trivial matters. pic] Relocated Premises of Genesis Financial Aspect of Genesis This section will critically evaluate the financial performance of Genesis and will be an explanation of the available financial data on the business. [pic] First and foremost, we needed our monetary sources mapped out to overcome the financing gap many small firms face. The ? 10000 of savings of the entrepreneur was taken as the start-up capital to finance our new venture. We also acquired two grants of ? 500 each from the government for training and promotion of new ventures.Being a new business, we could avail the option of taking a loan from friends and family or from a bank, but opted not to do so as this would only raise our future costs in terms of interest payments. Lastly, selling equity to private investors was ruled out as we did not want to dilute the ownership of the business. We hired a bookkeeper in the first month of the business so that we could be updated with the accounts and forecasting of Profit and Loss, Cashflow, Balance Sheet, Ratios, Budgets and Targets. This is crucial for any business because it shows if the company is financially viable.Moreover, we used ratios to analyze company figures. In the above figure, we see that the rate of capi tal employed is 34%, showing that the company is profitable. The current ratio is supposed to be around 1. 5 to be good in terms of liquidity. The current ratio of Genesis is at 10. 4, demonstrating that there is less risk for customers and stakeholders to lose their money. Since we took no loans, our gearing ratio is zero. The asset turnover ratio shows us that the company’s assets are being used efficiently to generate sales (greater than 1 shows that the company is operating efficiently).As discussed earlier, we purchased components from Sourceline. Sourceline offered a 30 days payment term and provided 10% discount for purchases done for over 2000 components. This was favourable for us since by the end of three years, 18500 components were ordered, availing the 10% discount. The credit terms gave us time to pay our debts and that money could be utilized somewhere else in the business. From the profit forecast, and the last operational month’s costs, we get the brea keven point of 83 units. This is considerably lower than the actual sales of 295 units and shows the success of the company by its large margin of safety.Throughout the three years, we saw a steady increase in the bank balance from ? 207,000 at the end of the first year to ? 1,044,500 by the end of the third year. This would show any viewer the success and growth of the company from its initial start up with ? 10,000. In the first two months of the third financial year, another key decision was that we decided to give a promotional 10% discount for two months on sales, resulting in increased sales as we were incurring all advertisement costs together at the beginning of the year. (Pricing Strategy)Bank Balance Increase in the 3rd Year of Operation | |Operational Year | | |1st |2nd |3rd | |Bank Balance |? 20,6951 |? 718,807 |? 1,044,510 | |Profit |? 44,837 |? 25,805 |? 8,310 | |Debtors |? 170,600 |? 96,080 |? 186,180 | Conclusion Even though we had a faced a major problem after the first mentoring session, we succeeded. Our problem- we had lost the venture on the computer! We had to play it all over again and just hope that it kept going as smooth as it did in the previous game. And it did. That being said, there were still decisions that we could have taken differently to provide a different outcome for Genesis.Perhaps we could have decided differently with respect to costing strategies, for example by dividing the costs of the business (advertising etc) evenly throughout the year instead of incurring them together at the start of each year. Also since there were a lot of leads generated and not enough sales in comparison, advertising could have been decreased, allowing more resources to be available for the business. Furthermore, we could have not implemented just-in-time (JIT) stock and kept stocks so that the first two months could have been utilized for production even though there were no sales.Another decision taken differently could have been that we c ould have started doing partial in-house production after the first year since significant idle time emerged. The product of Genesis could also have been altered to a different mix of attributes to show an innovating product which has reached its maturity period and now wants to sustain its growth. When we decided a 10% decrease in price for two months, our product was ‘better than it needed to be’, showing that we were bordering the line of giving the customer too much for its price. Lastly, we neglected to conduct a SWOT and PEST analysis.These could have provided us with a major competitive advantage if we were in the real world and in fact, would have been a necessity. Although spoken about in general, it was not officially conducted which I could say, was a mistake. PEST Analysis SWOT Analysis [pic] Every member of our group felt that our business was running like a well-oiled machine. The team worked well together and gave a professional and productive environment , as demonstrated by the outcome of Genesis. It was established that together we were going to gain much more than we could alone and that unity is what would get us ahead- be it a game or real life.For this very reason, I can call myself a team player. References 1) All business, â€Å"Establishing Competitive Prices†, Retrieved on 26th April 2010 from 2) New Venture Creation, Webct, â€Å"SWOT Analysis† and â€Å"Pest Analysis† Illustrations Porter, Michael E, Harvard Business Review (2008), â€Å"The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy†, Retrieved on 25th April 2010 from â€Å"Pricing Strategy†, Retrieved on 26th April 2010 from 3) â€Å"Stages in Planning for a New Business Venture†, Retrieved on 25th April 2010 from Wikipedia, â€Å"Joseph Schumpeter†, Retrieved on 27th April 2010 from

Downsizing the Human Resources Department Essay

Human Resources Department manager Pat Sutton is requesting the downsizing of the Human Resources Department. Instead of the eight employees already in place, Pat wants the department pared down to five employees. She wants the names of three employees selected to be terminated. There is no other alternative to termination, and the company policy states that there can be no early retirement and no moving laterally to another department. Cost-cutting measures are now requiring that five employees do the work of eight. In addition to the names of the three employees recommended for termination, Pat wants to know what action management should take if any of the three employees decide to file a discrimination case against the company and what the employees would have to prove in order to win a discrimination case. Employees Recommended for Termination Pat, I have chosen the three employees to be terminated based on their skill set, work experience, and job function within the Human Resources department. The three to be terminated are: Diane—she has been with the company for 10 years, and although she is an outstanding worker, her attendance problems have cost the company. Horatio—he has only been with the company for six months, is just learning insurance and health matters, and his skills are marginal at best. Greg—he has been with the company for five years and has shown an ability to quickly learn complex areas of work. However, he has not been trained in tech hiring, and his job skills are just average. Of the three named employees, one is female and two are male. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the main law of employment that is pertinent to these three employees. Possible Cases of Discrimination against Cost Club There are three different types of discrimination cases that could be file by the three employees. Race discrimination—Horatio could file a case of this type. He is Hispanic and has not quite grasped the English language. He would have to prove that because he is Hispanic and has a limited knowledge of English, the company terminated him. I really do not think that Horatio would win if he decided to file a racial discrimination case against the company. His minimal skills in health and insurance after six months are more than enough reason to terminate him. Gender discrimination—Diane could file a case of this type. Her attendance problems stem from her children’s sicknesses over the years. She would have to prove that her termination stemmed from her being a female and missing work due to her sick children. We may have a tough time if Diane files this type of case against the company. She is an outstanding worker and her only blemishes are her missed days of work due to her sick children. Religious discrimination—Greg could possibly file a case of this type. His religious convictions prevent him from working on Saturday or Sunday. This forces other workers to work weekends more frequently. Greg would have to prove that the company terminated him because his religion keeps him from working on the weekend. Greg would have a hard time winning a discrimination case if he were to file, because his work is just average at best. With regard to each employee’s possible claim of discrimination, the company should prepare itself by carefully looking into each employee’s work performance employee performance appraisals. After all, the company needs to offer the three workers more than just a â€Å"we had to terminate three people and you were one of them† explanation. Failure to promote qualified employees is a form of adverse employment action. Employee performance appraisals provide written documentation and prove the employer acted fairly in terminating an employee. Documenting Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs)  The Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) is intended to smooth the progress of positive conversation involving an employee and his or her manager and to explain the work performance that needs development. The PIP is put into effect, at the choice of the manager, when it is deemed essential to assist an employee in improving his or her performance. This arrangement allows managers to set objectives, determine procedures, manage evaluation meetings, and record development. No particular quantity of time is needed for a worker to adhere to a PIP. As a matter of fact, if no improvements are made, an employee can be terminated after a number of weeks. Performance Improvement Plans have an awful reputation amongst personnel who view them as the last step in terminating employment. This is because numerous companies apply Performance Improvement Plans the wrong way or use them for generating a lawful safety net prior to ending employment. Performance Improvement Plans should only be applied if a manager sincerely believes that the worker possesses the ability to improve. Every other thing is agonizing for the worker and takes up too much time for human resources staff and managers. Regarding human resources personnel and managers, a Performance Improvement Plan is more or less hardly ever fitting. If a supervisor is performing poorly or at a level below standards to necessitate a Performance Improvement Plan, it is very rare that he or she will salvage the needed assurance of subordinate employees or his or her own manager. Human Resource organizations possess more than enough admission to extremely private, unique data. Moreover, because of their place in the organization, the harm to your belief in them and their trustworthiness is almost impossible to overcome. Dispute Resolution Process A dispute resolution process is categorized into two types: adjudicative and consensual. In an adjudicative dispute resolution process, an arbitrator, judge, or jury decides the result of the arbitration or litigation. During a consensual dispute resolution process, such as mediation, collaborative law, negotiation, or conciliation, the participants try to come to an agreement (FITT, 302). For the three employees we are terminating, we would need an adjudicative dispute resolution process. This way, an arbitrator can decide the outcome of the case. Responding to Charges of Discrimination Should we be charged with discrimination from terminated employees, we will follow these steps: 1. Gather documents and evidence but wait to interview witnesses and meet with the company’s legal specialist to decide who must manage the inquiry. It may be essential to run an investigation that we reveal to the examining organization, or it may be more vital to run an investigation that can be suppressed. Nevertheless, we should amass any records which specify what actually happened. If a discrimination claim is made founded on a â€Å"disparate impact,† we will need to collect some simple material concerning the diversity of the company’s workforce. This way, the company’s attorney can determine if that data has any importance statistically. 2. If we opt to prepare a re-tort to the discrimination charges on our own, we should take into account that we have numerous onlookers. Initially, some EEOC offices will send a duplicate of the reply to the terminated worker or his/her legal counsel. If the employee or the EEOC chooses to take legal action, they are apt to attempt to exploit the company’s stance as substantiation in their argument. The simple rule to constantly abide by is to just state the facts. Do not state undesirable points about the terminated worker that are case irrelevant, and be sure to corroborate all testimony with any documents available. We should only give the EEOC additional information if it strengthens the company’s stance. This is my recommendation on who should be terminated and what avenues of approach we should take should any discrimination charges be brought against the company.

Aztec religion Essay

The U. S has the highest murder rate of any industrialized country in the world. Does this surprise you? Well, although it is a fact, and most people would think this is unethical. This should also be true for Aztec society. Which deserves the Greater Emphasis? Human Sacrifice, or Aztec Agriculture? I believe historians should focus more on human sacrifice because, even though the Aztecs were resourceful and well organized in agriculture, they were barbaric when it came to human sacrifice. They killed off 2,300 men who were prisoners of war (Doc.D). We have to take into consideration that these sacrifices had families and lives and people who cared about them that were cruelly ripped away from them. The Aztecs could’ve showed the love and dedication for their gods another less violent way. What the Aztec did to the sacrifices was in-humane. When they killed the sacrifices, they would rip of their hearts, throw the hearts to the shrine dedicated to the gods and let the dead bodies roll down the temple steps bathed in its own blood. Even though other groups of people did human sacrifice, the Aztec were ruthless and held no remorse for their victims. Aztecs sometimes just went to war with another group of people just to capture people and make them sacrifices, called â€Å"flower wars† (Doc. D). What the Aztec did was just horrible and I think historians should focus more on human sacrifice than agriculture. There was a humungous scale of sacrifices, as well as spiritual importance, and they surprisingly didn’t kill these people with evil eyes or hatred. The Aztecs hade feeling toward sacrifices. The Aztec sacrificed a huge scale of people! In one day they would sacrifice 2,300 prisoners (Doc. D). That is the same population of an average school! Not only did they sacrifice so much of population, they also gave up resources and the best people to sacrifice! If this wasn’t a factor, could you imagine how much more advanced the Aztec agriculture could become?

The relationship between Religion and Ethics in todays World Essay

The relationship between Religion and Ethics in todays World - Essay Example But we see everyday ethical notions being deliberated upon and changed to suit particular circumstances and individual and mass preferences. Religious precepts are based on the revelations of the original prophets. The precepts were later formalized into written texts of all the religions. Whereas on one hand religious precepts lay the roadmap to salvation, on the other, they also help a human to judge between right and wrong. But slowly decadence set in the free thinking ideals of every religion and the religious precepts got permanence as dogmas. The modern ethics are based upon the theories of ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The ethical notions witnessed resurgence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The ideas of liberty, freedom and equality took route in European society later got spread out all over the world. What began as an intellectual movement pioneered by such free thinkers as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hobbes acquired political dimensions in the French Revolution and the American War of Independence. Individual liberty is both the cause and effect of free thinking. Free thinking also promotes the cause of ethical judgment. The sphere of Ethics now spreads beyond individualized thinking to help mankind to frame rules for societies, cultures, and countries. What may be ethical in one country, a geo-political region, or a continent may not be so in another. In other words, ethics hold a huge scope for variance, and argument, whereas religion is guided by dogmas that are most part rigid, unalterable and beyond question. Religious dogmas, too, may have had very logical origin but with passage of time they come to be accepted as divine ordainments and have to be accepted by the people without question. The clash of religion and ethics today gets reflected in different forms. The debate over ethics and

Personal Report for Financial Services Term Paper

Personal Report for Financial Services - Term Paper Example One of the services offered by Qatar National Bank is debit cards financial service through three client segments. Debit card is a service offered to the cardholders to access the financial services electronically in making purchase payments instead of using cash. Qatar National Bank has come up with a debit card that allows the cardholders to make purchases in 200 countries and over 24 million business outlets globally. In addition, the cardholders are able to access cash in all MasterCard ATMs worldwide (QNB, 2014). The debit cards are segmented into MasterCard titanium visa gold for clients with a maximum salary of 15,000 Qatari, MasterCard visa platinum for clients with a salary exceeding 15,000 Qatari but less than 35,000 Qatari and a MasterCard visa infinite for clients with a salary of 35,000 Qatari. Similarly, Qatar National Bank offers credit cards service to its clients through three platforms that include life reward credit card, Qatar Airways credit card and Qtel Nojoom credit card (QNB, 2014). The credit card service allows the clients to make purchases of goods and services through borrowed money from the bank on a promise to pay back. Consequently, Qatar National Bank has created an account that allows the credit card holders to borrow money in making payments and accessing cash advances. Current account is another financial service that is offered by Qatar National Bank. A current account allows the clients to deposit and withdraw money without limitations. The bank allows both residents and nonresidents of Qatar to open the account. To make the account attractive to investors, the account holders are issued with free check books, debit cards, transfer of internal funds, monthly statements, and SMS banking services (QNB, 2014). Business banking service is also a financial service that is offered by the bank. This involves providing innovative value added services and products, and business financial services that promote commercial

Annotated bibliography Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Annotated bibliography - Essay Example These criteria were useful in selecting entries in the bibliography list. Amoako-Gyampah, K. and Salam, A., 2004. An extension of the technology acceptance model in an ERP implementation environment. Information and Management, 41(3), pp. 731-745. Amoako-Gyampah and Salam (2003) intended on establishing the relationship between belief systems, usefulness of technology and subsequent use of the ERP system. The authors collected data from over one thousand workers in their country .They used the TAM (technology acceptance model) model to establish hypotheses for their paper. Amoako-Gyampah and Salam found that communication and training affect belief systems. This paper will be quite useful in assessment 3 because management is yet to approve the ERP project. They need reassurance that the plan will elicit support from members of the organisation. This paper will provide insights on how the company can achieve high usage rates. The major advantage of such an article is that it is theor etically founded on a pre-existing model. Furthermore, it uses empirical research to support its assertions, so Peet’s can rely on it. The paper addresses nontechnical factors that alter ERP usage, which is quite useful in the analysis. Fui-Hoon, N., Zuckweiler, K. and Lau, J., 2003. ERP implementation: Chief information Officer’s perceptions of critical success factors. ... This means that reengineering ought to focus on tailoring the business processes to fit ERP software. They also add that errors in adoption occur when enterprises fail to use capabilities within the ERP system. Organisations have sometimes made too many customisations before understanding their business practices. This paper is insightful because it relies on views of CIOs who have succeeded in implementing ERP systems. Subjects are thus speaking with authority on the matter. The article is relevant to the assignment because it extols the merits of buying one’s ERP system and taking advantage of its capabilities. Gattiker, T. And Goodhue, D., 2005. What happens after ERP implementation: Understanding the impact of interdependence and differentiation on plant level outcomes. MIS Quarterly, 29(3), 559-587. In the paper, the writers assess implications of certain organisational qualities in the performance of the ERP system. They found that organisational models must have low lev els of differentiation and high interdependence for them to experience ERP impact. Data integration works well when interdependence between subunits is high. Furthermore, ERP coordination improvements will be minimised when units in a company depend on each other. The article will be useful in this assessment because it addresses some of the potential glitches that could minimise these outcomes. Findings could be used to convince management about the usefulness of an ERP project as Peet’s already has highly interdependent business functions. Additionally, customisation will moderate effects of differentiation in the organisation. For the business report to garner support from management, it must acknowledge potential barriers and identify ways of overcoming them. This is what the